DIARY OF THE AUTHOR FROM JUNE 1 TO JUNE 20

THE following transcription of my diary gives the principal events in the situation up to the date of the close siege, going back a little in point of time from the last chapter.

June 1. After three days of exciting mental strain, we can at last breathe easier. Rumors continue to fill the air of plots within the palace, riots against the Catholic cathedral, railway being torn up between here and Tientsin, etc. But the solid fact remains that a few foreign guards have arrived at six legations, and a machine gun will now have something to say in one’s behalf if the excited populace’s thirst for foreign blood becomes too pressing.

With the exception of M. Pichon, the French minister, all the other ministers are greatly to blame for their tardy recognition of the impending trouble, and they have very nearly had the odium of a preventible foreign massacre to answer for.

Sir Claude MacDonald, for whom the entire English community outside his legation feel, and have openly expressed, the greatest contempt, would not believe that there was any danger coming, and vigorously opposed Pichon’s advice that the troops be sent for ten days ago.

Mr. Conger seconded Sir Claude, partly because the United States legation quarters are so limited that the second secretary and his wife are obliged to live in two rooms over the main office building, and partly because he believed the government willing and capable of putting down the disorder. Both were suddenly converted when Fengtai, only six miles away, was burned, and the Boxers were reported marching unopposed upon Peking. Then the most exciting telegraphing for warships to come to Taku, and guards and machine guns to come to Peking, became the order of the day.

Had the Boxers been at all organized they could have torn up the track for a mile or two at Fengtai, and effectually cut off the troops from arriving in time to prevent any city riots. Fortunately, they seem to have been carried away by the desire to loot, and after they had carried off all the furniture and belongings of the eight foreign residences at Fengtai, and robbed the Empress’ private car of all movable property, they were content to set fire to the stations and machine shops, and then clear out home to the adjoining villages.

June 4. None of the Boxers have been punished, and they have grown bolder, burning the next station below Fengtai, known as Huangtsun, thirteen miles from Peking, killing two Church of England missionaries named Robinson and Norman at Yungching, and defeating a force of Cossacks sent out from Tientsin to search for the surviving Belgians escaping from the Lu Han railway. In spite of this, and with seventeen men-of-war at Tangku, the foreign ministers, besides bringing up each a guard of fifty or seventy-five men to protect his own legation, are doing nothing—that we can see at any rate—to pacify the country. Why they don’t land a large force, come to Peking, and seize the old reprobates that they all know are the real bosses of the Boxer movement in Peking, and hold them responsible for any further movement, nobody knows.

Every minister can tell you that Hsu Tung, Kang Yi, Chung Li, Chung Chi, and Chao Shu Chiao, with Prince Tuan, are the real causes of all the present disorder. Although they all know this, they still pretend to believe the assurances of the government to the contrary....

June 13. Events have been too exciting to allow of one sitting down quietly to write. The missionaries from Tungchow, thirteen miles south of Peking, have fled into this city, and all their college plant, private residences, and property have been destroyed by soldiers sent from the taotai’s yamen to protect them. All the Peking missionaries have gathered together in the Methodist mission compound, where, with such arms as they could collect—a few shotguns, rifles, and revolvers—and with a guard of twenty marines, sent by Mr. Conger, United States minister, they have fortified themselves with barbed wire and brick fences, and are “holding the fort.”

For days we have heard no word from our Presbyterian missionaries at Paotingfu. The last word, now some days since, which came through the tsung-li-yamen and is therefore untrustworthy, was that they were safe at present. Wires south have been cut since the burning of the college buildings at Tungchow, and I have been unable to write home the developments daily occurring.

On the 10th of June, just before the wires were cut, we had a message from United States Consul Ragsdale, saying eight hundred odd troops were coming to our assistance, but to-day is the fourth day since its receipt, and we only know of their reaching Lofa, a burned station on the railway to Tientsin, on Monday night. We have been expecting them every hour since, but no definite word of their arrival at any other place has reached us. Why they don’t send natives in advance we can’t imagine.

June 18. Eleven days we have been besieged in Legation street. Our little guard of four hundred and fifty marines and sailors of all nationalities have kept unceasing watch night and day, and are nearly exhausted. Eleven days ago we were told that an army was marching to our relief, and although they had only eight miles to come we have not yet seen them, nor do we know their whereabouts.

We have nightly repelled attacks of Boxers and soldiers of the government, and have killed in sorties over two hundred of them; but we have millions about us, and unless relieved must soon succumb. Our messengers to the outside world have been captured and killed, and our desperate situation, while it may be guessed, cannot be truly known.

