The force was made up as follows:—Eight thousand Japanese under Lieutenant–General Baron Yamaguchi, with Major–General Fukushima as Chief of the staff; four thousand five hundred Russians under General Linievitch; three thousand British under Lieutenant–General Sir A. Gaselee, Major–General Barrow being his Chief of the staff; two thousand five hundred Americans under General Chaffee; eight hundred French under General Frey. The total force amounted to eighteen thousand eight hundred. No Germans took part in the expedition, and it was generally supposed that they preferred taking care of their own possessions at Shantung to rescuing the Legations. The total Japanese force, if they had all arrived, would have been twenty–two thousand. The Russians had three thousand men at their camp between Tientsin and Chefou, and a few British troops were left in Tientsin. It had been originally intended that Sir A. Gaselee should have a force of over seven thousand, but half the troops he brought with him had stopped at Shanghai by telegraphic instructions from home. This, though no doubt the presence of so large a force at Shanghai was useful in preventing trouble in the south of China, caused us to assume a very subordinate position in the expedition to Pekin, the Japanese, with their large force, doing the principal work of the campaign.
As the time advanced, Rex, whose despair at the long delay had driven him almost distracted, began to fear that the expedition would arrive too late. He was, of course, ignorant that the capture of Tientsin had had a powerful effect on the position at Pekin. The Chinese had believed that the place was impregnable, and so long as it was there to menace the rear of an invading army they felt perfectly safe. It was a tremendous blow to them therefore to learn that this city, with all its forts, guns, and supplies of ammunition, had been captured after a single dayʼs fighting, and the consequence was that their indecision increased.
The war party were confused, and the peace party, headed by Prince Ching, gained vastly greater influence in the councils of the Empress. The consequence was that for twenty days after the arrival of the news something like a truce prevailed. The besieged were even able to purchase small supplies of provisions and fruit, and their condition became much more tolerable. It was probable that the Empress would have thrown herself altogether into the hands of the peace party had it not been that the delay on the part of the allies had enabled the panic–stricken Chinese soldiers to recover their morale and discipline. They had been very strongly reinforced, and it was confidently hoped that they would be able to defeat the allies when they advanced. Thus the miserable delays caused by the jealousy of the allied commanders were not as prejudicial to the Legations as they otherwise would have been.
When hostilities were renewed, had the Chinese attacked as actively as they had done before the fall of Tientsin, it is morally certain that the defenders of the Legations would have found it impossible to continue their resistance, and that they would have been massacred.
“The Russians are at the bottom of all this hateful delay,” said Rex. “I am convinced that the Japs, though the strongest in numbers, would give in willingly were it not that the Russians are always making fresh demands. We and the Americans only want to get there, and the French are in such small numbers that it does not matter a rap what they think of it. It is the Russians who are to blame.”
“There is no doubt about that, Rex,” his father said. “I believe they are playing a double game. They want to pose as the friends of China and thus obtain concessions and an overwhelming influence at Pekin. This, it would seem, they try to do by all sorts of delays, by advancing petty claims, and by generally putting their spoke into the wheel. They have already got Manchuria under their thumb, and they will certainly stick to it unless China is backed up by the other powers and they unite in insisting that China shall not suffer further loss of territory at the hands of the Russians or anyone else. There is no question that that is our best policy. It is to our interest that China shall remain whole and united and capable of holding her own against Russia. Neither Britain nor Japan can have any desire for territory, and after the war is over, an alliance offensive and defensive between these two nations would be worth all the loss of life and property we have incurred.”
“That would be grand, Father. There is no doubt that the Japs are beggars to fight. The way they smashed China showed that, and the other day they certainly did at least as well as the other nationalities. With their fleet and ours combined we could hold our own with the greatest ease against Russia and France, even if Germany were to join them. We are showing them now in South Africa what an army we can put in the field, and with our Indian army and that of the Japs we could, if pressed, drive the Russians out of Asia.”
“That would be a big order,” his father laughed, “but we could certainly effectually prevent them from meddling with China and make them keep within their own boundaries. Besides, we should have China to count with also. China has wakened up since the war with Japan, and has gone in for the best modern guns and rifles. If she had let two more years pass before beginning this row we should have found her a very formidable opponent. Her troops would then have become as well–disciplined as ours.”
“Well, then, I am very glad, Father, that they did not wait for another two years. We found it pretty hard work as it was to take Tientsin, and if the greater part of their army had not moved out during the night I doubt very much whether we should have captured it. It was lucky indeed that we stuck to it during the night; it was only that that turned the scale. You know the old story, Father, of a Chinaman who excused defeat by saying: ʻTwo men cannot be in one place; if one must come the other must go.ʼ“
His father laughed.