THE INTENSIFICATION OF IMPERIAL
RIVALRIES AROUND THE YEAR 1900:
But two of these issues promoted cooperation
among the Great Powers
1898
Fashoda Crisis: France and Britain nearly go to
war over control of the Sudan (Rich, pp. 272-77)
18991902
Boer War: Might Germany intervene? (See
Rich, pp. 278-98)
1900
Boxer Rebellion provokes joint European relief
expedition to the Beijing embassies (pp. 322-24)
1904/05 Russo-Japanese War (Rich, pp. 324-28)
18991910
Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway gains support from
Russia & Britain (Rich, pp. 339-45)
China under the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, mid-18th century
A fierce Manchu
warrior (1760):
But the Empire had
no foreign ministry
or diplomatic corps
“Export blue” Chinese soup plate from the 1750s
Europeans could visit only one port:
“The Canton Factories,” ca. 1780
Lord Macartney’s mission to Beijing, 1793
CHINESE OPIUM DEN:
By 1838 enough opium was being imported from India
each year to keep several million Chinese addicted and
cause a major trade deficit.
Emperor Daoguang
(reigned 1820-1850):
In 1838 he decided to
suppress the opium trade
But his officials knew nothing about the Europeans:
“The old hairy one” (Chinese cartoon of a British sailor, 1839)
A Chinese warship guarding the approach to Canton is
destroyed by the British steamship Nemesis, January 1841
A British fleet bombards Canton in 1841 and lands marines
to reopen the foreign factories. In 1842 China ceded Hong
Kong and opened five “Treaty Ports.”
Ruins of the Summer Palace outside Beijing,
destroyed by the British in October 1860
The “black devils”: Sikh troops fighting
for the British in China, 1860
Chinese militia from upcountry,
summoned to help defend Beijing in 1860
COMMODORE PERRY HAD MEANWHILE “OPENED” JAPAN
TO U.S. TRADE IN 1852-54 (a humiliation for the Shogun)
THE CHARTER OATH SWORN BY EMPEROR MEIJI
on April 7, 1868
By this oath, we set up as our aim the establishment of the
national wealth on a broad basis and the framing of a
constitution and laws.
1.Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all
matters decided by open discussion.
2.All classes, high and low, shall be united in vigorously
carrying out the administration of affairs of state.
3.The common people, no less than the civil and military
officials, shall all be allowed to pursue their own calling so that
there may be no discontent.
4.Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and everything
based upon the just laws of Nature.
5.Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to
strengthen the foundation of imperial rule.
EMPEROR MEIJI RETURNS FROM KYOTO TO TOKYO,
DECEMBER 1868
China’s defeat by
Japan in 1894/95
resulted in a vast
expansion of the
Treaty Port system
and a wave of
nationalist
resentment
The German naval base at Tsingtao, northeast China,
established by Admiral Alfred Tirpitz in 1897
Appointed German naval
commander in late 1897,
Tirpitz proved a brilliant lobbyist
Tirpitz and Wilhelm II persuaded the Reichstag to fund the
building of 19 battleships in 1898, raised to 38 in 1900
Member of the nationalist
martial arts society,
“Boxers United In
Righteousness,”
China, 1900
Russian Icon of Chinese
Orthodox Christians
martyred in 1900
Sketch map by
Captain John T.
Myers, U.S. Marine
Corps, of the
embassy district in
Beijing during the
Boxer siege in 1900
Kaiser Wilhelm II addresses the troops
departing for China on July 27, 1900:
“No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Just as
a thousand years ago the Huns under King Attila made a
name for themselves, may the name German be affirmed by
you in such a
way in China
that no
Chinese will
ever again
dare to look
cross-eyed at
a German!”
“Germans to the Front!”
(painting to celebrate the role of German marines in
suppressing the Chinese Boxer Rebellion in 1900)
A Chinese “Boxer” flanked by German
guards in Tientsien, 1903/04
Travels in the East,
by E. Ukhtomsky
(1896):
Russia’s
“Manifest Destiny”
THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA IN ASIA, ca. 1900:
(with new rail links across Manchuria to Vladivostok & Port Arthur
“The Yellow Peril,” seen from Europe (French cartoon, 1904)
“The White Peril,” as viewed by Asians (French cartoon, 1904)
Japan as the pawn of the Anglo-Saxon powers
(Russian postcard, c. 1902): Since the Meiji Restoration of
the 1860s Japan had sought to learn from the West
Admiral Haihachiro
Togo, Japanese naval
commander in 1904:
His fleet blockaded Port
Arthur and destroyed
both Russia’s Pacific
and Baltic Fleets when
they sought to break
the blockade
Japanes troops
enter the
conquered city
of Liaujang,
1904
The Japanese besieged
Port Arthur from
February to December
1904; after they
dragged their siege
guns into position, they
quickly pounded it into
submission on
January 2, 1905
The “Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway” was formerly treated
as a major cause of World War I, but Rich shows that
it gained support from both Britain and Russia….
Why did so many colonial conflicts take place around 1900?