In 1904, in a meeting about the Russo–Japanese War, King Edward VII heard the Kaiser complain that the Yellow Peril is "the greatest peril menacing . . . Christendom and European civilization. If the Russians went on giving ground, the yellow race would, in twenty years time, be in Moscow and Posen". The Kaiser criticized the British for siding with Japan against Russia, and said that "race treason" was the motive. King Edward said he "could not see it. The Japanese were an intelligent, brave and chivalrous nation, quite as civilized as the Europeans, from whom they only differed by the pigmentation of their skin".