Each country offered features of its own in the debacle; but I can only deal with one or two outstanding cases here.
The European conditions were so similar to those which I have already depicted in the case of Britain that I need not describe them at all. Southern Russia fared better than her neighbours; for after the Famine there were still some remnants of her population left alive; and it seems probable that the lower density of the Russian population retarded the extinction of humanity in this region long after the worst period had been reached in the western area.
In Africa and India, the course of the devastation was marked by risings in which all Europeans seem to have perished. Thus we have no descriptions of the later stages of the disaster in either case.
In China, the inhabitants of the densely-populated rice-growing districts of Eastern China were the first to have the true position of affairs forced upon their notice; and, leaving their useless fields, they began to move westwards. At first the stirrings were merely sporadic; but gradually these isolated movements reinforced one another until some millions of Chinese were drifting into Western China and setting up reactions among the populations which they encountered on their way. From Manchuria, great masses of them forced their way up the Amur Valley into Transbaikalia. Others, sweeping over Peking on the road, emerged upon the banks of the Hoang Ho. The inhabitants of the Honan Province moved westward, increasing in numbers as they recruited from the local populations en route. A massacre of foreigners took place all over China.
In its general character, this huge wandering of the Mongol races recalls the movements which led eventually to the downfall of the Roman Empire; but the parallel is illusory. In the days of Genghis Khan, the Eastern hordes could always find food to support them on their line of march, either in the form of local supplies which they captured, or in the herds which they drove with them as they advanced. But in this new tumultuous outbreak, food was unprocurable; and the irruption melted away almost before the confines of China had been reached. Some immense bands descended from Yunnan into Burma; but they appear to have perished among the rotting vegetation. Another series of smaller bodies penetrated into Tibet, where they died among the snows. The furthest stirrings of the wave appear to have been felt in Chinese Turkestan; and apparently Kashgar and Yarkand were centres from which other waves might have spread: but it seems probable that these westernmost movements were checked by the tangle of the Pamirs and Karakorams. Nothing appears to have reached Samarkand. But here, again, it is difficult to discover what actually did occur. Any survivors who have been interrogated are of the illiterate class, who had no definite conception of the route which they followed in their wanderings.
The history of Japan under the influence of B. diazotans is of especial interest, since it presents the closest parallel to our own experiences. At the outbreak of the Famine, the practical minds of the Japanese statesmen seem to have acted with the promptitude which Nordenholt had shown. They had not his psychological insight, it is true; but they had a simpler problem before them, since they could ignore public opinion entirely. Fairly complete accounts of their operations are in existence, so far as the outer manifestations of their policy are concerned, though we know little as yet of the inner history of the events.
Kiyotome Zada appears to have been the Japanese Nordenholt. Under his direction, two great expeditions raided Manchuria and Eastern China with the object of capturing the largest possible quantity of foodstuffs. It is probable that these two invasions, with the consequent loss of food-supplies, led to the great stirrings among the population of China. A Nitrogen Area was set up in the South Island, the Kobe shipyards being its nucleus. Thereafter the history follows very closely upon that of the Clyde Valley experiment, except in its last stages.
Among the other Pacific communities the Famine proved almost completely destructive. I have already told of the spreading of B. diazotans through the chain of islands between Australia and Burma. In Australia itself no attempt was made to found a nitrogen-producing plant on a sufficiently large scale.
One curious episode deserves mention. In the earlier days of the Famine, news reached the Australian ports that certain of the Polynesian islands were still free from the scourge; and a frenzied emigration followed. But each ship carried with it the freight of B. diazotans, so that this exodus merely served to spread the bacilli into spots which otherwise they might not have reached. Before very long the whole of Polynesia was involved in the disaster. Some diaries have been discovered on board deserted vessels; and in every case the history is the same: the long search through devastated islands, the discovery at last of some untouched spot in the ocean wilderness, the rejoicings, the landing, and then, a few days later, the realisation that here also the bacillus had made its appearance. What seems most curious is the fact that in many cases it was weeks before the ship’s company grasped the apparently obvious truth that their own appearance coincided with the arrival of the fatal germs. It never seems to have occurred to any of them that they bore with them the very thing which they were trying to escape. So they went from island to island, seeking refuge from a plague which stood ever at their elbow, until at last their stores failed.
On the West Coast of South America a new phenomenon appeared. The huge deposits of nitrates in Bolivia and South Peru formed the best breeding-ground for B. diazotans which had yet been detected, with the result that nitrogen poured into the atmosphere in unheard-of
