The Boxer Rebellion and British Involvement

The Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial uprising in northern China in which the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists — known to Westerners as the Boxers — attacked foreign nationals and Chinese Christians. The rebellion was eventually suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers: Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. The Boxer Protocol of September 1901 imposed heavy financial penalties on China and authorised the foreign powers to station troops in Beijing.

The Boxer Rebellion, in the judgment of the historian Diana Preston in The Boxer Rebellion (2000), “was the moment when the long Chinese experiment of accommodating the foreign presence finally broke down.” The Eight-Nation Alliance that suppressed the rebellion, with 20,000 troops in the field and an additional 50,000 Chinese troops in support, was the largest Western military intervention in China before the 20th century; the Boxer Protocol that followed was the most unequal of the unequal treaties.

The Origins of the Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion had multiple causes, including the resentment of foreign influence in China, the economic impact of the unequal treaties, the growing influence of foreign missionaries, the support of the Qing court, and the social tensions in northern China. The immediate context was the failure of the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, which had attempted to modernise the Chinese state and was suppressed by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi. The provincial authorities of Shandong, where the Boxer movement was strongest, encouraged the Boxers as a useful anti-foreign force. By early 1900, the Boxers had moved into Zhili province, threatening Beijing itself.

The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, known to Westerners as the Boxers, was a millenarian movement that believed its members were invulnerable to foreign weapons. The Boxers practised a syncretic religious ritual involving spirit possession, swords, and chanting, and they were particularly hostile to Chinese Christians and the foreign missionaries who had worked in northern China since the 1860s. By the spring of 1900, the Boxers had moved into Zhili province, threatening Beijing itself.

The Outbreak of Violence and the Siege of the Legation Quarter

The Boxer violence intensified sharply in May and June 1900. On 20 June, the German minister Clemens von Ketteler was murdered in Beijing, prompting a general retreat of foreign nationals into the Legation Quarter. The siege of the Legation Quarter, which lasted from 20 June to 14 August 1900, was the central event of the rebellion for foreign publics. The plight of the besieged foreigners was reported widely in the Western press.

The Eight-Nation Alliance

The Eight-Nation Alliance was formed in response to the Boxer violence. The British, who had the largest commercial interests in China and the most substantial military presence through the China Station, took a leading role. The British contributed substantial numbers of Indian Army troops — mostly Sikhs, Gurkhas, and Punjabi Muslims — to the international force, as well as Royal Navy sailors and marines. The first major operation was the Seymour Expedition, led by British Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour, which attempted to relieve Beijing by rail from Tianjin in mid-June. The expedition was turned back by Chinese forces at Langfang and was a major embarrassment for the British.

The Relief of the Legation Quarter

The relief of the Legation Quarter came on 14 August 1900, when an international force of some 20,000 men, under the overall command of the British General Sir Alfred Gaselee, marched into Beijing from the south. The German Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee did not arrive in China until October 1900, by which time the fighting was largely over. The British contribution was substantial, including Indian Army units and Royal Marines. The fall of Beijing was followed by extensive looting of Beijing and its suburbs by foreign troops (the Old Summer Palace at Yuanmingyuan had been destroyed by Anglo-French forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War), and the imposition of the Boxer Protocol on the Qing government.

The Boxer Protocol of 1901

The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 imposed on China a punitive indemnity of 450 million taels, payable over 39 years, with interest. The protocol also authorised the foreign powers to station troops in Beijing, demanded the punishment of Boxer supporters, and required the destruction of the Taku forts. The protocol was the most unequal of the unequal treaties and a major source of Chinese resentment that would feed the nationalist movements of the early twentieth century.

The Legacy of the Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion had major long-term consequences. It accelerated the decline of the Qing dynasty, which finally fell in 1911. It reinforced the foreign presence in China, and shaped Chinese nationalism, including the May Fourth Movement of 1919. For Britain, the rebellion led to a renewed commitment to the China Station and a closer collaboration with Japan, then an emerging Asian power. The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program that emerged from the remissions of the indemnity would, in the twentieth century, have a substantial impact on Chinese intellectual life.

Historiographical Note

The historiography of the Boxer Rebellion was, for a long time, dominated by the Western diplomatic and military accounts — the work of the British participants in the China Field Force and the more popular accounts of the early twentieth century. The post-Cold War revisionist literature, led by Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (1987), and the more recent work of Diana Preston and the contributors to The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Powers (2019), has produced a more critical picture, in which the Boxers are treated as serious political actors rather than as fanatics. The current debate, exemplified in the writing of the contributors to the Late Imperial China, is over how far the Boxer Rebellion should be read as an anti-imperial movement and how far it should be treated as a millenarian reaction against modern changes.

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