Battle of Peking (1900) - Objective

Objective

The objective of the alliance forces was to fight their way into the city of Peking, make their way to the Legation Quarter and rescue the 900 foreigners besieged there by the Chinese army since June 20.

Peking had formidable defense works. The city was surrounded by walls 21 miles in length and broken by 16 gates (men). The wall around the Inner (Tartar) city was 40 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the top. The wall around the adjoining Outer (Chinese) city was 30 feet high. The population living within the walls was about one million people, although many had fled to escape the Boxers and the fighting between the Chinese army and the foreigners in the Legation Quarter. As the armies moved into position about five miles from the walls, on the night of August 13, they could hear the sounds of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire from within the city. They feared they had arrived one day too late to rescue their countrymen.

The relief force did not know that 2,800 destitute Chinese Christians had taken refuge in the Legation Quarter with the foreigners, nor did it know that three miles distant from the Legations a second siege was in progress. The Peitang (Beitang) cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church had been surrounded by Boxers and the Chinese army since June 15. Defending the Cathedral were 28 foreign priests and nuns, 43 French and Italian soldiers and 3,400 Chinese Catholics. The people sheltering in the Peitang had suffered several hundred killed, mostly from starvation, disease and mines detonated beneath the perimeter walls. Sixty-six of the 900 foreigners in the Legation Quarter had been killed and 150 wounded during the siege. Casualties among the Chinese Christians were not recorded.