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The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign,
anti-colonial
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (), known as the "Boxers" in English because many of its members had practised Chinese martial arts
Chinese martial arts, often called by the umbrella terms kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common ...
, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing".
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, villagers in North China
North China, or Huabei () is a geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Part of the larger region of Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north of the Qinling–Huaihe ...
feared the expansion of foreign spheres of influence and resented the extension of privileges to Christian missionaries, who used them to shield their followers. In 1898 Northern China experienced several natural disasters, including the Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan ...
flooding and droughts, which Boxers blamed on foreign and Christian influence. Beginning in 1899, Boxers spread violence across Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in His ...
and the North China Plain, destroying foreign property such as railroads and attacking or murdering Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians. The events came to a head in June 1900 when Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners."
Diplomats, missionaries, soldiers and some Chinese Christians took refuge in the diplomatic Legation Quarter. An Eight Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing, then besieged by the popular Boxer militia, who were determined to remove fo ...
of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian troops moved into China to lift the siege and on June 17 stormed the Dagu Fort, at Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
. The Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlle ...
, who had initially been hesitant, now supported the Boxers and on June 21, issued an Imperial Decree declaring war on the invading powers. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favouring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu General Ronglu (Junglu), later claimed he acted to protect the foreigners. Officials in the southern provinces ignored the imperial order to fight against foreigners.
The Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing, then besieged by the popular Boxer Rebellion, Boxer militia, who were determi ...
, after initially being turned back by the Imperial Chinese military and Boxer militia, brought 20,000 armed troops to China. They defeated the Imperial Army in Tianjin and arrived in Beijing on August 14, relieving the fifty-five day siege of the Legations. Plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers in retribution. The Boxer Protocol
The Boxer Protocol was signed on September 7, 1901, between the Qing Empire of China and the Eight-Nation Alliance that had provided military forces (including Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the Unit ...
of September 7, 1901, provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million tael
Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the
The Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihequan) arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of 
The opportunities to fight against Western encroachment and colonisation were especially attractive to unemployed village men, many of whom were teenagers. The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West. The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability against cannons, rifle shots, and knife attacks. The Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers would descend out of
In October 1898, a group of Boxers attacked the Christian community of Liyuantun village where a temple to the
In January 1900, with a majority of conservatives in the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi changed her position on the Boxers, and issued edicts in their defence, causing protests from foreign powers. In spring 1900, the Boxer movement spread rapidly north from Shandong into the countryside near Beijing. Boxers burned Christian churches, killed Chinese Christians and intimidated Chinese officials who stood in their way. American Minister Edwin H. Conger cabled Washington, "the whole country is swarming with hungry, discontented, hopeless idlers."
On 30 May the diplomats, led by British Minister
As the situation grew more violent, the Eight Powers authorities at Dagu dispatched a second multinational force to Beijing on 10 June 1900. This force of 2,000 sailors and marines was under the command of Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour RN, the largest contingent being British. The force moved by train from Dagu to Tianjin with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway had been severed between Tianjin and Beijing. Seymour resolved to continue forward by rail to the break and repair the railway, or progress on foot from there if necessary, as it was only 120 km from Tianjin to Beijing. When Seymour left Tianjin and started toward Beijing, it angered the imperial court.
The court then replaced Prince Qing at the Zongli Yamen, with Manchu Prince Duan, a member of the imperial 
After leaving Tianjin, the force quickly reached 
On 18 June, Seymour learned of attacks on the Legation Quarter in Beijing, and decided to continue advancing, this time along the Beihe river, toward Tongzhou, from Beijing. By 19 June, the force was halted by progressively stiffening resistance, and started to retreat southward along the river with over 200 wounded. They loaded all their wounded and remaining supplies on four commandeered junks, which they pulled along with ropes from the riverbanks.
The force was now very low on food, ammunition, and medical supplies. They happened upon the Great Xigu Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache of which the Eight Powers had had no knowledge until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering
Meanwhile, in Beijing, on 16 June, Empress Dowager Cixi summoned the imperial court for a mass audience and addressed the choice between using the Boxers to evict the foreigners from the city and seeking a diplomatic solution. In response to a high official who doubted the efficacy of the Boxers, Cixi replied that both sides of the debate at the imperial court realised that popular support for the Boxers in the countryside was almost universal and that suppression would be both difficult and unpopular, especially when foreign troops were on the march.
Two factions were active during this debate. On one side were anti-foreigners who viewed foreigners as invasive and imperialistic and evoked a nativist populism. They advocated taking advantage of the Boxers to achieve the expulsion of foreign troops and foreign influences. The pro-foreigners on the other hand advanced rapprochement with foreign governments, seeing the Boxers as superstitious and ignorant.
The event that tilted the Qing imperial government irrevocably toward support of the Boxers and war with the foreign powers was the attack of foreign navies on the Dagu Forts near Tianjin, on 17 June 1900.
On 15 June, Qing imperial forces deployed electric mines in the Beihe River (Peiho) to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.
With a difficult military situation in Tianjin and a total breakdown of communications between Tianjin and Beijing, the allied nations took steps to reinforce their military presence significantly. On 17 June they took the Dagu Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and from there brought increasing numbers of troops on shore. When Cixi received an ultimatum that same day demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners, she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they he Powershave started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why don't we fight to the death?"
It was at this point that Cixi began to blockade the legations with the armies of the Peking Field Force, which began the siege. Cixi stated that "I have always been of the opinion, that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860. Only a united effort was then necessary to have given China the victory. Today, at last, the opportunity for revenge has come", and said that millions of Chinese would join the cause of fighting the foreigners since the Manchus had provided "great benefits" on China.
On receipt of the news of the attack on the Dagu Forts on 19 June, Empress Dowager Cixi immediately sent an order to the legations that the diplomats and other foreigners depart Beijing under escort of the Chinese army within 24 hours.
The next morning, diplomats from the besieged legations met to discuss the Empress's offer. The majority quickly agreed that they could not trust the Chinese army. Fearing that they would be killed, they agreed to refuse the Empress's demand. The German Imperial Envoy, Baron Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was infuriated with the actions of the Chinese army troops and determined to take his complaints to the royal court. Against the advice of the fellow foreigners, the baron left the legations with a single aide and a team of porters to carry his sedan chair. On his way to the palace, von Ketteler was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain. His aide managed to escape the attack and carried word of the baron's death back to the diplomatic compound. At this news, the other diplomats feared they also would be murdered if they left the legation quarter and they chose to continue to defy the Chinese order to depart Beijing. The legations were hurriedly fortified. Most of the foreign civilians, which included a large number of missionaries and businessmen, took refuge in the British legation, the largest of the diplomatic compounds. Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of 
On 21 June, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers. Regional governors in the south, who commanded substantial modernised armies, such as 
On 22 and 23 June, Chinese soldiers and Boxers set fire to areas north and west of the British Legation, using it as a "frightening tactic" to attack the defenders. The nearby Hanlin Academy, a complex of courtyards and buildings that housed "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship ... the oldest and richest library in the world", caught fire. Each side blamed the other for the destruction of the invaluable books it contained.
After the failure to burn out the foreigners, the Chinese army adopted an anaconda-like strategy. The Chinese built barricades surrounding the Legation Quarter and advanced, brick by brick, on the foreign lines, forcing the foreign legation guards to retreat a few feet at a time. This tactic was especially used in the Fu, defended by Japanese and Italian sailors and soldiers, and inhabited by most of the Chinese Christians. Fusillades of bullets, artillery and firecrackers were directed against the Legations almost every night—but did little damage. Sniper fire took its toll among the foreign defenders. Despite their numerical advantage, the Chinese did not attempt a direct assault on the Legation Quarter although in the words of one of the besieged, "it would have been easy by a strong, swift movement on the part of the numerous Chinese troops to have annihilated the whole body of foreigners ... in an hour." American missionary Frank Gamewell and his crew of "fighting parsons" fortified the Legation Quarter, but impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labour of building defences.
The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the Tartar Wall. Holding the top of the tall and wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and west were the west-facing American positions. The Chinese advanced toward both positions by building barricades even closer. "The men all feel they are in a trap", said the American commander, Capt. John T. Myers, "and simply await the hour of execution." On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defence. In June 1900, one American described the scene of 20,000 Boxers storming the walls:
At the same time, a Chinese barricade was advanced to within a few feet of the American positions and it became clear that the Americans had to abandon the wall or force the Chinese to retreat. At 2 am on 3 July, 56 British, Russian and American marines and sailors, under the command of Myers, launched an assault against the Chinese barricade on the wall. The attack caught the Chinese sleeping, killed about 20 of them, and expelled the rest of them from the barricades. The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.
Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege. The Japanese and Italians in the Fu were driven back to their last defence line. The Chinese detonated a mine beneath the French Legation pushing the French and Austrians out of most of the French Legation. On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded. But American Minister Edwin Hurd Conger established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, an armistice was declared by the Chinese. More than 40% of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation of the Chinese was probably the realisation that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the siege was at hand.
The Manchu General Ronglu concluded that it was futile to fight all of the powers simultaneously and declined to press home the siege. The Manchu Zaiyi (Prince Duan), an anti-foreign friend of 
Xu Jingcheng, who had served as the Qing Envoy to many of the same states under siege in the Legation Quarter, argued that "the evasion of extraterritorial rights and the killing of foreign diplomats are unprecedented in China and abroad." Xu and five other officials urged Empress Dowager Cixi to order the repression of Boxers, the execution of their leaders, and a diplomatic settlement with foreign armies. The Empress Dowager, outraged, sentenced Xu and the five others to death for "willfully and absurdly petitioning the Imperial Court" and "building subversive thought." They were executed on 28 July 1900 and their severed heads placed on display at Caishikou Execution Grounds in Beijing.
Reflecting this vacillation, some Chinese soldiers were quite liberally firing at foreigners under siege from its very onset. Cixi did not personally order imperial troops to conduct a siege, and on the contrary had ordered them to protect the foreigners in the legations. Prince Duan led the Boxers to loot his enemies within the imperial court and the foreigners, although imperial authorities expelled Boxers after they were let into the city and went on a looting rampage against both the foreign and the Qing imperial forces. Older Boxers were sent outside Beijing to halt the approaching foreign armies, while younger men were absorbed into the Muslim Gansu army.
With conflicting allegiances and priorities motivating the various forces inside Beijing, the situation in the city became increasingly confused. The foreign legations continued to be surrounded by both Qing imperial and Gansu forces. While Dong Fuxiang's Gansu army, now swollen by the addition of the Boxers, wished to press the siege, Ronglu's imperial forces seem to have largely attempted to follow Empress Dowager Cixi's decree and protect the legations. However, to satisfy the conservatives in the imperial court, Ronglu's men also fired on the legations and let off firecrackers to give the impression that they, too, were attacking the foreigners. Inside the legations and out of communication with the outside world, the foreigners simply fired on any targets that presented themselves, including messengers from the imperial court, civilians and besiegers of all persuasions. Dong Fuxiang was denied artillery held by Ronglu which stopped him from levelling the legations, and when he complained to Empress Dowager Cixi on 23 June, she dismissively said that "Your tail is becoming too heavy to wag." The Alliance discovered large amounts of unused Chinese Krupp artillery and shells after the siege was lifted.
