"U.S. Marines in the Boxer Rebellion" Topic

"In 1900 a crisis erupted in China as the "Boxers" increased their resistance to foreign influence and presence. By the end of the nineteenth century, several countries had already established spheres of influence in China. In the fall of 1899, Secretary of State John Hay wrote that the United States, a late arrival, wanted to maintain an "open door policy" in China. If the Boxers succeeded in pushing the United States and other foreign countries out, this newly opened door could soon be shut.

Discontent with foreigners had been on the rise in China since 1898, when the "I Ho Ch'uan" (Society of "Righteous and Harmonious Fists") began gaining popularity in a province in northwest China. This group commonly referred to as "Boxers" opposed foreign influence and was strongly anti-Christian. The group's numbers swelled with farmers and other workers who were affected by droughts that had come on the heels of devastating floods. Boxers began harassing Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries. As Boxer activity spread to several provinces, provincial leaders and the Chinese imperial court were inconsistent in their stances. Authorities sometimes fought to protect foreigners and Christians and at other times chose to do nothing at all. Tzu Hsi, the empress dowager of the Manchu Dynasty, was publicly "anti-Boxer."1

The United States and seven other countries – Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia-all had interests in China. These eight foreign powers also maintained legations in the Legation Quarter of Peking…"

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Amicalement
Armand

The subject of a Charlton Heston movie from the 60's. It's amazing how they took a very exciting real-life event, the siege of the legations in Peking, and turned it into a monumentally boring film

Managed to get just about every military detail wrong

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

55 Days in Peking was a movie – not a documentary nor did it claim to be one. I supposed you could also complain that it was filmed in Spain rather than China. The story is that almost every person of Chinese heritage in Spain was employed as extras in the movie – which led to most of the Chinese restaurants in Spain being closed for an extended period of time. Also – Ava Gardner was alleged to have been hammered/drunk most of the time. Not a boring movie at all.

I would also note that the movie has probably inspired more war gaming and soldier painting of the Boxer Rebellion than any other source.

It's a great film

I also enjoyed the film. The post siege era of the rebellion is vastly ignored. Many more scenarios available.

I love the film when I saw it!…

Amicalement
Armand

Old Yeller; The script was re-written during filming to kill the Ava Gardner character at the urging of both Charlton Heston and David Niven, who found her impossible to work with (At this stage in her career she was a serious alchoholic)

It's easy to pick apart the big historical war movies of the 1960s for their inaccuracies, but I say: Thank God they were made at all! Zulu, Khartoum and 55 Days at Peking did inspire 1,000s of us to study and collect figures for the Victorian colonial period as OldYeller said.

Nick + 1!!!

Amicalement
Armand

Will we ever see "historical" based movies, like those mentioned above, again?

I did like 55 Days at Peking. But as noted as entertaining as "historical" movies that were made in those days, accuracy was generally secondary. As we know most watching those movies knew little[and still do!] about what is fact vs. fiction.

I do have the Osprey Book on the Boxer Rebellion … now that is a pretty good source on the subject, IMO ! I mean I was not there … so …

Khartoum was pretty accurate EXCEPT, the Mahdi and General Gordon never met.