Boxer Member of Cabinet
THE following transcription of my diary gives the principal events in the situation up to the date of the close siege, going back a little in point of time from the last chapter.
June 1. After three days of exciting mental strain, we can at last breathe easier. Rumors continue to fill the air of plots within the palace, riots against the Catholic cathedral, railway being torn up between here and Tientsin, etc. But the solid fact remains that a few foreign guards have arrived at six legations, and a machine gun will now have something to say in one’s behalf if the excited populace’s thirst for foreign blood becomes too pressing.
With the exception of M. Pichon, the French minister, all the other ministers are greatly to blame for their tardy recognition of the impending trouble, and they have very nearly had the odium of a preventible foreign massacre to answer for.
Sir Claude MacDonald, for whom the entire English community outside his legation feel, and have openly expressed, the greatest contempt, would not believe that there was any danger coming, and vigorously opposed Pichon’s advice that the troops be sent for ten days ago.
Mr. Conger seconded Sir Claude, partly because the United States legation quarters are so limited that the second secretary and his wife are obliged to live in two rooms over the main office building, and partly because he believed the government willing and capable of putting down the disorder. Both were suddenly converted when Fengtai, only six miles away, was burned, and the Boxers were reported marching unopposed upon Peking. Then the most exciting telegraphing for warships to come to Taku, and guards and machine guns to come to Peking, became the order of the day.
Had the Boxers been at all organized they could have torn up the track for a mile or two at Fengtai, and effectually cut off the troops from arriving in time to prevent any city riots. Fortunately, they seem to have been carried away by the desire to loot, and after they had carried off all the furniture and belongings of the eight foreign residences at Fengtai, and robbed the Empress’ private car of all movable property, they were content to set fire to the stations and machine shops, and then clear out home to the adjoining villages.
June 4. None of the Boxers have been punished, and they have grown bolder, burning the next station below Fengtai, known as Huangtsun, thirteen miles from Peking, killing two Church of England missionaries named Robinson and Norman at Yungching, and defeating a force of Cossacks sent out from Tientsin to search for the surviving Belgians escaping from the Lu Han railway. In spite of this, and with seventeen men-of-war at Tangku, the foreign ministers, besides bringing up each a guard of fifty or seventy-five men to protect his own legation, are doing nothing—that we can see at any rate—to pacify the country. Why they don’t land a large force, come to Peking, and seize the old reprobates that they all know are the real bosses of the Boxer movement in Peking, and hold them responsible for any further movement, nobody knows.
Every minister can tell you that Hsu Tung, Kang Yi, Chung Li, Chung Chi, and Chao Shu Chiao, with Prince Tuan, are the real causes of all the present disorder. Although they all know this, they still pretend to believe the assurances of the government to the contrary....