OCR Text |
Show Forty Years Ago England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Japan and America Were Allies, Waging War Against China! By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union.) AND so it came to pass ZA that the Allies Eng-land,. Eng-land,. France, Germany, Ger-many, Austria, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States sent their armed forces against a common enemy and that common enemy was China. In the light of present events, does that statement sound a bit fantastic? Yet.it is true! But, it should be added hastily, that occurred 40 years ago and it was an incident in-cident in the history of international inter-national relations that is now almost forgotten. It came about in this way: Around the turn of the century the "Celestial Empire," weakened weak-ened by years of aggression by European powers, was on the verge of being dismembered. Then a society of patriots, popularly popu-larly known as the Boxers (from a literal translation of its Chinese name, I Ho Chu'van, meaning "the fist of righteous harmony"), and devoted to the principle of "China for the Chinese" raised the cry of "Kill the foreign devils!" dev-ils!" In May, 1900, they destroyed a number of villages inhabited by natives who had been converted to the Christian religion and massacred mas-sacred these people. In June they murdered two English missionaries mission-aries in a village 40 miles from Peking, assassinated the chancellor chancel-lor of the Japanese legation in the capital and waylaid' and killed Baron von Ketteler, the German minister. Meanwhile, as the outrages against foreigners and native converts increased, a mixed force of 400 marines and sailors of various nationalities reached Peking Pe-king to protect the legations. The imperial authorities did little if anything to restrain the Boxers and, as murder and pillage continued, con-tinued, most of the foreign residents resi-dents of the capital and many native na-tive converts took refuge in the British legation where the British Brit-ish minister, Sir Claude Mac-donald, Mac-donald, took charge of the preparations prep-arations to resist the threatened attack. By June 14 Peking was completely com-pletely cut off from communica-' communica-' tion with the outside world. Meanwhile all of the nations who had citizens there had begun organizing or-ganizing expeditionary forces to send to their rescue and within a short time their troops were disembarking upon the coast of China. One of the first to act was the United States. On June 16 Gen. Arthur Mac-Arthur, Mac-Arthur, commander at Manila was ordered to rush a regiment to the Chinese port of Taku where the Allied forces were concentrating, concen-trating, and which they captured on June 17. The Ninth infantry, commanded by Col. Emerson H. Liscum, was chosen for this duty and within 19 days, although delayed de-layed by a typhoon, Liscum's force was at Taku. Then the Chinese began attacking attack-ing the foreign settlements in Tientsin and on July 13 an allied force of British, French, Japanese Japa-nese and Americans moved against that high-walled city. After Aft-er a bitter fight lasting 15 hours they took the city by storm but they suffered a loss of 700 killed and wounded in doing it. Among the dead was Colonel Liscum. His last words are inscribed upon the banners of the Ninth infantry today "Keep up the fire!" Hastening across the Pacific ocean while these events were taking place was Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, who had a brilliant record in the Indian and Spanish-American Spanish-American wars and who was coming com-ing to take command of the American forces in China. There had been numerous reports that the Boxers had captured the legation le-gation in Peking and killed all of its defenders. But soon after Chaffee's arrival, the Americans learned through friendly Chinese that the besieged Europeans and Americans were still holding out. Chaffee Makes a Decision. The American commander was in favor of moving at once to their rescue. But international jealousies had sprung up among the other Allied leaders and precious pre-cious time was being lost while they debated what course they should pursue. In the midst of one of their conferences Chaffee was handed a cablegram from Washington telling him that he had a free hand in whatever action ac-tion he decided was best. Stuffing Stuff-ing the dispatch in his pocket and rising from the table, he announced an-nounced : "Gentlemen, at daybreak tomorrow to-morrow the American forces will move on Peking. I should be very glad to have company the more, the better. But they go at any rate, even if alone." f t?" : :' m . . The Fourteenth Unite States infantry in the Palace Grounds of Peking. (From a photograph in the United States Signal corps, War Department, Washington.) Gen. Sir Alfred Gaselee, the British commander, sprang to his feet. "I'm with you," he exclaimed. "The British troops will march with the Americans tomorrow morning." So on the morning of August 4 an Allied army of 20,000 men set out for the Chinese capital. Since Germany had the largest contingent contin-gent of land forces in China it had been agreed that command of the expedition was to be given to the German commander, Graf von Waldersee. However, he had not yet arrived in Tientsin so the expedition