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Boxer Rebellion
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/20/19
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
American troops scale the walls of Beijing
Japanese soldiers in the Battle of Tientsin
British and Japanese soldiers in the Battle of Beijing
Boxer Rebellion
Beijing Castle Boxer Rebellion 1900
Date 2 November 1899 – 7 September 1901
(1 year, 10 months, 5 days)
Location
North China
Result Allied victory
Boxer Protocol signed
The Boxer Rebellion (拳亂), Boxer Uprising, or Yihetuan Movement (義和團運動) was an anti-imperialist, anti-foreign, and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, toward the end of the Qing dynasty.
It was initiated by the Militia United in Righteousness (Yìhéquán), known in English as the Boxers because many of their members had been practitioners of Chinese martial arts, also referred to in the west as Chinese Boxing. Villagers in North China had been building resentment against Christian missionaries who ignored tax obligations and abused their extraterritorial rights to protect their congregants against lawsuits. The immediate background of the uprising included severe drought and disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence following the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. After several months of growing violence and murder in Shandong and the North China Plain against the foreign and Christian presence in June 1900, Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners. Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter.
In response to reports of an invasion by Eight Nation Alliance of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian troops to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 issued an Imperial Decree declaring war on the foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians, and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were besieged for 55 days by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring 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 Mutual Protection of Southeast China ignored the imperial order to fight against foreigners.
The Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and arrived at Peking on August 14, relieving the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers. The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 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 taels of silver—approximately $10 billion at 2018 silver prices and more than the government's annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved.
Historical background
Origins of the Boxers
Wax model of a Boxer, armed with a spear and sword. Model by George S. Stuart.
Boxer Rebellion and Eight-Nation Alliance, China 1900-1901
The Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihequan) arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong, long known for social unrest, religious sects, and martial societies. American Christian missionaries were probably the first to refer to the well-trained, athletic young men as "Boxers", because of the martial arts and weapons training they practiced. Their primary practice was a type of spiritual possession which involved the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and chanting incantations to deities.[11]
The opportunities to fight back Western encroachment and colonization were especially attractive to unemployed village men, many of whom were teenagers.[12] The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West.[13] The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability towards blows of cannon, rifle shots, and knife attacks. Furthermore, the Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers of Heaven would descend to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression.[14]
In 1895, in spite of ambivalence toward their heterodox practices, Yuxian, a Manchu who was then prefect of Caozhou and would later become provincial governor, used the Big Swords Society in fighting bandits. The Big Swords, emboldened by this official support, also attacked their local Catholic village rivals, who turned to the Church for protection. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic churches and burning them. "The line between Christians and bandits", remarks one recent historian, "became increasingly indistinct." 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.[15]
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, specializing in skin ulcers, and gained wide respect by refusing payment for his treatments.[16] Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty 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").[17]
The enemy was foreign influence. They decided the "primary devils" were the Christian missionaries, and the "secondary devils" were the Chinese converts to Christianity. Both had to recant or be driven out or killed.[18][19]
Causes of conflict and unrest
Major powers plan to cut up China for themselves; America, Germany, Italy, UK, France, Russia, Austria are represented by Wilhelm II, Umberto I, John Bull, Franz Joseph I (in rear), Uncle Sam, Nicholas II, and Emile Loubet. Punch Aug 23, 1899, by J. S. Pughe
The combination of extreme weather conditions, Western attempts at colonizing China and growing anti-imperialist sentiment fueled the movement. First, a drought followed by floods in Shandong province in 1897–1898 forced farmers to flee to cities and seek food. As one observer said, "I am convinced that a few days' heavy rainfall to terminate the long-continued drought ... would do more to restore tranquility than any measures which either the Chinese government or foreign governments can take."[20]
A major cause of discontent in north China was missionary activity. The Treaty of Tientsin (or Tianjin) and the Convention of Peking, signed in 1860 after the Second Opium War, had granted foreign missionaries the freedom to preach anywhere in China and to buy land on which to build churches.[21] 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 received news of these murders, he dispatched the German East Asia Squadron to occupy Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula. [22] Germany's action triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence in China.[23]
In December 1897 German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, precipitating the scramble to demarcate zones of influence in China. The German government acquired, in Shandong province, exclusive control over developmental loans, mining, and railway ownership,[24] while Russia gained a sphere over all territory north of the Great Wall,[25] in addition to the previous tax exemption for trade in Mongolia and Xinjiang,[26] economic powers similar to Germany's over Fengtian, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. France gained a sphere over Yunnan, most of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces,[27] Japan over Fujian province,[27] and the British Empire over the whole Yangtze River Valley[27] (defined as all provinces adjoining the Yangtze river as well as Henan and Zhejiang provinces[25]), parts of[28] Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and part of Tibet.[29] Only Italy's request for Zhejiang province was declined by the Chinese government.[27] 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,[30] the latter without Chinese consent.[31]
A French political cartoon depicting China as a pie about to be carved up by Queen Victoria (Britain), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany), Tsar Nicholas II (Russia), Marianne (France) and a samurai (Japan), while a Chinese mandarin helplessly looks on.