The armistice, although occasionally broken, endured until 13 August when, with an allied army led by the British Alfred Gaselee approaching Beijing to relieve the siege, the Chinese launched their heaviest fusillade on the Legation Quarter. As the foreign army approached, Chinese forces melted away.
The international force finally captured 
The international force reached Beijing on 14 August. Following the defeat of Beiyang army in the 
The British Army reached the legation quarter on the afternoon of 14 August and relieved the Legation Quarter. The Beitang was relieved on 16 August, first by Japanese soldiers and then, officially, by the French.
In the early hours of 15 August, just as the Foreign Legations were being relieved, Empress Dowager Cixi, dressed in the padded blue cotton of a farm woman, the Guangxu Emperor, and a small retinue climbed into three wooden ox carts and escaped from the city covered with rough blankets. Legend has it that the Empress Dowager then either ordered that the Guangxu Emperor's favourite concubine,
The Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty had maintained a long peace, starting with the
Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred throughout northern China, some by Boxers and others by government troops and authorities. After the declaration of war on Western powers in June 1900, Yuxian, who had been named governor of
The Eight Nation Alliance occupied Zhili province while Russia occupied Manchuria, but the rest of China was not occupied due to the actions of several Han governors who formed the Mutual Protection of Southeast China that refused to obey the declaration of war and kept their armies and provinces out of the war. Zhang Zhidong told Everard Fraser, the Hankou-based British consul general, that he despised Manchus in order that the Eight Nation Alliance would not occupy provinces under the Mutual Defense Pact.
Beijing, Tianjin and Zhili province were occupied for more than one year by the international expeditionary force under the command of German General Alfred Graf von Waldersee. The Americans and British paid General 
Some but by no means all Western missionaries took an active part in calling for retribution. To provide restitution to missionaries and Chinese Christian families whose property had been destroyed, William Ament, a missionary of
at the
tax revenue
Tax revenue is the income that is collected by governments through taxation. Taxation is the primary source of government revenue. Revenue may be extracted from sources such as individuals, public enterprises, trade, royalties on natural resou ...
—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next 39 years to the eight nations involved. The Qing dynasty's handling of the Boxer Rebellion further weakened their control over China, and led the dynasty to attempt major governmental reforms in the aftermath.
Historical background
Origins of the Boxers
The Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihequan) arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in His ...
, a region which had long been plagued by social unrest, religious sects, and martial societies. American Christian missionaries were probably the first people who referred to the well-trained, athletic young men as the "Boxers", because of the martial arts which they practised and the weapons training which they underwent. Their primary practice was a type of spiritual possession which involved the whirling of sword
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip ...
s, violent prostrations, and the chanting of incantations to deities.
The opportunities to fight against Western encroachment and colonisation were especially attractive to unemployed village men, many of whom were teenagers. The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West. The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability against cannons, rifle shots, and knife attacks. The Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers would descend out of Heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression.
In 1895, despite ambivalence toward their heterodox practices, Yuxian, a Manchu who was then prefect of Caozhou and would later become provincial governor, cooperated with the Big Swords Society, whose original purpose was to fight bandits. The German Catholic missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word had built up their presence in the area, partially by taking in a significant portion of converts who were "in need of protection from the law". On one occasion in 1895, a large bandit gang defeated by the Big Swords Society claimed to be Catholics to avoid prosecution. "The line between Christians and bandits became increasingly indistinct", remarks Paul Cohen.
Some missionaries such as George Stenz also used their privileges to intervene in lawsuits. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic properties and burning
Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion ...
them. As a result of diplomatic pressure in the capital, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders, but did not punish anyone else. More martial secret societies started emerging after this.
The early years saw a variety of village activities, not a broad movement with a united purpose. Martial folk-religious societies such as the Baguadao (Eight Trigrams) prepared the way for the Boxers. Like the Red Boxing school or the Plum Flower Boxers, the Boxers of Shandong were more concerned with traditional social and moral values, such as filial piety, than with foreign influences. One leader, Zhu Hongdeng (Red Lantern Zhu), started as a wandering healer, specialising in skin ulcers, and gained wide respect by refusing payment for his treatments. Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
emperors, since his surname was the surname of the Ming imperial family. He announced that his goal was to "Revive the Qing and destroy the foreigners" ("扶清滅洋 ''fu Qing mie yang''").
The enemy was seen as foreign influence. They decided the "primary devils" were the Christian missionaries whilst the "secondary devils" were the Chinese converts to Christianity, which both had either to repent, be driven out or killed.
Causes of the conflict and the unrest
Escalating tensions caused Chinese to turn against "foreign devils" who scrambled for power in the late 19th century. The Western success at controlling China, growing anti-imperialist sentiment, and extreme weather conditions, sparked the movement. A drought followed by floods in Shandong province in 1897–1898 forced farmers to flee to cities and seek food. A major cause of discontent in north China was missionary activity. The Treaty of Tientsin (Tianjin) and theConvention of Peking
The Convention of Peking or First Convention of Peking is an agreement comprising three distinct treaties concluded between the Qing dynasty of China and Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire in 1860. In China, they are regarded as amon ...
, signed in 1860 after the Second Opium War
The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Em ...
, had granted foreign missionaries the freedom to preach anywhere in China and to buy land on which to build churches. On 1 November 1897, a band of armed men who were perhaps members of the Big Swords Society stormed the residence of a German missionary from the Society of the Divine Word and killed two priests. This attack is known as the Juye Incident.
When Kaiser Wilhelm II
, house = Hohenzollern
, father = Frederick III, German Emperor
, mother = Victoria, Princess Royal
, religion = Lutheranism ( Prussian United)
, signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Vikto ...
received news of these murders, he dispatched the German East Asia Squadron to occupy Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula.
In December 1897, Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, which triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity.
While there may be a formal a ...
in China. Germany gained exclusive control of developmental loans, mining, and railway ownership in Shandong province. Russia gained influence of all territory north of the Great Wall
The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
, plus the previous tax exemption for trade in Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...
and Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
, economic powers similar to Germany's over Fengtian, Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
and Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
provinces. France gained influence of Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
, most of Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
and Guangdong provinces, Japan over Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...
province. Britain gained influence of the whole Yangtze River Valley (defined as all provinces adjoining the Yangtze river as well as Henan
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...
and Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jian ...
provinces), parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and part of Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tama ...
.
Only Italy's request for Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jian ...
province was declined by the Chinese government. These do not include the lease and concession territories where the foreign powers had full authority. The Russian government militarily occupied their zone, imposed their law and schools, seized mining and logging privileges, settled their citizens, and even established their municipal administration on several cities.
In October 1898, a group of Boxers attacked the Christian community of Liyuantun village where a temple to the Jade Emperor
The Jade Emperor or Yudi ( or , ') in Chinese culture, traditional religions and myth is one of the representations of the first god ( '). In Daoist theology he is the assistant of Yuanshi Tianzun, who is one of the Three Pure Ones, the three ...
had been converted into a Catholic church. Disputes had surrounded the church since 1869, when the temple had been granted to the Christian residents of the village. This incident marked the first time the Boxers used the slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners" ("扶清滅洋 ''fu Qing mie yang''") that later characterised them.
The "Boxers" called themselves the "Militia United in Righteousness" for the first time one year later, at the Battle of Senluo Temple (October 1899), a clash between Boxers and Qing government troops. By using the word "Militia" rather than "Boxers", they distanced themselves from forbidden martial arts sects, and tried to give their movement the legitimacy of a group that defended orthodoxy.
Aggression toward missionaries and Christians drew sharp responses from diplomats protecting their nationals. In 1899, the French minister in Beijing helped the missionaries to obtain an edict granting official status to every order in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, enabling local priests to support their people in legal or family disputes and bypass the local officials. After the German government took over Shandong, many Chinese feared that the foreign missionaries and possibly all Christian activities were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to colonise China piece by piece. A Chinese official expressed the animosity towards foreigners succinctly, "Take away your missionaries and your opium and you will be welcome."
The early growth of the Boxer movement coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (11 June – 21 September 1898), in which progressive Chinese officials, with support from Protestant missionaries, persuaded the Guangxu Emperor
The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, w ...
to institute sweeping reforms. This alienated many conservative officials, whose opposition led Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlle ...
to intervene and reverse the reforms. The failure of the reform movement disillusioned many educated Chinese and thus further weakened the Qing government. The empress seized power and placed the reformist emperor under house arrest.
The national crisis was widely perceived as caused by "foreign aggression" inside. Even though afterwards a majority of Chinese were extremely grateful for the actions of the alliance. At the time, the Qing government was extremely corrupt, common people often faced extortions from government officials and the government offered no protection from the violent actions of the Boxers.
Boxer War
Intensifying crisis
In January 1900, with a majority of conservatives in the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi changed her position on the Boxers, and issued edicts in their defence, causing protests from foreign powers. In spring 1900, the Boxer movement spread rapidly north from Shandong into the countryside near Beijing. Boxers burned Christian churches, killed Chinese Christians and intimidated Chinese officials who stood in their way. American Minister Edwin H. Conger cabled Washington, "the whole country is swarming with hungry, discontented, hopeless idlers."
On 30 May the diplomats, led by British Minister Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, (12 June 1852 – 10 September 1915) was a British soldier and diplomat, best known for his service in China and Japan.
Early life
MacDonald was born the son of Mary Ellen MacDonald (''nee'' Dougan) and Ma ...
, requested that foreign soldiers come to Beijing to defend the legations. The Chinese government reluctantly acquiesced, and the next day a multinational force of 435 navy troops from eight countries debarked from warships and travelled by train from Dagu (Taku) to Beijing. They set up defensive perimeters around their respective missions.
On 5 June 1900, the railway line to Tianjin was cut by Boxers in the countryside and Beijing was isolated. On 11 June, at Yongding gate, the secretary of the Japanese legation, Sugiyama Akira, was attacked and killed by the soldiers of General Dong Fuxiang
Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), courtesy name Xingwu (), was a Chinese general who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was born in the Western Chinese province of Gansu. He commanded an army of Hui soldiers, which included the later Ma clique gene ...
, who were guarding the southern part of the Beijing walled city. Armed with Mauser
Mauser, originally Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik ("Royal Württemberg Rifle Factory"), was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols has been produced since the 1870s for the German arme ...
rifles but wearing traditional uniforms, Dong's troops had threatened the foreign Legations in the fall of 1898 soon after arriving in Beijing, so much that United States Marines had been called to Beijing to guard the legations. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empi ...
was so alarmed by the Chinese Muslim troops that he requested the Caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
Abdul Hamid II
Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II ( ota, عبد الحميد ثانی, Abd ül-Hamid-i Sani; tr, II. Abdülhamid; 21 September 1842 10 February 1918) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to ...
of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
to find a way to stop the Muslim troops from fighting.
The Caliph agreed to the Kaiser's request and sent Enver Pasha (not to be confused with the future Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.
On 11 June, the first Boxer was seen in the Legation Quarter. The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer boy and inexplicably executed him. In response, thousands of Boxers burst into the walled city of Beijing that afternoon and burned many of the Christian churches and cathedrals in the city, burning some victims alive. American and British missionaries took refuge in the Methodist Mission and an attack there was repulsed by American Marines. The soldiers at the British Embassy and German Legations shot and killed several Boxers, alienating the Chinese population of the city and nudging the Qing government towards support of the Boxers.
