Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 1

Indiscreet Letters From Peking.

Edited by B. L. Putman Weale.

FOREWORD

The publication of these letters, dealing with the startling events which took place in Peking during the summer and autumn of 1900, at this late date may be justified on a number of counts. In the first place, there can be but little doubt that an exact narrative from the pen of an eye-witness who saw everything, and knew exactly what was going on from day to day, and even from hour to hour, in the diplomatic world of the Chinese capital during the deplorable times when the dread Boxer movement overcast everything so much that even in England the South African War was temporarily forgotten, is of intense human interest, showing most clearly as it does, perhaps for the first time in realistic fas.h.i.+on, the extraordinary _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_ which overcame everyone; the unpreparedness and the panic when there was really ample warning; the rivalry of the warring Legations even when they were almost _in extremis_, and the curious course of the whole seige itself owing to the division of counsels among the Chinese--this last a state of affairs which alone saved everyone from a shameful death. In the second place, this account may dispel many false ideas which still obtain in Europe and America regarding the position of various Powers in China--ideas based on data which have long been declared of no value by those competent to judge. In the third place, the vivid and terrible description of the sack of Peking by the soldiery of Europe, showing the demoralisation into which all troops fall as soon as the iron hand of discipline is relaxed, may set finally at rest the mutual recriminations which have since been levelled publicly and privately. Everybody was tarred with the same brush. Those arm-chair critics who have been too p.r.o.ne to state that brutalities no longer mark the course of war may reconsider their words, and remember that sacking, with all the accompanying excesses, is still regarded as the divine right of soldiery unless the provost-marshal's gallows stand ready. In the fourth place, those who still believe that the representatives a.s.signed to Eastern countries need only be second-rate men--reserving for Europe the master-minds--may begin to ask themselves seriously whether the time has not come when only the most capable and brilliant diplomatic officials--men whose intelligence will help to shape events and not be led by them, and who will act with iron firmness when the time for such action comes--should be a.s.signed to such a difficult post as Peking. In the fifth place, the strange idea, which refuses to be eradicated, that the Chinese showed themselves in this Peking seige once and for all incompetent to carry to fruition any military plan, may be somewhat corrected by the plain and convincing terms in which the eye-witness describes the manner in which they stayed their hand whenever it could have slain, and the silent struggle which the Moderates of Chinese politics must have waged to avert the catastrophe by merely gaining time and allowing the Desperates to dash themselves to pieces when the inevitable swing of the pendulum took place. Finally, it will not escape notice that many remarks borne out all through the narrative tend to show that British diplomacy in the Far East was at one time at a low ebb.

Of course the Peking seige has already been amply described in many volumes and much magazine literature. Dr. Morrison, the famous Peking correspondent of the _Times_, informs me that he has in his library no less than forty-three accounts in English alone. The majority of these, however, are not as complete or enlightening as they might be; nor has the extraordinarily dramatic nature of the Warning, the Siege, and the Sack been shown. Thus few people, outside of a small circle in the Far East, have been able to understand from such accounts what actually occurred in Peking, or to realise the nature of the fighting which took place. The two best accounts, Dr. Morrison's own statement and the French Minister's graphic report-to his government, were both written rather to fix the princ.i.p.al events immediately after they had occurred than to attempt to probe beneath the surface, or to deal with the strictly personal or private side. Nor did they embrace that most remarkable portion of the Boxer year, the entire sack of Peking and the extraordinary scenes which marked this latter-day Vandalism. A veil has been habitually drawn over these little-known events, but in the narrative which follows it is boldly lifted for the first time.