In October 1898, a group of Boxers attacked the Christian community of Liyuantun village where a temple to the Jade Emperor 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 would later characterise them.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34]
Aggression toward missionaries and Christians drew the ire of foreign (mainly European) governments.[35] 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 quite possibly all Christian activities were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to divide and colonize China piece by piece.[36] A Chinese official expressed the animosity towards foreigners succinctly, "Take away your missionaries and your opium and you will be welcome."[37]
The early growth of the Boxer movement coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (11 June – 21 September 1898). Progressive Chinese officials, with support from Protestant missionaries, persuaded the Guangxu Emperor to institute reforms which alienated many conservative officials by their sweeping nature. Such opposition from conservative officials led Empress Dowager Cixi to intervene and reverse the reforms. The failure of the reform movement disillusioned many educated Chinese and thus further weakened the Qing government. After the reforms ended, the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi seized power and placed the reformist Guangxu Emperor under house arrest.
The national crisis was widely seen as being caused by foreign aggression.[38] Foreign powers had defeated China in several wars, forced a right to promote Christianity and imposed unequal treaties under which foreigners and foreign companies in China were accorded special privileges, extraterritorial rights and immunities from Chinese law, causing resentment among the Chinese. France, Japan, Russia and Germany carved out spheres of influence, so that by 1900 it appeared that China would likely be dismembered, with foreign powers each ruling a part of the country. Thus, by 1900, the Qing dynasty, which had ruled China for more than two centuries, was crumbling and Chinese culture was under assault by powerful and unfamiliar religions and secular cultures.[39]
Boxer War
Intensifying crisis
Chinese Muslim troops from Gansu, also known as the Gansu Braves, killed a Japanese diplomat on 11 June 1900. Foreigners called them the "10,000 Islamic rabble."[40]
Baron von Ketteler
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, 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 disembarked from warships and travelled by train from Dagu (Taku) to Beijing. They set up defensive perimeters around their respective missions.[41]
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, who were guarding the southern part of the Beijing walled city.[42] Armed with Mauser rifles but wearing traditional uniforms,[43] Dong's troops had threatened the foreign Legations in the fall of 1898 soon after arriving in Beijing,[44] so much that troops from the United States Marine Corps had been called to Beijing to guard the legations.[45] The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was so alarmed by the Chinese Muslim troops that he requested the Caliph Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire to find a way to stop the Muslim troops from fighting.
