“...the boxers took to murdering foreigners (and Chinese Christians) wherever they could find them. Many completely peaceful and unarmed missionaries were among the victims...” [FLT-bird, post 5]
A strictly Western interpretation, and a self-serving one.
The fists of Righteous Harmony (to give them their title in local parlance) was a movement composed principally of peasants from northern regions and other rural provinces. They objected to modernization and economic exploitation in general, but the spiritual imperialism of Christian missionaries loomed larger. Railroads didn’t merely deprive indigenous boatmen and carters of livelihood, they violated sacred burial grounds. Telegraph lines hummed and whirred in the winds - an affront to native spirits of the air.
Proselytizing missionaries were a more serious cultural incursion: Chinese converts to Christian beliefs were not welcomed as bearers of “Good News,” they were traitors to the unconverted. Missionaries weren’t brightening the lives of peasants with enlightenment, they were fifth columnists and pre-invasion special forces, ridiculing traditional beliefs.
Imperial German seizure of Tsingtao in Shantung Province on the pretext of the murder of two German missionaries is considered the immediate cause of the Boxer Rebellion. With characteristic Prussian thoroughness, functionaries began an extensive program of “Germanization,” including punitive expeditions that destroyed local villages, provoking reactions from Shantung’s peasantry in 1898; the first counter-moves made by the Boxers were murders of Christian converts among their countrymen. Assassination of Western missionaries came next.
Long displeased by the high-handedness of Western powers but seemingly powerless to stop it, Dowager Empress T’zu-hsi saw in the Boxers a means to defeat the imperial exploiters. First, she ordered Imperial Chinese troops to avoid suppressing Boxer uprisings in outlying districts, but when the Boxers entered Peking she told her soldiers to help.
Floods and drought in 1900 exacerbated tensions in northern China, precipitating harvest failures. Attacks on Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries rose sharply; survivors and panicked Westerners flocked to Peking. They crowded into the Legation Quarter; the British minister in charge telegraphed the allied fleet anchored 100 miles downriver. Almost 350 sailors and marines arrived on 31 May 1900.
Boxers decapitated the Japanese Legation Chancellor and cut out his heart on 9 June; on 20 June, a Chinese soldier shot the German Minister to the Imperial Chinese government. This act marked the official start of the Siege of the Legation.
Some 3000 people had taken refuge inside the compound, of whom more than 2000 were Chinese Christian converts seeking sanctuary. Over 600 non-Chinese civilians were present; all were defended by 409 soldiers, sailors, and marines. Beyond personal-issue rifles, they were armed with three machine guns and four light artillery pieces. Food & water were adequate; fresh meat was available from the 150 polo ponies that had been brought in for Race Week.
A relief force of 2000 allied troops set out from Tientsin but was turned back and had to fight its way to Tientsin, which itself had been besieged by 20,000 Boxers. Among the wounded were John Jellicoe and David Beatty, who both commanded the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet during the First World War.
The Legation remained secure, thanks in part to the inability of Boxers and regular Chinese troops to coordinate attack or to employ more than two Krupp field pieces out of dozens on hand; many were found, still in packing crates, after the siege was lifted.
Deprived of information, the Western press multiplied fictions, mostly horror stories of how the Legation had been overrun and all survivors slaughtered.
Another allied relief expedition, 25,000 strong and commanded by a Russian general, set out from Tientsin on 5 August. British and Japanese troops entered the city on 14 August, raising the siege. Total losses in the Legation were 66 dead, 150 wounded.
The Imperial Chinese court fled, the Boxers melted away, and some 75 percent of Peking’s population retreated into the countryside; Westerners (including many civilians who had just been rescued) took revenge by looting.
there is no doubt the Opium Wars were awful. Its certainly true that foreigners had bitten off chunks of China with the British and French foremost among them.
However, butchering unarmed civilians, cannot be seen as anything but a barbarous act guaranteed to incur universal opprobrium. Had they merely expelled them it would be one thing but that is not what they did. Also, murdering an ambassador is not something that is going to be looked upon favorably by anyone. Doing this to every other significant power on earth all at once was just downright stupid. In the end, it got a lot of boxers mowed down and the cost to China was far far greater than had they acted with more restraint.
If you must fight, try not to take on the whole world. That tends to not turn out very well.
Then I am glad to read that you will provide a fairer and more objective analysis...
The fists of Righteous Harmony (to give them their title in local parlance) was a movement composed principally of peasants...
This sounds like standard Communist Party propaganda.
They objected to modernization and economic exploitation in general, but the spiritual imperialism of Christian missionaries loomed larger.
They sound just like millenial generation democrats!
Railroads didn’t merely deprive indigenous boatmen and carters of livelihood, they violated sacred burial grounds. Telegraph lines hummed and whirred in the winds - an affront to native spirits of the air.
Now this sounds like it is straight from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal"!
Proselytizing missionaries were a more serious cultural incursion: Chinese converts to Christian beliefs were not welcomed as bearers of “Good News,” they were traitors to the unconverted.
Ouch, sounds like these heathens needed pacifying.
Missionaries weren’t brightening the lives of peasants with enlightenment, they were fifth columnists and pre-invasion special forces, ridiculing traditional beliefs...
My goodness, did you write all this yourself? If so, may I ask which American-hating, liberal arts college you attended?
[Snipped several paragraphs of anti-Western drivel]
...Westerners (including many civilians who had just been rescued) took revenge by looting.
Now that's just silly. I am no fan of the Queen Victoria and her shameful narco-terrorism, but your history is really over the top. Have you spent much time with the Chi-Coms, or are you one yourself?