In the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty (1900), the combined armies of the eight countries of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary carried out a war of aggression against China under the pretext of suppressing the Boxer Rebellion.
Pictured here is the representative of the Eight-Power Coalition in 1900, the fourth on the left is Indian, india was a British colony at that time, and many of the British troops at that time were drawn from India.
On June 20, 1900, the German Minister Baron von Ketler was shot and killed by members of the Qing Army's Shenji Battalion, which was also the direct trigger for the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance, and after the fall of Beijing, the Qing court was forced to hold a grand funeral for Von Ketler and set up a memorial arch to commemorate it. The picture shows von Ketler's cemetery in Beijing, with the flags of "Hundred Generations of Liufang" and "Famous for Eternity" hanging on the back, which is very ironic.
The commander-in-chief of the Eight-Power Coalition was Wadesi, nicknamed "Fox", and was the second chief of the general staff of the German Empire. Folk legend has it that when the Eight-Nation Alliance was preparing to burn down the city of Beijing, it was Sai Jinhua who found Wadhi to intercede, and only then stopped, and Wadesi later wrote a very detailed diary of the eight-nation alliance invasion of China, and he did not mention Sai Jinhua in his diary, so there is no reliable historical evidence of this legend about Sai Jinhua. The picture shows Wadesirong dressed up.
After the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, a grand military parade was held at the Forbidden City, which was a serious insult to the Qing government, and they walked majestically through Tiananmen, Duanmen, and the Imperial Palace, playing the national anthem of the Eight Kingdoms. The picture shows the commander-in-chief of the Eight-Power Coalition Army, Wadesi, riding a horse into the palace.
In order to satisfy the curiosity of all soldiers about the Forbidden City, the Eight-Nation Alliance specially organized the naming of various countries to enter the Qing Imperial Palace after the parade, and after the visit, all the soldiers returned one after another and began a crazy robbery, all the things that could be taken were looted, and even the gilded items had to be scraped off, which was completely banditry. The picture shows the soldiers of the Eight-Power Alliance lining up inside the Forbidden City.
The Eight-Power Coalition sent a total of 55,000 troops, the largest of which was Japan, which sent 20 warships, 540 Marines, 20,300 Troops, followed by Russia, which sent 10 battleships, 750 Marines, and 12,400 Army. The picture shows the group photo of the Russian army and the Japanese army in the Forbidden City.
The Boxer Rebellion, which had about 300,000 members, killed many foreigners and believers under the slogan of "supporting the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreigners", which was another fuse for the Eight-Power Alliance to invade China. After the Eight-Power Coalition occupied Beijing, a large number of Boxers were suppressed, and many of them had nothing to do with the matter, and many of them were also hunted down and killed as Boxers. The picture shows a Boxer member being held in a braid by the British.
When the Eight-Power Alliance attacked the Forbidden City, many people not only did not resist, but instead provided help for them to move ladders and transport supplies, and after the fall of Beijing, the Eight-Power Alliance used Chinese as executioners to cut down a large number of Chinese people. The picture shows the executioners on the streets of Beijing, surrounded by the British and French troops, executing the "prisoners".
After the occupation of Beijing, with the permission of Wadesi, all the soldiers openly looted the city for three days, not only many cultural relics were destroyed as never before, but the people were also very badly damaged, and Beijing became a real cemetery, full of dead bodies, and women were insulted in the streets, trampled at will, if not directly killed. The Eight-Power Coalition committed heinous crimes in Beijing. The picture shows a Japanese soldier robbing a woman from a good family in a civilian house.