Directory_and_Chronicle_1903 — Page 640

TAKU

169

made by the British forces in June, 1859. The third took place on the 21st August, 1860, when the forts were attacked from the land side and captured, the booms placed across the river destroyed, and the British ships sailed triumphantly up to Tientsin. The water on the bar ranges from about two to fourteen feet at the Spring tides. At certain states of the tide, steamers are obliged to anchor outside until there is sufficient water to cross.

Taku and Tongku as naval bases have been very prominent in the history of China. In May, 1900, as the Boxer sedition came to a head, the European Powers assembled the greatest naval armament ever seen in the Eastern hemisphere, and one might almost add in the history of the World, at Taku Bar. Sir Edward Seymour, K.C.B., as Senior Naval Officer, was in command. The Admirals were called upon to protect the Legations in Peking and the foreign settlements of Tientsin, and in the second week of June, naval landing parties were sent ashore by the six European Powers, the United States and Japan. Russia, however, sent to Port Arthur for troops and lauded very few sailors. On Saturday, June 9th, the situation in Peking became so alarming by the attitude of the Boxers that the Ministers wired for instant help. The message was flashed out to the fleet at midnight, and before morning a combined force of nearly 1,500 men of all nationalities was towed over the Bar, landed, and sent up to Tientsin by train, where, under Admiral Seymour's personal command, they at once entrained for Peking. Advancing as far as Lo-fa and Lang-fong, their further passage was disputed by the Boxers in force, who were easily beaten off, but as they had torn up the line and destroyed the bridges, further advance by train became impossible. After June 17th, the Boxers were joined by the Imperial troops now in the rear of the Relief Column, who busied themselves by cutting up the railway, thus destroying the Admiral's communication with his base. He had now no military choice but to fight his way back to Tientsin. He had but two or three obsolete field-pieces with which to oppose the modern Krupps with the Chinese forces around Peking, and had no supply of food, as he had landed at almost a moment's notice. To have gone on and tried to cut his way through the Chinese and into the city under such circumstances would have been to court disaster, and as, even if successful, he could not possibly have returned, he would only have added to the difficulties of the Legations and besieged residents, whose supplies of food and ammunition were already perilously low. The retreat was masterly. The column came by train to the break in the line at Yangtsun, and then took to the old road, seized Hsi-ku arsenal five miles out of Tientsin native city, and stayed there till relieved on Monday, June 25th, by a column of Allied troops. On Tuesday, June 26th, the two columns marched back to the settlements, bringing in their wounded safely. After Admiral Seymour had left Taku, the Russian Admiral Hildebrant became senior officer.

During the week June 10th to 16th, the general situation in Chihli became critical in the extreme, and it was a fine point to determine whether the Taku Forts command- ing the entrance of the Peiho should be seized. It will probably be a contentious ques- tion to the end of time if the ultimatum sent in by the Allied Admirals to the Comman- der on Saturday, June 16th, to hand over the Forts before next morning, precipitated the crisis in Tientsin and Peking or not. The official people in general held that it did, lay observers affirm that it made no difference; that the Imperial Government now captured by the Reactionaries was fully committed to the Boxer movement, and that the non-capture of the Forts would have involved the destruction of every foreigner and native Christian in North China. The admirals had to decide this fine point, and, with the exception of the American Officer, they took the line of men of action. After a council of war they sent in the ultimatum that they would open fire at daybreak next day if the Forts were not surrendered. The Commander referred the matter to Tientsin, and was ordered not only to resist but to take the initiative He did so by opening fire at the six gunboats lying in the Tong-ku reaches of the Peiho, about 2,000 yards in a bee line above the forts (three miles by river). There is auch general misapprehension about this brilliant feat of war. The allied Fleet had nothing in the world to do with it, lying as it was twelve miles distant with a shallow twelve foot bar between it and the forts. The entire weight of the business fell on six little cockleshells of gunboats-the British Algerine, French Lion, German Iltin, and the Russian Bobr, Gelek and Korietz-and two landing parties of British and Japanese numbering about 300 each. The residents of Taku village found refuge in the U.S. Monocacy, which, after getting a shell through her bows, steamed up the river out of range. Many refugees fleeing from Tientsin were on the merchant steamers at the wharves, and were under fire for some hours. The firing was somewhat wild during

Page 640Page 641