The Muslim Gansu braves and Boxers, along with other Chinese, then attacked and killed Chinese Christians around the legations in revenge for foreign attacks on Chinese.
Seymour Expedition
As the situation grew more violent, the Eight Powers authorities at Dagu dispatched a second multinational force to Beijing on 10 June 1900. This force of 2,000 sailors and marines was under the command of Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour RN, the largest contingent being British. The force moved by train from Dagu to Tianjin with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway had been severed between Tianjin and Beijing. Seymour resolved to continue forward by rail to the break and repair the railway, or progress on foot from there if necessary, as it was only 120 km from Tianjin to Beijing. When Seymour left Tianjin and started toward Beijing, it angered the imperial court.
The court then replaced Prince Qing at the Zongli Yamen, with Manchu Prince Duan, a member of the imperial Aisin Gioro
The House of Aisin-Gioro was a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chi ...
clan (foreigners called him a "Blood Royal"), who was extremely anti-foreigner and pro-Boxer. He soon ordered the Imperial army to attack the foreign forces. Confused by conflicting orders from Beijing, General Nie Shicheng let Seymour's army pass by in their trains.
After leaving Tianjin, the force quickly reached Langfang
Langfang () is a prefecture-level city of Hebei Province, which was known as Tianjin Prefecture until 1973. It was renamed Langfang Prefecture after Tianjin became a municipality and finally upgraded into a prefecture-level city in 1988. Lan ...
, but the railway was destroyed there. Seymour's engineers tried to repair the line, but the force found itself surrounded, as the railway in both behind directions was destroyed. They were attacked from all sides by Chinese irregulars and Imperial troops. Five thousand of Dong Fuxiang's " Gansu Braves" and an unknown number of "Boxers" won a costly but major victory over Seymour's troops at the Battle of Langfang
The Battle of Langfang was a battle in the Seymour Expedition during the Boxer Rebellion, in June 1900, involving Chinese imperial troops, the Chinese Muslim Kansu Braves and Boxers ambushing and defeating the Eight-Nation Alliance expeditionary ...
on 18 June. Seymour then retreated from Langfang. The force was constantly fired upon by cavalry, and artillery bombarded their positions. It was reported that the Chinese artillery was superior, since the force had not brought much artillery with them, thinking they could easily sweep through Chinese resistance.
The Seymour force could not locate the Chinese artillery, which was raining shells upon their positions. Chinese troops employed mining, engineering, flooding, and simultaneous attacks. The Chinese also employed pincer movements, ambushes, and sniping with some success against the foreigners.
On 18 June, Seymour learned of attacks on the Legation Quarter in Beijing, and decided to continue advancing, this time along the Beihe river, toward Tongzhou, from Beijing. By 19 June, the force was halted by progressively stiffening resistance, and started to retreat southward along the river with over 200 wounded. They loaded all their wounded and remaining supplies on four commandeered junks, which they pulled along with ropes from the riverbanks.
The force was now very low on food, ammunition, and medical supplies. They happened upon the Great Xigu Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache of which the Eight Powers had had no knowledge until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering Krupp
The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp A ...
field guns and rifles with millions of rounds of ammunition, along with millions of pounds of rice and ample medical supplies.
There they dug in and awaited rescue. A Chinese servant slipped through the Boxer and Imperial lines, reached Tianjin, and informed the Eight Powers of Seymour's predicament. His force was surrounded by Imperial troops and Boxers, attacked nearly around the clock, and at the point of being overrun. The Eight Powers sent a relief column from Tianjin of 1,800 men (900 Russian troops from Port Arthur, 500 British seamen, and other assorted troops). On 25 June the relief column reached Seymour. The Seymour force now destroyed the Arsenal: they spiked the captured field guns and set fire to any munitions that they could not take (an estimated £3 million worth). The Seymour force and the relief column marched back to Tientsin, unopposed, on 26 June. Seymour's casualties during the expedition were 62 killed and 228 wounded.
Conflicting attitudes within the Qing imperial court
Meanwhile, in Beijing, on 16 June, Empress Dowager Cixi summoned the imperial court for a mass audience and addressed the choice between using the Boxers to evict the foreigners from the city and seeking a diplomatic solution. In response to a high official who doubted the efficacy of the Boxers, Cixi replied that both sides of the debate at the imperial court realised that popular support for the Boxers in the countryside was almost universal and that suppression would be both difficult and unpopular, especially when foreign troops were on the march.
Two factions were active during this debate. On one side were anti-foreigners who viewed foreigners as invasive and imperialistic and evoked a nativist populism. They advocated taking advantage of the Boxers to achieve the expulsion of foreign troops and foreign influences. The pro-foreigners on the other hand advanced rapprochement with foreign governments, seeing the Boxers as superstitious and ignorant.
The event that tilted the Qing imperial government irrevocably toward support of the Boxers and war with the foreign powers was the attack of foreign navies on the Dagu Forts near Tianjin, on 17 June 1900.
Siege of the Beijing legations
On 15 June, Qing imperial forces deployed electric mines in the Beihe River (Peiho) to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.
With a difficult military situation in Tianjin and a total breakdown of communications between Tianjin and Beijing, the allied nations took steps to reinforce their military presence significantly. On 17 June they took the Dagu Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and from there brought increasing numbers of troops on shore. When Cixi received an ultimatum that same day demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners, she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they he Powershave started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why don't we fight to the death?"
It was at this point that Cixi began to blockade the legations with the armies of the Peking Field Force, which began the siege. Cixi stated that "I have always been of the opinion, that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860. Only a united effort was then necessary to have given China the victory. Today, at last, the opportunity for revenge has come", and said that millions of Chinese would join the cause of fighting the foreigners since the Manchus had provided "great benefits" on China.
On receipt of the news of the attack on the Dagu Forts on 19 June, Empress Dowager Cixi immediately sent an order to the legations that the diplomats and other foreigners depart Beijing under escort of the Chinese army within 24 hours.
The next morning, diplomats from the besieged legations met to discuss the Empress's offer. The majority quickly agreed that they could not trust the Chinese army. Fearing that they would be killed, they agreed to refuse the Empress's demand. The German Imperial Envoy, Baron Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was infuriated with the actions of the Chinese army troops and determined to take his complaints to the royal court. Against the advice of the fellow foreigners, the baron left the legations with a single aide and a team of porters to carry his sedan chair. On his way to the palace, von Ketteler was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain. His aide managed to escape the attack and carried word of the baron's death back to the diplomatic compound. At this news, the other diplomats feared they also would be murdered if they left the legation quarter and they chose to continue to defy the Chinese order to depart Beijing. The legations were hurriedly fortified. Most of the foreign civilians, which included a large number of missionaries and businessmen, took refuge in the British legation, the largest of the diplomatic compounds. Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of Prince Su
Prince Su of the First Rank (Manchu: ; ''hošoi fafungga cin wang''; ), or simply Prince Su (), was the title of a princely peerage of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China (1636–1912). It was also one of the 12 "iron-cap" princely peerages in ...
, who was forced to abandon his property by the foreign soldiers.
On 21 June, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers. Regional governors in the south, who commanded substantial modernised armies, such as Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...
at Canton
Canton may refer to:
Administrative division terminology
* Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland
* Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French
Arts and en ...
, Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. H ...
in Shandong, Zhang Zhidong
Zhang Zhidong () (4 September 18375 October 1909) was a Chinese politician who lived during the late Qing dynasty. Along with Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong was one of the four most famous officials of the late Qin ...
at Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...
and Liu Kunyi at Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. ...
, formed the Mutual Defense Pact of the Southeastern Provinces. They refused to recognise the imperial court's declaration of war, which they declared a ''luan-ming'' (illegitimate order) and withheld knowledge of it from the public in the south. Yuan Shikai used his own forces to suppress Boxers in Shandong, and Zhang entered into negotiations with the foreigners in Shanghai to keep his army out of the conflict. The neutrality of these provincial and regional governors left the majority of Chinese military forces out of the conflict.
The legations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, Russia and Japan were located in the Beijing Legation Quarter south of the Forbidden City
The Forbidden City () is a palace complex in Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, at the center of the Imperial City of Beijing. It is surrounded by numerous opulent imperial gardens and temples including the Zhongshan Park, the sacrific ...
. The Chinese army and Boxer irregulars besieged the Legation Quarter from 20 June to 14 August 1900. A total of 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers, marines and sailors from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge there. Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, (12 June 1852 – 10 September 1915) was a British soldier and diplomat, best known for his service in China and Japan.
Early life
MacDonald was born the son of Mary Ellen MacDonald (''nee'' Dougan) and Ma ...
, the legation staff and military guards defended the compound with small arms, three machine guns, and one old muzzle-loaded cannon, which was nicknamed the ''International Gun'' because the barrel was British, the carriage Italian, the shells Russian and the crew American. Chinese Christians in the legations led the foreigners to the cannon and it proved important in the defence. Also under siege in Beijing was the Northern Cathedral (''Beitang'') of the Catholic Church. The Beitang was defended by 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 Catholic foreign priests and nuns, and about 3,200 Chinese Catholics. The defenders suffered heavy casualties from lack of food and from mines which the Chinese exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound. The number of Chinese soldiers and Boxers besieging the Legation Quarter and the Beitang is unknown.
Manchu Prince Zaiyi's Manchu bannermen in the Tiger and Divine Corps led attacks against the Catholic cathedral church. Manchu official Qixiu 啟秀 also led attacks against the cathedral.
On 22 and 23 June, Chinese soldiers and Boxers set fire to areas north and west of the British Legation, using it as a "frightening tactic" to attack the defenders. The nearby Hanlin Academy, a complex of courtyards and buildings that housed "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship ... the oldest and richest library in the world", caught fire. Each side blamed the other for the destruction of the invaluable books it contained.
After the failure to burn out the foreigners, the Chinese army adopted an anaconda-like strategy. The Chinese built barricades surrounding the Legation Quarter and advanced, brick by brick, on the foreign lines, forcing the foreign legation guards to retreat a few feet at a time. This tactic was especially used in the Fu, defended by Japanese and Italian sailors and soldiers, and inhabited by most of the Chinese Christians. Fusillades of bullets, artillery and firecrackers were directed against the Legations almost every night—but did little damage. Sniper fire took its toll among the foreign defenders. Despite their numerical advantage, the Chinese did not attempt a direct assault on the Legation Quarter although in the words of one of the besieged, "it would have been easy by a strong, swift movement on the part of the numerous Chinese troops to have annihilated the whole body of foreigners ... in an hour." American missionary Frank Gamewell and his crew of "fighting parsons" fortified the Legation Quarter, but impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labour of building defences.
The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the Tartar Wall. Holding the top of the tall and wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and west were the west-facing American positions. The Chinese advanced toward both positions by building barricades even closer. "The men all feel they are in a trap", said the American commander, Capt. John T. Myers, "and simply await the hour of execution." On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defence. In June 1900, one American described the scene of 20,000 Boxers storming the walls:
At the same time, a Chinese barricade was advanced to within a few feet of the American positions and it became clear that the Americans had to abandon the wall or force the Chinese to retreat. At 2 am on 3 July, 56 British, Russian and American marines and sailors, under the command of Myers, launched an assault against the Chinese barricade on the wall. The attack caught the Chinese sleeping, killed about 20 of them, and expelled the rest of them from the barricades. The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.
Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege. The Japanese and Italians in the Fu were driven back to their last defence line. The Chinese detonated a mine beneath the French Legation pushing the French and Austrians out of most of the French Legation. On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded. But American Minister Edwin Hurd Conger established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, an armistice was declared by the Chinese. More than 40% of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation of the Chinese was probably the realisation that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the siege was at hand.
Officials and commanders at cross purposes
The Manchu General Ronglu concluded that it was futile to fight all of the powers simultaneously and declined to press home the siege. The Manchu Zaiyi (Prince Duan), an anti-foreign friend of Dong Fuxiang
Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), courtesy name Xingwu (), was a Chinese general who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was born in the Western Chinese province of Gansu. He commanded an army of Hui soldiers, which included the later Ma clique gene ...
, wanted artillery for Dong's troops to destroy the legations. Ronglu blocked the transfer of artillery to Zaiyi and Dong, preventing them from attacking. Ronglu forced Dong Fuxiang and his troops to pull back from completing the siege and destroying the legations, thereby saving the foreigners and making diplomatic concessions. Ronglu and Prince Qing sent food to the legations, and used their Manchu Bannermen to attack the Muslim Gansu Braves ("Kansu Braves" in the spelling of the time) of Dong Fuxiang and the Boxers who were besieging the foreigners. They issued edicts ordering the foreigners to be protected, but the Gansu warriors ignored it, and fought against Bannermen who tried to force them away from the legations. The Boxers also took commands from Dong Fuxiang. Ronglu also deliberately hid an Imperial Decree from General Nie Shicheng. The Decree ordered him to stop fighting the Boxers because of the foreign invasion, and also because the population was suffering. Due to Ronglu's actions, General Nie continued to fight the Boxers and killed many of them even as the foreign troops were making their way into China. Ronglu also ordered Nie to protect foreigners and save the railway from the Boxers. Because parts of the Railway were saved under Ronglu's orders, the foreign invasion army was able to transport itself into China quickly. General Nie committed thousands of troops against the Boxers instead of against the foreigners. Nie was already outnumbered by the Allies by 4,000 men. General Nie was blamed for attacking the Boxers, as Ronglu let Nie take all the blame. At the Battle of Tianjin (Tientsin), General Nie decided to sacrifice his life by walking into the range of Allied guns.
Xu Jingcheng, who had served as the Qing Envoy to many of the same states under siege in the Legation Quarter, argued that "the evasion of extraterritorial rights and the killing of foreign diplomats are unprecedented in China and abroad." Xu and five other officials urged Empress Dowager Cixi to order the repression of Boxers, the execution of their leaders, and a diplomatic settlement with foreign armies. The Empress Dowager, outraged, sentenced Xu and the five others to death for "willfully and absurdly petitioning the Imperial Court" and "building subversive thought." They were executed on 28 July 1900 and their severed heads placed on display at Caishikou Execution Grounds in Beijing.
Reflecting this vacillation, some Chinese soldiers were quite liberally firing at foreigners under siege from its very onset. Cixi did not personally order imperial troops to conduct a siege, and on the contrary had ordered them to protect the foreigners in the legations. Prince Duan led the Boxers to loot his enemies within the imperial court and the foreigners, although imperial authorities expelled Boxers after they were let into the city and went on a looting rampage against both the foreign and the Qing imperial forces. Older Boxers were sent outside Beijing to halt the approaching foreign armies, while younger men were absorbed into the Muslim Gansu army.
With conflicting allegiances and priorities motivating the various forces inside Beijing, the situation in the city became increasingly confused. The foreign legations continued to be surrounded by both Qing imperial and Gansu forces. While Dong Fuxiang's Gansu army, now swollen by the addition of the Boxers, wished to press the siege, Ronglu's imperial forces seem to have largely attempted to follow Empress Dowager Cixi's decree and protect the legations. However, to satisfy the conservatives in the imperial court, Ronglu's men also fired on the legations and let off firecrackers to give the impression that they, too, were attacking the foreigners. Inside the legations and out of communication with the outside world, the foreigners simply fired on any targets that presented themselves, including messengers from the imperial court, civilians and besiegers of all persuasions. Dong Fuxiang was denied artillery held by Ronglu which stopped him from levelling the legations, and when he complained to Empress Dowager Cixi on 23 June, she dismissively said that "Your tail is becoming too heavy to wag." The Alliance discovered large amounts of unused Chinese Krupp artillery and shells after the siege was lifted.
The armistice, although occasionally broken, endured until 13 August when, with an allied army led by the British Alfred Gaselee approaching Beijing to relieve the siege, the Chinese launched their heaviest fusillade on the Legation Quarter. As the foreign army approached, Chinese forces melted away.
Gaselee Expedition
Foreign navies started building up their presence along the northern China coast from the end of April 1900. Several international forces were sent to the capital, with varying success, and the Chinese forces were ultimately defeated by theEight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing, then besieged by the popular Boxer Rebellion, Boxer militia, who were determi ...
of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area e ...
, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
, Italy, Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the nor ...
, Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
, the United Kingdom and the United States. Independent of the alliance, the Netherlands dispatched three cruisers in July to protect its citizens in Shanghai.
British Lieutenant-General Alfred Gaselee acted as the commanding officer of the Eight-Nation Alliance, which eventually numbered 55,000. The main contingent was composed of Japanese (20,840), Russian (13,150), British (12,020), French (3,520), U.S. (3,420), German (900), Italian (80), Austro-Hungarian (75) and anti-Boxer Chinese troops. The "First Chinese Regiment" ( Weihaiwei Regiment) which was praised for its performance, consisted of Chinese collaborators serving in the British military. Notable events included the seizure of the Dagu Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin and the boarding and capture of four Chinese destroyers by British Commander Roger Keyes
Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, (4 October 1872 – 26 December 1945) was a British naval officer.
As a junior officer he served in a corvette operating from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions. Ea ...
. Among the foreigners besieged in Tianjin was a young American mining engineer named Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gre ...
, who would go on to become the 31st President of the United States.Hoover, Herbert C. (1952). ''The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover Years of Adventure 1874–1920''. London: Hollis & Carter. p. 47-54
The international force finally captured Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
on 14 July. The international force suffered its heaviest casualties of the Boxer Rebellion in the Battle of Tianjin. With Tianjin as a base, the international force marched from Tianjin to Beijing, about 120 km, with 20,000 allied troops. On 4 August, there were approximately 70,000 Qing imperial troops and anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Boxers along the way. The allies only encountered minor resistance, fighting battles at Beicang and Yangcun. At Yangcun, the 14th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. and British troops led the assault. The weather was a major obstacle. Conditions were extremely humid with temperatures sometimes reaching . These high temperatures and insects plagued the Allies. Soldiers became dehydrated and horses died. Chinese villagers killed Allied troops who searched for wells.
The heat killed Allied soldiers, who foamed at the mouth. The tactics along the way were gruesome on either side. Allied soldiers beheaded already dead Chinese corpses, bayoneted or beheaded live Chinese civilians, and raped Chinese girls and women.. Cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
s were reported to have killed Chinese civilians almost automatically and Japanese kicked a Chinese soldier to death. The Chinese responded to the Alliance's atrocities with similar acts of violence and cruelty, especially towards captured Russians. Lieutenant Smedley Butler saw the remains of two Japanese soldiers nailed to a wall, who had their tongues cut off and their eyes gouged. Lieutenant Butler was wounded during the expedition in the leg and chest, later receiving the Brevet Medal in recognition for his actions.
The international force reached Beijing on 14 August. Following the defeat of Beiyang army in the First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between Qing dynasty, China and Empire of Japan, Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land ...
, the Chinese government had invested heavily in modernising the imperial army, which was equipped with modern Mauser
Mauser, originally Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik ("Royal Württemberg Rifle Factory"), was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols has been produced since the 1870s for the German arme ...
repeater rifles and Krupp
The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp A ...
artillery. Three modernised divisions consisting of Manchu Bannermen protected the Beijing Metropolitan region. Two of them were under the command of the anti-Boxer Prince Qing and Ronglu, while the anti-foreign Prince Duan commanded the ten-thousand-strong Hushenying, or "Tiger Spirit Division", which had joined the Gansu Braves and Boxers in attacking the foreigners. It was a Hushenying captain who had assassinated the German diplomat Ketteler. The Tenacious Army under Nie Shicheng received Western style training under German and Russian officers in addition to their modernised weapons and uniforms. They effectively resisted the Alliance at the Battle of Tientsin before retreating and astounded the Alliance forces with the accuracy of their artillery during the siege of the Tianjin concessions (the artillery shells failed to explode upon impact due to corrupt manufacturing). The Gansu Braves under Dong Fuxiang, which some sources described as "ill disciplined", were armed with modern weapons but were not trained according to Western drill and wore traditional Chinese uniforms. They led the defeat of the Alliance at Langfang in the Seymour Expedition and were the most ferocious in besieging the Legations in Beijing. Some Banner
A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...
forces were given modernised weapons and Western training, becoming the Metropolitan Banner forces, which were decimated in the fighting. Among the Manchu dead was the father of the writer Lao She
Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, and is best known for his novel '' Rickshaw Boy'' ...
.
The British won the race among the international forces to be the first to reach the besieged Legation Quarter. The U.S. was able to play a role due to the presence of U.S. ships and troops stationed in Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...
since the U.S. conquest of the Philippines during the Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clo ...
and the subsequent Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
. In the U.S. military, the action in the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition
The China Relief Expedition was an expedition in China undertaken by the United States Armed Forces to rescue United States citizens, European nationals, and other foreign nationals during the latter years of the Boxer Rebellion, which lasted f ...
. United States Marines scaling the walls of Beijing is an iconic image of the Boxer Rebellion.
The British Army reached the legation quarter on the afternoon of 14 August and relieved the Legation Quarter. The Beitang was relieved on 16 August, first by Japanese soldiers and then, officially, by the French.
Evacuation of the Qing imperial court from Beijing to Xi'an
In the early hours of 15 August, just as the Foreign Legations were being relieved, Empress Dowager Cixi, dressed in the padded blue cotton of a farm woman, the Guangxu Emperor, and a small retinue climbed into three wooden ox carts and escaped from the city covered with rough blankets. Legend has it that the Empress Dowager then either ordered that the Guangxu Emperor's favourite concubine, Consort Zhen
Imperial Noble Consort Keshun (27 February 1876 – 15 August 1900), of the Manchu Bordered Red Banner Tatara clan, was a consort of the Guangxu Emperor. She was five years his junior. She was known to foreigners as the Pearl Concubine. Legend ...
, be thrown down a well in the Forbidden City or tricked her into drowning herself. The journey was made all the more arduous by the lack of preparation, but the Empress Dowager insisted this was not a retreat, rather a "tour of inspection." After weeks of travel, the party arrived in Xi'an
Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...
in Shaanxi
Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ning ...
province, beyond protective mountain passes where the foreigners could not reach, deep in Chinese Muslim territory and protected by the Gansu Braves. The foreigners had no orders to pursue the Empress Dowager, so they decided to stay put.