The Caliph agreed to the Kaiser's request and sent Enver Pasha (not the future Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.[46]
Also on 11 June, the first Boxer, dressed in his finery, was seen in the Legation Quarter. The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer boy and inexplicably executed him.[47] 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.[48] American and British missionaries had taken 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,[49] alienating the Chinese population of the city and nudging the Qing government toward 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.[50]
Seymour Expedition
Main article: Seymour Expedition
Japanese marines who served in the Seymour Expedition
As the situation grew more violent, a second multinational force of 2,000 sailors and marines under the command of the British Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour, the largest contingent being British, was dispatched from Dagu to Beijing on 10 June 1900. The troops were transported by train from Dagu to Tianjin with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway between Tianjin and Beijing had been severed. Seymour resolved to move forward and repair the railway, or progress on foot if necessary, keeping in mind that the distance between Tianjin and Beijing was only 120 km. When Seymour left Tianjin and started toward Beijing, it angered the imperial court.
As a result, the pro-Boxer Manchu Prince Duan became leader of the Zongli Yamen (foreign office), replacing Prince Qing. Prince Duan was a member of the imperial Aisin Gioro clan (foreigners called him a "Blood Royal"), and Empress Dowager Cixi had named her son as next in line for the imperial throne. He became the effective leader of the Boxers, and was extremely anti-foreigner. He soon ordered the Qing 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.[51]
Admiral Seymour returning to Tianjin with his wounded men on 26 June
After leaving Tianjin, the convoy quickly reached Langfang, but found the railway there to be destroyed. Seymour's engineers tried to repair the line, but the allied army found itself surrounded, as the railway both behind and in front of them had been destroyed. They were attacked from all parts by Chinese irregulars and Chinese governmental 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 on 18 June.[52][53] As the allied European army retreated from Langfang, they were constantly fired upon by cavalry, and artillery bombarded their positions. It was reported that the Chinese artillery was superior to the European artillery, since the Europeans did not bother to bring along much for the campaign, thinking they could easily sweep through Chinese resistance.
The Europeans could not locate the Chinese artillery, which was raining shells upon their positions.[54] Mining, engineering, flooding and simultaneous attacks were employed by Chinese troops. The Chinese also employed pincer movements, ambushes and sniper tactics with some success against the foreigners.[55]
Italian mounted infantry near Tientsin in 1900
News arrived on 18 June regarding attacks on foreign legations. Seymour decided to continue advancing, this time along the Beihe river, toward Tongzhou, 25 kilometres (16 mi) from Beijing. By the 19th, they had to abandon their efforts due to progressively stiffening resistance and started to retreat southward along the river with over 200 wounded. Commandeering four civilian Chinese junks along the river, they loaded all their wounded and remaining supplies onto them and pulled them along with ropes from the riverbanks. By this point they were very low on food, ammunition and medical supplies. Unexpectedly they then happened upon the Great Xigu Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache of which the Allied Powers had had no knowledge until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering not only Krupp field guns, but 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 was able to infiltrate through the Boxer and Qing lines, informing the Eight Powers of the Seymour troops' predicament. Surrounded and attacked nearly around the clock by Qing troops and Boxers, they were at the point of being overrun. On 25 June, a regiment composed of 1,800 men (900 Russian troops from Port Arthur, 500 British seamen, with an ad hoc mix of other assorted Alliance troops) finally arrived on foot from Tientsin to rescue Seymour. Spiking the mounted field guns and setting fire to any munitions that they could not take (an estimated £3 million worth), Seymour, his force, and the rescue mission marched back to Tientsin, unopposed, on 26 June. Seymour's casualties during the expedition were 62 killed and 228 wounded.[56]
Conflicting attitudes within the Qing imperial court
Qing imperial soldiers during the Boxer Rebellion
Meanwhile, in Beijing, on 16 June, Empress Dowager Cixi summoned the imperial court for a mass audience and addressed the choices between using the Boxers to evict the foreigners from the city or seeking a diplomatic solution. In response to a high official who doubted the efficacy of the Boxers' magic, Cixi replied: 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.[57][58]
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
Locations of foreign diplomatic legations and front lines in Beijing during the siege
Main article: Siege of the International Legations
On 15 June, Qing imperial forces deployed electric mines in the River Beihe (Peiho) to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.[59] 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 demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners,[60] she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they [the Powers] have 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?"[61] 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.[62] On receipt of the news of the attack on the Dagu Forts on the 19th of 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.[63]
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.[64] 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.[65] Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of Prince Su who was forced to abandon his property by the foreign soldiers.[66]
Representative U.S., Indian, French, Italian, British, German, Austro-Hungarian and Japanese military and naval personnel forming part of the Allied forces
On the 21st of June, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers. Regional governors who commanded substantial modernised armies, such as Li Hongzhang at Canton, Yuan Shikai in Shandong, Zhang Zhidong[67] at Wuhan and Liu Kunyi at Nanjing, refused to join in the imperial court's declaration of war 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 out of the conflict.[68] They were called The Mutual Protection of Southeast China.[69]
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 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.[70] Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, 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 especially from lack of food and mines which the Chinese exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound.[71] The number of Chinese soldiers and Boxers besieging the Legation Quarter and the Beitang is unknown.
