Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion (Campaign) [Paperback]

Peter Harrington (Author), Michael Perry (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2001 | Series: Campaign (Book 85)

Osprey's study of the violent Boxer Rebellion, which swept northern China in 1900. The Boxers were a secret society who sought to rid their country of the pernicious influence of the foreign powers who had gradually acquired a stranglehold on China. With the connivance of the Imperial Court they laid siege to the legation quarter of Peking. Trapped inside were an assortment of diplomats, civilians and a small number of troops. They were all Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister in Peking, had to defend against thousands of hostile Boxers and Imperial troops. It would now be a race against time. Could the rag-tag defenders hold out long enough for the gathering relief force to reach them? This book describes the desperate series of events as the multinational force rushed to their rescue.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Highly visual guides to history's greatest conflicts, detailing the command strategies, tactics, and experiences of the opposing forces throughout each campaign, and concluding with a guide to the battlefields today.

About the Author

Peter Harrington, a native of Manchester, England, is currently the curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at the John Hay Library of Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. He is an authority on artists and war and has written extensively on the subject, including British Artists and War: The Face of Battle in Paintings and Prints (1993), as well as organising a number of exhibitions on war art. This is his third book in the Osprey Campaign series, his others being Campaign 12: Culloden 1746 and Campaign 35: Plassey 1757.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing (May 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841761818
• ISBN-13: 978-1841761817
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.2 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,032,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Campaign Summary, June 8, 2001

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion (Campaign) (Paperback)

In Peking 1900, Peter Harrington covers the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Allied campaigns in June-August 1900 to relieve the besieged foreign legations in the Chinese capital. Although this campaign, with the dramatic siege of the legations in Peking, has been covered before, Harrington provides a useful summary of the campaign. The author is currently the curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University, and he has used his access to that resource to provide many hitherto unseen photographs and illustrations from the campaign.

In the background to the campaign, Harrington discusses the spread of anti-foreign attitudes in China, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 and the emergence of the Boxers. Although this section is quite good, there is a subtle use of euphemisms to downplay foreign aggressions against China. For example, the author states that the First Opium War (1839-1842) "was the result of disagreements between Chinese officials and British merchants in the port of Canton particularly concerning the supply of opium from India." In fact, the Chinese were trying to stop the British from importing highly addictive opium into China, where it was already causing social problems. In modern terms, the Chinese were attempting to interdict the flow of narcotics into their country, and even by 19th Century standards of commerce, the Chinese had a right to determine what could be imported into their country. In reference to the Second Opium War in 1860, Harrington states that, "Peking was entered by Allied forces on 12 October 1860." That's putting it very mildly. In fact, the Anglo-French troops stormed and sacked the city. The use of euphemisms such as "disagreement" and "enter" seem akin to the attempts by modern Japanese historians to downplay and justify their own aggressions in China. Oddly, the Taiping Rebellion is not mentioned in this section, although it seriously weakened the Manchu administration of the country.

The main campaign narrative covers the First Relief Column, the storming of the Taku Forts, operations around Tientsin, the siege of the legations in Peking and the final relief effort. There are only two 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps in this volume, and they cover the storming of the Taku Forts and the defense of the British legation. The later map is particularly good. Three illustrated battle scenes complement the text, in addition to many excellent photographs. A chronology, and detailed order of battle for both sides is provided. The section on opposing commanders is a bit too high-level, focusing only on the senior Chinese and Allied leaders, and the author might have provided a bit more detail on the junior officers such as John Jellicoe who later went on to major commands. David Beatty, of Jutland fame, was wounded in the campaign but is not mentioned here. Nor are details given on any American, Japanese, French or Russian commanders.

One point that the author mentions but glosses over is very significant for readers interested in trying to understand Chinese concepts of war-making. On 14 July 1900, the Chinese asked for a truce in Peking, despite the fact that the defenders in the legations were hard-pressed. Harrington notes that the Chinese virtually had the legations in their grasp. In fact, had the Chinese employed heavy artillery the siege would have been over very quickly, but the Chinese never made an all-out effort to storm the defenses. The reason may lie in the peculiar Chinese penchant for "teaching a lesson" to disrespectful foreigners, which does not see total victory as necessary. Merely besieging the embassies and inflicting losses may have been enough to chastise the 'foreign devils' in Chinese minds. Such conceptions of warfare are useful for Americans to keep in mind, given the current growing level of Sino-American animosities. The Peking Campaign provides a sober lesson that the Chinese mindset toward war is not the same as our own.

To his credit, the author also provides some information on operations around Peking after the relief of the legations and some of the anti-foreign violence elsewhere in China. However the author seems to miss the opportunity to point out the historical uniqueness of the Peking Campaign, as the only time that the British, Americans, Germans, Russians, Italians, French and Japanese have ever conducted joint military operations against a common foe. Only a xenophobic reaction like the Boxer Rebellion could ever have produced such unheard-of cooperation between the world's great powers.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good intro to Boxer Rebellion, September 3, 2007

By 

Yoda (Hadera, Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion (Praeger Illustrated Military History) (Hardcover)

If you are looking for a decent introduction to the Boxer Rebellion in only 96 pages (i.e., can be read in about an hour to an hour and a half) this is the book for you. It gives a succint (but not in-depth) history of the actual rebellion (political as well as military), its historical context and a discussion of the main "players" with their motivations. Cannot be beat for a 96 page review.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I had higher expectations, November 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion (Campaign) (Paperback)

The author has established a solid reputation by co-authoring several great books on the boxer rebellion. Thus I had purchased this volume with very high expectations as to its contents.
I was however disappointed by the text which was very choppy with some grammatical errors. I had the distinct feeling that the text was pre-written and then force-fitted into the Osprey format. If space was at a premium, then there was unnecessary duplication of information such as the order of battle for the forces, allied and Chinese in the text, repeated in a few tables.
The face-saving grace of this book is that there were a few nice illustrations with one particularly compelling bird's eye view of the besieged Legation compound.
In this series, an earlier Boxer rebellion book by Lynn Bodin is superior.