The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

Almost simultaneously young Chaplin, an ensign of the 67th, holding high the Queen’s colours of his regiment, half scrambled and was half pushed up the wall, and, amid the wild hurrahs of his men, planted his flag upon the parapet, where it fluttered in the breeze. A sharp conflict took place the instant after at the nearest battery upon the wall, and before the enemy were driven off young Chaplin received several severe wounds.

Already a number of British had penetrated through a small breach in the wall, and, entering the streets below, had come to a hand-to-hand encounter with the garrison. Headed by their stalwart commander, the Chinese with unwonted courage presented a bold front to our advancing troops, and for a moment a desperate struggle ensued. Then, as their leader, who proved to be the commander of the forces, fighting in the front rank, and refusing to submit, fell dead, they turned and fled pell-mell through the streets. Unhappily for them, the same obstructions which had so hampered the advance of our troops, now lay in their line of retreat, and as they endeavoured to struggle through the ditch and over the staked ground, a great slaughter took place.

“Never,” said Colonel Wolseley, “did the interior of any place testify more plainly to the noble manner in which it had been defended. The garrison had evidently determined to fall beneath its ruins, or to the last had been so confident that they had never contemplated retreat. Probably the stoutness of the resistance was due to the example of the Chinese commander, an exceedingly rare one, it being proverbial among the Chinese that the officers are almost always the first to bolt when defeat seems probable.”

Preparations were immediately made for an advance on the second northern fort, when suddenly a white flag was hoisted on the principal fort on the southern bank, and a mandarin was rowed over in a boat to treat for terms. He could not, however, give any definite assurance of capitulation, and he was told that if the second fort was not surrendered in two hours it would be taken by storm.

The allotted time passed, and our men advanced to the attack. Not a shot was fired on them, nor any sign of resistance made, and suddenly, to the astonishment of all, down went the flags of the fort. The troops entered and found the garrison of 2000 all huddled together in one place like so many sheep. It was a sudden transformation, since they had thrown away their arms and evidently expected nothing less than massacre, being much astonished when they were sent over to the other side in boats, and allowed to go where they pleased.

The Chinese were evidently completely cowed, and, after some of the usual shilly-shallying, the mandarin in command of the southern forts delivered them into our hands, “together with the unconditional surrender of the whole country on the banks of the Peiho, as far as Tientsin.”

This struggle cost the British 67 men killed and 22 officers and 161 men wounded. The casualties of the French numbered 130. The Chinese dead lay everywhere, within and without the forts, and their loss must have exceeded 2000 killed.

Thus, with the capture of the Taku forts, boasted as impregnable throughout the Chinese Empire, ended the first stage of the war. The gunboats cleared the way of the rows of iron stakes and ponderous booms which obstructed the passage of the river, and by the first week of September the allied troops, with the exception of the Buffs, left to garrison Taku, and a wing of the 44th regiment sent to Shanghai, which was at that time threatened by the Taiping rebels, were in quarters at Tientsin.

For a time it appeared that the war was ended. The Chinese Government professed great anxiety for peace, and Lord Elgin, our ambassador, who accompanied the troops, was in daily communication with its emissaries. Treachery, however, was feared, and the Chinese duplicity being well known, the advance on Pekin was decided on.

On the 8th September the 1st British Division and half the French force moved out of Tientsin, the remainder being left in the town owing to inadequate means of transport. When, on the 13th inst., the allies reached the village of Hu-see-wu, it was arranged in response to the urgent entreaties of the Chinese that the army should halt within a mile and a half of the old walled city of Chang-dia-wan, and that Lord Elgin, with 1000 of an escort, should proceed to Tung-chow, to sign a convention with the Imperial Commissioners there, and then to proceed with the same escort to Pekin for its ratification.