The eye-witness whose account follows was careful to establish with as much lucidity as possible each phase of existence during five months of extraordinary interest. Much in these notes has had to be suppressed for many reasons, and much that remains may create some astonishment. Yet it is well to remember that "one eye-witness, however dull and prejudiced, is worth a wilderness of sentimental historians." The historians are already beginning to arise; these pages may serve as a corrective to many erroneous ideas. Perhaps some also will allow that this curious tragedy, swept into Peking and playing madly round the entrenched European Legations, has intense human interest still. The vague terror which oppressed everyone before the storm actually burst; the manner in which the feeble chain of fighting men were locked round the European lines, and suffered grievously but were providentially saved from annihilation; the curious way in which diplomacy made itself felt from time to time only to disappear as the rude shock of events taking place near Tientsin and the sea were reflected in Peking; the final coming of the strange relief--all these points and many others are made in such a manner that everyone should be able to understand and to believe. The description of the last act of the upheaval--the complete sack of Peking--shows clearly how the l.u.s.t for loot gains all men, and hand in hand invites such terrible things as wholesale rape and murder.

The eye-witness attempts to account for all that happened; to make real and living the hoa.r.s.e roll of musketry, the savage cries of desperadoes stripped to the waist and glistening in their sweat; to give echo to the blood-curdling notes of Chinese trumpets; to limn the tall mountains of flames licking sky high. If there is failure in these efforts, it is due to the editing.

The summer of 1900 in Peking will ever remain as famous in the annals of the world's history as the Indian Mutiny; it was something unique and unparalleled. With the curious movements now at work in the Far East, it may not be unwise to study the story again. And after Port Arthur these pages may show something about which little has been written--the psychology of the seige. The seige is still the rudest test in the world. It is well to know it.

B. L. PUTNAM WEALE.

CHINA, June, 1906.

INDISCREET LETTERS FROM PEKING

PART I--THE WARNING

I

FRAGMENTS

12th May, 1900.

The weather is becoming hot, even here in lat.i.tude 40 and in the month of May. The Peking dust, distinguished among all the dusts of the earth for its blackness, its disagreeable insistence in sticking to one's clothes, one's hair, one's very eyebrows, until a grey-brown coating its visible to every eye, is rising in heavier clouds than ever. In the market-places, and near the great gates of the city, where Peking carts and camels from beyond the pa.s.ses--_k'ou wai_, to use the correct vernacular--jostle one another, the dust has become d.a.m.nable beyond words, and there can be no health possibly in us. The Peking dust rises, therefore, in clouds and obscures the very sun at times; for the sun always s.h.i.+nes here in our Northern China, except during a brief summer rainy season, and a few other days you can count on your fingers. The dust is without significance, you will say, since it is always there more or less. It is in any case--healthy; it chokes you, but is reputed also to choke germs; therefore it is good. All of which is true, only this year there is more of it than ever, meaning very dry weather indeed for this city, hanging near the gates of Mongolian deserts--a dry weather spelling the devil for the Northern farmer.

Meanwhile, is there anything special for me to chronicle? Not much, although there is a cloud no bigger than your hand in Shantung not a thousand miles from Weihaiwei, and the German Legation is consequently somewhat irate. It was noticed at our club, for instance, which, by the way, is a humble affair, that the German military attache, a gentleman who wears bracelets, is somewhat effeminate, and plays vile tennis and worse billiards, had a "hostile att.i.tude" towards the British Legation--that is, such of the British Legation as gather together each day at the "ice-shed"--which happens to be the club's peculiar Chinese name. The military attache is somewhat irate, because the spectacle of the Weihaiwei regiment, six hundred yellow men under twelve white Englishmen, chasing malcontents in Shantung, is derogatory to Teutonic aspirations. Germany has earmarked Shantung, and it is just like English bluntness to remind the would-be dominant Power that there is a British sphere and a British colony in the Chinese province, as well as a German sphere and a German colony. But the German Minister, a _beau garcon_ with blue eyes and a handsome moustache, says nothing, and is quite calm.