Russian invasion of Manchuria
The Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty had maintained a long peace, starting with the Treaty of Nerchinsk
The Treaty of Nerchinsk () of 1689 was the first treaty between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty of China. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Range and kept the area between the Argun River ...
in 1689, but Russian forces took advantage of Chinese defeats to impose the Aigun Treaty of 1858 and the Treaty of Peking of 1860 which ceded formerly Chinese territory in Manchuria to Russia, much of which is held by Russia to the present day (Primorye
Primorsky Krai (russian: Приморский край, r=Primorsky kray, p=prʲɪˈmorskʲɪj kraj), informally known as Primorye (, ), is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, located in the Far East region of the country and is a part of the ...
). The Russians aimed for control over the Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China ( Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long ...
for navigation, and the all-weather ports of Dairen and Port Arthur in the Liaodong
The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the ...
peninsula. The rise of Japan as an Asian power provoked Russia's anxiety, especially in light of expanding Japanese influence in Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
. Following Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between Qing dynasty, China and Empire of Japan, Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land ...
of 1895, the Triple Intervention of Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to return the territory won in Liaodong, leading to a de facto Sino-Russian alliance.
Local Chinese in Manchuria were incensed at these Russian advances and began to harass Russians and Russian institutions, such as the Chinese Eastern Railway
The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...
. In June 1900, the Chinese bombarded the town of Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, o ...
on the Russian side of the Amur. The Czar's government used the pretext of Boxer activity to move some 200,000 troops into the area to crush the Boxers. The Chinese used arson to destroy a bridge carrying a railway and a barracks on 27 July. The Boxers destroyed railways and cut lines for telegraphs and burned the Yantai mines.
By 21 September, Russian troops took Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
and Liaodong, and by the end of the month completely occupied Manchuria, where their presence was a major factor leading to the Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and ...
.
The Chinese Honghuzi bandits of Manchuria, who had fought alongside the Boxers in the war, did not stop when the Boxer rebellion was over, and continued guerrilla warfare against the Russian occupation up to the Russo-Japanese war
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and ...
when the Russians were defeated by Japan.
Massacre of missionaries and Chinese Christians
Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred throughout northern China, some by Boxers and others by government troops and authorities. After the declaration of war on Western powers in June 1900, Yuxian, who had been named governor of Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
in March of that year, implemented a brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy. On 9 July, reports circulated that he had executed forty-four foreigners (including women and children) from missionary families whom he had invited to the provincial capital Taiyuan
Taiyuan (; ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; also known as (), ()) is the capital and largest city of Shanxi Province, People's Republic of China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province ...
under the promise to protect them. Although the purported eyewitness accounts have recently been questioned as improbable, this event became a notorious symbol of Chinese anger, known as the Taiyuan Massacre. The Baptist Missionary Society
BMS World Mission is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. It was originally called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, but for most of its life was known as t ...
, based in England, opened its mission in Shanxi in 1877. In 1900 all its missionaries there were killed, along with all 120 converts. By the summer's end, more foreigners and as many as 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death in the province. Journalist and historical writer Nat Brandt has called the massacre of Christians in Shanxi "the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism."
During the Boxer Rebellion as a whole, a total of 136 Protestant missionaries and 53 children were killed, and 47 Catholic priests and nuns, 30,000 Chinese Catholics, 2,000 Chinese Protestants, and 200 to 400 of the 700 Russian Orthodox Christians in Beijing were estimated to have been killed. Collectively, the Protestant dead were called the China Martyrs of 1900. 222 of Russian Christian Chinese Martyrs including St. Metrophanes were locally canonised as New Martyrs on 22 April 1902, after Archimandrite
The title archimandrite ( gr, ἀρχιμανδρίτης, archimandritēs), used in Eastern Christianity, originally referred to a superior abbot (''hegumenos'', gr, ἡγούμενος, present participle of the verb meaning "to lead") who ...
Innocent (Fugurovsky), head of the Russian Orthodox Mission in China, solicited the Most Holy Synod
The Most Holy Governing Synod (russian: Святѣйшій Правительствующій Сѵнодъ, Святейший Правительствующий Синод) was the highest governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church betwee ...
to perpetuate their memory. This was the first local canonisation for more than two centuries. The Boxers went on to murder Christians across 26 prefectures.
Aftermath
Occupation, looting, and atrocities
The Eight Nation Alliance occupied Zhili province while Russia occupied Manchuria, but the rest of China was not occupied due to the actions of several Han governors who formed the Mutual Protection of Southeast China that refused to obey the declaration of war and kept their armies and provinces out of the war. Zhang Zhidong told Everard Fraser, the Hankou-based British consul general, that he despised Manchus in order that the Eight Nation Alliance would not occupy provinces under the Mutual Defense Pact.
Beijing, Tianjin and Zhili province were occupied for more than one year by the international expeditionary force under the command of German General Alfred Graf von Waldersee. The Americans and British paid General Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. H ...
and his army (the Right Division) to help the Eight Nation Alliance suppress the Boxers. Yuan Shikai's forces killed tens of thousands of people in their anti-Boxer campaign in Zhili Province and Shandong after the Alliance captured Beijing. The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people living in inner Beijing during the Qing were Manchus and Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
bannermen from the Eight Banners after they were moved there in 1644, when Han Chinese were expelled. Sawara Tokusuke, a Japanese journalist, wrote in "Miscellaneous Notes about the Boxers" about the rapes of Manchu and Mongol banner girls. A daughter and wife of Mongol banner noble Chongqi 崇绮 of the Alute clan were allegedly gang raped. Other relatives, including his son, Baochu, killed themselves after he killed himself on 26 August 1900.
Contemporary British and American observers levelled their greatest criticism at German, Russian, and Japanese troops for their ruthlessness and willingness to execute Chinese of all ages and backgrounds, sometimes burning and killing entire village populations. The German force arrived too late to take part in the fighting, but undertook punitive expeditions to villages in the countryside. Kaiser Wilhelm II on 27 July, during departure ceremonies for the German relief force, in a speech
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...
included an impromptu but intemperate reference to the Hun invaders of continental Europe, which would later be resurrected by British propaganda to mock Germany during the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighti ...
and Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
:
One newspaper called the aftermath of the siege a "carnival of ancient loot", and others called it "an orgy of looting" by soldiers, civilians and missionaries. These characterisations called to mind the sacking of the Summer Palace in 1860. Each nationality accused the others of being the worst looters. An American diplomat, Herbert G. Squiers, filled several railway carriages with loot and artefacts. The British Legation held loot auctions every afternoon and proclaimed, "Looting on the part of British troops was carried out in the most orderly manner." However, one British officer noted, "It is one of the unwritten laws of war
The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war ('' jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territ ...
that a city which does not surrender at the last and is taken by storm is looted." For the rest of 1900–1901, the British held loot auctions everyday except Sunday in front of the main-gate to the British Legation. Many foreigners, including Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald and Lady Ethel MacDonald and George Ernest Morrison of ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', were active bidders among the crowd. Many of these looted items ended up in Europe. The Catholic Beitang or North Cathedral was a "salesroom for stolen property."
The American commander General Adna Chaffee banned looting by American soldiers, but the ban was ineffectual.
Some but by no means all Western missionaries took an active part in calling for retribution. To provide restitution to missionaries and Chinese Christian families whose property had been destroyed, William Ament, a missionary of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...
, guided American troops through villages to punish those he suspected of being Boxers and confiscate their property. When Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
read of this expedition, he wrote a scathing essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness", that attacked the "Reverend bandits of the American Board," especially targeting Ament, one of the most respected missionaries in China. The controversy was front-page news during much of 1901. Ament's counterpart on the distaff side was British missionary Georgina Smith, who presided over a neighbourhood in Beijing as judge and jury.
While one historical account reported that Japanese troops were astonished by other Alliance troops raping civilians, others noted that Japanese troops were 'looting and burning without mercy', and that Chinese 'women and girls by hundreds have committed suicide to escape a worse fate at the hands of Russian and Japanese brutes.' Roger Keyes, who commanded the British destroyer '' Fame'' and accompanied the Gaselee Expedition, noted that the Japanese had brought their own "regimental wives" (prostitutes) to the front to keep their soldiers from raping Chinese civilians.
''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fou ...
'' journalist E. J. Dillon stated that he witnessed the mutilated corpses of Chinese women who were raped and killed by the Alliance troops. The French commander dismissed the rapes, attributing them to "gallantry of the French soldier." A foreign journalist, George Lynch, said "there are things that I must not write, and that may not be printed in England, which would seem to show that this Western civilisation of ours is merely a veneer over savagery."
Many Manchu Bannermen supported the Boxers and shared their anti-foreign sentiment. Bannermen had been devastated in the First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between Qing dynasty, China and Empire of Japan, Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land ...
in 1895 and Banner armies were destroyed while resisting the invasion. In the words of historian Pamela Crossley, their living conditions went "from desperate poverty to true misery." When thousands of Manchus fled south from Aigun
Aigun (; Manchu: ''aihūn hoton''; ) was a historic Chinese town in northern Manchuria, situated on the right bank of the Amur River, some south (downstream) from the central urban area of Heihe (which is across the Amur from the mouth of the ...
during the fighting in 1900, their cattle and horses were stolen by Russian Cossacks who then burned their villages and homes to ashes. Manchu Banner armies were destroyed while resisting the invasion, many annihilated by Russians. Manchu Shoufu killed himself during the battle of Peking and the Manchu Lao She
Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, and is best known for his novel '' Rickshaw Boy'' ...
's father was killed by western soldiers in the battle as the Manchu banner armies of the Center Division of the Guards Army, Tiger Spirit Division and Peking Field Force in the Metropolitan banners were slaughtered by the western soldiers. The Inner city Legation Quarters and Catholic cathedral ( Church of the Saviour, Beijing) were both attacked by Manchu bannermen. Manchu bannermen were slaughtered by the Eight Nation Alliance all over Manchuria and Beijing because most of the Manchu bannermen supported the Boxers.The clan system of the Manchus in Aigun was obliterated by the despoliation of the area at the hands of the Russian invaders. There were 1,266 households including 900 Daurs
The Daur people (Khalkha Mongolian: Дагуур, ''Daguur''; ) are a Mongolic people in Northeast China. The Daur form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised in the People's Republic of China. They numbered 131,992 according to the ...
and 4,500 Manchus in Sixty-Four Villages East of the River and Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, o ...
until the Blagoveshchensk massacre and Sixty-Four Villages East of the River massacre committed by Russian Cossack soldiers. Many Manchu villages were burned by Cossacks in the massacre according to Victor Zatsepine.
Manchu royals, officials and officers like Yuxian, Qixiu 啟秀, Zaixun, Prince Zhuang and Captain Enhai (En Hai) were executed or forced to commit suicide by the Eight Nation Alliance. Manchu official Gangyi's 剛毅 execution was demanded, but he already died. ( Draft History of Qing Volume 465) Japanese soldiers arrested Qixiu before he was executed. Zaixun, Prince Zhuang was forced to commit suicide on 21 February 1901. They executed Yuxian on 22 February 1901. On 31 December 1900 German soldiers beheaded the Manchu captain Enhai for killing Clemens von Ketteler.
