The Opium Wars - Part 5: The Boxer Rebellion

[Music] p king 1900 dense ranks of boxers advanced towards the royal marines who are manning a series of sandbag positions on the barricades their lee metford rifles tip with long bayonets sweat poured down the young marines faces as the sun beat mercilessly upon their tropical service helmets their white tunics stain with blood dirt and sweat the boxers chanted as they came on louder and louder the chant was shah shah shah kill kill kill the boxers great swords and pikes glinted in the sun hundreds and hundreds of young chinese fanatics pushing ever closer to the british lines their eyes wild with fervor bearing teeth and shaking their weapons at the hated foreigners a young british officer shouted commands above the din at 100 yards volley fire present the marines rifles were instantly levelled each man carefully selecting a target a pause fingers touching triggers eyes squinting along rifles of the bobbing figures that were approaching fire with a deafening crash the first volley smashed into the front of the boxer column many fell their places instantly taken by moore pressing forward from behind reload yelled the officer fire another dozen were dropped independent fire at will frantically working their rifle bolts the marines fired as fast as they could a hail of lead tearing great holes in the boxer lines but still they came on running across the open killing ground waving their blades screaming like mad men until felled by a bullet were impaled on a british bayonet as they tried to scramble over the barricades then as suddenly as it had begun the boxes retreated and the officer ordered cease-firing they would be back and perhaps the next time they would get through the thin line of exhausted and grimy marines if that happened a massacre would follow the boxer rebellion was the point of which britain's relations with qing dynasty china when critical it was china's last and most determined attempt to turn back the clock on foreign influence but it ultimately led to the further weakening of the ruling dynasty and its eventual downfall the fists of righteous harmony or boxers so named for the calisthenic exercises that they practiced originated in the northern province of shandong in the last decade of the 19th century the increasing influence of foreign technology in china particularly the construction of railways had robbed many chinese at their traditional occupations as boatmen and carters natural disasters that caused widespread suffering among rural peasants with tens of thousands surging into cities in search of work and food the spread of christianity inside china a direct result of the so-called unequal treaties that have been foisted upon the nation in the mid-19th century was deeply resented and many peasants believe that foreign missionaries disturbed the ancient spirits and caused their crops to fail a common belief among peasants was that foreign priests and nuns use menstrual blood during their ceremonies and sacrifice chinese children on their alters added to these factors was an overall feeling of impotence from the highest officials down to the lowliest farmer a feeling that china was humiliated unfairly treated and unable to assert its sovereignty in the face of the overwhelming powers of the western nations there was a widespread belief that something had to change that the chinese had to throw off the western imperialists before their nation was reduced to a series of colonies the boxers represented hope they were a millenarian movement much like the sioux ghost dance in the united states in 1890 which arose when traditional society was under stress like the native americans the boxers believed that spirituality would defeat the white devils bullets through their training diet martial arts and prayers the boxers believed that they were immune to western firearms some even claimed to be able to fly ludicrous though it sounds today this strange mixture of spirituality and desperation struck a nerve with the dispossessed chinese masses it appeared a simple proposition rid the country of foreigners and all would be well again unfortunately for the various boxer sects ridding china of the western powers would prove to be an extremely challenging enterprise and one that would require official help by 1898 groups of boxers had already begun attacking and murdering chinese christian converts in northern china they burned churches and even killed foreigners in october 1898 the infamous boxer slogan first appeared support the ching destroy the foreigners the boxer rebellion coincided with a tumultuous period in chinese history empress dowager sushi had ruled china off and on for several decades she had been the favorite concubine of the emperor shen fung at the time of the second opium war she had borne him a son who became emperor on his father's death in 1861 but the boy had died three years later through her influence sushi was able to have a self-declared regent over her young nephew emperor guanxi until he came of age in 1889 in september 1898 sushi moved against guangxu had him placed under house arrest and took power for herself the emperor's life was only spared the intervention of the foreign ambassadors in p king but he was finished as a ruler in january 1900 with ching power crumbling sushi decided not to officially suppress the boxers who were causing considerable mayhem in the country around the capital the great powers protested but old buddha as sushi was nicknamed ignored them by the spring edwin conga the american minister reported to washington dc that quote the whole country is swarming with hungry discontented hopeless idlers unquote on the 30th of may the british minister sir claude macdonald led the foreign power's diplomatic efforts in demanding that foreign troops be dispatched to p king at once in order to protect the eight legations limited by the chinese authorities to just 400 men the legation guards had little apart from rifles and revolvers with which to defend the quarter the royal marines had a single four-barrel nordenfeldt machine gun that was prone to jamming the austrians a little one-pounder feel gun with only 120 shells and the russians brought boxes of nine pounder shells with them but stupidly left the actual firing piece on the