“It is not safe out after dark”: Policing duties and relations between the Eight-Nation Alliance

With the Boxers largely suppressed by September 1900, the colonial contingents were primarily assigned to policing and guard duties to help restore civil order. By late October the New South Wales Naval Contingent was based in Beijing, and the Victorian Naval Contingent was posted to Tianjin after the Pao-ting Fu Expedition.

With northern China suffering from prolonged drought and famine, Beijing and Tianjin scarred by the recent conflict and punitive conduct by foreign forces prevalent, living conditions for the Chinese inhabitants were dire. Private accounts by members of the contingents regularly refer to unrest, rioting, stealing, sporadic Boxer attacks and executions.

The diary entries of Private George Henry Johnston provide some insight into the state of affairs in Beijing. Within a week of arriving he noted “Chinese attacked a British convoy, flogged and pig tails cut off”. In early January 1901 he witnessed “6 more Chinese beheaded, sickening sight. Also Boxer leader’s head hung up in cage on Het Mien Gate”, and in mid-February observed “5 more Chinamen executed for being in possession of firearms”.

The situation was no better in Tianjin. On 17 November 1900, Engine Room Artificer Arthur James Livingstone recorded, “there were three Chinamen had their heads cut off for breaking into a house and looting it, the heads are hanging by their pigtails on the city walls”.

The widespread violence in northern China was not restricted to Boxers or inhabitants, as noted by Livingston on 5 October 1900: “A German cut a Japanese head off last night, in the street over some row they had, this being the third one that has occurred on the streets, it is not safe out after dark.” Such incidents were frequently recorded by Australians, and less than cordial relations between the countries of the Eight-Nation Alliance made policing duties dangerous. Petty Officer 1st Class Walter Underwood remarked, “If you get into a row with a foreigner here you don’t argue the point much; the revolver or the bayonet settles it”. In a letter from Tianjin dated 7 November 1900 he explained:

There is as much danger in being abroad here at night as there would be in action. The sentry’s and guards in the various concessions are always ready to shoot at one another and not a night passes without some casualty. The French are the principal offenders. Between them and the Yankees is a mortal feud and their boundaries meet and there have been not a few sanguinary conflicts that do not always appear in print. Last Sunday an American was found lying in the street with both jaw broken, his eye knocked out on to his check and his ribs broken. Just above him two Frenchmen were lying dead.

The men of the colonial contingents largely avoided violent clashes with other foreign soldiers but altercations were not uncommon, most notably with the French. In an attempt to diffuse simmering tensions, the men were ordered not to enter the French concession in Tianjin on 17 December 1900. The next day Livingston reported that a Frenchman “was arrested by one of our men, he spat in his face when arrested”. Clashes with French troops continued for the rest of the campaign and nearly boiled over in March 1901 in response to French forces “running mad about the streets”, prompting the Victorian Naval Contingent to move under arms for several days.

The men maintained friendly terms with most Allied contingents but relations with some foreign forces were strained. Russian soldiers were diplomatically described as “stolid”, but relations soured during the last weeks of the campaign. On 21 March, Livingston noted that a “Russian General told one of our officers yesterday that he would like to have our blood, he told him to try it on tomorrow, but they have not done so up till now.” Around this time Able Seaman George John Harding suffered sword and sabre wounds during an altercation with German soldiers. For many such incidents served to reinforce the view that the Eight-Nation Alliance had run its course.