Impressions of a War Correspondent

by George Lynch

In the burden of corpses which the river Pei-ho carried downwards from Pekin towards the sea were to be seen the bodies of many Chinese girls and women. One day I myself counted five. There is no question whatever that they had committed suicide. And close to Tung-Chow girls were actually seen walking into the shallow water and deliberately holding their heads under the surface till they were drowned. Such a tale seems very terrible. But to any one who had the opportunity of judging of the conduct of portions of the Allied troops it was not in the least surprising. Under similar circumstances our sisters and wives would have done likewise.

The Russians and French carried off the palm for outrages on women during the original march, and subsequently the Germans similarly distinguished themselves. This was more particularly the case with small bodies of men who were detached from the main force. In a village on the way to Paoting-fu, for instance, through which a body of Germans had just passed, three girls were taken by our troops out of a well, into which they had been thrown before the Germans left. They were still alive. This method of disposing of their victims was frequently adopted by the soldiers as the safest way of hiding their misdeeds and escaping the consequences.

News travels fast in China, and in advance of our march the people seemed to be thoroughly aware of the fate that probably awaited them. Although nearly the whole population cleared off before our advance, there were many, especially women, who could not get away, and who were unable to travel with their tiny compressed feet except in carts or on the backs of their servants. And it was principally these who finally, in the last extremity, committed suicide.

As the Chinese have agreed to erect a monument to Baron von Ketteler in Pekin in commemorative apology for his murder, it appears to me that there is an opportunity for the Allies to erect one also. It might be of pure white jade, which the Chinese women love, which in its translucent depths seems to hold the bright Eastern sunlight with the detaining lingerage of a caress, and might bear an inscription saying that it was erected in honour of the memory of the women and girls of the province of Pechili who had sacrificed their lives to save their honour.

All the way from the sea to Pekin, and for miles around Pekin itself, the whole country was deserted by the inhabitants. A wave of fear and horror preceded the advent of the Allies to such an extent that hundreds of miles of what was the most thickly populated part of China was absolutely deserted. After the relief of the Legations, the people who ventured timorously to return were inspired with fresh fear owing to the conduct of the Germans, who made up for being late for the original expedition by availing themselves of every possible opportunity of starting punitive expeditions on any possible pretence. Coming at the time of the autumn harvest, the actual loss of money to the inhabitants has been enormous.

From August to November a great tract of country was left deserted by the inhabitants, who should have been employed in gathering in the harvest. When I came down from Pekin in November there was no sign whatever of life across the plains on either side as far as the eye could reach. Thousands of acres of millet lay prone on the ground, and their carefully-tended vegetable gardens were scored with black lines, showing where the produce had rotted. When the Germans arrived in September I heard one of their officers saying to Major Scott, who was in charge of the river station at Tung-Chow, pointing to the fields of millet which surrounded the camp, "Why don't you burn down all these crops?" Major Scott replied that, besides not wanting to make life harder for these unfortunate farmers, they wanted the fodder for their own cattle. But, as a matter of fact, the destruction effected by the absence of the people was just as great as if the wish of that German had been carried out.

In all the discussions of the question of the amount of indemnity we never hear anything of the amount of counterclaim which the Chinese might rightfully make against us. The greater part of all this destruction was absolutely contrary to every rule of civilised warfare. In a district of about the extent of from London to Oxford the inhabitants have lost the entire produce of the harvest, all the villages and towns on either side of the river have been burned, so that on the march up our path at night was literally torch-lit with burning villages.

As was natural to expect, and as we have subsequently learned, many of the inhabitants have been forced by the absolute necessities of subsistence to band themselves together in companies of brigands, whose depredations afford a fresh excuse to the Germans for continuing hostile operations. The losses inflicted on the country in this way are entirely outside the irreparable losses which were inflicted by the destruction and despoiling of temples and innumerable works of art which it will be impossible to replace. As regards these last outrages, there was no officer in command of any section of the Allies who personally exerted himself to a greater degree for the preservation, or at least to prevent the destruction, of the art heirlooms of the country than did General Sir Alfred Gaselee.

Some curious things happened in his efforts in this direction. On the Paoting-fu expedition, for instance, when the troops were to pass in the neighbourhood of the Imperial Tombs, a few British soldiers were sent on in advance, and quietly informed the custodians that the Germans were coming. Readily acting on the information, they removed all the jewels and easily portable valuables from the tombs, and they were kept concealed in a village on the other side of the hill under the guard of a few Bengal Lancers until the Germans had passed. In recognition of this friendly message the Chinese wanted to make a present of some magnificent strings of pearls to Captain Maxwell, a nephew of Lord Roberts.

In civilised warfare there is generally some little respect shown for the priests and places of worship of the conquered people, but here there was none whatever. Horses were stabled in the temples, and the art heirlooms of thousands of years of the nation's life to be found therein were frequently mutilated and destroyed when they were not stolen. In the street where I lived in Pekin for a whole week were to be seen, day by day, carts passing backwards and forwards laden with books which were being brought to be consumed in a huge fire kept burning in a yard outside the palace wall. Thousands of books were thus treated, so that the whole street was littered with their fluttering leaves to such an extent that I could not get my little Chinese pony to pass there without getting off and leading him, for he shied continually at the fluttering papers. Day after day this literary holocaust continued. When the wind was in the direction of my house a fine black snow kept perpetually falling, and covered the roofs and courtyards with these ashes of dead thoughts. Hundreds of the books were written in the quaint characters which showed that they belonged to, and were written by, Lama priests; many of them had probably found their way there from the bleak steppes of far Tibet.