Beleaguered in Pekin 8

Beleaguered in Pekin 8

CHAPTER IV

 

_DIARY OF THE AUTHOR FROM JUNE 1 TO JUNE 20_

 

 

[Illustration: CHAO SHU CHIAO

 

Boxer Member of Cabinet]

 

THE following transcription of my diary gives the principal events in

the situation up to the date of the close siege, going back a little in

point of time from the last chapter.

 

June 1. After three days of exciting mental strain, we can at last

breathe easier. Rumors continue to fill the air of plots within the

palace, riots against the Catholic cathedral, railway being torn up

between here and Tientsin, etc. But the solid fact remains that a few

foreign guards have arrived at six legations, and a machine gun will

now have something to say in one’s behalf if the excited populace’s

thirst for foreign blood becomes too pressing.

 

With the exception of M. Pichon, the French minister, all the other

ministers are greatly to blame for their tardy recognition of the

impending trouble, and they have very nearly had the odium of a

preventible foreign massacre to answer for.

 

Sir Claude MacDonald, for whom the entire English community outside his

legation feel, and have openly expressed, the greatest contempt, would

not believe that there was any danger coming, and vigorously opposed

Pichon’s advice that the troops be sent for ten days ago.

 

Mr. Conger seconded Sir Claude, partly because the United States

legation quarters are so limited that the second secretary and his

wife are obliged to live in two rooms over the main office building,

and partly because he believed the government willing and capable of

putting down the disorder. Both were suddenly converted when Fengtai,

only six miles away, was burned, and the Boxers were reported marching

unopposed upon Peking. Then the most exciting telegraphing for warships

to come to Taku, and guards and machine guns to come to Peking, became

the order of the day.

 

Had the Boxers been at all organized they could have torn up the track

for a mile or two at Fengtai, and effectually cut off the troops from

arriving in time to prevent any city riots. Fortunately, they seem

to have been carried away by the desire to loot, and after they had

carried off all the furniture and belongings of the eight foreign

residences at Fengtai, and robbed the Empress’ private car of all

movable property, they were content to set fire to the stations and

machine shops, and then clear out home to the adjoining villages.

 

June 4. None of the Boxers have been punished, and they have grown

bolder, burning the next station below Fengtai, known as Huangtsun,

thirteen miles from Peking, killing two Church of England missionaries

named Robinson and Norman at Yungching, and defeating a force of

Cossacks sent out from Tientsin to search for the surviving Belgians

escaping from the Lu Han railway. In spite of this, and with seventeen

men-of-war at Tangku, the foreign ministers, besides bringing up each

a guard of fifty or seventy-five men to protect his own legation, are

doing nothing—that we can see at any rate—to pacify the country.

Why they don’t land a large force, come to Peking, and seize the old

reprobates that they all know are the real bosses of the Boxer movement

in Peking, and hold them responsible for any further movement, nobody

knows.

 

Every minister can tell you that Hsu Tung, Kang Yi, Chung Li, Chung

Chi, and Chao Shu Chiao, with Prince Tuan, are the real causes of all

the present disorder. Although they all know this, they still pretend

to believe the assurances of the government to the contrary....

 

June 13. Events have been too exciting to allow of one sitting down

quietly to write. The missionaries from Tungchow, thirteen miles south

of Peking, have fled into this city, and all their college plant,

private residences, and property have been destroyed by soldiers sent

from the taotai’s yamen to protect them. All the Peking missionaries

have gathered together in the Methodist mission compound, where,

with such arms as they could collect—a few shotguns, rifles, and

revolvers—and with a guard of twenty marines, sent by Mr. Conger,

United States minister, they have fortified themselves with barbed wire

and brick fences, and are “holding the fort.”

 

For days we have heard no word from our Presbyterian missionaries at

Paotingfu. The last word, now some days since, which came through the

tsung-li-yamen and is therefore untrustworthy, was that they were

safe at present. Wires south have been cut since the burning of the

college buildings at Tungchow, and I have been unable to write home the

developments daily occurring.

 

On the 10th of June, just before the wires were cut, we had a message

from United States Consul Ragsdale, saying eight hundred odd troops

were coming to our assistance, but to-day is the fourth day since its

receipt, and we only know of their reaching Lofa, a burned station on

the railway to Tientsin, on Monday night. We have been expecting them

every hour since, but no definite word of their arrival at any other

place has reached us. Why they don’t send natives in advance we can’t

imagine.

 

June 18. Eleven days we have been besieged in Legation street. Our

little guard of four hundred and fifty marines and sailors of all

nationalities have kept unceasing watch night and day, and are nearly

exhausted. Eleven days ago we were told that an army was marching to

our relief, and although they had only eight miles to come we have not

yet seen them, nor do we know their whereabouts.

 

We have nightly repelled attacks of Boxers and soldiers of the

government, and have killed in sorties over two hundred of them; but

we have millions about us, and unless relieved must soon succumb. Our

messengers to the outside world have been captured and killed, and our

desperate situation, while it may be guessed, cannot be truly known.