1900, soldiers burned down the Temple, Shanhaiguan. The destruction of a Chinese temple on the bank of the Pei-Ho, by Amédée Forestier
On the 22nd 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.[72]
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."[73] American missionary Frank Gamewell and his crew of "fighting parsons" fortified the Legation Quarter,[74] but impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labour of building defences.[75]
The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the Tartar Wall. Holding the top of the 45 ft (14 m) tall and 40 ft (12 m) wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and 400 yd (370 m) 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."[76] On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defence. 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.[77] The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.[78]
Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege.[79] 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.[79] On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded.[80] But American Minister Edwin Hurd Conger established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, an armistice was declared by the Chinese.[81] More than 40% of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation of the Chinese was probably the realization that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the siege was at hand.
Boxer Rebellion
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Accessed: 12/20/19
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On the 7th of April I went to see a great service of prayer for the Chinese Emperor in connexion with the “Boxer” war. It was held not only at Sera, but at every temple in Tibet. At the monastery where I lived they held a secret meeting for seven days, during which time special priests offered secret prayers. They were then to perform something secret for the victory of China. On enquiry I was told that Peking was invaded by the troops of several foreign countries, and that the Chinese seemed to have been beaten. They might be too late, they said, but they prayed for the safety of the Emperor of China. I was quite anxious to know more particulars, but they were all kept secret, and no one would tell me any more.
The prayer service was held in the Tsochen Hall at Sera, and commenced with a long warlike procession. First came the players on lyres, flageolets, drums, and large flutes, followed by men carrying incense-burners. Then came ten nice looking Tibetan boys, still in their teens, all dressed in fine Buḍḍhist robes ornamented with colored Chinese crape, and each burning incense. Next followed fifty spear-like objects on each side of the road, each surmounted with a movable blade like that of a Chinese spear. These blades had hilt guards, under which hung gold brocade or fine colored Chinese crape, sixteen feet long, thus making the spear twenty-five feet long altogether. The spear, the handle of which was either of gold or gilt, seemed rather heavy, for two strong warrior-priests carried each of them. Then came a triangular board about six feet high, with various figures made of butter on it, and after it another triangular board, four feet high,[298] with some red figure made of a mixture of baked flour, butter and honey. These boards were borne by seven or eight men. After them came some two hundred priests, dressed in handsome robes and scarfs quite dazzling to the eye. Half of these beat drums, while the other half carried cymbals. After these priests came the chief Lama, who was to offer the secret prayer. He had dressed himself in the splendid robes of his high rank. Last of all his disciples followed.
