Life Inside the Peking Legations

To set the record for those who consider such exactitude important, although General Chaffee's force actually entered the city before any other, it was British troops that arrived first inside the Legation Quarter. The regimental colours of the 14th Infantry were the first to fly over Peking and the men of the 14th were the first to set foot inside the city at a little after 2 p.m, but the enemy resistance that we encountered had held up our advance for some one and a half hours and, meanwhile, the British had entered the city at the Zua-anmen gate. Without sight of a single enemy soldier, they had followed a road to a position opposite the legations, where they set up a temporary headquarters near the Temple of Heaven. Then, shortly before 3 o'clock that afternoon Captain Pell, A.D.C to General Gaselee; Lieutenant Keys, a Sikh officer, and four Sikh privates walked into the Legation gardens.
    Some thirty minutes later, the 14th Infantry entered the inner city through the Water gate, at the same time as Captain Reilly's battery was passing through the Chien-men gate, which had been opened for them by the American and Russian marine guards of the besieged Legations. First or second into the city meant nothing, though, as we were all greeted by a cheering throng of the besieged foreigners, all decked out in their finery; all wishing to hug us and shake our hands.
    All afternoon the allied forces came pouring into the Legation compound in an endless succession until the lawn was fairly covered with them. Everybody was dancing for joy, and some could scarcely restrain their tears. Amid this cheering and jubilation, the confusion was as great as the euphoria and every new troop was greeted as the bringer of victory and deliverance. As a sharp reminder, however, that our task was far from over, some Chinese soldiers still in hiding around the walls of the Legation Quarter kept up an intermittent threat by firing into the crowds. A Belgian women received a flesh wound to the side of her face; and a Bengal Lancer, whose troop had been sent out in defence of the barricades was sadly killed when, looking through a loophole, he was instantly struck by a bullet to his face.
    At about 4.30 p.m General Gasalee and General Chaffee met with Minister Conger and Sir Claude McDonald, the senior US and British Legation diplomats and, to ensure that the joyous mood of that evening did not get out of hand, the British decided to maintain their headquarters at the Temple of Heaven and General Chaffee agreed to withdraw our troops from the Legation quarters and camp just outside the wall for the night. As the only correspondent with the 14th Infantry, though, I considered that my place at that time was with the foreigners inside the Legations so, with Chaffee's permission, I re-entered the quarters and soon found myself in the company of one Arthur Smith, an American missionary, who summed up the military situation for me… "It's a miracle that we have survived at all" he said, "but we can't understand why the Chinese did not extinguish our defences … if they had been ready to make a sacrifice of just a few hundred lives, we would all be dead now".
    Missionary Smith was an avuncular sort of fellow; one who would hold the affection and respect of his fellows in any circle of which he was a part. He had much to tell me and for this report, it is worth repeating his own words …

"Many of the Chinese Christians who have been sheltering here and Chinese soldiers have been killed, but we have not been able to record how their numbers. What we do know is that the foreign guards who have been defending the Legations have suffered heavy casualties. Up to yesterday's count, of the 409 guards, 55 are dead and 135 wounded. It seems odd but our records show that the small Japanese force of one officer and 24 sailors commanded by Colonel Shiba suffered greater than 100 percent casualties. This happened because many of the Japanese troops, including Colonel Shiba, were wounded, entered into the casualty lists, and then returned to the line of battle only to be wounded once more and again entered in the casualty lists. In addition, 13 civilians have been killed and 24 wounded, mostly men who took part in the defence.
Almost everybody helped with some part of the defence effort and we had committees of all kinds. It was an American idea, and there were about forty altogether, one a cobbling committee to mend our shoes, another a washing committee to wash out clothes, a third a milling committee to grind the wheat, and so forth. The idea was a good one, and some of the committees did valuable work. But head and shoulders above all others as the most important man in our small community was an American missionary, Frank Gamewell who was the head of our fortifications committee. Where he got his ideas about fort and barricade building and construction I don't know; probably he doesn't know himself, but he had a genius for the work. No Royal Engineer could have done it better, and he did everything without a fuss of any kind. "Gamewell," we said, "we want a barricade, here, or a trench there, or a gun platform somewhere else". Not another word was necessary. Mr. Gamewell got together his team, known as the 'Fighting Parsons', and his coolies, you know we had a lot of native Christians in the compound, who did the labouring work for us, and in less time than most men would have taken talking about how the job was to be done the thing was complete. He raised no difficulties, asked no one's opinion, took up nobody's time with questions, simply got the work done, and surprised us all by the ingenuity and excellence of it. Mr. Gamewell and Colonel Shiba were our two best men without whom it does not seem possible we could have won through. I tell you now, after knowing these two men, I am beginning to lose my blind, unquestioning faith in Englishmen as the solitary salt of the earth."

Smith and I talked for some hours, until I had to leave and make my way back to my quarters, or face the post-curfew challenge of the US sentries. As I walked back through the gathering dark, I thought about the times I had spent with many brave, outstanding men from foreign lands; and I could not help but agree with him ...