Allied March Peit sang, Yang tsun and Tsi-nin. not our hands grow weary or sink until victory is secured. Let our prayers be as a wall of fire around the camp of our brethren. Eternity will reveal the fulfillment of an old promise: Call upon Me in trouble, and I will deliver thee.' Therefore, pray continuously." 6 On August 1, 1900, the allied army of twenty-five thousand men, on Pekin, consisting of British, French, Russians, Japanese and Americans, started from Tien-tsin for the advance on Pekin, making good progress the first day. The main body of the Chinese imperial troops had left Pekin on July 21st to oppose the march of the allies. The Chinese were fortifying their position outside the British legation. On Sunday, August 5, 1900, the Chinese were repulsed by the allies in a hard Battles of fight at Peit-sang, near Tien-tsin, with the loss of almost four thousand men killed and wounded, while the allies lost twelve hundred killed and wounded. The allied troops engaged numbered sixteen thousand and the Chinese thirty thousand. The engagement lasted seven hours, and the Chinese displayed great courage and military discipline. Two days later-August 7, 1900-the allies captured the Chinese position at Yang-tsun after a hard forced march in intense heat, which prostrated many men, the allies losing seven hundred men, sixty of whom were Americans. The next day-August 8-1900—the allies routed the Chinese in a brief engagement at Tsi-nin. The victorious allies now were rushing to Pekin, with orders to take no rest; while the Chinese, in a panic, were retreating toward their capital, making little opposition to the advance of the allies, although Prince Tuan had ordered them to contest every inch of ground. The British-Indian contingent under General Sir Alfred Gaselee and the American contingent under General Adna Romanza Chaffee constituted the allied advance. The British General Dorward pronounced the American troops to be "soldiers of the highest class." The Count von Waldersee, who had not yet arrived in China, considered it a great honor to command such gallant soldiers as the American troops. Capture Finally, on August 14, 1900, the allies captured Pekin, after an of Pekin. cbstinate resistance on the part of the Chinese, and rescued the besieged legations and missionaries. It is said that when the overjoyed little band of foreigners heard the booming of the cannon of the allied armies coming for their deliverance they sang the familiar Doxology: " Praise God, from Whom all Blessings Flow." The Japanese lost one hundred men, the Chinese four hundred. The allies immediately surrounded the foreign legations to protect them. The allies were obliged to blow up the gates of the city before they could enter. The British and the Americans entered at the Tung Pien gates unopposed; while the Japanese and the Russians, after fierce fighting, blew up the two eastern gates of the Tartar city and entered. Among the Americans killed was Captain Reilly, of the Fifth United States Artillery. After surrounding the legations the victorious allies drove off the Chinese and rescued the foreigners, all the Ministers being found safe. The Austrian Charge d'Affaires, Dr. von Rosthorn, was wounded slightly. It was said that Prince Ching extended a friendly reception to the allies. The Dowager Empress, The Emperor Kwang-su and the imperial court fled from the capital before the allies entered, going to Singanfu, an ancient capital of China, in the inaccessible portion of the province of Shensi, about seven hundred and fifty miles west of Pekin. tion of the Sacred City. The victorious allies still were fighting the Chinese in the streets of OccupaPekin and were bombarding the point where the Chinese still were resisting, part of the city being in flames. The Chinese were making a last stand in the inner city, the "Forbidden City," the allies surrounding that quarter and shelling it vigorously. The foreign envoys still were in Pekin and were guarded. The United States consul at Tien-tsin reported that the American troops were surrounded in the palace grounds at Pekin. The allies in Pekin sent to Tien-tsin and Taku earnest requests for reinforcements. The Chinese troops soon were surrounded in the palace grounds of the sacred city, whither they had retired when the allies battered down the outside gates of the Tartar city. It was learned now that the foreign legations had been assailed furiously for two days and soon must have succumbed had not the allied relief force arrived just at the opportune movement. The relieving forces met with a joyful reception from the emaciated inmates of the foreign legations, who had only three days' rations left. About four thousand shells fell in the legation buildings during the siege, and sixty-five of the inmates were killed and one hundred and sixty were wounded. The British Indian troops had entered