started without him. The Tricky Russians. By August 13 the Allies were within 12 miles of Peking. They had agreed to spend the night in reconnoitering the situation before be-fore making an attack on the ancient an-cient walled city. The Russians, however, who had been the slowest slow-est on the march, now tried to steal first honors for themselves by attacking the Tung-pien-men gate. They succeeded in forcing forc-ing an entrance but were driven back with heavy losses. This breach of international etiquette added to the ill feeling that had been evident from the beginning MAJ. GEN. A. R. CHAFFEE of the expedition and which later flamed out in a series of troublesome trouble-some incidents. The next morning the Japanese Japa-nese attacked at another point along the walls but were checked by the fierce resistance of the Chinese. The American forces, moving forward to go into action, became entangled in the Russian line of advance and were somewhat some-what delayed. So it was not until un-til 11 o'clock that two companies compa-nies of the Fourteenth infantry, led by Col. A. S. Daggett and covered by the fire of the remainder remain-der of the regiment, reached the base of the wall, despite the hail of lead poured upon them by its defenders. Herfc they were sheltered shel-tered temporarily but ' it was a question how long they would be safe. In this crisis a young bugler named Calvin P. Titus volunteered volun-teered to try to climb the wall and clear it of its defenders. Such a feat was dangerous to the point of foolhardiness. But by some great good fortune he reached the top undiscovered. Before him was a group of huts on top of the wall. Scouting forward for-ward cautiously Titus found that they were unoccupied. As he returned re-turned to the edge of the wall, Capt. Henry G. Learned, the adjutant ad-jutant of the regiment, who had followed him, handed him the end "of a long cord to which was attached at-tached a rifle and a supply of ammunition. am-munition. Hastily pulling these up, the young bugler immediately opened fire on a group of surprised sur-prised Chinese who showed up a few minutes later. Meanwhile Captain Learned had hauled up more rifles and ammunition and other soldiers came scrambling up. Soon they had established a firing line and under its cover the whole company com-pany occupied the top of the broad wall. They drove off the defenders from that corner of the wall as far as the east gate, through which a short time later the British forces, under General Gaselee entered without opposition. opposi-tion. The Siege Is Lifted. Meanwhile Battery F of the Fifth field artillery, commanded by Capt. Henry J. Reilly, had swept the Chinese off the wall west of the Tung-pien-men gate and the Fourteenth drove forward, for-ward, pushing the defenders southward toward the Sha-Huo gate. As the British entered the city and the other Allied forces swept in, resistance collapsed and the siege of the legations ended. It is not difficult to imagine the hysterical joy with which these people, who had been living for two months under the shadow of a horrible death, welcomed their rescuers. Although the siege of the legation lega-tion had been raised, armed Chinese Chi-nese forces still held the Forbidden Forbid-den City within Peking and from its walls kept up a sniping fire on the invaders. On August 15 the Allies began cleaning out these snipers. Reilly's battery distinguished itself during this fighting but its commander was killed while standing beside General Gen-eral Chaffee watching the effect of the fire of his guns on the Third Gate. The Looting Begins. On August 28 the Allied forces formally entered the Forbidden City. "I was opposed to the performance per-formance as one based on curiosity curi-osity merely and not one of military mili-tary or political necessity, but I was overruled," General Chaffee reported to his superiors. "The city of Peking has been sacked; looted from corner to corner in the most disgraceful manner imaginable; im-aginable; such is my opinion. I had no idea that civilized armies would resort to such proceedings. It is a race for spoil. I have kept my own command fairly clean, thank God, but with all my efforts it is not spotless." Although the Germans under Graf von Waldersee had arrived too late to take part in the fighting fight-ing and capture of Peking, they were leaders in the looting. When Chaffee learned that they were removing' from the Chinese observatory some ancient astronomical astro-nomical instruments, the American Ameri-can commander sent a strong letter let-ter of protest to Von Waldersee. But it was useless. The instruments instru-ments were carried away and were not returned until after the World war when the Treaty of Versailles forced the Germans to return them to China. As might have been expected such incidents and other echoes of international jealousy created dissension among the Allies and added to the confusion which reigned in Peking for some time after its capture. In contrast to this, however, was the friendly co-operation between the British and the Americans. They were more truly Allies than any of the others and when the time came for the evacuation of Peking the British commander sent a detachment detach-ment of Indian pipers to show the Americans special honor by "piping them out" of the Chinese capital. |