With fifty men-of-war now at Taku we have to remain within our barricaded streets and witness the destruction of all the mission premises and private foreign residences on the outside.

The American Board mission’s large property, the two large Catholic cathedrals known as the South cathedral and the East cathedral, the two compounds of the American Presbyterian mission, the Society for Propagation of the Gospel mission, the International Institute, and the London mission have all furnished magnificent conflagrations, which we have beheld without being able in any way to prevent.

At each place the furious Boxers, aided by their soldier sympathizers, have murdered, with shocking mutilation, all the gatekeepers as well as any women and children in the neighborhood suspected of being Christians or foreign sympathizers.

At the South cathedral the massacre was shocking; so much so that when some of the poor mutilated children came fleeing across the city, bringing the news of what was going on, a relief party was organized from our little force, consisting of twelve Russians, twelve American marines, and two civilians, W. N. Pethick and M. Duysberg, armed with shotguns, who, risking conflict with the Manchu troops, marched two miles from our barricades and, coming on the Boxers suddenly in the midst of the ruins, fired a number of volleys into them, killing over sixty, upon which the rest fled. They then collected the women and children hidden in the surrounding alleys, and marched them back to us, where they are for the present safe.

I have just finished dressing the wounded head of a little girl ten years of age, who, in spite of a sword cut four inches long in the back of her head and two fractures of the outer table of the skull, walked all the way back here, leading a little sister of eight and a brother of four. As she patiently endured the stitching of the wound, she described to me the murder of her father and mother and the looting of her home. One old man of sixty carried his mother of eighty upon his back and brought her into temporary safety; but how long before we are all murdered we cannot say.

Our anxiety has been something frightful, and at this moment, many days since we were told that troops were coming to our relief, we are apparently no nearer rescue than at first. We can’t comprehend it. Night before last, after being driven away by our hot rifle fire, the Boxers turned on the defenseless shopkeepers in the southern city, and burned many acres of the best business places and native banks.

They also burned the great city gate, known as the Chien Men, an imposing structure of many stories high, which must have illuminated the surrounding country for miles. Surely our troops must have seen the glare, if they were within forty miles of us. We begin to fear they have met with an overwhelming force of Chinese soldiers, and have been driven back to Tientsin.

The tsung-li-yamen, or foreign office, is utterly powerless, and yet it continues to send us messages stating it is going to protect us, and it has the Empress issue daily edicts, which, while apparently condemning the Boxers, really encourage them.

The Manchu soldiers have stood idly by in thousands, and have seen the frightful butcheries of converts and suspected converts, without raising a finger to interfere. When questioned why they did not obey the edicts authorizing them to repress arson and looting they have replied, “We have other instructions.”

Mauser bullets are nightly fired at our sentries, and every night we have to turn out a number of times to repel the cowardly natives, whom we find sneaking down upon us, and who dare attack only under cover of darkness.

The behavior of our women and children under these circumstances has been remarkable, and their courage and bravery above all praise.

Should these lines ever be published I wish to make known to the world the great courage, devotion, and constant watchfulness of Captain John T. Myers, of the marine corps. We will owe to him our lives and the lives of our loved ones if we are ever rescued. His bravery and endurance will, if he survives, mark him for high command some day. While all the officers here have acted well, yet he is head and shoulders above them in coolness and decision, and all the other nationalities come to him for advice and counsel.

He is well seconded here by ex-Lieutenant Herbert G. Squiers, Seventh United States Cavalry, who is first secretary of legation. Had Mr. Squiers been minister, we would never have been in our present terrible situation, for he realized the appalling nature of the threatened outbreak while the ministers pooh-poohed it. As he could not of his own initiative order up troops in time, he laid in abundant stores of rice and other eatables, and bought up all the wagons and ammunition purchasable.

The blind trust the ministers (with the exception perhaps of M. Pichon) placed in the promises of the tsung-li-yamen, in the face of the daily increasing riots and murder, is an instance of childlike simplicity which I trust they may never have an opportunity to repeat elsewhere. The entire community here, of civilians and military alike, condemn them as a set of incompetents.

They now, of course, all see their mistake in being fooled by the tsung-li-yamen, and prevented from bringing a sufficient force here until the railroad was destroyed and hordes of fierce Kansu ruffians placed in the way of advancing relief.

The marines of the Newark and Oregon, of which we have fifty, that compose the entire American force, are a sturdy lot of courageous, devoted men. Sober, intelligent, cheerful, enduring, all of them are as brave as lions. Sergeant Walker alone, at the South cathedral, killed seven of the Boxers.

