| Officers Arrived. | Killed. | Wounded. | |
| British | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Italians | 2 | - | 2 |
| Russians | 2 | - | - |
| Japanese | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Germans. | 1 | - | - |
| French | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Austrians | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| Americans | 2 | - | 1 |
| — | — | — | |
| 19 | 5 | 9 |
CHAPTER XIV
A SHORT COMPARISON OF THE TROOPS
A few notes on the equipment, methods, formations, and arms used by the different contingents seems to be not out of place; and as our friends the enemy had such a lot to do with the campaign, it is merely courteous to treat them first. They must be considered in two quite different classes—the Boxers, and the Regular Army. The former were the cause of the whole trouble, and comprised a large percentage of the total male population of Chibliat at the beginning of the outbreak; but their fanaticism rapidly waned as their power decreased, and by the middle of August they became despised even by the Chinese troops, who had once held them in great dread. An extraordinary feature about their composition was the large number of immature youths and senile old men who flocked to their banner. Their arms consisted of swords and spears, until towards the close of the Tientsin campaign, when they were largely armed with old rifles: a chance of wasting an exceptional amount of ammunition which was eagerly seized upon by these ignorant peasants, who doubtless succeeded in expending considerably more than the ton of lead which is somewhere named as each man’s allowance before he is struck. Thus it proves that as foes they were contemptible.
Without formation, without arms, with readers as ignorant as the common ruck, all that they could hope to do was to murder the few outlying missionaries that stuck to their missions, and to burn their residences over their dead bodies. Women and children became, once their male protectors had been accounted for, an easy prey to the inhuman murderers, who afterwards gloated over their mangled and unrecognisable corpses. Before bitter experience had taught these ruffians a lesson, they were daring in the extreme, and looked down on the Imperial troops with great disdain; but having been placed in the forefront of the engagement on one or two occasions, and having suffered accordingly, they lost their contempt for death surprisingly quickly, and losing spirit, were seen to real advantage for the last time in their attacks on the Peh-tang Cathedral.
Among other incidents of their earlier share in the Campaign must be mentioned their attacks on Seymour’s column, in which they displayed wonderful faith in the efficacy of their supposed charms, and a still more wonderful fearlessness. In the matter of dress each one pleased himself, but there was a “rig” which proclaimed a Boxer immediately, and which was affected by those able to get the necessary materials. Made, as nearly all Chinese clothes are, of cotton, with the typical Mancha jacket, and loose baggy trousers caught in at the ankle with strings, their attire was in colour blue with a red sash, red waistbands, and red anklets. The leaders were distinguishable by the large amount of yellow they wore, as did the Buddhists among them, and a final distinctive mark were their red and black standards. These gaudy flags had various mottoes on them; and on seeing a literal translation of one of them, one is not inclined to believe that “Live and let live” chanced to be inscribed on any of the others. The sum total of their achievements from beginning to end amounts to very little, consisting as it did of murdering a hundred or so defenceless Europeans; a thousand certainly, probably thousands, of equally defenceless Chinamen, who had either offended them or refused to join them; and doing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage to railway, telegraph, and house property, irrespective of their owner’s nationality.
Very different in every respect were the regular troops. These were of the best in China,—in fact the troops of Generals Nieh, Ma, and Tung-fu-Hsiang are second only to those of Yuan-Shi-Kai, the enlightened governor of Shantung, who, as some think luckily for the Europeans, preferred to sit on the gate and watch the trend of events, before taking any decisive and possibly disastrous move. He is a very able and progressive man, who doubtless saw the futility of attempting to cope with the world in arms, and so maintained a most correct attitude throughout. Many if not most of the troops who confronted the allies were foreign trained, it being an interesting fact that among the first instructors who were employed by the government was a naval gunnery instructor from H.M.S. “Cambridge,” also that among the British force during the attack on the Taku Forts was a gunner who had served the Chinese in the late Chinese-Japanese War. Their tactics and movements were certainly somewhat out of date, and consisted for the most part of parade movements, but several times the “attack” was carried out as laid down in the drill book, with the exception of the “Charge and Cheer,” without which, of course, the attack is doomed to failure against an enemy who is always disobliging enough to wait for “close quarters.” The efficiency of the various armies was to a great extent impaired by the diversity of their arms, and a great deficiency in knowledge of the simplest strategy. Another point, and an important one, was the utter want of ability to lead their men which was markedly displayed throughout by their company officers. Their general officers seemed capable of drawing their men up to an engagement skilfully, their guns were well posted, and their defensive positions good almost without exception; yet when the range became close there always appeared to be no one in command of the fighting line; the men acted independently, and what had often promised to be an overwhelming attack gradually fizzled away to a bloody repulse.
