Siege of the International Legations Boxer Rebellion: Western Cooperation in the Face of Annihilation
“The most exciting episode ever known to civilization” this was what the newspapers had to say about the multifaceted Boxer rebellion and siege of Peking/Beijing in 1900. Most of us learned what the Boxer Rebellion was in high school, but for most, just the odd name is all we remember.
China had some glory days in the ancient and medieval period, but could not keep up with Western powers in the age of sail and gunpowder. After decisive defeats in the Opium Wars, the Chinese had no choice but to allow Western Nations to set up spheres of influence through China, dominating trade and spreading Christianity, leading to resentment among the population.
Soon the Boxer Rebellion burst open throughout China as an anti-foreign group aimed at expelling or simply killing Westerners. They targeted churches and Chinese Christians as well. As Western power had already been proven against the Chinese government, western nations had only legations that acted in a similar role to embassies, with few guards.
As Boxer troops approached Beijing, a force of 400 soldiers from various European and American nations swept into the legations quarter to set up a defense (some Japanese officials and soldiers were present as well). The first few days saw cathedrals burned and suspected Boxers executed, raising tensions.
Soon the legations quarter, which butted up against a wall, had complete enough fortifications and the 800 total westerners, with 3,000 Chinese Christians seeking safety, stood ready for the 40,000-man army facing them. seeing the carnage leading up to the siege, the defenders were well aware that the Boxers would almost certainly slaughter all of them if they got the chance.
You might ask what the Chinese government was doing during this supposed rebellion. Well, they went back and forth several times before finally siding with the rebels, thinking it was a good opportunity to finally expel the foreigners. So many troops were with the Qing government as well as most of the commanding officers.
Though working with a hastily constructed defense, the 400 civilians were mostly well-educated officials of a wide range of backgrounds. Groups of doctors served as medics, translators helped all sides stay on the same page, and soldiers shared equipment.
Heavy equipment was hard to come by, but the Italians dug up an old cannon that other nations brought to fighting condition with spare pieces they had, and crewed by men of all nations. The cannon was fondly dubbed “the International”. A British officer led the defense and an American diplomat oversaw logistics and construction of defenses.
The siege saw few direct assaults at first, with the Chinese trying to set fires and burn or smoke the foreigners out. superbly organized construction crews extinguished fires and repaired defenses so quickly that the Chinese soon gave up on this strategy.
The defenders recalled that the Chinese constantly shot volleys through the night or else set off fireworks periodically, just to force the defenders to stay awake. Eventually, the Chinese launched scattered assaults after slowly inching up their siege lines.
The defenders held more often than not, but on one occasion the Chinese took control of a German-defended section of the wall. A swift American counterattack against the Chinese siege line forced a retreat and the wall was retaken.
After almost three months of siege that saw half of the defending soldiers wounded or dead, the sound of machine gun fire was heard in the distance. The Chinese had no real automatic weapons at the time, so the defenders knew that their relief army must have arrived.
They were right, about 20,000 men from five nations stormed Beijing, each nation racing to the center to relieve the legations. The Americans even scaled the walls, but the British got lucky and found an unguarded gate and won the race to the legations. We don’t have good numbers for Chinese losses, but they were surely in the many thousands. Infighting between the Boxers and the reluctantly supportive Qing troops kept them from launching a coordinated attack. Leaders from both sides argued until the multinational relief force came in.
The Legations survivors were simply stunned that they hadn’t been overrun and were overjoyed when they finally saw the long-awaited help. The siege was an excellent example of cooperation among nations, though it simply reset China as a pawn in European power grabs until WWII.