tiensen railway station platform it was also necessary to defend the roman catholic baitang cathedral on the other side of p king which was threatened by the boxers thousands of terrified chinese converts and the religious staff had sought refuge behind its high perimeter war 31 french and 12 italian marines were dispatched to the baitang the legation quarter in p king a mixture of western-style architecture and traditional chinese buildings and gardens was relatively small and was located between the massive walls the imperial and forbidden cities a foul-smelling canal ran north to south bisecting the quarter the enormous 40-foot high tartar wall towered over one section of the quarter and this would prove to be the most important line of defense it had to be denied to the chinese at all costs on the 5th of june 1900 the boxers tore up sections of the railway that linked p king with the port of tiensin four days later sir claude mcdonnell cabled the british commander-in-chief china station vice admiral edward seymour stating that the situation in peaking was hourly becoming more serious and that quote troops should be landed and all arrangements made for an advance to peking at once unquote as a much younger officer seymour had served in his grandfather's fleet in china in 1857 to 60. he had seen with his own eyes the military failings and hesitancy of the chinese when faced with well-trained western troops armed with modern weaponry although the british and americans were all for pushing straight on to p king the other powers wanted to await more reinforcements and attempted to prevaricate tough talking us navy captain bowman mccalla stood up and declared i don't care what the rest of you do i have 112 men here and i'm going tomorrow morning to the rescue of my own flesh and blood np king i'll be damned if i sit here 90 miles away and just wait mccalla's strong words galvanized the allies interaction admiral seymour did not hesitate and within 24 hours he had assembled a relief force consisting of over 2 000 sailors and marines consisting of 916 british 455 germans 326 russians 158 french 112 americans 54 japanese 41 italians and 26 austrians seymour's chief of staff for the expedition was captain john jelico while captain mccalla went as the senior american officer the force was anticipated to arrive in peking on the 11th of june but this day came and went and no sign of the relief was seen the distance from tien sin to p king by rail was 75 miles and seymour believed that he could simply load his men aboard commandeer trains and steam into peaking a day later in fact although the expedition departed tiansen on the 10th of june they had grossly underestimated the determination of the boxers as well as elements at the imperial court to stop them in their tracks taking just three days rations and with a machine gun mounted atop the first engine they chugged off with few worries but allied overconfidence played well for the chinese as c more arrogantly walked into a trap on the 10th of june seymour's force advanced 25 miles without incident when they arrived at the high river bridge at yangtsun they discovered thousands of imperial troops were camped nearby these were under the command of 64 year old general ni sir chong who had previously fought the french in taiwan in 1885 and the japanese in 1894. he was a subordinate of general rong lu sushi's cousin and a grandson of the shentong emperor rong lu issued contradictory orders to general knee knee was confused did nothing and waited as seymour's trains puffed on across the boiling hot landscape they stopped frequently while engineers and troops got down to repair damage or missing sections of the track on the 11th of june they passed the smoldering ruins of lungfung station recently torched by the boxers the first assault came when boxers came screaming across the plane heading directly for the trains quote not more than a couple of hundred armed with swords spears jingles and rifles many of them being quite boys noted captain mccalla there was no sign of fear or hesitation and these were not fanatical braves or the trained soldiers of the empress but the quiet peace-loving peasantry the countryside in arms against the foreigner unquote they were met with disciplined rifle and machine gun fire from the western troops and seymour's men eventually won through but it was an unnerving experience many western sailors and marines noted that it usually took more than one rifle shot to immobilize the charging boxer for they seem almost not to feel the bullets nor to desist from attacking even when faced with certain death while seymour's relief column slowly made its way towards the capital the situation in the legations was rapidly deteriorating on the 13th of june the japanese minister akira sugiyama was brutally murdered in the street by imperial troops belonging to radical conservative general dong fuchsiang he was a han chinese in charge of muslim gansu troops ten thousand of whom had been sent to p king and named the huawei rear troop sugiyama had foolishly left his legation and was heading to the railway station expecting to meet seymour's trains on the same day the first boxers dressed in their distinctive red clothes and sashes was seen for the first time actually within the legation quarter the situation deteriorated quite rapidly thereafter especially since the german minister clemens baron von kettler along with some german legation guards captured an innocent chinese boy and beat him to death this incident seemed to provide the boxers with an excuse that they needed to assault peking in huge numbers the boxers set fire to every chinese shop that did business with foreigners on the 15th of june widespread fighting ensued as the desperately outnumbered legation guards and volunteers sallied forth from the hasty defenses to rescue trapped chinese christians barricades had been erected built from carts barrels and sandbags loopholed for riflemen the westerners all knew that the price of defeat would be torture and murder one of their number professor james had already been seized and brutally murdered by the boxers his severed head had been mounted on a pole within sight of the defenses and it served as a gruesome warning of the fate that awaited them all should the boxers have