r of captured foreigners. While it is true that thousands of Chinese Christians were massacred in north China, many horrible stories that appeared in world newspapers were based on the actual murder of men, women and children within the foreign legation. Nonetheless a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment arose in Europe, the United States and Japan. The poorly-armed Boxer rebels were unable to break into the compound, which was relieved by an international army of the Eight-Nation Alliance in August.
On 23 June 1900 the Boxer rebels started setting fire to an area south of the British Legation, using it as a "frightening tactic" to attack the defenders. And Hanlin Yuan, a complex of courtyards and buildings that housed "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship ... the oldest and richest library in the world", (Yongle Dadian) was just nearby. Sir Claude MacDonald, the commander-in-chief, had become worried that the Boxer rebels might try to burn the Hanlin Yuan, the "buildings at some point being only an arm's length from the British building walls."
On 24 June 1900, when the winds shifted, the unanticipated happened: Hanlin Yuan's group of building had caught fire, and the fire was beginning to spread further. Eyewitness' accounts:
The Manchu authority blamed the British for setting the fire as a defensive measure, whereas the British pointed to the direction of the wind, and claimed that it was either the Boxer rebels or the ordinary Manchu soldiers who "set fire to the Hanlin, working systematically from one courtyard to the next." Rescued from among the burning buildings were portions of the Yongle Encyclopedia, and other works.
Foreign navies started building up their presence along the northern China coast from the end of April 1900. On 31 May, before the sieges had started and upon the request of foreign embassies in Beijing, an international force of 435 navy troops from eight countries were dispatched by train from Takou to the capital (75 French, 75 Russian, 75 British, 60 U.S., 50 German, 40 Italian, 30 Japanese, 30 Austrian); these troops joined the legations and were able to contribute to their defense. The rebellion was ultimately quashed by the Eight-Nation Alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
As the situation worsened a second international force of 2,000 Marines under the command of the British Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour, the largest contingent being British, was dispatched from Takou to Beijing on 10 June. The troops were transported by train from Takou 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 rail or such as the train, or progress on foot as necessary, keeping in mind that the distance between Tianjin and Beijing was only 120 km.
After Tianjin the convoy was surrounded, the railway behind and in front of them was destroyed, and they were attacked from all parts by Chinese irregulars and even Chinese governmental troops. News arrived on 18 June regarding attacks on foreign legations. Seymour decided to continue advancing, this time along the Pei-Ho river, toward Tong-Tcheou, 25 km 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. Luckily, they then happened upon The Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache that the Western Powers had no knowledge of until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering not only German Krupp-made field guns, but rifles with millions of rounds in ammunition, along with millions of pounds of rice and ample medical supplies.
|Forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance
(1900 Boxer Rebellion)
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