Beleaguered in Pekin 18

Beleaguered in Pekin 18

This picture gives an idea of the vastness of the ancient defenses of

Peking and of the unhygienic character of its surroundings. Across the

canal are to be seen the straggling buildings of a Tartar village.

Immediately in the foreground lie the stagnant waters of the canal and

piles of reeking filth.]

 

I received the thanks of Mr. Squiers and the entire marine guard

for this service, as it rendered their position much more bearable

thereafter, and their gratitude fully repaid me for the danger incurred.

 

Directly across a moat leading from the Imperial city wall to the

southern wall of the Tartar city of Peking, opposite to the British

legation, is a large square compound, known in the local mandarin

tongue as Su Wang Fu, or in plain English as the palace of Prince Su.

 

This prince inherited the title from his father only two years ago. He

is a young man of rather pleasant appearance, about thirty years of

age. I have dined with him twice at the residence of his next younger

brother, who was a patient of mine last winter.

 

This compound is surrounded by a stout brick wall from twelve to

fifteen feet high. Lying, as the place does, in between the British and

Austrian legations, it was decided to take possession of it for the

thousand-odd Christian refugees, mostly Catholics, who had claimed the

protection of their teachers, the missionaries, when the cathedrals and

mission premises were burned.

 

The idea of doing this originated with Mr. F. H. James, who was killed

on the bridge by Kansu soldiers a few days after the occupation. Dr. G.

E. Morrison warmly seconded it, and the plan was carried out without

opposition from Prince Su or his retainers, as actual warfare had not

yet broken out.

 

This palace consists of a lot of rather fine (for Chinese buildings)

edifices, all of one story, arranged in a series of courts, with a

considerable park on the west side facing on the moat dividing the

palace from the British legation.

 

As less than a hundred yards’ space is taken up by the width of the

moat and the roadway on either side, it will be readily seen that to

hold this compound was to protect the entire east side of the British

legation from the Chinese fire.

 

Colonel Shiba, the Japanese commandant, with his twenty-five soldiers,

was first placed in charge, but later on he was reinforced from time to

time by detachments from the Austrians, Italians, British, and French

marines, and by the young men of the customs service, known as the

Customs volunteers.

 

The most determined efforts of the siege have been made by the Chinese

troops and Boxers to obtain possession of the palace—first, doubtless,

because it commanded the entire east wall of the British legation

at short range, and secondly, because they desired to exterminate

the thousand-odd refugees—men, women, and children—harbored there.

Consequently, the loss of life of our defenders and the number of

wounded brought from the Su Wang Fu into the hospital has greatly

exceeded that of any other one place.

 

To Colonel Shiba, its heroic defender, is due the greatest credit,

inasmuch as he has held the place for weeks, after the other commanders

had prophesied it would have to be given up in twenty-four hours.

 

This he has been enabled to do by building barricade after barricade

in the rear of his first line of defense, at often less than fifty

yards’ distance, and when one barricade was shelled until absolutely

untenable, retreating to the next strong position in his rear.

 

Colonel Shiba also enlisted all the Japanese civilians in the city,

and even trained twenty-five of the native Catholic converts into very

steady soldiers, arming them with rifles taken from the bodies of dead

soldiers of the enemy.

 

In addition to the military officers who arrived with the legation

guards, there happened to be in Peking at the commencement of the siege

two English captains, one to study Chinese, the other representing

a concession syndicate—Captains Poole and Percy Smith. Both of the

gentlemen have rendered efficient and valuable service, and, since the

death of Captain Strouts, have been on regular duty.

 

A curious fact, interesting alike to English and Americans, is that on

the Fourth of July, after Captain Myers had been wounded in the sortie

on the city wall the previous night, Captain Percy Smith commanded the

American marines in the trench on the wall all day, under hot fire from

cannon and rifles, and the marines speak in the highest terms of his

bravery and coolness, and his care for their comfort and safety.

 

Mr. E. von Strauch, formerly first lieutenant in the German army, but

now a member of the customs service, has also rendered valuable service

in relieving the officer in charge at all the various posts, such as

the city wall, held by the Americans; the Su Wang Fu, held by Colonel

Shiba; the Hanlin Yuan, held by the British, and other points outside

the legation. The men also express the highest regard for him.

 

So much for the outside officers. Among civilians deserving credit are

many who have daily and faithfully done the work apportioned to them

in capacities where they have been unnoticed, but where their work has

contributed much to the general comfort, and some of them at least

should be mentioned.