The movement of a Chinese army must prove a terrible imposition on the people of the district through which it moves, for it lives entirely on the country, and it is doubtful if military mandarins are more honest in their dealings with inferiors than other officials; which means that the army leaves a track of desolation wherever it goes. For the greater part of the campaign the Imperial troops were well fed, but towards the latter stages of the retreat from the Allies, they appear to have been actually starving, and in two instances government granaries were burst into and robbed by the famished men. Their arms were generally excellent, but the ammunition supply must have been a sore trial to whoever was responsible for it. I have seen the following types of firearms in use by Chinese troops myself, and doubtless others. Sniders, Springfield, Martinis, Marlin, three kinds of Winchesters, three kinds of Mausers, one Mauser carbine, two kinds of Mannlicher, one Mannlicher carbine, and by the Boxers several kinds of Jingals, Sniders, Marlins, and Winchesters. As a matter of fact the arms which were used by far the most were the best Mauser and Mannlicher magazine rifles, and whoever did look after the ammunition supply was an excellent organiser, for the enemy had always a seemingly unlimited amount. On several occasions millions of rounds of small arms ammunition were destroyed at a time; but although at all times extremely wasteful, and often firing all through a pitch dark night, they never ran short up to the end.
It is a much debated point whether the Chinese are good rifle shots. Some undoubtedly are, but taking into consideration that the Europeans were generally the aggressors over open country, and always in great numerical inferiority, it would seem that, as their fire was always exceedingly heavy and sustained, the Allies should have suffered more. And yet, glancing at the statistics of the fighting outside Tientsin, and seeing 775 casualties in one day, nearly all from rifle fire, the fact is brought home to one that the Chinese soldiery were not the contemptible foemen that they were supposed to have been by people ignorant alike of their training and arms. The infantry uniform was usually blue or black in colour, with red and yellow facings. Instead of showing his regiment and battalion on shoulder straps, like his European confrère, the Chinese soldier has a white parchment, circular in shape, sewn on to his chest and back, which at any range under 400 yards makes an ideal bullseye; and doubtless this idiotic idea was responsible for the death of a great number of them. In shape their uniform approaches very nearly to the national dress, and is admirably adapted to free movement of the limbs. Their headgear was usually missing, but consists of either the little round Chinese hat; or a species of sun hat white in colour. Their boots were of the Wellington variety, into which their trousers were tucked; they had papier maché soles, and either cotton or velvet uppers lined with canvas. These boots were both serviceable and comfortable, but owing to the smallness of a Chinaman’s foot, when compared to a European’s, it was seldom that any of the Allies were able to replace their worn-out footgear from any captured stock. Their accoutrements were simple, consisting only of a leather belt, on which were carried their ammunition pouches, the frog for their bayonets, and an entrenching tool, very similar to the Wallace spade used by the British. Some carried their ammunition in woollen bandoliers, but the majority were armed with clip-loading rifles, and so pouches Were the usual form of carrier to be met with. Their heavy marching order I am unable to describe, never having seen a soldier, either living or dead, so attired. This is explained by the fact that, like the Allies, their radius of action was limited to a few miles round their position, and there was no need of carrying even food with them for more than twenty-four hours. They carried no water-bottle for presumably the same reason. Finally, the Chinese infantryman of to-day only wants good leading to become a formidable foe. With a little more training in addition, there is every reason to believe that they would become a fighting force worthy to rank with our excellent Indian troops.