|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Siege of the International Legations occurred during the Boxer Rebellion in the Chinese city of Beijing (Peking). Nine hundred military personnel and civilians, largely from Europe, Japan, and the United States, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Beijing Legation Quarter and survived a siege by certain parts of the Chinese Imperial Army. The siege was called by the New York Sun "the most exciting episode ever known to civilization."[1]
Contents |
The Legation Quarter was approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) long and 1 mi (1.6 km) wide. It was located in the area of the city designated by the Qing government for foreign legations. In 1900, there were 11 legations located in the quarter as well as a number of foreign businesses and banks. Ethnic Chinese-occupied houses and businesses were also scattered about the quarter. The 12 or so Christian missionary organizations in Beijing were not located in the Legation Quarter, but rather dispersed around the city. In total, there were about 500 citizens of Western countries and Japan residing in the city. The northern end of the Legation quarter was the location of the Imperial City where the Empress Dowager Cixi resided. At the southern end was the massive Tartar Wall which ringed the city.[2] The eastern and western ends were major streets.
In 1900, the great powers had been chipping away at Chinese sovereignty for 60 years. They had forced China to allow the import of opium which caused widespread addiction, defeated China in several wars, asserted a right to promote Christianity, and imposed unequal treaties under which foreigners and foreign companies in China were accorded special privileges and immunities from Chinese law. Thus, by 1900, the Qing or Manchu dynasty that had ruled China for more than two centuries was crumbling, and Chinese culture was under religious and secular assault by a powerful alien culture.[3]
Authorities differ as to the origin of the Boxers but they became prominent in Shangdong in 1898 and spread northward toward Beijing. They were an indigenous peasant movement, related to the secret societies that had flourished in China for centuries – and which, on occasion, had threatened Chinese central governments. The Boxers were named – probably by American missionary, Arthur H. Smith – for their acrobatic rituals which included martial arts, twirling swords, prayers, and incantations.[4] Similar to other anti-Western millenarian movements around the world, such as the Ghost Dance in the US, the Boxers believed that with the proper ritual they would become invulnerable to Western bullets. The religious and magical practices of the Boxers had “as a paramount goal the affording of protection and emotional security in the face of a future... that was fraught with danger and risk.”[5] The Boxers had no central organization but appear to have been organized on the village level. They were anti-foreign and anti-missionary. Their slogan was “Support the Qing! Destroy the Foreigner!”.[6] Initially feared as a possible threat by the Chinese government, they slowly gained the support of influential politicians in Beijing, who saw the Boxers as a movement that could be used to eliminate foreign influence in China.
In Spring 1900, the Boxers 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. Two missionaries, the Protestant William Scott Ament and Catholic Bishop Favier reported to the diplomatic Ministers (Ambassadors) about the growing threat.[7][8] American Minister Edwin H. Conger cabled Washington, “the whole country is swarming with hungry, discontented, hopeless idlers.” Requesting a warship to be stationed offshore from Tianjin, the nearest port to Beijing, he reported, “Situation becoming serious.”[9] On May 30, 1900, the diplomats, led by British Minister Claude Maxwell MacDonald, requested that foreign soldiers come to Beijing to defend the legations and the citizens of their countries. The Chinese government reluctantly acquiesced, and the next day more than 400 soldiers from eight countries disembarked from warships and traveled by train to Beijing from Tianjin. They set up defensive perimeters around their respective missions.[10][11]
On June 5, the railroad line to Tianjin was cut by Boxers in the countryside and Beijing was isolated. On June 13, a Japanese diplomat was murdered by the soldiers of General Dong Fuxiang and that same day 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.[12] In response, that afternoon, thousands of Boxers burst into the walled city of Beijing and burned many of the Christian churches and cathedrals in the city. 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.[13]
