Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion was an uprising that occurred within China in the years 1900 and 1901 (from on 2 November 1900 to 7 September 1901). It was led by the Boxers, a group of Chinese citizens who disliked the vast amount of foreign influence that existed in China.
The Foreigners in China
It happened during a time when many foreign countries were scrambling for concessions in China in the aftermath of the first Sino-Japanese war. These countries were Japan, Britain, Germany, and Russia. China had lost the First Sino-Japanese war a few years earlier over Korea.
The Boxers
The Boxers were Chinese citizens who were angry about the growing power of foreigners in China, who wanted to fight and drive out all foreigners and even some Chinese people. The Boxers got a lot of people to help them and drove their fight to Peking (Beijing).
55 Days at Peking
The interior inner city of Beijing was known as the Tartar city because it was majority Manchu and half of all Manchus in the Qing lived in Beijing's inner city. Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy made an alliance to conduct an expedition against the Boxers in Beijing . While they did that, the Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on all of them and sent the Gansu Army to help the Boxers. The first foreign expedition to Beijing, the Seymour expedition, was defeated. The foreign legations in Beijing were surrounded for 55 days before the foreign reinforcements got through in the second Gaselee expedition and got to the legations in Beijing. Manchus suffered tremendously as the foreign soldiers went around raping their women and killing their men. The rest of China outside of Manchuria and Zhili province was not affected since the Han governor generals such as Yuan Shikai, Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong signed a pact called the Mutual Protection of Southeast China to keep their provinces out of the war and did not help the Qing court and neither did the foreigners attack them.
Aftermath
The foreigners were very angry with the Qing . They said that China had to pay them even more money and execute officials responsible for supporting the Boxers like the Manchu bannerman governor Yuxian, Qixiu, Captain Enhai (En Hai) and Manchu Zaixun, Prince Zhuang and Han general Dong Fuxiang. China agreed to execute all the Manchu officials like Yuxian, Qixiu, Enhai and Zaixun but refused to execute Han general Dong Fuxiang. A few years later in 1911, the Qing Empire collapsed and China had a new government, but the foreigners still influenced China, especially Japan.
Boxer Rebellion Media
Siege of Peking, Boxer Rebellion
Battle of Tientsin Japanese soldiers
Beijing Castle Boxer Rebellion 1900 FINAL courtesy copy
The Boxer Rebellion and Eight-Nation Alliance, China 1900–1901
A Boxer with a spear and sword*(wax model by George S. Stuart)
Japanese marines who served in the Seymour Expedition
"China -- the cake of kings and... of emperors" (a French pun on king cake and kings and emperors wishing to "consume" China). French political cartoon from 1898. A pastry represents "Chine" (French for China) and is being divided between caricatures of Queen Victoria of
Admiral Seymour returning to Tianjin with his wounded men on 26 June
Italian mounted infantry near Tientsin in 1900