Meanwhile the cloud no bigger than your hand is quite unremarked by the rank and file of Legation Street--that I will swear. Chinese malcontents--"the Society of Harmonious Fists," particular habitat Shantung province--are casually mentioned; but it is remembered that the provincial governor of Shantung is a strong Chinaman, one Yuan s.h.i.+h-kai, who has some knowledge of military matters, and, better still, ten thousand foreign-drilled troops. Shantung is all right, never fear--such is the comment of the day.

But the political situation--the _situation politique_ as we call it in our several conversations, which always have a diplomatic turn--although not grave, is unhappy; everybody at least acknowledges that. Peking has never been what it was before the j.a.panese war. In the old days we were all something of a happy family. There were merely the eleven Legations, the Inspectorate of Chinese Customs, with the aged Sir R---- H---- at its head, and perhaps a few favoured globe-trotters or nondescripts looking for rich concessions. Picnics and dinners, races and excursions, were the order of the day, and politics and political situations were not burning. Ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary wore Terai hats, very old clothes, and had an affable air--something like what Teheran must still be. Then came the j.a.panese war, and the eternal political situation. Russia started the ball rolling and the others kicked it along. The Russo-Chinese Bank, appeared on the scenes led by the great P----, a man with an ominous black portfolio continually under his arm, as he hurried along Legation Street, and an intriguing expression always on his dark face--a veritable master of men and moneys, they say. This intriguing soon found Expression in the Ca.s.sini Convention, denounced as untrue, and followed by a perfectly open and frank Manchurian railway convention, a convention which, in spite of its frankness, had future trouble written unmistakably on the face of it.

Besides these things there were always ominous reports of other things--of great things being done secretly.

After the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Manchurian railway business, there was the Kiaochow affair, then the Port Arthur affair, the Weihaiwei and Kw.a.n.gchowwan affairs, nothing but "affairs" all tending in the same direction--the making of a very grave political situation.

The juniors to-day make fun of it, it is true, and greet each other daily with the salutation, "_La situation politique est tres grave_,"

and laugh at the good words. But it is grave notwithstanding the laughter. Once in 1899, after the Empress Dowager's _coup d'etat_ and the virtual imprisonment of the Emperor, Legation Guards had to be sent for, a few files for each of the Legations that possess squadrons in the Far East, and, what is more, these guards had to stay for a good many months. The guards are now no more, but it is curious that the men they came mainly to protect us against--Tung Fu-hsiang's Mohammedan braves from the savage back province of Kansu who love the reactionary Empress Dowager--are still encamped near the Northern capital.

The old Peking society has therefore vanished, and in its place are highly suspicious and hostile Legations--Legations petty in their conceptions of men and things--Legations bitterly disliking one another--in fact, Legations richly deserving all they get, some of the cynics say.

The Peking air, as I have already said, is highly electrical and unpleasant in these hot spring days with the dust rising in heavy clouds. Squabbling and cantankerous, rather absurd and petty, the Legations are spinning their little threads, each one hedged in by high walls in its own compound and by the debatable question of the _situation politique_.

Outside and around us roars the noise of the Tartar city. At night the noise ceases, for the inner and outer cities are closed to one another by great gates; but at midnight the gates are opened by sleepy Manchu guards for a brief ten minutes, so that gorgeous red and blue-trapped carts, drawn by sleek mules, may speed into the Imperial City for the Daybreak Audience with the Throne. These conveyances contain the high officials of the Empire. It has been noticed by a Legation stroller on the Wall--the Tartar Wall--that the number of carts pa.s.sing in at midnight is far greater than usual; that the guards of the city gates now and again stop and question a driver. It is nothing.

Meanwhile the dust rises in clouds. It is very dry this year--that is all.

II

MUTTERINGS

24th May, 1900.