the British legation building at one o'clock and the Americans at three o'clock. The American and Russian flags had been planted on the eastern wall of Pekin at eleven o'clock in the morning. The British and Americans had encountered little resistance until they entered the city, where there was street fighting. The flags of all the allies now were waving over the sacred city, the Chinese Holy of Holies, the imperial palace; five hundred American troops having attacked the palace and captured four of the courts, the Stars and Stripes thus flying over the Chinese Emperor's granary. The American troops were the first of the allied forces to enter the imperial city. The whole Chinese capital now was occupied by the allies, who divided it into districts for police supervision by international commissions, composed of British, Americans, Japanese, Russians and French. The American troops in Pekin now were encamped on the grounds of the Temple of Heaven. Captain Reilly, of Battery F, Fifth United States Artillery, who was killed before the imperial palace, was buried in the legation Street Fighting in Pekin. Shameful grounds; the American, British and Japanese generals and many civilians being present at the burial. Captain Reilly was known as a very brave and efficient artillery officer. Street fighting continued in Pekin, the allies being opposed at every step when they entered new districts, and not having sufficient force to police the city efficiently and put down the half-armed Chinese mobs, though they drove the Boxers from all points which they had occupied. The allies marched through the doors of the imperial palace, probably for humiliating effect on the Chinese nation; and afterwards they closed the doors of the palace, thus shutting out the Chinese soldiers. The Chinese forces rallied to attack the allies in Pekin, and there were signs that the foreign troops might be besieged in the Chinese capital. The American troops were drawn up so as to face thirty thousand Boxers, and Japanese official advices showed that the struggle was not over by any means. By August 18, 1900, forty-six thousand foreign troops had landed at Taku. The allied army in Pekin soon was reinforced by a German contingent, which constituted the vanguard of the army which the Emperor William II. was sending to China to avenge the murder of his Minister; and very soon the Count von Waldersee arrived in the Chinese capital to assume the chief command of all the allied forces there. The Germans, French and Russians disgraced themselves by their Pillage. pillage of the Chinese capital, sending much valuable plunder to their respective countries; in which reprehensible proceedings the British, Americans and Japanese did not participate and against which they protested most vigorously. Among the valuable plunder sent to Europe was the famous clock which had been put in China's capital several centuries before by a celebrated Roman Catholic missionary. During the allied occupation of Pekin it was learned that the Chinese had discovered America in A. D. 499. Military Operations in Pechili and Shan tung. Attitude of Russia and the United States. During the fall of 1900 the allies prosecuted military operations vigorously against the Boxers and the Chinese troops in the provinces of Pechili and Shantung, and won a number of victories over small Chinese detachments, while the Russians achieved a number of successes over the Chinese in Manchuria. The British and Germans sent several punitive expeditions to punish Boxer outrages. The Germans treated their vanquished Chinese foes with the most barbarous cruelty, shooting many of them after taking them prisoners and compelling them to stand over the graves which had been dug for them so that they would fall right into the graves as they were shot. The trouble between China and the allied nations was settled only after many weary months of negotiations, prolonged largely by the attitudes of Russia and the United States. The proceedings of the Russians in Manchuria caused uneasiness to Great Britain, Japan and the United States, as the Russian generals were issuing edicts of annexation in that Tartar province of China, in utter violation of recent assurances of the Russian government that it had no designs on Manchuria and that its troops were there only to suppress the Boxers; and the allies were convinced that the Russians did not intend to get out of Manchuria. The United States all along had acted with its allies in a half-hearted manner, fearing public sentiment at home, especially as a Presidential campaign was in progress there during that fall; though after the election the United States was brought into line with the other powers in the terms to be demanded of China. The Anglo-German agreement of October 16, 1900, by which Great Britain and Germany bound themselves to prevent the partition of China