 

With fifty men-of-war now at Taku we have to remain within our

barricaded streets and witness the destruction of all the mission

premises and private foreign residences on the outside.

 

The American Board mission’s large property, the two large Catholic

cathedrals known as the South cathedral and the East cathedral, the

two compounds of the American Presbyterian mission, the Society for

Propagation of the Gospel mission, the International Institute, and the

London mission have all furnished magnificent conflagrations, which we

have beheld without being able in any way to prevent.

 

At each place the furious Boxers, aided by their soldier sympathizers,

have murdered, with shocking mutilation, all the gatekeepers as well

as any women and children in the neighborhood suspected of being

Christians or foreign sympathizers.

 

At the South cathedral the massacre was shocking; so much so that when

some of the poor mutilated children came fleeing across the city,

bringing the news of what was going on, a relief party was organized

from our little force, consisting of twelve Russians, twelve American

marines, and two civilians, W. N. Pethick and M. Duysberg, armed with

shotguns, who, risking conflict with the Manchu troops, marched two

miles from our barricades and, coming on the Boxers suddenly in the

midst of the ruins, fired a number of volleys into them, killing over

sixty, upon which the rest fled. They then collected the women and

children hidden in the surrounding alleys, and marched them back to us,

where they are for the present safe.

 

I have just finished dressing the wounded head of a little girl ten

years of age, who, in spite of a sword cut four inches long in the

back of her head and two fractures of the outer table of the skull,

walked all the way back here, leading a little sister of eight and a

brother of four. As she patiently endured the stitching of the wound,

she described to me the murder of her father and mother and the looting

of her home. One old man of sixty carried his mother of eighty upon his

back and brought her into temporary safety; but how long before we are

all murdered we cannot say.

 

Our anxiety has been something frightful, and at this moment, many

days since we were told that troops were coming to our relief, we are

apparently no nearer rescue than at first. We can’t comprehend it.

Night before last, after being driven away by our hot rifle fire, the

Boxers turned on the defenseless shopkeepers in the southern city, and

burned many acres of the best business places and native banks.

 

They also burned the great city gate, known as the Chien Men, an

imposing structure of many stories high, which must have illuminated

the surrounding country for miles. Surely our troops must have seen the

glare, if they were within forty miles of us. We begin to fear they

have met with an overwhelming force of Chinese soldiers, and have been

driven back to Tientsin.

 

The tsung-li-yamen, or foreign office, is utterly powerless, and yet

it continues to send us messages stating it is going to protect us,

and it has the Empress issue daily edicts, which, while apparently

condemning the Boxers, really encourage them.

 

[Illustration: MAIN GATE TO PEKING, DESTROYED BY BOXERS SEPT. 16, 1900

 

This is one of Peking’s main and most imposing gates. Notice the

massive building above the wall; note the solidity of the wall itself;

an idea of its great height can be formed by noticing how small a

proportion is occupied by the arch and yet how small a proportion of

the arch is actually required for the passing vehicles.]

 

The Manchu soldiers have stood idly by in thousands, and have seen

the frightful butcheries of converts and suspected converts, without

raising a finger to interfere. When questioned why they did not obey

the edicts authorizing them to repress arson and looting they have

replied, “We have other instructions.”

 

Mauser bullets are nightly fired at our sentries, and every night we

have to turn out a number of times to repel the cowardly natives, whom

we find sneaking down upon us, and who dare attack only under cover of

darkness.

 

The behavior of our women and children under these circumstances has

been remarkable, and their courage and bravery above all praise.

 

Should these lines ever be published I wish to make known to the world

the great courage, devotion, and constant watchfulness of Captain

John T. Myers, of the marine corps. We will owe to him our lives

and the lives of our loved ones if we are ever rescued. His bravery

and endurance will, if he survives, mark him for high command some

day. While all the officers here have acted well, yet he is head and

shoulders above them in coolness and decision, and all the other

nationalities come to him for advice and counsel.

 

He is well seconded here by ex-Lieutenant Herbert G. Squiers, Seventh

United States Cavalry, who is first secretary of legation. Had Mr.

Squiers been minister, we would never have been in our present terrible

situation, for he realized the appalling nature of the threatened

outbreak while the ministers pooh-poohed it. As he could not of his

own initiative order up troops in time, he laid in abundant stores of

rice and other eatables, and bought up all the wagons and ammunition

purchasable.

 

[Illustration: HERBERT G. SQUIERS

 

First Secretary, United States Legation, Peking]

 

The blind trust the ministers (with the exception perhaps of M.

Pichon) placed in the promises of the tsung-li-yamen, in the face of

the daily increasing riots and murder, is an instance of childlike

simplicity which I trust they may never have an opportunity to repeat

elsewhere. The entire community here, of civilians and military alike,

condemn them as a set of incompetents.

 

They now, of course, all see their mistake in being fooled by the

tsung-li-yamen, and prevented from bringing a sufficient force here

until the railroad was destroyed and hordes of fierce Kansu ruffians placed in the way of advancing relief.