Reparations
After the capture of Peking by the foreign armies, some of Empress Dowager Cixi's advisers advocated that the war be carried on, arguing that China could have defeated the foreigners as it was disloyal and traitorous people within China who allowed Beijing and Tianjin to be captured by the Allies, and that the interior of China was impenetrable. They also recommended that Dong Fuxiang continue fighting. The Empress Dowager Cixi was practical, however, and decided that the terms were generous enough for her to acquiesce when she was assured of her continued reign after the war and that China would not be forced to cede any territory. On 7 September 1901, the Qing imperial court agreed to sign the "Boxer Protocol
The Boxer Protocol was signed on September 7, 1901, between the Qing Empire of China and the Eight-Nation Alliance that had provided military forces (including Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the Unit ...
" also known as Peace Agreement between the Eight-Nation Alliance and China. The protocol ordered the execution of 10 high-ranking officials linked to the outbreak and other officials who were found guilty for the slaughter of foreigners in China. Alfons Mumm (Freiherr von Schwarzenstein), Ernest Satow and Komura Jutaro signed on behalf of Germany, Britain and Japan, respectively.
China was fined war reparations of 450,000,000 tael
Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the
at the
Hsu, 481
A large portion of the reparations paid to the United States was diverted to pay for the education of Chinese students in U.S. universities under the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program. To prepare the students chosen for this program an institute was established to teach the English language and to serve as a preparatory school. When the first of these students returned to China they undertook the teaching of subsequent students; from this institute was born 
The China Inland Mission lost more members than any other missionary agency:
58 adults and 21 children were killed. However, in 1901, when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor refused to accept payment for loss of property or life in order to demonstrate the meekness and gentleness of Christ to the Chinese.
The Belgian Catholic vicar apostolic of Ordos, Msgr. Alfons Bermyn wanted foreign troops garrisoned in
Concurrently, the period marks the decline of European great power interference in Chinese affairs, with the Japanese replacing the Europeans as the dominant power for their lopsided involvement in the war against the Boxers as well as their victory in the
In other countries, views of the Boxers were complex and contentious. 
The events also left a longer impact. Historian Robert Bickers, noted that for the
WorldCat
/ref> In Saints, Four-Sister a.k.a. Vibiana learns of the Christian faith, but was killed by Bao. * The 2013 video game ''
"Review", ''The China Quarterly''
173 (2003): 234–237. calls this a strong "revisionist" account. * *
Excerpt
* * * * ; British title: ''Besieged in Peking: The Story of the 1900 Boxer Rising'' (London: Constable, 1999); popular history. * * *
online review
* Buck, David D. "Recent Studies of the Boxer Movement", ''Chinese Studies in History'' 20 (1987). Introduction to a special issue of the journal devoted to translations of recent research on the Boxers in the People's Republic. * Der Ling, Princess (1928). ''Old Buddha'', Dodd, Mead & Company. Chapters XXXII-XXXVIII. * Harrison, Henrietta. "Justice on Behalf of Heaven" ''History Today'' (Sep 2000), Vol. 50 Issue 9, pp 44–51 online; popular history. * Knüsel, Ariane. "Facing the Dragon: Teaching the Boxer Uprising Through Cartoons." ''History Teacher'' 50.2 (2017): 201–226
online
* Shan, Patrick Fuliang (2018). ''Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal'', The University of British Columbia Press. . * Purcell, Victor (1963). ''The Boxer Uprising: A background study''
online edition
* * Wu, Jiarui. "Ramifications of Two Divergent Paths: A Comparative Study of 1900 and 2020 Crises in China." ''Advances in Historical Studies'' 11.1 (2022): 1–14. online
China and the Allies
* Pierre Loti, ''The Last Days of Pekin'' (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1902): tr. of ''Les Derniers Jours De Pékin'' (Paris: Lévy, 1900). * W. A. P. Martin, ''The Siege in Peking, China against the World'' (New York: F. H. Revell company, 1900). * Putnam Weale, Bertram Lenox, (1907). ''Indiscreet Letters from Peking: Being the Notes of an Eyewitness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, From Day to Day, The Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900– The Year of Great Tribulation.'' Dodd, Mead
Free ebook
Volume IVolume II
An account of the Boxers and the siege by a missionary who had lived in a North China village.
Lost in the Gobi Desert: Hart retraces great-grandfather's footsteps
William & Mary News Story, 3 January 2005.
September 1900 San Francisco Newspaper
200 Photographs in Library of Congress online Collection
* *
* ttps://archive.org/details/proceedingstent00berngoog Proceedings of the Tenth Universal Peace Congress, 1901
Pictures from the Siege of Peking
from the Caldwell Kvaran archives
an excerpt of Pierre Loti's ''Les Derniers Jours de Pékin'' (1902).
Documents of the Boxer Rebellion (China Relief Expedition), 1900–1901
National Museum of the U.S. Navy (Selected Naval Documents). *
{{Authority control Wars involving the United States 1899 in China 1899 in Christianity 1900 in China 1900 in Christianity 1901 in China 1901 in Christianity Anti-Christian sentiment in Asia Anti-imperialism in Asia Attacks on diplomatic missions in China Battles involving the princely states of India Chinese nationalism Chinese Taoists Conflicts involving the German Empire Eight Banners History of the Royal Marines Looting Persecution of Christians Rebellions in the Qing dynasty Shamanism United States Marine Corps in the 18th and 19th centuries United States Marine Corps in the 20th century Wars involving France Wars involving Germany Wars involving Italy Wars involving Japan Wars involving the Habsburg Monarchy Wars involving the Russian Empire Wars involving the United Kingdom
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Project ...
. Some of the reparation due to Britain was later earmarked for a similar program.
The China Inland Mission lost more members than any other missionary agency:
58 adults and 21 children were killed. However, in 1901, when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor refused to accept payment for loss of property or life in order to demonstrate the meekness and gentleness of Christ to the Chinese.
The Belgian Catholic vicar apostolic of Ordos, Msgr. Alfons Bermyn wanted foreign troops garrisoned in Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for ...
, but the Governor refused. Bermyn petitioned the Manchu Enming to send troops to Hetao
Hetao () is a C-shaped region in northwestern China consisting of a collection of flood plains stretching from the banks of the northern half of the Ordos Loop, a large northerly rectangular bend of the Yellow River that forms the river's enti ...
where Prince Duan's Mongol troops and General Dong Fuxiang
Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), courtesy name Xingwu (), was a Chinese general who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was born in the Western Chinese province of Gansu. He commanded an army of Hui soldiers, which included the later Ma clique gene ...
's Muslim troops allegedly threatened Catholics. It turned out that Bermyn had created the incident as a hoax. Western Catholic missionaries forced Mongols to give up their land to Han Chinese Catholics as part of the Boxer indemnities according to Mongol historian Shirnut Sodbilig. Mongols had participated in attacks against Catholic missions in the Boxer rebellion.
The Qing government did not capitulate to all the foreign demands. The Manchu governor Yuxian, was executed, but the imperial court refused to execute the Han Chinese General Dong Fuxiang, although he had also encouraged the killing of foreigners during the rebellion. Empress Dowager Cixi intervened when the Alliance demanded him executed and Dong was only cashiered and sent back home. Instead, Dong lived a life of luxury and power in "exile" in his home province of Gansu. Upon Dong's death in 1908, all honours which had been stripped from him were restored and he was given a full military burial.
Long-term consequences
The European great powers ceased their ambitions of colonising China since they had learned from the Boxer rebellions that the best way to deal with China was through the ruling dynasty, rather than directly with the Chinese people (a sentiment embodied in the adage: "The people are afraid of officials, the officials are afraid of foreigners, and the foreigners are afraid of the people") (), and they even briefly assisted the Qing in their war against the Japanese to prevent Japanese domination in the region.
Concurrently, the period marks the decline of European great power interference in Chinese affairs, with the Japanese replacing the Europeans as the dominant power for their lopsided involvement in the war against the Boxers as well as their victory in the First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between Qing dynasty, China and Empire of Japan, Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land ...
. With the toppling of the Qing that followed and the rise of the Nationalist Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
, European sway in China was reduced to symbolic status. After replacing Russian influence in the southern half of Inner Manchuria as a result of the Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and ...
, Japan came to dominate Asian affairs militarily and culturally with many of the Chinese scholars also educated in Japan, the most prominent example being Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serv ...
, who would later found the Nationalist Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
in China.
In October 1900, Russia occupied the provinces of Manchuria, a move that threatened Anglo-American hopes of maintaining the country's openness to commerce under the Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy () is the United States diplomatic policy established in the late 19th and early 20th century that called for a system of equal trade and investment and to guarantee the territorial integrity of Qing China. The policy was ...
.
Japan's clash with Russia over Liaodong
The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the ...
and other provinces in eastern Manchuria, because of the Russian refusal to honour the terms of the Boxer protocol that called for their withdrawal, led to the Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and ...
when two years of negotiations broke down in February 1904. The Russian Lease of the Liaodong (1898) was confirmed. Russia was ultimately defeated by an increasingly confident Japan.
Besides the compensation, Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlle ...
reluctantly started some reforms, despite her previous views. Known as the New Policies
Late Qing reforms (), commonly known as New Policies of the late Qing dynasty (), or New Deal of the late Qing dynasty, simply referred to as New Policies, were a series of cultural, economic, educational, military, and political reforms implemen ...
, which started in 1901, the imperial examination
The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...
system for government service was eliminated, and the system of education through Chinese classics was replaced with a European liberal system that led to a university degree. Along with the formation of new military and police organisations, the reforms also simplified central bureaucracy and made a start at revamping taxation policies. After the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor
The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, w ...
in 1908, the prince regent Zaifeng (Prince Chun), the Guangxu Emperor's brother, launched further reforms.
The effect on China was a weakening of the dynasty and its national defence capabilities. The government structure was temporarily sustained by the Europeans. Behind the international conflict, internal ideological differences between northern Chinese anti-foreign royalists and southern Chinese anti-Qing revolutionists were further deepened. The scenario in the last years of the Qing dynasty gradually escalated into a chaotic warlord era in which the most powerful northern warlords were hostile towards the southern revolutionaries, who overthrew the Qing monarchy in 1911. The rivalry was not fully resolved until the northern warlords were defeated by the Kuomintang's 1926–28 Northern Expedition
The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...
. Prior to the final defeat of the Boxer Rebellion, all anti-Qing movements in the previous century, such as the Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It laste ...
, had been successfully suppressed by the Qing.
The historian Walter LaFeber has argued that President William McKinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
's decision to send 5,000 American troops to quell the rebellion marks "the origins of modern presidential war powers":
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., concurred and wrote,
In the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...
, when the Japanese asked the Muslim general Ma Hongkui to defect and become head of a Muslim puppet state, he responded that his relatives had been killed during the Battle of Peking, including his uncle Ma Fulu
Ma Fulu ( Chinese: 马福禄, Pinyin: Mǎ Fúlù, Xiao'erjing: ; 1854 – 1900), a Chinese Muslim, was the son of General Ma Qianling and the brother of Ma Fucai, Ma Fushou and Ma Fuxiang. He was a middle born son.
In 1880, Ma Fulu went to ...
. Since Japanese troops made up most of the Alliance forces, there would be no co-operation with the Japanese.
Controversies and changing views of the Boxers
From the beginning, views differed as to whether the Boxers were better seen as anti-imperialist, patriotic and proto-nationalist, or as "uncivilized" irrational and futile opponents of inevitable change. The historian Joseph Esherick, comments that "confusion about the Boxer Uprising is not simply a matter of popular misconceptions" since "there is no major incident in China's modern history on which the range of professional interpretation is as great". The Boxers drew condemnation from those who wanted to modernise China on Western models of civilisation.Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serv ...