Thus the procession presented a grand sight, and the people of Lhasa came out in great crowds to see it. It marched out about two hundred yards from the great hall to an open yard outside the stone fence, where the view opened as far as Lhasa. Another two hundred yards further, the procession came before a grass-roofed shed, built of bamboo, wood and straw. There the chief Lama recited something in front of the triangular figures of butter and of baked wheat, and of the spear-shaped objects, while the two hundred priests around him chanted verses from the Buḍḍhist Scriptures, and beat drums and cymbals. A priest with a pair of cymbals walked through the lines of the priests; he seemed to be a sort of band-master, for he marched through their ranks beating time. His steps and gait were very odd and different from any dancings that I had ever seen. Soon the chief Lama was seen pretending to throw away his rosary, at which signal the spear-bearers threw their spears at the shed and then the triangular board of baked flour was thrown at it also. They then set fire to the shed, at the burning of which the priests as well as the spectators clapped their hands, crying out “Lha-kyallo! Lha-kyallo!” This is a Tibetan word, meaning “surely the Gods will triumph.” Thus was the ceremony over, one of the most splendid I had ever seen in Buḍḍhism. On the following day all the priests of the monastery were invited[299] to Lhasa to attend the Cho-en Joe service, which lasted a month, to pray that the Dalai Lama of Tibet might be kept from all evil during the year. This was a celebration said to be only second in importance to the other. I also went to Lhasa, and took lodging in the house of a Palpo merchant.
In the capital I got more definite information about the Boxer trouble. Perhaps some merchants who had returned from China, or some who had came from Nepāl or some who had been to India, might have brought the news; but it was all very laughable and unreliable. Some would say the Emperor of China had bequeathed his throne to the Crown Prince and absconded, while others told me that the Emperor was defeated and was then in Sin-an. The trouble was brought about, some said, by a wicked minister, who married an English lady to the Emperor, while others asserted that there was a country called Japan, which was so strong that her troops took possession of Peking. Another said that a famine prevailed in China and people were all famished; indeed, every sort of rumor was abroad in the Tibetan capital.
I was especially pleased to hear something about Japan, even the very name of which had not yet been heard in Tibet, and some merchants told me that Japan was so powerful and so chivalrous that even when her army had taken possession of Peking, she had sent shiploads of rice, wheat and clothing to the Chinese capital to relieve tens of thousands of natives who were suffering from famine. But others would say against Japan that she could not be such a friendly country, but must have done what she had done merely out of her crafty “land-grabbing diplomacy,” as the British nation did. Rumor after rumor was making its way through Tibet, and I did not know what to believe. Only I was pretty sure that a war had broken out between China and[300] other Powers. In the meantime the Palpo merchant with whom I was staying was going to Nepāl. I utilised the occasion and through his kindness sent two letters, one to Rai Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās in India, and the other to Mr. I. Hige of my native province. I was glad to find afterwards that they reached their destination, but it was very difficult to send a letter in that way; one must first see that the man by whom it is to be sent is honest and not likely to betray one’s secret, and one cannot easily trust a Tibetan. But my Tibetan had more than once been shown to be true to his trust.
-- Three Years in Tibet, by Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi
American troops scale the walls of Beijing
Japanese soldiers in the Battle of Tientsin
British and Japanese soldiers in the Battle of Beijing
Boxer Rebellion
Beijing Castle Boxer Rebellion 1900
Date 2 November 1899 – 7 September 1901
(1 year, 10 months, 5 days)
Location
North China
Result Allied victory
Boxer Protocol signed
The Boxer Rebellion (拳亂), Boxer Uprising, or Yihetuan Movement (義和團運動) was an anti-imperialist, anti-foreign, and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, toward the end of the Qing dynasty.
It was initiated by the Militia United in Righteousness (Yìhéquán), known in English as the Boxers because many of their members had been practitioners of Chinese martial arts, also referred to in the west as Chinese Boxing. Villagers in North China had been building resentment against Christian missionaries who ignored tax obligations and abused their extraterritorial rights to protect their congregants against lawsuits. The immediate background of the uprising included severe drought and disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence following the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. After several months of growing violence and murder in Shandong and the North China Plain against the foreign and Christian presence in June 1900, Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners. Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter.
In response to reports of an invasion by Eight Nation Alliance of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian troops to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 issued an Imperial Decree declaring war on the foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians, and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were besieged for 55 days by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring 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 Mutual Protection of Southeast China ignored the imperial order to fight against foreigners.
The Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and arrived at Peking on August 14, relieving the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers. The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 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 taels of silver—approximately $10 billion at 2018 silver prices and more than the government's annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved.
