China's Revolution, 1911-1912: A Historical and Political Record of the Civil War

by Edwin John Dingle

Map of Hankow Native City Showing Burnt Area.

But one thinks as one sees, far away in one corner of that deep, dense, disordered flaming mass, one small, straight line of smoke going up to the heavens, that that is the fitting sacrifice to the hand of Destiny henceforth to guide this downtrodden people into happier channels. That, however, will come with the years; now the fire is with us. In our own way, we who watched the war had talked about the burning of the city. After all, it is nothing much to burn a city of five hundred thousand souls to the ground. In China one walled city is hardly to be reckoned; and what, pray you, is it for five hundred thousand human beings among four hundred and thirty millions to be without home or shelter? When China burns, when she kills, when she does anything that people who call themselves civilised shrink from dreaming of, she shows the world that she is the past mistress in all things that we call savage. It is, to us, an act of cruellest savagery. To us it is a sin against God and man wilfully to burn a city to the ground, wantonly to destroy hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of accumulated wealth; to us it is all a crime unthinkable. To China it is a good thing that by such acts of so-called savagery, of realest barbarism, of grossest, inhuman tactics the people, the common people, the hewers of national wood and the drawers of national water, are taught to know that they must keep their place, that the hand of the Government is strong, that the place in which Heaven has placed them must honourably be filled, and that towards Revolution they should have no leanings. To China the sweeping into eternity of thousands of fellow-mortals is for the benefit of those who remain, and the destruction of property in their national hysteria matters not a moment of passing thought. So to those of us who know China, and who cannot believe that all that we see and hear is true of the bewildering reform that is alleged to have caught the country and its people into its arms, it was not a great surprise to see the Imperialists carrying out their threat to burn the city to ashes. And it is fortunate that scores of thousands of people, who knew the national spirit and who expected the horrors of former rebellions to be repeated, packed up what little belongings they could and cleared out of gunshot by either land or water.

Throughout the long day the fire burned away, making a sight as wonderful as it was ghastly. From the fateful city the frightened people who had remained behind came in droves; or, at any rate, they made the attempt, only to be shot down by the soldiers who were waiting for them. If no satisfactory explanation was forthcoming from those terrified people, they were unmercifully bayoneted or shot dead. The streets were guarded by Imperialists, who seemed bent on having blood, and who, with frightful glee, carried out their mission with impunity. It is, perhaps, needless to say more. It was a sight that Nero might have enjoyed, but to any one with any humanity left him, even to those people one occasionally meets in China who have no sympathies for the Chinese, and think that they should not be helped religiously or socially, but should be left to go on their ill-appointed way, the sight must have caused the greatest pain. People would come to the exits of the city hoping to find refuge on the Foreign Concessions; they had dropped on the way the little gear they could at the outset carry, and now they were hopeful, at all events, of saving their lives, and sought to come through the gates. But no, even this was denied them. Back they had to go, probably to their doom. The British bluejackets stationed at these exits told me that their hearts bled for the pitiful people, but their instructions were that none should come out. One of the greatest menaces confronting the British authorities was the looting which threatened the burning city. One road only separated the city from the British Concession, and when the people began to flee the looters were in an Eldorado. The scoundrels would come out with furs, silks, silver ware, and every sort and condition of valuable, deposit it in the Concessions, and go back for more, until it became necessary to prevent Chinese from coming on the Concessions. After a time, however, this rule was modified, and volunteers who could speak the language were stationed there to inquire the mission of those who were fleeing; but hundreds must have run from gate to gate, like rats in their holes, knowing that each moment the fire was encroaching ominously. At night the sight was watched by hundreds. Truly heartbreaking was it to look on one of the finest cities on the Yangtze being razed to the ground. When the darkness came on the wide expanse of red flame lit up the country for miles around. At the London Mission Hospital, adjoining the Concessions, there was a scare for fear that the place would catch, for the wind veered slightly. All the patients were routed from their beds and carried to other places of refuge. Europeans and natives formed one large mutual band in carrying away the valuables. The sights we saw we shall never forget. The pitiable condition of the people, the indignation of the multitudes, who swore vengeance against the Government, and much more that one cannot hurriedly think of or relate, will live long in our memories.

At the time of the fire's outbreak it was thought that thousands must have perished in that modern Sodom and Gomorra. The Imperialists were mad for the lusts of war. A day or two previous Yuan Shih K'ai had offered a large reward for the recapture of Hankow, and the men were hot for the spoils. Their dead, truckloads piled up irreverently, were all deposited in the flames, and over the Concessions on the second day of the fire came the rank smell of smouldering human flesh. During those days Europeans witnessed a hell from their rooftops. At the back of the British Concession, at the back of the French, and at the back of the German were batteries; the Imperialists were winning their way over towards the Han River, their goal, and from their batteries an incessant shelling was vigorously kept up.

No one would forget those days. But lest they should, as it seemed, the big guns from Tachimen kept hard at it, planking shells into the city of Hanyang and anywhere else where soldiers were likely to lay ambushed. The guns boomed away for an hour, and then there came again dead silence, disturbed only by those who were still rescuing the wounded and the helpless. But the calm lasted not for long. Soon from the corner of the city nearest the Foreign Concessions there came fresh wreaths of black smoke, showing that the deadly work had recommenced. Soon the flames leaped up again, the wind blew them farther inwards to the houses still standing, shells inconsequently fell near by; there was the same pathos and the same panic—the city was on fire again. And so it continued for three days, and one could see all over again what he might imagine in that prairie fire.

THE TOLL OF THE DEAD.
After the heavy fighting round Tachimen, nearly all the work
of collecting the dead for burial fell to the lot of foreigners.

The wrath of Hades seemed to be upon the people. All around the countryside they were scared—and well they might have been, for in their fury the Imperialists burned everything as they went along. In the midst of the huge conflagration, a general invitation was sent out to foreigners to go into the city by way of the Maloo—the big road skirting the city—to bring out eighty blind boys and the wounded from the Wesleyan Mission Hospital. First impressions were that the hospital and school and all that the Mission possessed had been gutted. "We have £10,000 in the Mission," I overheard one of the missionaries say, "but that's not so important as my blind boys." Meantime permission by the Red Cross authorities had been secured for the rescue party to go into the city. Each man as he volunteered knew he went at great personal risk. Fighting was still heavy, but every moment made a difference—and who knew but that those blind boys were being burnt alive? By dark they had, however, been rescued—only those who went knew at what cost.