was a guarantee of the integrity of Chinese territory and of peace among the allied powers. As the principle of this agreement all along had been insisted upon by the United States, the United States thenceforth acted more harmoniously with her allies; her chief concern after the suppression of the Boxer outbreak being the integrity of the Chinese Empire and the maintenance of the "open door" in China, or equal privileges for all nations to trade with China, in which policy she always had been in full accord with Great Britain. As early as August 20, 1900, Li Hung Chang had asked the allied powers for the cessation of hostilities and for the appointment of commissioners to negotiate a permanent peace, as Pekin then had been captured and the foreign legations rescued. The next day he made a request for the speedy evacuation of the Chinese capital by the allied troops. The peace commission met in Paris on October 20, 1900, when the Chinese plenipotentiaries proposed an indemnity amounting to two hundred and thirty million dollars to be paid in sixty installments, all customs and similar taxes to be placed under foreign control in the meantime. After almost a month passed in daily conferences, the allied Ministers at Pekin finally agreed upon a joint preliminary demand upon China, subject to the approval of their respective governments. The terms were as follows: An indemnity amounting to three hundred and fifty million dollars to be paid by China to the allied nations; the execution of eleven guilty Chinese princes and high officials as a punishment for the Boxer outrages; the Taku forts and other forts on the Gulf of Pechili to be razed and the importation of arms and war material to be prohibited; permanent legation guards at Pekin and guards of communication between Pekin and the sea; imperial edicts suppressing the Boxers to be posted throughout the Chinese Empire for two years; the Tsungli-Yamen to be abolished and its functions to be vested in a Minister of AngloGerman Agree ment. Peace Negotia tions. Peace Agree ment. Foreign Affairs, and rational intercourse to be permitted with the Chinese Emperor as in all civilized countries; provincial examinations to be suspended for five years, and in future all officials who have not made due effort to prevent outrages on foreigners within their respective jurisdictions to be removed from office immediately and punished; the indemnity to include compensation for the Chinese who suffered because of being employed by foreigners; the erection of a monument by China to the Baron von Ketteler at the site of his murder and the sending of a Chinese imperial prince to Germany to make an apology for the crime. China finally accepted the allied terms of peace, and the international troops were withdrawn gradually from the country. By this agreement China gave Russia exclusive mining and railway privileges in Manchuria for three years, but on October 8, 1903, Russia failed to evacuate as agreed. The Russo-Japanese War, however, intervened, and by the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 Manchuria was restored to China. On January 15, 1908, the United States remitted ten millions eight hundred thousand dollars of the indemnity claims against China as being unjust. On January 13, 1904, a commercial treaty was proclaimed with the United States, but as Chinese immigration Boycott restrictions were still enforced by the latter, a boycott against American Against American goods was declared by Chinese trade guilds on July 19, 1905. During Merchan- 1906-8 internal affairs assumed a more progressive spirit, special features dise. being the promise by the emperor on September 2, 1906, of constitutional government, army reform, extension of railways, telegraph lines, etc.; the agreement with Great Britain to suppress the opium traffic, and the National approval in March, 1908, of laws introducing Western banking methods. Progress. In Februray, 1908, occurred the dispute with Japan over the Tatsu Tatsu The Great Maru, a Japanese vessel seized off Macao by Chinese officials, who claimed that she was transporting arms for Chinese revolutionists. This Japan denied, but after much diplomatic intercourse the incident was amicably settled. China continued her disputes with Japan, however, over railway concessions in Manchuria, and in May, 1908, a boycott was declared against Japanese merchandise. SECTION V.-RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR (A. D. 1904-1905). THE greatest event in the world's history during the years 1904 and 1905 was the great Russo-Japanese War, one of the most gigantic struggles in the annals of time-a conflict characterized by battles which for magnitude of numbers engaged and losses on each side as well as for length of duration have no parallels in history. To the surprise of mankind generally, the little insular Empire of Japan won |