We are beginning to call them Boxers--grudgingly and sometimes harking back and giving them their full name, "Society of Harmonious Fists,"

or the "Righteous Harmony Fist Society"; but still a beginning has been made, and they are becoming Boxers by the inevitable process of shortening which distinguishes speech.

have been talking about them a good deal to-day, these Boxers, since it has been the birthday of her most excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, and the British Legation has been _en fete_. Her Majesty's Minister, in fine, has been entertaining us in the vast and princely gardens of the British Legation at his own expense. Weird Chinese lanterns have been lighted in the evening and slung around the grounds; champagne has been flowing with what effervescence it could muster; the eleven Legations and the nondescripts have forgotten their cares for a brief s.p.a.ce and have been enjoying the evening air and the music of Sir R---- H----'s Chinese band. Looking at lighted lanterns, drinking champagne cup, listening to a Chinese band--where the devil is the protocol and the political situation, you will say? Not quite forgotten, since the French Minister attracted the attention of many all the evening by his vehement manner. I pushed up once, too, and with a polite bow listened to what he was saying. Ah, the old words, the eternal words, the political situation, or the _situation politique_, whichever way you like to use them. But still you listen a bit, for it is droll to hear the yet unaccustomed word Boxers in French. "_Les Boxeurs_," he says; and what the French Minister says is always worth listening to, since he has the best Intelligence corps in the world--the Catholic priests of China--at his disposal.

Curiously enough, he was speaking of the arch-priest of priests, renowned above all others in this Peking world, Monseigneur F----, Vicar Apostolic of the Manchu capital--almost Vicar of G.o.d to countless thousands of dark-yellow converts. It is Monseigneur F----'s letter of the 19th May, written but five days ago, and already locally famous through leakage, which was the subject-matter of his impromptu oration. Monseigneur F---- wrote and demanded a guard of marines for his cathedral, his people and his chattels--_quarante ou cinquante marins pour proteger nos personnes et nos biens_, were his exact words, and his request has been cruelly refused by the Council of Ministers on the ground that it is absurd. The Vicar Apostolic, however, gave his grounds for making such a demand calmly and logically--depicted the damage already done by an anti-foreign and revolutionary movement in the districts not a thousand miles from Peking, and solemnly forecasted what was soon to happen....

The French Minister was irate and raised his fat hands above his fat person, took a discreet look around him, and then hinted that it was this Legation, the British Legation, which stopped the marines from coming.

The French Minister was quite irate, and after his discourse was ended he slipped quietly away--possibly to send some more telegrams. The crumbs of his conversation were soon gathered up and distributed and the conviviality somewhat damped. As yet, however, the Boxers are only laughed at and are not taken quite seriously. They have killed native Christians, it is true, and it has been proved conclusively now that it was they who murdered Brooks, the English missionary in Shantung.

But Englishmen are cheap, since there is a glut in the home market, and their government merely gets angry with them when they get into trouble and are killed. So many are always getting killed in China.

So the Boxers, with half the governments of Europe, led by England, as we know by our telegrams, seeking to minimise their importance--in fact, trying to stifle the movement by ignoring it or lavis.h.i.+ng on it their supreme contempt--have already moved from their particular habitat, which is Shantung, into the metropolitan province of Chihli.

Already they are in some force at Chochou, only seventy miles to the southeast of Peking--always ma.s.sacring, always advancing, and driving in bodies of native Christians before them on their march. n.o.body cares very much, however, except a vicar apostolic, who urgently requests forty or fifty marines or sailors "to protect our persons and our chattels." Foolish bishop he is, is he not, when Christians have been expressly born to be ma.s.sacred? Does he not know his history?

Lead on, blind ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary; lead on, with your eternal political situations in embryo, your eternal political situations that have not yet hatched out; while one that is more pregnant than any you have ever conceived is already born under your very noses and is being sniffed at by you. But no matter what happens outside, Peking is safe, that is your dictum, and the dictum of the day. So, yawning and somewhat tired of the evening's convivialities, we go our several ways home, in our Peking carts and our official chairs, and are soon lost in sleep--dreaming, perhaps, that we have been too long in this dry Northern climate, and that it is really affecting one's nerves.

III

OVERCAST SKIES

28th May, 1900.