breached their defenses initially the imperial court informed the foreign diplomats that they regretted these incidents and were dispersing the troublemakers but this was a bare-faced lie the imperial court was openly siding with the boxers contradicting sushi's own orders to protect foreign legations boxers and general dong's gansu troops slaughtered chinese christians throughout p king the imperial army consisted of three main elements firstly there were the so-called manchu bannermen numbering 460 000 the bannermen were the hereditary descendants of the tribes that had put the qing dynasty into power in the early 17th century any member between the ages of 16 and 60 was able to draw rations from his banner their reliability as soldiers was varied but they were completely politically reliable as they owed their continued wages to the survival of the qing dynasty they were armed in a rather haphazard fashion and often indifferently led most of the imperial troops encountered by the great powers driven the boxer rebellion were bannermen such as the army of general rong lu in p king the second type of unit was the green flag regiments half a million strong raised in the provinces but these were really the private armies of the regional governors and they rarely left their home bases they played little or no part in the boxer rebellion the third and some might argue most effective force was the gansu fighting braves thirty thousand muslim tribesmen from the far west of china fanatical tough and used by the regime to enforce its will they were more of a gendarmeri than an army though they would take part in much fighting in 1900 under general dong fushan who brought a third of the force to p king in 1898 in the legation quarter in p king each nation was responsible for defending a particular sector the british and french guarded their respective legations with the austrians providing a mobile reserve the americans germans and russians also defended their own legations as well as a long section of the vital tartar war the japanese and italians lest the marines at the baitang cathedral defended the abandoned fu palace complex lying adjacent to the british ligation compound the austrian belgian dutch and italian legations had all been abandoned because they were indefensible among the civilian men trapped in the legation quarter 125 volunteered as riflemen many of them former servicemen other civilian men were drafted onto committees as the foreigners tried to organize themselves properly for a potentially long siege there were committees for rations fuel water sanitation fire and chinese labor the women created a nursing service and sewed sandbags for the defenses there was plenty of food and water although the 2700 chinese christians squatting in the fu palace were not fed from the westerners food store they had to make do with vermin dogs cats and roots or work as labourers to receive rations this reflected the ingrained racial hierarchy of the era and was perhaps not the western power's finest tale to emerge from an otherwise heroic story sir claude macdonald british minister and a former army officer who had seen action in egypt in 1882 was elected commander-in-chief of the peaking defenses quote mcdonald exercised command with tact and understanding appreciating that his own experience countered the little in the stores of brutal bloody street fighting that was taking place yet offering the moral support of an older soldier to the permanently tired junior officers and ncos who commanded detachments around the perimeter unquote at tiensin the situation was fast becoming extremely perilous for the city's 700 foreign inhabitants tian sin in 1900 was actually two cities a two square mile chinese walled city and two miles away the foreign settlements along the high river that have been established following the second opium war around 1 million chinese inhabited both cities 2 400 troops had been dispatched from the allied fleet to protect the foreign settlement from attack on the 15th of june the boxers attacked the wall chinese city burst inside and ran amok burning churches and brutally murdering christian converts the next day a mob of boxers attempted to storm the foreign settlements but the troops disciplined volleys soon dissuaded them close by the large imperial army commanded by general knee as before did nothing knee had still not received any orders to either attack the foreigners or to protect them the chinese government was split between reactionary conservatives who wanted to use the boxes to rid china of foreigners and moderates who favored diplomacy in dealing with the great powers on the 16th or 17th of june empress dowager says she had held a mass audience with the members of her grand council and other interested parties to try and gauge which way the wind was blowing concerning the boxers when one high mandarin doubted the boxers claims to magical protection cersei replied perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people today china is extremely weak we have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon if we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts what can we use to sustain the country unquote cersei's position remain for the time unclear believing it was right to protect the legations she initially made contradictory statements that led to confusion among both her subordinates and legation diplomats but eventually her attitude hardened into support for the boxers when the great powers demanded control over china's defenses and economy cersei stated to the grand council now they 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 not fight to the death with cersei's new resolve guiding her wavering generals the peking field army began to blockade the legations i have always been of the opinion that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860 said sushi only a united effort was then necessary to have given china the victory today at last the opportunity for revenge has come tune in next time where the imperial army and the boxers together try to crush the foreign resistance in p king once and for all many thanks for listening please subscribe and share and also visit my video channel mark felton productions you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below