The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing, which were being besieged by the popular Boxer militiamen, who were determined to remove foreign imperialism in China. The allied forces consisted of about 45,000 troops from the eight nations of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. Neither the Chinese nor the quasi-concerted foreign allies issued a formal declaration of war.
No treaty or formal agreement bound the alliance together. Some Western historians define the first phase of hostilities, starting in August 1900, as "more or less a civil war", though the Battle of the Taku Forts in June pushed the Qing government to support the Boxers. With the success of the invasion, the later stages developed into a punitive colonial expedition, which pillaged Beijing and North China for more than a year. The fighting ended in 1901 with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
The Boxers, a peasant movement, had attacked and killed foreign missionaries, nationals, and Chinese Christians across northern China in 1899 and 1900. The Qing government and its Imperial Army supported the Boxers and, under the Manchu general Ronglu, besieged foreign diplomats and civilians taking refuge in the Legation Quarter in Beijing (then romanized as Peking).
The diplomatic compound was under siege by the Wuwei Rear Division of the Chinese Army and some Boxers (Yihetuan), for 55 days, from 20 June to 14 August 1900. A total of 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Legation Quarter. Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the legation staff and security personnel defended the compound with small arms and one old cannon discovered and unearthed by Chinese Christians, who turned it over to the allies. It was nicknamed the International Gun because the barrel was British, the carriage Italian, the shells Russian and the crew American.
Also under siege in Beijing was the North Cathedral, the Beitang of the Catholic Church. The Beitang was defended by 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 foreign Catholic priests and nuns, and about 3,200 Chinese Catholics. The defenders suffered heavy casualties from lack of food and Chinese mines that exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound.
On 14 August 1900, the allies marched to Beijing from Tianjin to relieve the Legation Quarter siege.
Military engagement, punitive expeditions and looting
The allied troops invaded and occupied Beijing on 14 August 1900. They defeated the Qing Imperial Army's Wuwei Corps in several engagements and quickly brought an end to the siege and also the Boxer Rebellion. Empress Dowager Cixi, the emperor and high government officials fled the Imperial Palace for Xi'an and sent Li Hongzhang for peace talks with the alliance.
As allied troops moved from Beijing into the North China countryside, they executed unknown numbers of people accused or suspected of being or resembling Boxer rebels, which became the subject of an early short film. A U.S. Marine wrote that he witnessed German and Russian troops raping and then bayoneting women. While the allies were in Beijing, they looted the palaces, yamens, and government buildings inflicting incalculable loss of cultural relics, books on literature and history (including the famous Yongle Dadian) and damage to cultural heritage (including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Xishan and the Old Summer Palace).
More than 3,000 gold-plated bronze Buddhas, 1,400 artistic products and 4,300 bronzes in Songzhu Temple were looted. The gold plating on the copper tanks in front of the Forbidden City palaces was scraped off by allied troops, leaving scratch marks that can be seen even now. The Yongle Dadian that was compiled by 2,100 scholars during the Ming Yongle period (1403–1408), with a total of 22,870 volumes, was partially destroyed in the Second Opium War in 1860. Later, it was collected in the Imperial Palace on Nanchizi Street. It was found and destroyed completely by the alliance in 1900. Part of the Yongle Dadian was used for the construction of fortifications.
The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (or Siku Quanshu) was compiled by 360 scholars during the Qing Qianlong period. It collected 3,461 ancient books, totaling 79,309 volumes. The whole book consisted of seven sets. One set was destroyed in 1860 during the Second Opium War. Another 10,000 plus volumes were destroyed in 1900 by the Eight-Nation Alliance. The Hanlin Academy houses a collection of precious books, orphans, books of the Song dynasty, literature and history materials, and precious paintings. The Eight-Nation Alliance looted the collections. Some of these looted books remain in the custody of museums in London and Paris.
Austria-Hungary had a single cruiser, SMS Zenta, on station at the beginning of the rebellion, based at the Russian concession of Port Arthur. Detachments of sailors from the Zenta were the only Austro-Hungarian forces to see action. Some were taking part in defending the legations under siege, and another detachment was involved in the rescue attempts.
In June, the Austro-Hungarians helped hold the Tianjin railway against Boxer forces and fired upon several armed junks on the Hai River near Tongzhou in Beijing. They took part in the seizure of the Taku Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and the boarding and capture of four Chinese destroyers by Capt. Roger Keyes of HMS Fame.
The Austro-Hungarian Navy sent the cruisers SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth, SMS Aspern and a company of marines to China. Arriving in September they were too late since most of the fighting had ended, and the legations had been relieved. The cruisers and the Zenta were involved in the shelling and capture of several Chinese forts. The Austro-Hungarians suffered minimal casualties during the rebellion. After the Boxer Uprising, a cruiser was maintained permanently on the Chinese coast, and a detachment of marines was deployed at the Austro-Hungarian embassy in Beijing. Lieutenant Georg Ludwig von Trapp, made famous in the 1959 musical The Sound of Music, was decorated for bravery aboard SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia during the rebellion.
At the outset of the Boxer Rebellion, Britain was engaged in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Consequently, with the army tied down by the war, the British had to rely on the China Squadron and troops largely from India. The Royal Navy's China Squadron, stationed off Tianjin, consisted of the battleships Barfleur and Centurion, the cruisers Alacrity, Algerine, Aurora, Endymion, and Orlando, and the destroyers Whiting and Fame.
British forces were the third-largest contingent in the alliance and consisted of the following units: Naval Brigade, 12th Battery Royal Field Artillery, Hong Kong & Singapore Artillery, 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 1st Bengal Lancers, 7th Rajput Infantry, 24th Punjab Infantry, 1st Sikh Infantry, Hong Kong Regiment, 1st Chinese Regiment, Royal Engineers, and other support personnel.
The Australian colonies did not become a unified federation until 1901. As such, several of the colonies, independently of each other, sent contingents of naval and army personnel to support the British contingent. For example, South Australia sent its entire navy: the gunboat HMCS Protector. Australia was not an official member of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and its forces arrived too late to see significant action.
Britain provided 10,000 troops, many of whom were Indian troops, made out of units of Baluchis, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Rajputs and Punjabis. The 1st, 4th, and 14th Sikhs; 3rd Madras Native Infantry, 4th Goorkas, 22nd and 30th Bombay Native Infantry, 24th Punjab Infantry, 1st Madras Pioneers, No. 2 Company Bombay Sappers, No. 3 Company Madras Sappers, No. 4 Company Bengal Sappers, and the 1st Bengal Lancers, among other Indian units, all served during the Rebellion. Numerous Indian soldiers earned the China War Medal 1900 with the "Relief of Pekin" clasp for contributing to the relief of Peking and the International Legations from June 10 to August 14, 1900.