Historical background
Origins of the Boxers
Wax model of a Boxer, armed with a spear and sword. Model by George S. Stuart.
Boxer Rebellion and Eight-Nation Alliance, China 1900-1901
The Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihequan) arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong, long known for social unrest, religious sects, and martial societies. American Christian missionaries were probably the first to refer to the well-trained, athletic young men as "Boxers", because of the martial arts and weapons training they practiced. Their primary practice was a type of spiritual possession which involved the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and chanting incantations to deities.[11]
The opportunities to fight back Western encroachment and colonization were especially attractive to unemployed village men, many of whom were teenagers.[12] The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West.[13] The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability towards blows of cannon, rifle shots, and knife attacks. Furthermore, the Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers of Heaven would descend to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression.[14]
In 1895, in spite of ambivalence toward their heterodox practices, Yuxian, a Manchu who was then prefect of Caozhou and would later become provincial governor, used the Big Swords Society in fighting bandits. The Big Swords, emboldened by this official support, also attacked their local Catholic village rivals, who turned to the Church for protection. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic churches and burning them. "The line between Christians and bandits", remarks one recent historian, "became increasingly indistinct." 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.[15]
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, specializing in skin ulcers, and gained wide respect by refusing payment for his treatments.[16] Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty 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").[17]
The enemy was foreign influence. They decided the "primary devils" were the Christian missionaries, and the "secondary devils" were the Chinese converts to Christianity. Both had to recant or be driven out or killed.[18][19]
Causes of conflict and unrest
Major powers plan to cut up China for themselves; America, Germany, Italy, UK, France, Russia, Austria are represented by Wilhelm II, Umberto I, John Bull, Franz Joseph I (in rear), Uncle Sam, Nicholas II, and Emile Loubet. Punch Aug 23, 1899, by J. S. Pughe
The combination of extreme weather conditions, Western attempts at colonizing China and growing anti-imperialist sentiment fueled the movement. First, a drought followed by floods in Shandong province in 1897–1898 forced farmers to flee to cities and seek food. As one observer said, "I am convinced that a few days' heavy rainfall to terminate the long-continued drought ... would do more to restore tranquility than any measures which either the Chinese government or foreign governments can take."[20]
A major cause of discontent in north China was missionary activity. The Treaty of Tientsin (or Tianjin) and the Convention of Peking, signed in 1860 after the Second Opium War, had granted foreign missionaries the freedom to preach anywhere in China and to buy land on which to build churches.[21] 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 received news of these murders, he dispatched the German East Asia Squadron to occupy Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula. [22] Germany's action triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence in China.[23]
In December 1897 German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, precipitating the scramble to demarcate zones of influence in China. The German government acquired, in Shandong province, exclusive control over developmental loans, mining, and railway ownership,[24] while Russia gained a sphere over all territory north of the Great Wall,[25] in addition to the previous tax exemption for trade in Mongolia and Xinjiang,[26] economic powers similar to Germany's over Fengtian, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. France gained a sphere over Yunnan, most of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces,[27] Japan over Fujian province,[27] and the British Empire over the whole Yangtze River Valley[27] (defined as all provinces adjoining the Yangtze river as well as Henan and Zhejiang provinces[25]), parts of[28] Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and part of Tibet.[29] Only Italy's request for Zhejiang province was declined by the Chinese government.[27] 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,[30] the latter without Chinese consent.[31]
A French political cartoon depicting China as a pie about to be carved up by Queen Victoria (Britain), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany), Tsar Nicholas II (Russia), Marianne (France) and a samurai (Japan), while a Chinese mandarin helplessly looks on.
