Editing Boxer Rebellion (section)

=== Siege of the Beijing legations ===
{{main|Siege of the International Legations}}
[[File:Western Legations Peking 1900 Clowes Vol VII.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.75|Locations of foreign diplomatic legations and front lines in Beijing during the siege]]
On 15 June, Qing imperial forces deployed electric [[naval mine]]s in the [[Beihe River]] to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/reportsonmilita01divigoog |title=Reports on Military Operations in South Africa and China |publisher=Government Printing Office |year=1901 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=[https://archive.org/details/reportsonmilita01divigoog/page/n585 533]}}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}} With a difficult military situation in Tianjin and a total breakdown of communications between Tianjin and Beijing, the allied nations took steps to reinforce their military presence significantly. On 17 June, Allied forces under Russian Admiral [[Yevgeni Ivanovich Alekseyev|Yevgeni Alekseyev]] took the Dagu Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and from there brought increasing numbers of troops on shore. When Cixi received an ultimatum that same day demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Laidler |first=Keith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QLPZ7294oSIC&pg=PA221 |title=The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2003 |isbn=0-470-86426-5 |page=221}}</ref> she defiantly stated before the entire [[Grand Council (Qing dynasty)|Grand Council]], "Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why don't we fight to the death?"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tan |first=Chester C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_gcOAQAAMAAJ&q=extinction+nation |title=The Boxer catastrophe |publisher=Octagon |year=1967 |isbn=0-374-97752-6 |edition=Repr. |page=73 |issue=Issue 583 of Columbia Studies in the Social Sciences}}</ref> It was at this point that Cixi began to blockade the legations with the armies of the [[Peking Field Force]], which began the siege. Cixi stated that "I have always been of the opinion, that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860. Only a united effort was then necessary to have given China the victory. Today, at last, the opportunity for revenge has come", and said that millions of Chinese would join the cause of fighting the foreigners since the Manchus had provided "great benefits" on China.<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Connor |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P4NxAAAAMAAJ&q=extinction+imminent |title=The Spirit Soldiers: A Historical Narrative of the Boxer Rebellion |publisher=Putnam |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-399-11216-4 |edition=Illustrated |page=85}}</ref> On receipt of the news of the attack on the [[Dagu Fort]]s on 19 June, Empress Dowager Cixi immediately sent an order to the legations that the diplomats and other foreigners depart Beijing under escort of the Chinese army within 24 hours.<ref>Tan, p. 75</ref>

The next morning, diplomats from the besieged legations met to discuss the Empress's offer. The majority quickly agreed that they could not trust the Chinese army. Fearing that they would be killed, they agreed to refuse the Empress's demand. The German Imperial Envoy, Baron [[Clemens von Ketteler]], was infuriated with the actions of the Chinese army troops and determined to take his complaints to the royal court. Against the advice of the fellow foreigners, the baron left the legations with a single aide and a team of porters to carry his sedan chair. On his way to the palace, von Ketteler was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain.{{sfnp|Edgerton|1997|p=[https://archive.org/details/warriorsofrising00edge/page/82 82]}} His aide managed to escape the attack and carried word of the baron's death back to the diplomatic compound. At this news, the other diplomats feared they also would be murdered if they left the legation quarter and they chose to continue to defy the Chinese order to depart Beijing. The legations were hurriedly fortified. Most of the foreign civilians, which included a large number of missionaries and businessmen, took refuge in the British legation, the largest of the diplomatic compounds.{{sfnp|Preston|2002|p=87}} Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of [[Prince Su]], who was forced to abandon his property by the foreign soldiers.{{sfnp|Preston|2002|p=79}}

