The Boxer Rebellion was a Chinese nationalist uprising led by the Boxers (or Boxers) sect against foreign legations and Catholic missions in Peking in 1900. This revolt came about as a reaction to the dismantling of China by Western powers. country. From June 20, 1900, Beijing resounded with the cries of hatred of thousands of people against foreigners. The German ambassador Clemens von Ketteler has just been assassinated, the foreign legations will suffer a 55-day siege.
Origins of the Boxer Rebellion
The economic and political exploitation of China by Western powers and Japan, from the humiliating defeats inflicted by Britain in the Opium Wars (1839- 1842, 1856-1860) and by Japan during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), was the main cause of Chinese resentment, accentuated by the economic crisis. Turn-of-the-century China, ruled by the Manchu (Qing) dynasty, had long since fallen prey to foreign powers, foremost among them the United Kingdom, Japan, Russia, France and Germany.
> 
The latter have imposed, often by armed force, a whole series of humiliating treaties forcing the opening of the market Chinese to foreign influence. Culturally, the country must face the activism of Christian missionaries and a profound questioning of the old imperial system. The emergence of a bourgeois, liberal but also nationalist elite is agitating the big cities.
Empress Dowager Cixi's government has taken refuge in cautious conservatism, playing on growing Chinese frustration and xenophobia to secure the power it has obtained in a brutal way (coup of March 1898). In particular, the Beijing authorities give their support to a secret society, the Militia of Justice and Concord, whose members who practice martial arts are nicknamed “Boxers” by Westerners. The Boxers are heirs to a long tradition of occult and armed brotherhoods. Fiercely nationalistic, they first, like their predecessors, condemned the Manchu dynasty as foreign before rallying to it in the face of the common enemy:the colonial powers and their missionaries.
The Boxers recruit their members from the popular classes and are organized in a military fashion. This earned them to be formed into a militia by the government of Cixi. From June 1900, officially under the command of the court, they will commit a whole series of murders and abuses against foreigners. They have no choice but to take refuge in the quarters of the legations.
European intervention
The events of June will push foreign powers to intervene militarily in China. It is as much about rescuing civilians trapped in besieged legations as it is about exerting overwhelming pressure on the Imperial regime. An alliance of eight states (Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Italy, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary) known as the "Eight Nations Alliance" was formed with the aim of constituting an expeditionary force. This will reach a strength of 100,000 men at its peak. Liberating the Beijing legations on August 14, the foreign soldiers discover a spectacle of horror. Civilians captured by the Boxers were often horribly tortured, as were Chinese Christians. The rivers are filled with corpses, there are pyramids of severed heads in various places, even stuffed bodies in various places in the city, etc.
The revenge of the colonial powers is going to be terrible. As Kaiser Wilhelm II asked his troops, it is a question of terrorizing the Chinese population. Summary executions, murders and rapes will follow one another for months. Height of humiliation for the Chinese, the foreign soldiers are photographed within the Forbidden City. In occupied Beijing, the troops engaged in exactions and carried out a policy of repression.
Consequences of the Boxer War
The empress who fled to Xi'an ended up disassociating herself from the Boxers. Abandoned by the imperial army, they nevertheless continued to resist foreigners. It will take Chinese troops joining the eight nations (new humiliation) for them all to be suppressed. When on September 7, 1901, the conflict ended with the Treaty of Xinchou, more than 50,000 Chinese (civilians and Boxers) lost their lives. China is forced to pay large indemnities (while the state of finances is catastrophic), to constitute two "missions of repentance".
The treaty also provided for trade concessions, as well as the right to station troops, to protect legations from Beijing and to provide them with a safe corridor to the coast. Despite American efforts to prevent further territorial interference, Russia took advantage of the revolt to extend its influence to Manchuria. The direct consequence of this policy was the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
The Qing dynasty has just suffered one of the worst of the long series of humiliation that marked its last century. It will only survive there ten years, ten years during which many reforms will prepare the emergence of a republican and modern China (1912). The Boxer Rebellion is currently seen in China as one of the struggles against great power imperialism.
To go further
- The Boxer War (1900-1901) by Raymond Bourgerie. Economica, 1998.
- Beijing's Red Summer:The Boxers' Rebellion, by Jean Mabire. Editions du Rocher, 2006.
- The 55 Days of Beijing, by Nicholas Ray. Fiction, DVD, 2008.