This photo is famous, the Eight-Power Coalition. In fact, there are only seven countries, and one less country. The photograph was taken in the autumn of 1900, after the Eight-Power Coalition occupied Beijing.
On the far left was the British, with an army of about 5,000 men (some estimates say 3,000 men), mainly the Indian Sikh Corps and the Huayong Battalion in Weihaiwei, Shandong.
Huayong Battalion was founded in 1899, and the Weihai Weiying Concession hired an army of local Chinese. When the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, there were 400 to 500 people in the Huayong battalion, and in the following year or so it grew to more than 1,000 people. In 1906, the Huayong Battalion was disbanded, and some of these Chinese mercenaries were transferred to South Africa and Hong Kong as police officers, and some joined the local patrol house.
The British had a careful machine, specifically looking for an officer of one meter and nine to take pictures, to suppress the other countries. As a result, I did not expect that the United States also sent a big tall man. Sure enough, it was the same origin, and even the careful machine thought of it together.
At that time, the United States was a rising country, eager to show itself on the international stage. They sent more than 3,100 people from the Philippine colonies. The force consisted mainly of Filipino soldiers and a small number of American soldiers. As far as I know, the U.S. army was the first to invade the Forbidden City.
The United States is next to British Australia. At that time, Britain was fighting the Boer War in South Africa, and there was also a war in Southeast Asia, facing a situation where there were no troops to adjust, so it recruited troops from the colonies. Australia responded positively by sending 200 people (data uncertain).
In fact, at that time, Australia was making a fuss about independence, and they responded to the call to send troops, in large part to brush up their international presence as a quasi-national. In addition, it may also be to curry favor with the British Parliament, hoping to support the issue of allowing Australia independence.
The Australian army walked on the road for 20 days, and by the time they reached Hong Kong, Beijing had already been captured, so the Australian army did not participate in the Battle of Beijing.
This was the British Sikh Corps. Sikh soldiers were very effective, and 21 Sikh soldiers guarded a post and fought a bloody battle with 10,000 Afghan troops, all of whom were killed, but the Afghan army also lost thousands of people. On the one hand, sikh soldiers are all advanced British equipment, on the other hand, it also shows that their combat effectiveness is indeed very good.
Next to the Sikh Corps was germany, which sent about 900 men. They also did not catch up with the battle against Beijing, which was still on their way to China. We all know that the commander of the Eight-Power Alliance is German Marshal Waldsi, but in fact, Wadesi did not command the Battle of Beijing, and others were also on the road and did not reach China.
Next to Germany was France, with 800 troops, all sent from the Vietnamese colonies, and the composition of the troops was mainly Vietnamese soldiers.
This was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they symbolically sent 300 troops. The Austro-Hungarians had sent troops to gain some benefits, but when they looted the Forbidden City, the Austro-Hungarian soldiers did not grab anything of value because they were not familiar with the Forbidden City. The British and Japanese were familiar with the Forbidden City, and they knew where to put things that were more valuable.
This is Italy, they are heavy on participation, only more than 80 troops, while only 45 people participated in the battle of Beijing. Italy received 30 million taels of silver reparations, which made the Austro-Hungarian Empire very unhappy, because they sent 300 troops, but only received 4 million taels of silver, more troops than Italy, but the reparations were several times less than Italy. Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Expedition cost as much as 6 million taels of silver. Of the Eight-Power Alliance, Austria-Hungary was the only loss-making country.
The shortest is Japan, which is the main force of the Eight-Power Alliance, sending 20,000 troops. The Japanese had long since done their homework, and they had come to rob them. As soon as the Japanese army entered the Forbidden City, they went straight to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and stole 3 million taels of silver, and other treasures and antiques were countless.
In this photo of the Eight-Power Alliance, there is no Russia, only seven countries. Somehow Russia did not participate in the group photo shoot. Russia was actually very active in invading China, sending 12,000 troops, second only to Japan. At the same time, Russia also sent troops in five ways and imposed a military occupation of the northeast. The Discipline of the Russian Bear Army was scattered, and everywhere it went, it was not evil to rape and plunder slaves. The Russian bear was very bloody and brutal, creating the appalling "Hailanpao Massacre" and the "Gangdong Sixty-four Tun Massacre".
After the Russian military occupation of the northeast, it wanted to be fixed in legal form - legally determined that the northeast was Russia's territory. This was opposed by the Qing government and other powers. Although it failed to turn the northeast into Russia's territory, Russia still had access to a large number of gold mines, coal mines and forest resources in the northeast.