The Muslim Kansu braves and Boxers, along with other Chinese then attacked and killed Chinese Christians around the legations. Accusing the Chinese Christians of collaborating with the foreigners, the Muslims and Boxers roasted some of them alive.[14] Sometimes, the Kansu braves used swords to kill Christians, setting their homes on fire, calling them spies and agents for the foreigners in the legations.[15]
Sugiyama Akira, the Japanese chancellor at the legations, left to go to the railway to meet the Allied forces of the Seymour Expedition. The Kansu Muslim troops seized him from his cart, hacked him into multiple pieces, decapitating him, leaving his mutilated body and severed genitals and head.[16][17] They also carved his heart out and sent it to Dong Fuxiang.[18]
In mid-June 1900 the Chinese government was still indecisive about the Boxers. Some officials, Ronglu, for example, counseled the Empress Dowager that the Boxer were “rabble” who would be easily defeated by foreign soldiers.[19] On the other side of the question were anti-foreign officials who advised cooperation with the Boxers. “The Court appears to be in a dilemma,” said Sir Robert Hart. “If the Boxers are not suppressed, the Legations threaten to take action – if the attempt to suppress them is made, this intensely patriotic organization will be converted into an anti-dynastic movement.”[20] The event that irrevocably pushed the Chinese Government to the side of the Boxers was the attack by foreign warships on the Dagu forts on June 17. The attack was made to try to maintain communications with Tianjin and aid an army under the command of Admiral Seymour in its attempt to march to Beijing and reinforce the Legations.[21]
The allied attack on Dagu was the last straw for the Chinese government. On June 19, the Empress Dowager sent a diplomatic note to each of the Legations in Beijing informing them of the attack on Dagu and ordering all foreigners to depart Beijing for Tianjin within 24 hours. Otherwise, said the note, “China will find it a difficult matter to give complete protection.[22] Upon receipt of the note, the diplomats convened and agreed it would be suicidal to leave the Legation Quarter and travel to the coast in an unfriendly countryside. The next morning, June 20, Baron von Ketteler, the German Minister, proposed to take up the matter with the Zongli Yamen, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, but he was murdered by a Manchu officer, Captain En Hai of the Hushenying en route to the meeting.[23] With this, the Ministers informed all their citizens in Beijing to take refuge in the Legation Quarter.[24] Thus, began the 55-day siege.[25]
The British, American, French, German, Japanese, and Russian military guards each took responsibility for the defense of their respective legations. The Austrians and Italians abandoned their isolated legations. The Austrians joined the French and the Italians collaborated with the Japanese. The Japanese and Italian force established defense lines in the Fu – a large palace and park where most of the estimated 2,800 Chinese Christians taking refuge were housed. The American and German marines held positions on the Tartar Wall behind their legations. The 409 guards had the job of defending a line that snaked through 2,176 yd (1,990 m) of urban terrain.[26] The great majority of the civilians took refuge in the British Embassy, the largest and most defensible of the diplomatic legations. A census of civilians counted 473 people: 245 men, 149 women, and 79 children. About 150 of the men volunteered to participate, to a greater or lesser extent, in the defense. The civilians included at least 19 nationalities of which British and Americans were the most numerous. Large numbers of Chinese Christians were conscripted for labor, especially for building barricades.[27]
The British Minister Claude MacDonald was selected as the commander of the defense and Herbert G. Squiers, an American diplomat, became his chief of staff. The guards of the different countries, however, operated semi-independently and MacDonald could only suggest, not order, coordinated action.[28] The guards were not well armed. Only the American marines had sufficient ammunition. The defenders had three machine guns. The Italians had a small cannon. Fortunately, an old cannon barrel and ammunition was found in the Legation Quarter and from it a serviceable artillery piece was constructed that the Americans called “Betsy” and others called “the International.”[29]