[[File:Boxer2y.jpg|thumb|left|Representative Allied army and naval personnel]]
On 21 June, Cixi issued [[Imperial decree of declaration of war against foreign powers|an imperial decree]] stating that hostilities had begun and ordering the regular Chinese army to join the Boxers in their attacks on the invading troops. This was a {{lang|la|de facto}} declaration of war, but the Allies also made no formal declaration of war.{{sfnp|Klein|2008}} Regional governors in the south, who commanded substantial modernised armies, such as [[Li Hongzhang]] at Guangzhou, [[Yuan Shikai]] in Shandong, [[Zhang Zhidong]]{{sfnp|Rhoads|2000|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tgq1miGno-4C&pg=PA74 74–75]}} at Wuhan, and [[Liu Kunyi]] at Nanjing, formed the [[Mutual Defense Pact of the Southeastern Provinces]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Luo |first=Zhitian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avlyBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 |title=Inheritance within Rupture: Culture and Scholarship in Early Twentieth Century China |publisher=Brill |year=2015 |isbn=978-90-04-28766-2 |page=19}}</ref> They refused to recognise the imperial court's declaration of war, which they declared a {{tlit|zh|luan-ming}} (illegitimate order) and withheld knowledge of it from the public in the south. Yuan Shikai used his own forces to suppress Boxers in Shandong, and Zhang entered into negotiations with the foreigners in Shanghai to keep his army out of the conflict. The neutrality of these provincial and regional governors left the majority of Chinese military forces out of the conflict.{{sfnp|Hsü|2000|pp=395–398}} The republican revolutionary Sun Yat-sen even took the opportunity to submit a proposal to Li Hongzhang to declare an independent democratic republic, although nothing came of the suggestion.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Teng |first1=Ssu-yü |title=China's Response to the West A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 |last2=Fairbank |first2=John King |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-674-12025-9 |volume=1–2 |page=226}}</ref>

The legations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, Russia and Japan were located in the [[Beijing Legation Quarter]] south of the [[Forbidden City]]. The Chinese army and Boxer irregulars besieged the Legation Quarter from 20 June to 14 August 1900. A total of 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers, marines and sailors from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge there.{{sfnp|Thompson|2009|pp=84–85}} Under the command of the British minister to China, [[Claude Maxwell MacDonald]], the legation staff and military guards defended the compound with small arms, three machine guns, and one old muzzle-loaded cannon, which was nicknamed the ''International Gun'' because the barrel was British, the carriage Italian, the shells Russian and the crew American. Chinese Christians in the legations led the foreigners to the cannon and it proved important in the defence. Also under siege in Beijing was the [[Church of the Saviour, Beijing|Northern Cathedral]] (''Beitang'') of the Catholic Church. The cathedral was defended by 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 Catholic foreign priests and nuns, and about 3,200 Chinese Catholics. The defenders suffered heavy casualties from lack of food and from mines which the Chinese exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound.{{sfnp|Thompson|2009|pp=85, 170–171}} The number of Chinese soldiers and Boxers besieging the Legation Quarter and the Beitang is unknown.{{sfnp|Rhoads|2000| p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OXQkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72 72]}} Zaiyi's bannermen in the [[Tiger and Divine Corps]] led attacks against the Catholic cathedral church.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Landor |first=Arnold Henry Savage |author-link=Arnold Henry Savage Landor |title=China and the allies, Volume 1 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=1901 |page=24}}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}}

On 22 and 23 June, Chinese soldiers and Boxers set fire to areas north and west of the British Legation, using it as a "frightening tactic" to attack the defenders. The nearby [[Hanlin Academy]], a complex of courtyards and buildings that housed "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship ... the oldest and richest library in the world", caught fire. Each side blamed the other for the destruction of the invaluable books it contained.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Destruction of Chinese Books in the Peking Siege of 1900. Donald G. Davis, Jr. University of Texas at Austin, Cheng Huanwen Zhongshan University, PRC |url=http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla62/62-davd.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919024848/http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla62/62-davd.htm |archive-date=19 September 2008 |access-date=26 October 2008 |publisher=International Federation of Library Association}}</ref>