, the founding father of the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
and of the Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
(Chinese Nationalist Party), at the time worked to overthrow the Qing but believed that government spread rumours that "caused confusion among the populace" and stirred up the Boxer Movement. He delivered "scathing criticism" of the Boxers' "anti-foreignism and obscurantism". Sun praised the Boxers for their "spirit of resistance" but called them "bandits". Students studying in Japan were ambivalent. Some stated that while the uprising originated from the ignorant and stubborn people, their beliefs were brave and righteous and could be transformed into a force for independence. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, nationalistic Chinese became more sympathetic to the Boxers. In 1918, Sun praised their fighting spirit and said that the Boxers were courageous and fearless in fighting to the death against the Alliance armies, specifically the Battle of Yangcun
The Battle of Yangcun was a battle during the march of Eight-Nation Alliance forces from Tianjin to Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. The Alliance forces defeated the Qing and were able to continue their march towards Peking.
Background
...
. Chinese liberals such as Hu Shih
Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese libera ...
, who called on China to modernise, still condemned the Boxers for their irrationality and barbarity. The leader of the New Culture Movement
The New Culture Movement () was a movement in China in the 1910s and 1920s that criticized classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture based upon progressive, modern and western ideals like democracy and science. Arising out of ...
, Chen Duxiu, forgave the "barbarism of the Boxer... given the crime foreigners committed in China" and contended that it was those "subservient to the foreigners" that truly "deserved our resentment."
In other countries, views of the Boxers were complex and contentious. Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
said that "the Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success." The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
also praised the Boxers and accused Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany of being chiefly responsible for the lootings, rapes, murders and the "Christian brutality" of the Russian and Western troops. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
mocked the Russian government's claim that it was protecting Christian civilisation: "Poor Imperial Government! So Christianly unselfish, and yet so unjustly maligned! Several years ago it unselfishly seized Port Arthur, and now it is unselfishly seizing Manchuria; it has unselfishly flooded the frontier provinces of China with hordes of contractors, engineers, and officers, who, by their conduct, have roused to indignation even the Chinese, known for their docility." The Russian newspaper ''Amurskii Krai'' criticised the killing of innocent civilians and charged that "restraint", "civilization" and "culture," instead of "racial hatred" and "destruction," would have been more becoming of a "civilized Christian nation." The paper asked, "What shall we tell civilized people? We shall have to say to them: 'Do not consider us as brothers anymore. We are mean and terrible people; we have killed those who hid at our place, who sought our protection.'"
Even some American churchmen spoke out in support of the Boxers. In 1912, the evangelist Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost said that the Boxer uprising was a
The Indian Bengali Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resha ...
attacked the European colonialists. A number of Indian soldiers in the British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...
sympathised with the cause of the Boxers, and in 1994 the Indian military
The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by th ...
returned a bell looted by British soldiers in the Temple of Heaven to China.
The events also left a longer impact. Historian Robert Bickers, noted that for the British government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_es ...
, the Boxer Rebellion served as the "equivalent of the Indian 'mutiny'", and the events of the rebellion influenced the idea of the Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racial color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a psychocultural menace from the Eastern world, ...
among the British public. Later events, he adds, such as the Chinese Nationalist Revolution in the 1920s and even the activities of the Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lea ...
of the 1960s were perceived as being in the shadow of the Boxers.
In Taiwan and Hong Kong, history textbooks often present the Boxer as irrational, but in Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
, the central government textbooks described the Boxer movement as an anti-imperialist, patriotic peasant movement that failed by the lack of leadership from the modern working class, and they described the international army as an invading force. In recent decades, however, large-scale projects of village interviews and explorations of archival sources have led historians in China to take a more nuanced view. Some non-Chinese scholars, such as Joseph Esherick, have seen the movement as anti-imperialist, but others hold that the concept "nationalistic" is anachronistic
An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...
because the Chinese nation had not been formed, and the Boxers were more concerned with regional issues. Paul Cohen's recent study includes a survey of "the Boxers as myth," which shows how their memory was used in changing ways in 20th-century China from the New Culture Movement
The New Culture Movement () was a movement in China in the 1910s and 1920s that criticized classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture based upon progressive, modern and western ideals like democracy and science. Arising out of ...
to the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
.
In recent years, the Boxer question has been debated in the People's Republic of China. In 1998, the critical scholar Wang Yi argued that the Boxers had features in common with the extremism of the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
. Both events had the external goal of "liquidating all harmful pests" and the domestic goal of "eliminating bad elements of all descriptions" and that the relation was rooted in "cultural obscurantism." Wang explained to his readers the changes in attitudes towards the Boxers from the condemnation of the May Fourth Movement
The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chinese ...
to the approval expressed by Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PR ...
during the Cultural Revolution. In 2006, Yuan Weishi, a professor of philosophy at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, wrote that the Boxers by their "criminal actions brought unspeakable suffering to the nation and its people! These are all facts that everybody knows, and it is a national shame that the Chinese people cannot forget." Yuan charged that history textbooks had been lacking in neutrality by presenting the Boxer Uprising as a "magnificent feat of patriotism" and not the view that most Boxer rebels were violent. In response, some labelled Yuan Weishi a "traitor" (Hanjian
In Chinese culture, the word ''hanjian'' () is a pejorative term for a traitor to the Han Chinese state and, to a lesser extent, Han ethnicity. The word ''hanjian'' is distinct from the general word for traitor, which could be used for any co ...
).
Terminology
The name "Boxer Rebellion", concludes Joseph W. Esherick, a contemporary historian, is truly a "misnomer", for the Boxers "never rebelled against the Manchu rulers of China and their Qing dynasty" and the "most common Boxer slogan, throughout the history of the movement, was 'support the Qing, destroy the Foreign,' where 'foreign' clearly meant the foreign religion, Christianity, and its Chinese converts as much as the foreigners themselves." He adds that only after the movement was suppressed by the Allied Intervention did the foreign powers and influential Chinese officials both realise that the Qing would have to remain as the government of China in order to maintain order and collect taxes in order to pay the indemnity. Therefore, in order tosave face
Face is a class of behaviors and customs practiced mainly in Asian cultures, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual (or group of individuals), and its image in social groups.
Face refers to a sociological concept in ...
for the Empress Dowager and the members of the imperial court, all argued that the Boxers were rebels and that the only support which the Boxers received from the imperial court came from a few Manchu princes. Esherick concludes that the origin of the term "rebellion" was "purely political and opportunistic", but it has had a remarkable staying power, particularly in popular accounts.
On 6 June 1900, ''The Times'' of London used the term "rebellion" in quotation marks, presumably to indicate its view that the rising was actually instigated by Empress Dowager Cixi. The historian Lanxin Xiang refers to the uprising as the "so called 'Boxer Rebellion,'" and he also states that "while peasant rebellion was nothing new in Chinese history, a war against the world's most powerful states was." Other recent Western works refer to the uprising as the "Boxer Movement", the "Boxer War" or the Yihetuan Movement, while Chinese studies refer to it as the 义和团运动 (Yihetuan yundong), that is, the "Yihetuan Movement." In his discussion of the general and legal implications of the terminology involved, the German scholar Thoralf Klein notes that all of the terms, including the Chinese terms, are "posthumous interpretations of the conflict." He argues that each term, whether it be "uprising", "rebellion" or "movement" implies a different definition of the conflict. Even the term "Boxer War", which has frequently been used by scholars in the West, raises questions. Neither side made a formal declaration of war. The imperial edicts on June 21 said that hostilities had begun and directed the regular Chinese army to join the Boxers against the Allied armies. This was a de facto declaration of war. The Allied troops behaved like soldiers who were mounting a punitive expedition in colonial style, rather than soldiers who were waging a declared war with legal constraints. The Allies took advantage of the fact that China had not signed "The Laws and Customs of War on Land", a key document signed at the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. They argued that China had violated provisions that they themselves ignored.
There is also a difference in terms referring to the combatants. The first reports which came from China in 1898 referred to the village activists as the "Yihequan", (Wade–Giles: I Ho Ch'uan). The earliest use of the term "Boxer" is contained in a letter which was written in Shandong in September 1899 by missionary Grace Newton. The context of the letter makes it clear that when it was written, "Boxer" was already a well-known term, probably coined by Arthur H. Smith or Henry Porter, two missionaries who were also residing in Shandong. Smith says in his 1902 book that the name
Later representations
By 1900, many new forms of media had matured, including illustrated newspapers and magazines, postcards, broadsides, and advertisements, all of which presented images of the Boxers and the invading armies. The rebellion was covered in the foreign illustrated press by artists and photographers. Paintings and prints were also published including Japanese woodblocks. In the following decades, the Boxers were a constant subject of comment. A sampling includes: * In the Polish play '' The Wedding'' byStanisław Wyspiański
Stanisław Mateusz Ignacy Wyspiański (; 15 January 1869 – 28 November 1907) was a Polish playwright, painter and poet, as well as interior and furniture designer. A patriotic writer, he created a series of symbolic, national dramas withi ...
, first published on 16 March 1901, even before the rebellion was finally crushed, the character of Czepiec asks the Journalist (''Dziennikarz'') one of the best-known questions in the history of Polish literature: ''"Cóż tam, panie, w polityce? Chińczyki trzymają się mocno!?'' (''"How are things in politics, Mister? Are the Chinese holding out firmly!?"'').
* Liu E, '' The Travels of Lao Can'' sympathetically shows an honest official trying to carry out reforms and depicts the Boxers as sectarian rebels.
* G. A. Henty, ''With the Allies to Pekin, a Tale of the Relief of the Legations'' (New York: Scribners, 1903; London: Blackie, 1904). Juvenile fiction by a widely read author depicts the Boxers as "a mob of ruffians."
* A false or forged diary, ''Diary of his Excellency Ching-Shan: Being a Chinese Account of the Boxer Troubles'', including text written by Edmund Backhouse, who claimed he recovered the document from a burnt building. It is suspected that Backhouse falsified the document, as well as other stories because he was prone to tell tales dubious in nature, including claims of nightly visits to the Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlle ...
.
* In Hergé's ''The Adventures of Tintin
''The Adventures of Tintin'' (french: Les Aventures de Tintin ) is a series of 24 ''bande dessinée'' albums created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comi ...
'' comic '' The Blue Lotus'', Tintin's Chinese friend Chang Chong-Chen when they first meet, after Tintin saves the boy from drowning, the boy asks Tintin why he saved him from drowning as, according to Chang's uncle who fought in the Rebellion, all white people were wicked.
* The novel '' Moment in Peking'' (1939), by Lin Yutang, opens during the Boxer Rebellion, and provides a child's-eye view of the turmoil through the eyes of the protagonist.
* ''Tulku
A ''tulku'' (, also ''tülku'', ''trulku'') is a reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism who is given empowerments and trained from a young age by students of his or her predecessor.
High-profile examples ...
'', a 1979 children's novel by Peter Dickinson, includes the effects of the Boxer Rebellion on a remote part of China.
* ''The Diamond Age
''The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in w ...
or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' (New York, 1996), by Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque.
Stephenson's work exp ...
