Issue: 1/2019

THE AUSTRO‐HUNGARIAN SHARE IN THE ‘BOXER REBELLION’ IN BEIJING IN 1900

Authors:
Mario Christian Ortner

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By the end of the 19th century, the Western powers and Japan had forced China’s dynasty to accept wide foreign control over the country’s economic affairs. In 1900, a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there. The Western powers and Japan organized a multinational force to crush the rebellion. On August 14, after fighting its way through northern China, an international force of approximately 20,000 troops from eight nations (Austria‐Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) arrived to take Beijing and rescue the foreigners and Chinese Christians.