 

Messrs. Allardyce and Brazier in the meat supply department, Mr. S. M.

Russell in the commissary department, Mr. Stell in the coolie supply

department, Dr. Chauncey Goodrich and Messrs. Walker and Whiting in the

coolies’ food supply, together with Messrs. Tewkesbury, Hobart, and

Norris, all have steadily worked for the common good, often both day

and night.

 

It has been noticed by a great many Englishmen and others that the

Russians besieged with us have been of uniformly gentlemanly and

courteous bearing. They have won golden opinions from all, with the

exception, perhaps, of one intensely biased newspaper correspondent,

who reads in the most commonplace saying some deeply-concealed meaning,

and some unkind intention toward the British interests. A Russian

gentleman is a perfect gentleman, and uniformly a marvelous linguist.

 

I have several times been present in a room with a Frenchman, a

German, and an Italian, with whom several Russians carried on animated

conversations, addressing each man in his own language, and apparently

with equal fluency.

 

From M. de Giers, down through his whole legation, the professors of

Russian in the Imperial University and Tung Wen Kuan, the officers and

clerks of the Russo-Chinese bank, one can find none who are not perfect

gentlemen and most agreeable companions.

 

Baron von Radew, the captain in charge of the Russian marines, has been

a most devoted officer, and every point of his defenses has had his

constant personal supervision. He has never undressed to sleep in the

last two months, but has taken the broken rest he has obtained lying

in a steamer chair in one of his barricades. He has lost greatly in

flesh, and is but a skeleton of his former self, but remains the same

courteous officer and gentleman under circumstances that have altered

the dispositions of not a few.

 

[Illustration: HOUSE BOATS

 

Used for interior travel on Chinese rivers. Families pass their entire

existence on these boats. Some are fitted very comfortably.]

 

If the diplomatic corps in Peking could only have heard the many and

varied contemptuous remarks made about them by their own nationals,

both before and during the siege, they would perhaps have a new idea

of what their titles of “envoys extraordinary” meant. As I heard one

gentleman remark: “After this lot are disposed of, I hope they will

send us a set of ‘envoys ordinary’—common-sense kind of men, who have

eyes and ears.”

 

It is certainly marvelous that with the information so readily

obtainable as to the Boxer movement, its aims and intentions, and after

having it forced almost upon them, as the British, American and French

ministers certainly have had by their missionaries and others, the

diplomatic corps should have blindly allowed themselves to be penned

up in Peking with only a handful of guards, to endure treatment as

disgraceful as it has been unpleasant.

 

True, M. Pichon urged his colleagues early to send for legation

guards, and wanted them in larger numbers, but even he, after constant

assurances from Bishop Faner (who was perfectly informed as to the

gravity of the movement and the Imperial sanction), declined to act

independently and allowed the situation to proceed to the utmost

extremity before he believed the priest true and the tsung-li-yamen

false.

 

A very blue lot they have been during the siege. Although better fed

than the unfortunates—the results of their credulity—compelled to

suffer with them, they have not been pleasant company, and have been

allowed to flock together as birds of a feather, and discuss at length

the utter neglect of their home governments in not speedily rescuing

them.

 

The rest of us poor mortals have long since come to the conclusion that

our governments have found out their true value, and have decided they

are not worth a rescue.

 

The Belgian minister having arrived only a few weeks before the siege

began, is not to blame for the position, and he wonders as much as the

ordinary mortal how his colleagues could have allowed it to come to

pass.

 

Is it possible that England and America, if they had been informed of

the true state of affairs by their representatives, would not have

requested their ministers to notify all the foreign women and children

to leave the country?

 

When a foreign war is inevitable, even in a civilized country, it is

a necessity for non-combatants to leave. In a barbarous country it

means murder, often with torture, to remain; yet our missionaries

in Paotingfu and places inland were not warned that their district

troubles were not local, but general, and that they should hasten to

the coast, to be nearer protection.

 

Some of the wiser English people among us assert that “so far from

being blamed by their government for the siege, and loss of life

accompanying it, their minister will be praised for bringing us safely

through it, and receive a higher decoration if not a baronetcy; just as

he was rewarded before for failing to keep his government informed of

the Russians being the real owners of the Fu Haw railroad, receiving at

that time some alphabetical additions to his signature.”

 

John Brown is much improved by being called Sir John Brown, P. I.

G.—which may mean “perfectly independent gentleman.”

 

Posterity, however, will read of this siege with amazement, and wonder how so many blind and deaf men came to be appointed to the same post at one time. Truly a remarkable coincidence.