[[File:1900 China war, burning of the Temple.jpg|thumb|1900, soldiers burned down the Temple, [[Shanhai Pass]]{{snd}}''The destruction of a Chinese temple on the bank of the Pei-Ho'', by [[Amédée Forestier]]]]
After the failure to burn out the foreigners, the Chinese army adopted an anaconda-like strategy. The Chinese built barricades surrounding the Legation Quarter and advanced, brick by brick, on the foreign lines, forcing the foreign legation guards to retreat a few feet at a time. This tactic was especially used in the Fu, defended by Japanese and Italian sailors and soldiers, and inhabited by most of the Chinese Christians. Fusillades of bullets, artillery and firecrackers were directed against the Legations almost every night—but did little damage. Sniper fire took its toll among the foreign defenders. Despite their numerical advantage, the Chinese did not attempt a direct assault on the Legation Quarter although in the words of one of the besieged, "it would have been easy by a strong, swift movement on the part of the numerous Chinese troops to have annihilated the whole body of foreigners&nbsp;... in an hour".{{sfnp|Smith|1901|loc=vol. 2, pp. 393, 316–317}}{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}} American missionary [[Francis Dunlap Gamewell]] and his crew of "fighting parsons" fortified the Legation Quarter,<ref>Weale, Putnam. ''Indiscreet Letters from Peking''. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1907, pp.&nbsp;142–143</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}} but impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labour of building defences.<ref>Payen, Cecile E. "Besieged in Peking". ''The Century Magazine'', January 1901, pp. 458–460</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}}

The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the [[Tartar Wall]]. Holding the top of the {{convert |45|ft|m|abbr=on}} tall and {{convert |40|ft|m|abbr=on}} wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and {{convert |400|yd|m|abbr=on}} west were the west-facing American positions. The Chinese advanced toward both positions by building barricades even closer. "The men all feel they are in a trap", said the US commander Capt. [[John Twiggs Myers]], "and simply await the hour of execution".<ref>Myers, Captain John T. "Military Operations and Defenses of the Siege of Peking". ''Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute'', September 1902, pp.&nbsp;542–550.</ref> On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defence. In June 1900, one American described the scene of 20,000 Boxers storming the walls:{{sfnp|Roark|Johnson|Furstenburg|Cline Cohen|2020}}{{sfnp|Roark|Johnson|Furstenburg|Cline Cohen|2020}}

{{blockquote|Their yells were deafening, while the roar of gongs, drums, and horns sounded like thunder&nbsp;... They waved their swords and stamped on the ground with their feet. They wore red turbans, sashes, and garters over blue cloth&nbsp;... They were now only twenty yards from our gate. Three or four volleys from the [[Lebel rifle]]s of our marines left more than fifty dead on the ground.}}

At the same time, a Chinese barricade was advanced to within a few feet of the American positions, and it became clear that the Americans had to abandon the wall or force the Chinese to retreat. At 2&nbsp;am on 3 July 56 British, Russian and American marines and sailors, under the command of Myers, launched an assault against the Chinese barricade on the wall. The attack caught the Chinese sleeping, killed about 20 of them, and expelled the rest of them from the barricades.<ref>Oliphant, Nigel, ''A Diary of the Siege of the Legations in Peking''. London: Longman, Greens, 1901, pp 78–80</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}} The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.<ref>Martin, W. A. P. ''The Siege in Peking''. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1900, p. 83</ref>{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}}

Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege.{{sfnp|Fleming|1959|pp=157–158}} The Japanese and Italians in the Fu were driven back to their last defence line. The Chinese detonated a mine beneath the French Legation pushing the French and Austrians out of most of the French Legation.{{sfnp|Fleming|1959|pp=157–158}} On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist [[George Ernest Morrison]] was wounded.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Peter |title=The Man who Died Twice: The Life and Adventures of Morrison of Peking |last2=Macklin |first2=Robert |publisher=Allen & Unwin |year=2005 |location=Crow's Nest, Australia |pages=190–191}}</ref> American Minister [[Edwin H. Conger]] established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, and an armistice was declared by the Chinese.{{sfnp|Conger|1909|p=135}}{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}}