The foreigners ransacked the Legation Quarter for food and other supplies. Food and water were adequate, although the foreigners without private food stocks subsisted on a steady diet of horsemeat and musty rice. However, the Chinese Christians, especially the Catholics, had a much harder time of it and by the end of the siege were starving. The Protestant missionaries took care of their converts, but the Chinese Catholics were mostly neglected.[30] Medical supplies were scarce but a sizeable number of doctors and nurses, mostly missionaries, were present.[31]
American missionaries took over management of most necessities for life in the Legation Quarter, including food, water, sanitation, and health. MacDonald’s most important appointment was Methodist Missionary Frank Gamewell as chief of the Fortifications Committee. Gamewell and his crew of “fighting parsons” were universally acclaimed for their defensive works surrounding the British Legation.[32]
A small Japanese force of one officer and 24 sailors commanded by Colonel Shiba distinguished itself in several ways. It had the almost unique distinction of suffering greater than 100 percent casualties. This was possible because a great many of the Japanese troops were wounded, entered into the casualty lists, then returned to the line of battle only to be wounded once more and again entered in the casualty lists.[33]
For several days after June 20, the official beginning of the siege, neither the foreigners inside the Legation Quarter nor the Chinese soldiers had any coherent plan for defense or attack. The number of Chinese soldiers ringing the legations is uncertain, but certainly numbered in the thousands. On the west were the Gansu Muslim soldiers of Dong Fuxiang and on the east were units of the Peking Field Army. The overall commander of the Chinese forces was Ronglu – who was anti-Boxer and disapproved of the siege.[34] Chinese policy equivocated between belligerence and conciliation during the 55 day siege. Several attempts by Ronglu to effect a ceasefire failed because of suspicions and misunderstandings on both sides.[35]
The foreigners were united in declaring the miraculous nature of their survival. “I seek in vain some military reason for the failure of the Chinese to exterminate the foreigners,” said an American military officer.[36] However, the equivocation on the part of the Chinese to use their military assets decisively against the Legation Quarter does not deny the fact that soldiers on both sides fought and died in large numbers.
The Chinese first attempted to extinguish the foreigners in the Legation Quarter by fire. For several days at the beginning of the siege they set fires in the buildings around the British Legation. On June 23, most of the buildings of the Hanlin Academy, the national library of China, and its books, many irreplaceable, burned. Both sides blamed the other for its destruction.[37] The Chinese Army then turned its attention to the Fu, the refuge for most of the Chinese Christians, and the domain of Lt. Col. Goro Shiba, the most admired military officer in the siege. Shiba, with his small group of Japanese soldiers, mounted a skillful defense against the Chinese who advanced one brick at a time, gradually surrounding him in a vise like grip. British soldiers were often detailed to reinforce the Japanese during attacks and all admired his work.[38] The most desperate fighting took place near the French Legation, where 78 French and Austrians and 17 volunteers were under assault in convoluted urban terrain, in which the front lines were only 50 ft (15 m) from each other. The French also feared that Chinese sappers were digging tunnels for mines beneath their positions.[39] The French, along with the Japanese, would suffer the highest rate of casualties in the siege.[40]
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. If it fell to the Chinese, they would have an unobstructed field of fire into the Legation Quarter. 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 ever closer. It was a claustrophobic existence for the soldiers on the wall. “The men all feel they are in a trap,” said the American commander, Capt. John T. Myers, “and simply await the hour of execution.”[41] Added to the daily advances of the Chinese were the nightly serenades of rifle and artillery fire and firecrackers designed to keep the foreigners awake and alert. “From June 20 to July 17 we had nightly attacks,” said a missionary woman. American Minister Conger said "that some of them, for furious firing, exceeded anything he experienced in the American Civil War.”[42] The hard-pressed Legation guards saw their numbers diminish daily with casualties.