The district held by us is about a half-mile east and west on Legation street, and is guarded by blocking the streets at the Italian legation on the east and the Russian legation on the west. At each barricade there is placed a machine gun. A diagram of the ground held will be found on another page. June 19, yesterday, the tsung-li-yamen ministers (four of them) visited the English, Russian, and American legations, and begged the foreign ministers to persuade the relief guards that we hope are coming to our aid, to return, assuring them that from this time on the Chinese would prevent any further Boxer outrages on foreigners, and that legation premises should be safe. They also said the Empress was now sure that the Boxer movement was a menace to the government as well as the foreigners, and that the imperial troops would be ordered to shoot every Boxer on sight. As all the afternoon our sentinels on the city wall saw Boxers in full regalia going at pleasure among the native troops stationed about the ruined Chien Men, we know that the tsung-li-yamen’s words were, as usual, a pack of lies.

A messenger arrived yesterday from Tientsin from Mr. E. B. Drew, commissioner of customs, to Dr. Morrison, of the London Times, stating that the railroad had been destroyed in the rear of the relief column, and they were being driven back on Tientsin and away from us.

Surely our condition is desperate. Food is getting scarce. Boxers are mixing openly with the Chinese soldiers, our own soldier boys are getting worn out by constant watching, and no help is nigh.

July 18. On June 19, nearly a month ago to-day, the tsung-li-yamen sent the foreign ministers word that, as the admirals at Taku had notified the viceroy of Chihli through the French consul if he opposed troops landing in any required numbers they would take the Taku forts, and as this was really a declaration of war, the foreign ministers were hereby requested to leave Peking, one and all, within twenty-four hours, and proceed to Tientsin en route to their respective countries, a Chinese escort for which was to be provided by the Chinese government.

As the railroad had already been destroyed all the way to Tientsin, and the intended relief corps under Admiral Seymour and Captain McCalla had been driven back without being able to reach us, and as we knew the country between Peking and Tientsin was filled with thousands of Boxers and hostile soldiers, it seemed patent to the most simple intellect that to leave the protection of our legation walls was to invite massacre.

But the intensely dense ministers, Sir Claude MacDonald, E. H. Conger, M. de Giers, M. Pichon, and others, all excepting Baron von Ketteler, the German minister, actually agreed to proceed to Tientsin on the morrow with all their nationals, providing only that the Chinese government would furnish transportation. The military officers all declared this would mean the massacre of the entire community.

The ministers, however, would certainly have had us all thus massacred had not the unfortunate Baron von Ketteler been murdered the next morning by the Chinese troops while proceeding to the tsung-li-yamen to consult about details. He rode, as is customary, to the tsung-li-yamen from his legation in a sedan chair. When passing the entrance of Tsung Pu street, just below the yamen, he was fired upon by a troop of Manchu troops of Yung Lu upon the command of a lieutenant with a white button, and was mortally wounded. His secretary interpreter, Mr. Corder, who accompanied him, was also badly wounded by the volley, but, aided by some friendly natives, managed to escape to the Methodist mission near Legation street, where, after having his wounds dressed, he was sent on to his legation. The horse coolie had already quickly galloped back to the legation and given the alarm.

The folly of trusting our lives to the Chinese escort was thus made clear, and the foreign ministers, dense as they were, could not but realize that to trust themselves and their families to the tender mercies of the ruffians who would be appointed to escort and murder them and us, would be lunacy to a degree at which even they were not yet arrived.

I had, in company with the correspondent of the London “Times,” early in the morning of the 20th of June, in the most emphatic language, represented the true state of the case to Minister Conger, only to be met with the cold reply, as he turned away after listening to us, “I don’t agree with you.”

But on receipt of the news of Ketteler’s death, a few moments later, the United States minister “changed his mind,” and reluctantly admitted it would be impossible to go to Tientsin, and that we must try and defend ourselves in Peking until a large relief force could arrive to rescue us.

Hasty preparations were then made to send all the women and children into the English legation, which was the largest of all the legations, as well as the strongest, from which to make a final stand.

In a few hours after the news of Von Ketteler’s murder a steady stream of men, women, and children, carrying bundles, buckets, and trunks, could have been seen pouring into the main gate of the British legation, all with anxious faces. Carts, too, loaded with provisions from the three foreign stores, were making the best use of the time in transferring all the available eatables and drinkables within the protection of the legation walls.

As the twenty-four hours granted us in which to hasten from the city expired at 4 p.m., all used their entire energy as well as that of the coolies and servants at their disposal, so that at the time specified, when the Chinese opened a terrifying fire upon us from all sides, provisions enough to last us several months were safely under shelter.