The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

Accordingly, Sir Hope Grant decided to postpone the forthcoming action until the morrow, the remainder of the day and night being spent in pushing forward our heavy guns up to the Chinese position and in digging pits for our riflemen. At half-past five in the morning the 1st Division pushed forward to storm the Chinese position, the 2nd Division being held in reserve. The contest was sharp and short, the Chinese replying with spirit to our fire, which from our 42 heavy guns was destructive in the extreme.

Some explanation of the tenacity with which they stood to their guns was afterwards forthcoming, when it was found that many of the wretched gunners had been tied to the pieces of ordnance which they served!

After the enemy’s fire had been silenced, our infantry dashed forward, and the foremost of our men, the Rifles, found themselves just in time to bayonet some of the last of the Tartar defenders. The fugitives could be seen streaming out of the village towards a bridge of boats spanning the Peiho, by which they reached the village of Taku upon the further bank of the river. Though no precise estimate of the enemy’s dead could be obtained, dozens of them lay amongst the guns, dozens more in the ditches, scores had been swept down the river in junks or borne off by comrades, and numbers had crawled down to the village to die. The full opposing force was estimated at 6000. The allies’ casualties amounted to 15 wounded, not a man having been killed.

The way was now clear for an attack upon the Taku forts. Some disagreement arose as to which of the four should be the first object of the allied attack. The French were in favour of first assaulting the larger southern fort, the strongest of the four, but Sir Hope Grant, observing that the nearer of the northern forts, though small, commanded all the others, decided, in spite of the French protest, to make this the object of attack. Several days were spent in preparation, road-making, and the like, and during the night of the 20th August, after a hard night’s labour, everything was found to be in order for the attack. Bridges had been thrown over the principal canals, intersecting the country, batteries had been erected near the forts, and twenty heavy guns and three mortars were mounted, four British and four French gunboats moved up the river to join in the attack, and a storming party of 2500 British, consisting of a wing of the 44th, a wing of the 67th, and two detachments of marines, together with 1000 French, mustered under Brigadier Reeves for what was to prove the hardest fight of the campaign.

At daybreak our batteries and gunboats opened fire, the fort replying briskly, and the engagement was begun. Hotter and hotter grew the cannonade, and after an hour had passed and our storming party was in momentary expectation of receiving orders to advance, suddenly a tall black pillar of smoke was seen to shoot up from the fort in front, and immediately afterwards to burst at a great height like a rocket. The earth shook for many miles. A magazine had blown up. The enemy’s fire ceased for a moment, but the garrison seemed to be determined to serve their guns so long as one of them remained, and manfully reopened fire. Half an hour later a similar explosion occurred in the second northern fort, having apparently been caused by a stray shell from the gunboats. By seven o’clock, the large guns of the enemy having been silenced, and a small breach made in the wall, the storming party received orders to advance.

As the men went forward into the open, they were assailed by a hail of bullets by the Chinese, and many wounded began to drop in the line of advance. The British portion of the force was sadly hampered by the necessity of carrying sections of the pontoon bridge by which it was intended to span the two ditches which ran round the front of the fort. After all their exertions, however, the bridge proved useless, a round shot in one instant completely smashing one section, and knocking over the fifteen men who carried it. The French, on the other hand, carried light bamboo ladders, which proved sufficiently effective to enable them to cross the ditch, whilst our men had to swim or struggle over as best they could.

The first ditch crossed, a formidable obstacle presented itself. The intervening twenty feet of ground between the ditches had been thickly planted with sharp-pointed bamboo stakes, over which it was almost impossible to walk. It was here that our greatest loss occurred. Missiles of all descriptions rained down upon our troops halted before this formidable obstruction. Arrows, handfuls of slugs, pots of lime, and round shot thrown by hand constituted the enemy’s ammunition, and now and again the defenders leapt upon the walls to take more careful aim at the attacking force.

At length, a few men succeeded in reaching the walls, and while the French were fruitlessly endeavouring to plant their scaling ladders, Colonel Mann and Major Anson, perceiving the drawbridge tied up with rope, cut it free with their swords. The bridge fell with a crash, and was totally wrecked by its fall. Eventually, however, a long beam was thrown across, and one by one our men advanced across it to the walls. The progress was slow, a considerable number of the men being unable to perform this feat with success, and numbers of them fell into the muddy ditch below, among the hilarious laughter of their comrades, which even the near presence of death failed to damp.

By this time ladders had been dragged over by the French in considerable numbers, and planted here and there against the walls, only to be thrown back by the active defenders. The British meanwhile running round the walls, eagerly sought a scaleable place.

At last a French soldier holding aloft the tricolour, with a wild cheer on his lips, succeeded in placing his foot upon the parapet for a moment before falling back dead. His comrades were immediately in his place.