CHAPTER XX
THE BOMBARDMENT OF TIEN-TSIN
The first half of the month of July was a busy time for all the allied forces operating in and around the foreign section of Tien-Tsin.
In round figures the Allies did not number on July 10 more than sixteen thousand effective men. How many Boxers and Chinese government troops there were to oppose them will probably never be known, but they certainly footed up to forty or fifty thousand.
The enemy were located in the walled native city, where they had over fifteen thousand troops and four heavy guns; across the Pei-Ho, where they had several field-pieces, with more coming up every day; and on the great plain to the west of Tien-Tsin, where it was feared that an army was forming so vast that the Allies would be swept out of existence by the mere force of numbers.
The bombardment of the foreigners continued almost night and day; and property to the value of millions of dollars was destroyed, including many ancient and beautiful buildings which can never be replaced. The regular railroad bridge over the Pei-Ho was already gone, and the pontoon bridges erected were subjected to such a constant and accurate fire that to cross any of them involved a great risk. On one of these bridges a Hong Kong English detachment was caught, and almost cut to pieces.
The bombardment called for many deeds of daring; for communications with Taku were kept open only with the utmost difficulty, and the re-enforcements coming up had literally to fight their way through miles of hostile country to reach the real battlefield. All telegraph wires had been cut, and the engineering corps could not repair them until the fall of the native quarter of Tien-Tsin was almost assured.
There was a great rivalry between the English, Russians, and Germans over the control of the railroad; and many were the trials made for opening the line to Tongku, the Chinese ripping up the rails almost as fast as they were put down. Two locomotives were stationed near the battered round-house, and one day some Russian troops went out to man them. The detachment divided into two parts; and, while one engaged the attention of the enemy, the other leaped aboard the engines and several box cars, and went off at the best rate of speed of which the old locomotives were capable. As soon as the Chinese discovered what was up, they trained their guns on the locomotives, and nearly knocked one off the track. Nevertheless, the rolling stock was saved; and to-day the engines are running on the Taku-Tien-Tsin line as before the war.
During the first days of the bombardment the Allies suffered greatly for the want of siege guns. The majority of the troops had come from the Gulf in the notion that they were to march directly upon Pekin, with the guns to follow later on. Only the Japanese had a few small pieces, which could not reach the larger pieces of the Chinese.
But all this was changed with the coming of some British artillery, guns which had done duty in South Africa against the onslaughts of the plucky Boers, and which were appropriately labelled, “From Ladysmith to Pekin.” These guns were stationed close to the west wall, where the Chinese artillerists could not see them; and they were aimed by the aid of flag signals from the top of Gordon Hall.
On the morning of July 9 it was felt that the position regarding communications with Taku was growing critical. The Chinese were well planted with their guns on the north bank of the Pei-Ho; and their troops on the western plain were gradually circling southward and to the east, in order to reach the other bank of the stream, thus cutting off the Allies’ connection with the outside world.