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enter the city walls added to the general tension. More specifically Governor-General Yeh Ming-chen, perceived by local Europeans as an obstacle to peace, as they understood it, was quite unwilling to meet the British demands. As for the French, certainly their desire to establish an influence for themselves equal to that of the British by championing the rights of missionaries added impetus to French interest in a confrontation. As is well known, pretexts once desired are usually found. For the British, the Chinese boarding of the Arrow near Canton was said to be an act of lèse-majesté against the British flag (regardless of the reality of the ship's status). And for the French the convenient death of a French missionary played its role in bringing the combined flotilla before the walls of Canton in late December 1857. There several thousand British and French soldiers soon gathered to make their assault.
For those not immediately responsible for the military assault the enormity of the undertaking they were involved in must have caused considerable reflection. They were about to attack and presumably occupy an enormous city of more than a million inhabitants. There was no telling, assuming a successful assault, how long they would be required to hold it. But Canton's future administration would be a quieter challenge and one less immediate than the more pressing matter of first taking the city. The actual assault has been often discussed. It suffices here to note that the city's capture, apparently due to the Governor-General's poor planning, was a reasonably simple affair.
Within days of occupying the city it was clear that the allies would be quite unable to govern it directly. The principal issue was that they were faced with the administration of a city of more than a million people when no more than three among the allied forces could even communicate in Chinese. Of the British only Harry Parkes, the future allied commissioner of the city, and Thomas Wade, later ambassador to Peking, knew Chinese.
The French, for their part, were without a senior officer able to communicate at all. Their only contribution in this regard was the presence of a certain Marques who was then serving the French mission as a Chinese secretary. For the French, more than for the British, the lack of Chinese linguists was to be a major impediment to their activities throughout China and for years to come. Almost ten months later Paris
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enter the city walls added to the general tension. More specifically Governor-General Yeh Ming-chen, perceived by local Europeans as an obstacle to peace, as they understood it, was quite unwilling to meet the British demands. As for the French, certainly their desire to establish an influence for themselves equal to that of the British by championing the rights of missionaries added impetus to French interest in a confrontation. As is well known, pretexts once desired are usually found. For the British, the Chinese boarding of the Arrow near Canton was said to be an act of lèse-majesté against the British flag (regardless of the reality of the ship's status). And for the French the convenient death of a French missionary played its role in bringing the combined flotilla before the walls of Canton in late December 1857. There several thousand British and French soldiers soon gathered to make their assault.
For those not immediately responsible for the military asssault the enormity of the undertaking they were involved in must have caused considerable reflection. They were about to attack and presumably occupy an enormous city of more than a million inhabitants. There was no telling, assuming a successful assault, how long they would be required to hold it. But Canton's future administration would be a quieter challenge and one less immediate than the more pressing matter of first taking the city. The actual assault has been often discussed. It suffices here to note that the city's capture, apparently due to the Governor-General's poor planning, was a reasonably simple affair.?
Within days of occupying the city it was clear that the allies would be quite unable to govern it directly. The principal issue was that they were faced with the administration of a city of more than a million people when no more than three among the allied forces could even communicate in Chinese. Of the British only Harry Parkes, the future allied commissioner of the city, and Thomas Wade, later ambassador to Peking, knew Chinese.
The French, for their part, were without a senior officer able to communicate at all. Their only contribution in this regard was the presence of a certain Marques who was then serving the French mission as a Chinese secretary." For the French, more than for the British, the lack of Chinese linguists was to be a major impediment to their activities throughout China and for years to come." Almost ten months later Paris
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