, includes a quasi-historical re-telling of the Boxer Rebellion as an integral component of the novel
* The novel '' The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure'' (2003), by Adam Williams, describes the experiences of a small group of foreign missionaries, traders, and railway engineers in a fictional town in northern China shortly before and during the Boxer Rebellion.
* Illusionist William Ellsworth Robinson (a.k.a. Chung Ling Soo) had a bullet-catch trick entitled "Condemned to Death by the Boxers", which famously resulted in his onstage death.
* The 1963 film ''55 Days at Peking
''55 Days at Peking'' is a 1963 American epic historical war film dramatizing the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Peking (now known as Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion, which took place in China from 1899 to 1901. It was produc ...
'' directed by Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray (born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle Jr., August 7, 1911 – June 16, 1979) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor best known for the 1955 film '' Rebel Without a Cause.'' He is appreciated for many narrative features p ...
and starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven
James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in '' Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...
.
* In 1975 Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers studio produced the film ''Boxer Rebellion'' () under director Chang Cheh
Chang Cheh (; 10 February 1923 – 22 June 2002) was a Chinese filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist and producer active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Chang Cheh directed more than 90 films in Greater China, the majority of them with the Shaw Br ...
with one of the highest budgets to tell a sweeping story of disillusionment and revenge.
* Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers '' Legendary Weapons of China'' (1981), director Lau Kar Leung. A comedy starring Hsiao Ho (Hsiao Hou) as a disillusioned boxer of the Magic Clan who is sent to assassinate the former leader of a powerful boxer clan who refuses to dupe his students into believing they are impervious to firearms.
* There are several flashbacks to the Boxer Rebellion in the television shows '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles inclu ...
.'' During the conflict, Spike kills his first slayer to impress Drusilla, and Angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles inclu ...
decisively splits from Darla.
* The film '' Shanghai Knights'' (2003), starring Jackie Chan
Fang Shilong (born 7 April 1954), known professionally in English as Jackie Chan and in Chinese as Cheng Long ( zh, c=成龍, j=Sing4 Lung4; "becoming the dragon"), is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman known for ...
and Owen Wilson, takes place in 1887 and features Boxers as the henchmen of the film's lead antagonist, English Lord Rathbone ( Aiden Gillen), either working as mercenaries
A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
for Rathbone, or helping him as part of their support for the anti-imperialist leader Wu Chow (Donnie Yen
Donnie Yen Chi-tan (; born 27 July 1963) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, and action director. Yen is one of Hong Kong's top action stars. Yen is widely credited for bringing mixed martial arts (MMA) into the mainstream Asian cinema by cho ...
), Rathbone's ally.
* '' The Last Empress'' (Boston, 2007), by Anchee Min, describes the long reign of the Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlle ...
in which the siege of the legations is one of the climactic events in the novel.
* Mo, Yan. ''Sandalwood Death.'' The viewpoint of villagers during Boxer Uprising.
* The pair of graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s by Gene Luen Yang, with color by Lark Pien, '' Boxers and Saints,'' describes the "bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers" who "roam the countryside bullying and robbing Chinese peasants." In Boxers, Little Bao, "harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods", recruits an army of Boxers, "commoners trained in kung fu
Chinese martial arts, often called by the umbrella terms kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common ...
who fight to free China from 'foreign devils.'"'' Boxers and Saints'' (First Second Books, 2013WorldCat
/ref> In Saints, Four-Sister a.k.a. Vibiana learns of the Christian faith, but was killed by Bao. * The 2013 video game ''
BioShock Infinite
''BioShock Infinite'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games. The third installment in the ''BioShock'' series, ''Infinite'' was released worldwide for the Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 36 ...
'' featured the Boxer Rebellion as a major historical moment for the floating city of Columbia. Columbia, to rescue American hostages during the rebellion, opened fire upon the city of Peking and burned it to the ground. These actions resulted in the United States recalling Columbia, which led to its secession from the Union.
* The Boxer Rebellion is the historical backdrop for the episode titled "Kung Fu Crabtree" (Season 7, Episode 16, aired 24 March 2014) of the television series ''Murdoch Mysteries
''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian television drama series that premiered on Citytv on January 20, 2008, and currently airs on CBC. The series is based on characters from the ''Detective Murdoch'' novels by Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick ...
,'' in which Chinese officials visit Toronto in 1900 in search of Boxers who have fled from China.
See also
* Battle of Peking (1900) * Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program * Century of humiliation *China Relief Expedition
The China Relief Expedition was an expedition in China undertaken by the United States Armed Forces to rescue United States citizens, European nationals, and other foreign nationals during the latter years of the Boxer Rebellion, which lasted f ...
* Donghak Rebellion, an anti-foreign, proto-nationalist uprising in pre-Japanese Korea
* Gengzi Guobian Tanci
* Imperial Decree on events leading to the signing of Boxer Protocol
* List of 1900–1930 publications on the Boxer Rebellion
* Xishiku Cathedral
References
Citations
Sources
* * * David D. Buck"Review", ''The China Quarterly''
173 (2003): 234–237. calls this a strong "revisionist" account. * *
Excerpt
* * * * ; British title: ''Besieged in Peking: The Story of the 1900 Boxer Rising'' (London: Constable, 1999); popular history. * * *
Further reading
General accounts and analysis
In addition to those used in the notes and listed under References, general accounts can be found in such textbooks as Jonathan Spence, ''In Search of Modern China'', pp.230–235; Keith Schoppa, ''Revolution and Its Past'', pp. 118–123; and Immanuel Hsu, Ch 16, "The Boxer Uprising", in ''The Rise of Modern China'' (1990). * Bickers, Robert A., and R. G. Tiedemann, eds., ''The Boxers, China, and the World''. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. . * Bickers, Robert A. ''The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1800–1914'' (London: Allen Lane, 2011)online review
* Buck, David D. "Recent Studies of the Boxer Movement", ''Chinese Studies in History'' 20 (1987). Introduction to a special issue of the journal devoted to translations of recent research on the Boxers in the People's Republic. * Der Ling, Princess (1928). ''Old Buddha'', Dodd, Mead & Company. Chapters XXXII-XXXVIII. * Harrison, Henrietta. "Justice on Behalf of Heaven" ''History Today'' (Sep 2000), Vol. 50 Issue 9, pp 44–51 online; popular history. * Knüsel, Ariane. "Facing the Dragon: Teaching the Boxer Uprising Through Cartoons." ''History Teacher'' 50.2 (2017): 201–226
online
* Shan, Patrick Fuliang (2018). ''Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal'', The University of British Columbia Press. . * Purcell, Victor (1963). ''The Boxer Uprising: A background study''
online edition
* * Wu, Jiarui. "Ramifications of Two Divergent Paths: A Comparative Study of 1900 and 2020 Crises in China." ''Advances in Historical Studies'' 11.1 (2022): 1–14. online
Missionary experience and personal accounts
* Bell, P, and Clements, R, (2014). ''Lives from a Black Tin Box'' The story of the Xinzhou martyrs, Shanxi Province. * Brandt, Nat (1994). ''Massacre in Shansi.'' Syracuse University Press. . The story of the Oberlin missionaries at Taigu, Shanxi. * Clark, Anthony E. (2015). ''Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in Shanxi.'' Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. * Hsia, R. Po-chia. "Christianity and Empire: The Catholic Mission in Late Imperial China." ''Studies in Church History'' 54 (2018): 208–224. * Price, Eva Jane. ''China Journal, 1889–1900: An American Missionary Family During the Boxer Rebellion,'' (1989). . Review: Susanna Ashton, "Compound Walls: Eva Jane Price's Letters from a Chinese Mission, 1890–1900." ''Frontiers'' 1996 17(3): 80–94. . The journal of the events leading up to the deaths of the Price family. * Sharf, Frederic A., and Peter Harrington (2000). ''China 1900: The Eyewitnesses Speak''. London: Greenhill. . Excerpts from German, British, Japanese, and American soldiers, diplomats and journalists. * Sharf, Frederic A., and Peter Harrington (2000). ''China 1900: The Artists' Perspective''. London: Greenhill. * Tiedemann, R.G. "Boxers, Christians and the culture of violence in north China" ''Journal of Peasant Studies'' (1998) 25:4 pp 150–160, DOI: 10.1080/03066159808438688 * Tiedemann, R.G. ''Reference Guide to Christian Missionary Societies in China: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century'' (East Gate Books, 2009)Allied intervention, the Boxer War, and the aftermath
* Bodin, Lynn E. and Christopher Warner. ''The Boxer Rebellion''. London: Osprey, Men-at-Arms Series 95, 1979. (pbk.) Illustrated history of the military campaign. * * Hevia, James L. "Leaving a Brand on China: Missionary Discourse in the Wake of the Boxer Movement", ''Modern China'' 18.3 (1992): 304–332. * Hevia, James L. "A Reign of Terror: Punishment and Retribution in Beijing and its Environs", Chapter 6, in ''English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China'' (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 195–240. * Hunt, Michael H. "The American Remission of the Boxer Indemnity: A Reappraisal", ''Journal of Asian Studies'' 31 (Spring 1972): 539–559. * Hunt, Michael H. "The Forgotten Occupation: Peking, 1900–1901", ''Pacific Historical Review'' 48.4 (November 1979): 501–529. * Langer, William. ''The Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890–1902'' (2nd ed. 1950), pp. 677–709.Contemporary accounts and sources
* . A contemporary account. * * E. H. Edwards, ''Fire and Sword in Shansi: The Story of the Martyrdom of Foreigners and Chinese Christians'' (New York: Revell, 1903) * Isaac Taylor Headland, ''Chinese Heroes; Being a Record of Persecutions Endured by Native Christians in the Boxer Uprising'' (New York, Cincinnati: Eaton & Mains; Jennings & Pye, 1902). * Arnold Henry Savage Landor, ''China and the Allies'' (New York: Scribner's, 1901). 01008198Google Books
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China and the Allies
* Pierre Loti, ''The Last Days of Pekin'' (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1902): tr. of ''Les Derniers Jours De Pékin'' (Paris: Lévy, 1900). * W. A. P. Martin, ''The Siege in Peking, China against the World'' (New York: F. H. Revell company, 1900). * Putnam Weale, Bertram Lenox, (1907). ''Indiscreet Letters from Peking: Being the Notes of an Eyewitness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, From Day to Day, The Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900– The Year of Great Tribulation.'' Dodd, Mead
Free ebook
Project Gutenberg
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.
* Arthur H. Smith, ''China in Convulsion'' (New York: F. H. Revell, 2 vols. 1901). Internet ArchivVolume I
An account of the Boxers and the siege by a missionary who had lived in a North China village.
External links
Lost in the Gobi Desert: Hart retraces great-grandfather's footsteps
William & Mary News Story, 3 January 2005.
September 1900 San Francisco Newspaper
200 Photographs in Library of Congress online Collection
* *
* ttps://archive.org/details/proceedingstent00berngoog Proceedings of the Tenth Universal Peace Congress, 1901
Pictures from the Siege of Peking
from the Caldwell Kvaran archives
an excerpt of Pierre Loti's ''Les Derniers Jours de Pékin'' (1902).
Documents of the Boxer Rebellion (China Relief Expedition), 1900–1901
National Museum of the U.S. Navy (Selected Naval Documents). *
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
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