The Battle of Peking (Chinese: 北京之戰), or historically the Relief of Peking (Chinese: 北京解圍戰), was the battle fought on 14–15 August 1900 in Beijing, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance relieved the siege of the Peking Legation Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion. From 20 June 1900, Boxers and Imperial Chinese Army troops had besieged foreign diplomats, citizens and soldiers within the legations of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, The German Empire, Japan, Netherlands, The Russian Empire, Spain and the United States.
The first attempt to relieve the legations by a force of over 2,000 sailors and marines commanded by British Admiral Edward Seymour was turned back by strong opposition on 26 June.
On 4 August a second, much larger relief force, called the Eight-Nation Alliance, marched from Tientsien (Tianjin) toward Peking (Beijing). The alliance force consisted of 22,000 troops from the following countries:
Russia – 4,000 (infantry, Cossacks and artillery)
Britain – 3,000 (mostly Indian infantry, cavalry and artillery)
United States – 2,000 (soldiers and marines with artillery)
France – 800 (Indochinese brigade with artillery)
The Alliance forces defeated the Chinese army at the Battle of Beicang (Peitsang) on 5 August and the Battle of Yangcun (Yangtsun) on 6 August and reached Tongzhou (Tongchou), 14 miles from Beijing (Peking), on 12 August.
The British, American and Japanese commanders wanted to push on and attack Beijing on 13 August, but the Russian commander said he needed another day to prepare and 13 August was devoted to reconnaissance and rest.
The objective of the alliance forces was to fight their way into the city of Peking, make their way to the Legation Quarter and rescue the 900 foreigners besieged there by the Chinese army since 20 June.
Peking had formidable defense works. The city was surrounded by walls 21 miles in length and broken by 16 gates. The wall around the Inner (Tartar) city was 40 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the top. The wall around the adjoining Outer (Chinese) city was 30 feet high. The population living within the walls was about one million people, although many had fled to escape the Boxers and the fighting between the Chinese army and the foreigners in the Legation Quarter.
As the armies moved into position about five miles from the walls, on the night of 13 August, they could hear the sounds of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire from within the city. They feared they had arrived one day too late to rescue their countrymen.
The relief force did not know that 2,800 destitute Chinese Christians had taken refuge in the Legation Quarter with the foreigners, nor did it know that three miles distant from the Legations a second siege was in progress. The Peitang (Beitang) cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church had been surrounded by Boxers and the Chinese army since 15 June. Defending the cathedral were 28 foreign priests and nuns, 43 French and Italian soldiers and 3,400 Chinese Catholics. The people sheltering in the Peitang had suffered several hundred killed, mostly from starvation, disease and mines detonated beneath the perimeter walls. Sixty-six of the 900 foreigners in the Legation Quarter had been killed and 150 wounded during the siege. Casualties among the Chinese Christians were not recorded.
The assault on Beijing had taken on the character of a race to see which national army achieved the glory of relieving the Legations.
The commanders of the four national armies agreed that each of them would assault a different gate. The Russians were assigned the most northerly gate, the Tung Chih (Dongzhi); the Japanese had the next gate south, the Chi Hua (Chaoyang); the Americans, the Tung Pein (Dongbien); and the British the most southern, the Sha Wo (Guangqui). The French apparently were left out of the planning.
The gate assigned to the Americans was nearest to the Legation Quarter and they seemed to have the best opportunity to reach the legations first. However, the Russians violated the plan, although it is uncertain whether it was intentional or not. An advance Russian force arrived at the Americans' assigned gate, the Dongbien, about 3:00 a.m. on 14 August. They killed 30 Chinese outside the gate and blasted a hole in the door with artillery. Once inside the gate, however, in the courtyard between the inner and outer doors, they were caught in a murderous crossfire that killed 26 Russian soldiers and wounded 102. The survivors were pinned down for the next several hours.
When the Americans arrived at their assigned gate that morning they found the Russians already engaged there and they moved their troops about 200 yards south. Once there, Trumpeter Calvin P. Titus volunteered to climb the 30-foot-tall wall, which he did successfully. Other Americans followed him, and at 11:03 a.m. the American flag was raised on the wall of the Outer city. American troops exchanged fire with Chinese forces on the wall and then climbed down the other side and headed west toward the Legation Quarter in the shadow of the wall of the Inner city.
Meanwhile, the Japanese had encountered stiff resistance at their assigned gate and were subjecting it to an artillery barrage. The British had an easier time of it, approaching and passing through their gate, the Shawo or Guangqui, encountering virtually no opposition. Likewise with the Americans, they were aware that the easiest entry into the Legation Quarter was through the so-called Water Gate, a drainage canal running beneath the wall of the Inner city; The British had arrived initially, wading through the muck of the canal and towards the Legation Quarter, where they were greeted by a cheering throng of the besieged, all decked out in their "Sunday best" at 2:30 PM on 14 August. The Chinese ringing the Legation Quarter fired a few shots, wounding a Belgian woman, and then fled. The British had not received any casualties all day, with the exception for one man whom succumbed to sunstroke.