Intense Chinese sniper fire roared around the French legation and Su Wang Fu. The Chinese Imperial Army and the Boxers kept up the sniper barrage. The foreigners were steadily and rapidly losing men killed by Chinese snipers. Chinese artillery wrecked the Allied Defences and crushed the French settlements into dust. The foreign casualty rate was beyond 200 men.[43][44][45] A Frenchman, Englishman, two Americans, and George Peters were killed by Chinese snipers in the settlements area.[46]
Accurate Chinese snipers and artillery constantly pounded the legations, forcing defenders to abandon multiple positions. The Chinese forces occupied Su Wang Fu and the French Legation, being nearly successful in defeating American and Russians in the city wall. However, the Dowager Empress Cixi declared a truce on June 25, because she had an altercation with the anti foreign Prince Duan, who wanted all the foreigners exterminated. But when news came of the Chinese victory over Seymour's forces in the Seymour Expedition, fighting resumed. It was Chinese collaboraters in the legations who led the foreigners to a cannon after digging, which they managed to deploy to defend themselves. On July 13, the French legation was demolished by Chinese mining explosives. However, the pro foreign factions and anti foreign factions were squabbling against each other at the Chinese court. The pro foreigner Qing Princes even offered the foreigners safety in the Zongli Yamen. They declared a ceasefire during July 14 – August 4, and Dowager Empress Cixi even sent food and supplies to the foreigners.[47]
Prince Qing declined to join the boxers and the rest of the imperial army to attack the legations, and even ordered his own Manchu Bannermen to attack the Boxers and the Muslim Kansu braves, who besieged the foreigners.[48] It was reported that Prince Qing's pro foreign bannermen fought against Prince Duan's anti foreign troops.[49]
The Dowager Empress did not order the Chinese Imperial troops to conduct a siege; on the contrary, she ordered them to protect the foreigners in the legations. It was Prince Duan who led the Boxers in, for them to loot his enemies within the Imperial court and the foreigners. When the Boxers originally were let into the city and went on a looting rampage, against both the foreign and the Chinese Imperial forces, the Imperial authority kicked them out: old Boxers were sent outside Beijing to halt the invading foreign armies, while young Boxers were absorbed into the Muslim Kansu army.[50]
The Chinese Army used firecrackers multiple times at the legations to make it seem as though they were pressing a siege, while they were not. The commander of all the Forces, Ronglu, tried to negotiate for a ceasefire, but the foreigners opened fire on Dong Fuxiang's army. The foreigners in the legations opened fire on Chinese officials, forces, and other people without provocation, killing numerous people; the Muslim army was forced to defend itself by returning fire. When the Chinese forces built a notice and sent messengers notifying the foreigners that the Imperial Chinese forces were going to protect them, and open up communications, and to cease fire, the foreigners in the legations responded by shooting and killing the messengers. It was the British minister who orderd Chinese Christians to stay in the Su Wang Fu palace after removing Su Wang Fu from the palace.[51]
The only soldiers who the legation had any thing to fear from, were Dong Fuxiang's Muslim and ex-Boxer warriors, who were allied to the anti foreign Prince Duan, who had originally allowed the Boxers to come into the city. Ronglu directed his own forces to instead protect the foreigners in the legations, per the Dowager Empress's decree, and only fired purposely misdirected shots and firecrackers to make it seem as though they were fighting.[52]
The most critical threat to the survival of the foreigners came in early July. On June 30, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Tartar Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defense. 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 July 3, the foreigners launched an assault against the Chinese barricade on the wall with 26 British, 15 Russian, and 15 Americans under the command of American Captain John T. Myers. As hoped, the attack caught the Chinese sleeping, killed about 20 of them, and expelled the rest of them from the barricades. Two American marines were killed and Captain Myers was wounded and spent the rest of the siege in the hospital.[53] The capture of Chinese positions on the Wall was hailed as the “pivot of our destiny” by one of the besieged. The Chinese did not attempt to regain or advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.[54]
Sir Claude MacDonald said July 13 was the "most harassing day" of the siege.[55] The Japanese and Italians in the Fu were driven back to their last defense line. While the Fu was under heavy attack the Chinese detonated a mine beneath the French Legation, destroying most of it, killing two soldiers, and pushing the French and Austrians out of most of the French Legation. Frank Gamewell began digging bomb proof shelters as a last refuge for the besieged. The end seemed near.[56]
The next day, however, a conciliatory message was received from the Chinese, which raised hopes—dashed again on July 16 when the most capable British officer was killed and journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded.[57] But American Minister Conger carried on a communication with the Chinese government and on July 17 firing died down on both sides and an armistice began.[58] It was just in time; more than ⅓ of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation on the Chinese side was probably the realization that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the Boxers and the siege was at hand.
