red at Yung
Ching, 40 m. from Peking. The whole country was overrun with bands of
Boxers, who tore up the railway and set fire to the stations at
different points on the Peking-Tientsin line. Fortunately a mixed body
of marines and bluejackets of various nationalities, numbering 18
officers and 389 men, had reached Peking on the 1st of June for the
protection of the legations. The whole city was in a state of turmoil.
Murder and pillage were of daily occurrence. The reactionary Prince Tuan
(grandson of the emperor Tao-kwang) and the Manchus generally, together
with the Kan-suh soldiery under the notorious Tung-fu-hsiang, openly
sided with the Boxers. The European residents and a large number of
native converts took refuge in the British legation, where preparations
were hastily made in view of a threatened attack. On the 11th the
chancellor of the Japanese legation, Mr Sugiyama, was murdered by
Chinese soldiers. On the night of the 13th most of the foreign
buildings, churches and mission houses in the eastern part of the Tatar
city were pillaged and burnt, and hundreds of native Christians
massacred. On the 20th of June the German minister, Baron von Ketteler,
was murdered whilst on his way to the Tsung-Li-Yamen. At 4 P.M. on the
afternoon of the 20th the Chinese troops opened fire upon the legations.
The general direction of the defence was undertaken by Sir Claude
Macdonald, the British minister.

International expedition.

Meanwhile Peking had been completely cut off since the 14th from all
communication with the outside world, and in view of the gravity of the
situation, naval and military forces were being hurried up by all the
powers to the Gulf of Chih-li. On the 10th of June Admiral Sir E.
Seymour had already left Tientsin with a mixed force of 2000 British,
Russian, French, Germans, Austrians, Italians, Americans and Japanese,
to repair the railway and restore communications with Peking. But his
expedition met with unexpectedly severe resistance, and it had great
difficulty in making good its retreat after suffering heavy losses. When
it reached Tientsin again on the 26th of June, the British contingent of
915 men had alone lost 124 killed and wounded out of a total casualty
list of 62 killed and 218 wounded. The Chinese had in the meantime made
a determined attack upon the foreign settlements at Tientsin, and
communication between the city and the sea being also threatened, the
Taku forts at the mouth of