In October 1898, a group of Boxers attacked the Christian community of Liyuantun village where a temple to the Jade Emperor 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 would later characterise them.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34]
Aggression toward missionaries and Christians drew the ire of foreign (mainly European) governments.[35] 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 quite possibly all Christian activities were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to divide and colonize China piece by piece.[36] A Chinese official expressed the animosity towards foreigners succinctly, "Take away your missionaries and your opium and you will be welcome."[37]
The early growth of the Boxer movement coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (11 June – 21 September 1898). Progressive Chinese officials, with support from Protestant missionaries, persuaded the Guangxu Emperor to institute reforms which alienated many conservative officials by their sweeping nature. Such opposition from conservative officials led Empress Dowager Cixi to intervene and reverse the reforms. The failure of the reform movement disillusioned many educated Chinese and thus further weakened the Qing government. After the reforms ended, the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi seized power and placed the reformist Guangxu Emperor under house arrest.
The national crisis was widely seen as being caused by foreign aggression.[38] Foreign powers had defeated China in several wars, forced a right to promote Christianity and imposed unequal treaties under which foreigners and foreign companies in China were accorded special privileges, extraterritorial rights and immunities from Chinese law, causing resentment among the Chinese. France, Japan, Russia and Germany carved out spheres of influence, so that by 1900 it appeared that China would likely be dismembered, with foreign powers each ruling a part of the country. Thus, by 1900, the Qing dynasty, which had ruled China for more than two centuries, was crumbling and Chinese culture was under assault by powerful and unfamiliar religions and secular cultures.[39]
Boxer War
Intensifying crisis
Chinese Muslim troops from Gansu, also known as the Gansu Braves, killed a Japanese diplomat on 11 June 1900. Foreigners called them the "10,000 Islamic rabble."[40]
Baron von Ketteler
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, 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 disembarked from warships and travelled by train from Dagu (Taku) to Beijing. They set up defensive perimeters around their respective missions.[41]
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, who were guarding the southern part of the Beijing walled city.[42] Armed with Mauser rifles but wearing traditional uniforms,[43] Dong's troops had threatened the foreign Legations in the fall of 1898 soon after arriving in Beijing,[44] so much that troops from the United States Marine Corps had been called to Beijing to guard the legations.[45] The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was so alarmed by the Chinese Muslim troops that he requested the Caliph Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire to find a way to stop the Muslim troops from fighting.
The Caliph agreed to the Kaiser's request and sent Enver Pasha (not the future Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.[46]
Also on 11 June, the first Boxer, dressed in his finery, was seen in the Legation Quarter. The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer boy and inexplicably executed him.[47] 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.[48] American and British missionaries had taken 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,[49] alienating the Chinese population of the city and nudging the Qing government toward 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.[50]
Seymour Expedition
Main article: Seymour Expedition
Japanese marines who served in the Seymour Expedition
As the situation grew more violent, a second multinational force of 2,000 sailors and marines under the command of the British Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour, the largest contingent being British, was dispatched from Dagu to Beijing on 10 June 1900. The troops were transported by train from Dagu to Tianjin with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway between Tianjin and Beijing had been severed. Seymour resolved to move forward and repair the railway, or progress on foot if necessary, keeping in mind that the distance between Tianjin and Beijing was only 120 km. When Seymour left Tianjin and started toward Beijing, it angered the imperial court.
As a result, the pro-Boxer Manchu Prince Duan became leader of the Zongli Yamen (foreign office), replacing Prince Qing. Prince Duan was a member of the imperial Aisin Gioro clan (foreigners called him a "Blood Royal"), and Empress Dowager Cixi had named her son as next in line for the imperial throne. He became the effective leader of the Boxers, and was extremely anti-foreigner. He soon ordered the Qing 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.[51]
Admiral Seymour returning to Tianjin with his wounded men on 26 June
After leaving Tianjin, the convoy quickly reached Langfang, but found the railway there to be destroyed. Seymour's engineers tried to repair the line, but the allied army found itself surrounded, as the railway both behind and in front of them had been destroyed. They were attacked from all parts by Chinese irregulars and Chinese governmental 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 on 18 June.[52][53] As the allied European army retreated from Langfang, they were constantly fired upon by cavalry, and artillery bombarded their positions. It was reported that the Chinese artillery was superior to the European artillery, since the Europeans did not bother to bring along much for the campaign, thinking they could easily sweep through Chinese resistance.