On July 28, the foreigners in the Legation Quarter received their first message from the outside world in more than a month. A Chinese boy – a student of the missionary William Scott Ament – snuck into the Legation Quarter with the news that a rescue army of the Eight-Nation Alliance was in Tianjin 100 mi (160 km) away and would advance shortly to Beijing. The news was hardly reassuring as the besieged had been expecting an earlier rescue.[59] The Chinese government also passed along inquiries about the welfare of the besieged from their governments. A British soldier suggested that an appropriate reply would be, ”Not massacred yet.”[60]
On August 7, new Chinese Imperial troops from Shanxi arrived, their commanding General promised to seize the legations in five days, reportedly that they would be "leaving neither fowl nor dog". The fighting and Chinese offensives became so severe from August 9–13 that the legations would have fallen if the relief force had not arrived.[61][62]
After many relatively quiet days, the night of August 13, with the rescue army only 5 mi (8.0 km) outside the gates of Beijing, may have been the most difficult of the siege.[63] The Chinese broke the truce with an artillery barrage of the British Legation and heavy fire in the Fu. But the Chinese confined themselves to firing from a distance rather than mounting an assault until, at 2 am on August 14, the defenders heard from the east the sound of a machine gun, a sign that the rescue army was on the way. At 5 am came the sound of artillery outside the walls of Beijing.[64]
Five national contingents advanced on the walls of Beijing on August 14: British, American, Japanese, Russian, and French. Each had a gate in the Wall for its objective. The Japanese and Russians were delayed at their gates by Chinese resistance. The small French contingent got lost. The Americans scaled the walls rather than attempting to forcing their way through a fortified gate. However, it was the British who won the race to relieve the siege of the legations. They entered the city through an unguarded gate and proceeded with virtually no opposition.[65] At 3:00 pm the British passed through a drainage ditch – the "water gate" – under the Tartar Wall. Sikh and Rajput soldiers from India and their British officers had the honor of being the first to enter the Legation Quarter.[66] The Chinese armies ringing the legation quarter melted away. A short time later, the British commander, General Alfred Gaselee, entered and was greeted by a Sir Claude MacDonald dressed in “immaculate tennis flannels” and a crowd of cheering ladies in party dresses.[67] The American troops, under General Adna Chaffee arrived at 5 pm[68]
The commanding Muslim general, Ma Fulu, and four cousins of his were killed in action against the foreign forces. After the battle was over, the Chinese Muslim forces guarded the Empress Dowager Cixi when she fled to Xi'an with the entire Imperial Court; the Muslim general Ma Fuxiang assisted in guarding Cixi.[69]
The Chinese failed to mount determined and decisive attacks on the Legation Quarter. Missionary Arthur Smith summed up the Chinese military performance. “Upon unnumbered occasions, had they been ready to make a sacrifice of a few hundred lives, they could have extinguished the defense [of the Legation Quarter] in an hour.” Chinese ineffectiveness aside, the foreigners defending the Legation Quarter suffered heavy casualties. Of the 409 soldiers, 55 were killed and 135 wounded, a casualty rate of 46.5%. In addition, 13 civilians were killed and 24 wounded, mostly men who participated in the defense.[70] Chinese military casualties are not known, nor were deaths among the Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter recorded.
The Empress Dowager and her court fled Beijing on August 15. She remained in exile in Shanxi province until 1902, when she was permitted by the foreign armies occupying Beijing to return to reoccupy the throne.[71] For China, the Boxer Rebellion was a disaster but – ironically – turned out about as well as could be expected. China remained together as a single country. Prior to the Boxer Rebellion it seemed likely to be divided by the colonial powers. The Chinese government supported the Boxers, who otherwise might have turned anti-Qing and hastened the extinction of the dynasty, but was unsuccessful in killing the foreigners in the Legations. Had the Chinese succeeded, the retribution the Western countries and Japan took might have been more severe. Ronglu later took credit for saving the besieged: "I was able to avert the crowning misfortune which would have resulted from the killing of the Foreign Ministers." Ronglu was somewhat disingenious, as his forces came very close to breaking the ability of the besieged to resist.[35]
The military occupation of Beijing and much of northern China became an orgy of looting and violence in which foreign soldiers, diplomats, missionaries, and journalists were all guilty.[72] Reports of the behavior of the foreigners in Beijing caused widespread criticism in Western countries, including from Mark Twain. While the rescue of the besieged foreigners in the Legation Quarter was seen as a proof of the superiority of Western civilization, the sordid aftermath of the siege forced many people in the United States and Europe to reevaluate the morality of forcing Christianity and Western culture upon the Chinese.[73]