"A trip through the city revealed the state of siege, The hopes raised 0 high by the peaceful entry of the Nationalists and by, their very evident desire to treat Tsinan ell had now: begun to fall and were doomed to change to utter despair fand panic as the Japanese pressed their demands and seized the city. On Monday, May 7, the consuls were confident that further fighting was inevitable. After the issuance in the afternoon of the Japanese ultimatum (to the effect that the tionalist forces should with~ draw from the whole region round Tsinan) the evacuation of as many possible of the foreign staff was determined upon. It was only the strongest appeals of the consuls to avoid international _complicat which finally effected the execu: tion. During the following days of open warfare, the handful of British and American' men and women remaining on the campus more than once gave thanks that s0 many had unselfishly gone away to. diminish the chances of injury and disaster.
The Attack on the City.
"Tuesday morning, May 8, the the British, American and Italian flags carried the first lot of evacuees to Tsing-tac. By noon the women students, had also been brought to. the station, from which they left for Tsingtao. the next day. Tuesday }morning the Japanese seized the barracks and hills on the north, west and south of the Settlement and City and by noon began their attack on the City itself, The Nationalist soldiers had been order= ed not to return the fire but put up passive resistance, There is no question about their fighting, but equally certain that the' pro-Tongation of the bombardment for three days was due more to the desire of the Japanese to avoid loss to themselves through an assault of the city wall than it was to the resistance of the Chinese. Tuesday night the west and south suburbs were occupied by the Japanese.
"Wednesday May 9 the Japanese entered the campus, mounting machine guns, digging trenches, firing Stokes mortars, and. intrud= ing into the homes in the Model linge, where they stole some things and damaged others. Thur: day the bombardment continued and at night the city fell. As the field guns were small and fired shrapnel the damage to property was not large 95 one might suppose after three days of fighting; but one street of houses was burned, in which some Lungshan friends lost their all, and the destruction of the gatehouse of the west gate Kives full evidence of considerable damage. Many civilians as well og soldiers were killed and this loss of life made a far greater impro sion on the people that did the loss of property. Indiseriminate shooting by the Japanese in the streets for the following two days resulted in the death of many mote civilians and caused a general exodus of all who could get away.
College and Students Searched "Our turn was yet to come. Fierce indignation over the attack fon the city became a very personal concern when the campus and the students themselves were thorough! ly searched, Early Friday morning small party of Japanese soldiers arrived and did a little searching of houses. At the same time a soldiers dug and south of 11 campus and occupied in the Model Village driving out the owners and d stroying or stealing as they pleased, Fust as we thought we might be successful in holding the students together in spite of their expressed desire that we close school, a new body of troops arrived, stating that any who left the campus would be shot and demanding an instant search of the premises. Some of the faculty were held under guard in McCormick hall and others were detailed to aid in the search, The excuse given for the search that the campus was said to ha hour some one who had fired on Japanese soldiers and had killed two of them. We who had been on the campus day and night during the fighting knew this charge to be tale Students, were searcived twice, even to the taking off of their shoes. Dormitory rooms were turned) wrong side out and all papers and letters looked throwzh. The searchers seemed greatly appointed in finding no arms and in discovering at wath merely some papers denouncing "Japanese ime penalism'" and her "running: dose At one stage of the search they threatened to arrest all the students land at another to arrest Dr. Peter Kiang, but finally went away with a statement from the University. to the effect that we would attempt (o prevent anti japanese propaganda on the campus.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.