The Europeans could not locate the Chinese artillery, which was raining shells upon their positions.[54] Mining, engineering, flooding and simultaneous attacks were employed by Chinese troops. The Chinese also employed pincer movements, ambushes and sniper tactics with some success against the foreigners.[55]
Italian mounted infantry near Tientsin in 1900
News arrived on 18 June regarding attacks on foreign legations. Seymour decided to continue advancing, this time along the Beihe river, toward Tongzhou, 25 kilometres (16 mi) from Beijing. By the 19th, they had to abandon their efforts due to progressively stiffening resistance and started to retreat southward along the river with over 200 wounded. Commandeering four civilian Chinese junks along the river, they loaded all their wounded and remaining supplies onto them and pulled them along with ropes from the riverbanks. By this point they were very low on food, ammunition and medical supplies. Unexpectedly they then happened upon the Great Xigu Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache of which the Allied Powers had had no knowledge until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering not only Krupp field guns, but 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 was able to infiltrate through the Boxer and Qing lines, informing the Eight Powers of the Seymour troops' predicament. Surrounded and attacked nearly around the clock by Qing troops and Boxers, they were at the point of being overrun. On 25 June, a regiment composed of 1,800 men (900 Russian troops from Port Arthur, 500 British seamen, with an ad hoc mix of other assorted Alliance troops) finally arrived on foot from Tientsin to rescue Seymour. Spiking the mounted field guns and setting fire to any munitions that they could not take (an estimated £3 million worth), Seymour, his force, and the rescue mission marched back to Tientsin, unopposed, on 26 June. Seymour's casualties during the expedition were 62 killed and 228 wounded.[56]
Conflicting attitudes within the Qing imperial court
Qing imperial soldiers during the Boxer Rebellion
Meanwhile, in Beijing, on 16 June, Empress Dowager Cixi summoned the imperial court for a mass audience and addressed the choices between using the Boxers to evict the foreigners from the city or seeking a diplomatic solution. In response to a high official who doubted the efficacy of the Boxers' magic, Cixi replied: 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.[57][58]
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
Locations of foreign diplomatic legations and front lines in Beijing during the siege
Main article: Siege of the International Legations
On 15 June, Qing imperial forces deployed electric mines in the River Beihe (Peiho) to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.[59] 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 demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners,[60] she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they [the Powers] have 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?"[61] 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.[62] On receipt of the news of the attack on the Dagu Forts on the 19th of 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.[63]
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.[64] 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.[65] Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of Prince Su who was forced to abandon his property by the foreign soldiers.[66]
Representative U.S., Indian, French, Italian, British, German, Austro-Hungarian and Japanese military and naval personnel forming part of the Allied forces
On the 21st of June, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers. Regional governors who commanded substantial modernised armies, such as Li Hongzhang at Canton, Yuan Shikai in Shandong, Zhang Zhidong[67] at Wuhan and Liu Kunyi at Nanjing, refused to join in the imperial court's declaration of war 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 out of the conflict.[68] They were called The Mutual Protection of Southeast China.[69]
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 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.[70] Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, 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 especially from lack of food and mines which the Chinese exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound.[71] The number of Chinese soldiers and Boxers besieging the Legation Quarter and the Beitang is unknown.
1900, soldiers burned down the Temple, Shanhaiguan. The destruction of a Chinese temple on the bank of the Pei-Ho, by Amédée Forestier
On the 22nd 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.[72]
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."[73] American missionary Frank Gamewell and his crew of "fighting parsons" fortified the Legation Quarter,[74] but impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labour of building defences.[75]
The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the Tartar Wall. Holding the top of the 45 ft (14 m) tall and 40 ft (12 m) wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and 400 yd (370 m) 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."[76] On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defence. 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.[77] The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.[78]
Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege.[79] 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.[79] On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded.[80] But American Minister Edwin Hurd Conger established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, an armistice was declared by the Chinese.[81] More than 40% of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation of the Chinese was probably the realization that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the siege was at hand.