The Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China is a history that many people are familiar with, and it is a history of humiliation for us. At that time, the Qing Dynasty fought against the Eight-Nation Alliance with the strength of one country, and the final result can be imagined, ending in a great defeat. In the end, he had to sign the "Xinchou Treaty" with the other party, which humiliated the country, and the Qing Dynasty became a tool of the great powers in China. Many people feel that the reason why the Qing Dynasty could not defeat the Eight-Nation Alliance was because of the strength of the Eight-Nation Alliance. But in fact, the Eight-Nation Coalition is completely different from what we think, and it is really a rabble.
The Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China was actually not eight countries, but one country. They were Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, all of which declared war on the Qing Dynasty. However, the reason why it is called the Eight-Nation Alliance is because Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium only declared war and did not send any troops.
The eight countries that sent troops were arguably the strongest countries in the world at that time, and their strength in all aspects was among the top in the world. Its military strength is among the highest in the world, and its army has strong combat effectiveness and is fully equipped. Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that people feel that the Eight-Nation Alliance is very strong, so it can defeat the Qing Dynasty. However, these countries were indeed strong, but the troops they sent to the Qing Dynasty were not necessarily strong.
Let's first look at why these countries sent troops to invade the Qing Dynasty. In fact, after the First Sino-Japanese War, its great powers saw the weakening of the Qing Dynasty. At this time, all countries wanted a piece of the Qing Dynasty. After all, the Qing Dynasty was very big, and everyone wanted to be cheap here. The root cause of the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Coalition during the weakening of the Qing Dynasty was normal in that era of the jungle. But in addition to the root cause, there must also be a fuse. Many countries have to have excuses for waging wars against foreign countries, and if they easily invade a country, without a reasonable reason, it will not be good for their own image. The Boxer Rebellion was an important reason for the invasion of the Qing Dynasty by the foreign powers.
The Boxer Rebellion emerged at the end of the 19th century, initially in Shandong. However, from 1900 onwards, the Boxer Rebellion developed into the Zhili area, and there were more and more Boxer members in these places. It was normal for the Boxers to oppose the Great Powers, but they were a bit blindly xenophobic. At that time, they hated everything related to the West, and as for the foreigners, they were the main object of opposition to the Boxers. The Boxers attacked churches everywhere and even missionaries from various countries. Some people say that these missionaries are innocent, but this is not the case, because the vast majority of missionaries do things that are not only harmful to our country.
In addition to attacking missionaries, the Boxers, with the support of the Qing Dynasty, directly attacked the embassies of various countries in Beijing, which was a serious problem. You must know that since the beginning of modern times, attacking other people's embassies is equivalent to invading other people's embassies. The Boxer Rebellion's attack on the embassies of various countries caused some **, and ignored the warnings of others. This just provided an excuse for the great powers to attack the Qing Dynasty, and this is why all countries united to invade the Qing Dynasty.
According to this introduction, we can find that the idea of various countries to invade the Qing Dynasty has been planned for a long time, and the Boxer Rebellion is just providing an excuse for the other side. Since it has been planned for a long time, it should be well prepared. But in reality, this is not the case. Because although everyone wanted to invade the Qing Dynasty, the Boxer Rebellion was something that the countries did not expect. Because of this, the situation of the coalition forces behind is completely different from what we think.
Let's start by looking at the composition of the army. Since it was decided to go to war, all countries would definitely send troops. However, there is no unified statement on the specific number of troops and what kind of troops to be sent out. When the Qing Dynasty was finally invaded, the Eight-Nation Coalition Army dispatched a total of 5About 50,000 troops. Eight countries have only gathered this amount of troops, and the average country has only a few thousand troops. But in fact, there is a huge disparity in the number of troops sent by countries. The country with the largest number of troops was Japan, with a total of 20,840 troops, accounting for about half of the total. The least number of troops was sent to Italy, with a total of 85 troops, and there were only 5 army forces in it, so I don't know what these 5 people are here for. The other 80 Navy said that it was the Navy, but in fact they were all sailors, not soldiers.
And it is said that it is the army of eight countries, but in fact the composition is quite complicated. Taking the British ** team as an example, not all the British troops are British, there are a large number of British, Canadians, etc., and what is even more unexpected is that there are many Chinese. In addition to the British as it was, France was about the same, and there were a lot of Vietnamese in the French army. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not have a colonial army, it had many nationalities and complex populations.
In addition to the complexity of military personnel, the ** people also look down on each other. The British feel that they are the hegemon of the world, and no one looks down on them except themselves;Needless to say, France has always been a proud Gallic rooster and looks down on other countries, for example, they think that ** people are reckless;**People feel that the Japanese are short and unworthy of being with them;The Japanese think that ** people can eat, and they are as tall as apes;Italians say **, there are many prostitutes in Japan;The British said that there were few people from Italy, and they couldn't fight yet, and so on.
In general, how complex and complex the composition of these armies is. Some countries have more people, some have fewer people. There are people from all countries and nationalities, let alone wars, and it is very difficult to communicate alone. Although there are not many of them, they have a lot of hearts. Such an army is no different from a ragtag army.
Second, let's talk about the leadership of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Since it was an invasion of the Qing Dynasty, the army must be under unified command, so that it can give full play to its combat effectiveness. But in fact, the Eight-Nation Coalition has never had a unified command from the beginning to the end, and they are completely fighting on their own. And countries have been fighting for leadership for a long time.
There was a lot of competition when it came to choosing the leader of the army. Some countries will send the army of the country to command the coalition army if they think that the army has the most people. However, after this resolution was proposed, all countries said that they would continue to send troops to the Qing Dynasty. There are also countries that say that whichever country has the highest rank of officer here will be the commander of the army. As a result, some countries said, "We are going to send a marshal here, so that the command of the army will be ours." It can be said that no matter how the negotiation is conducted, everyone is not convinced by each other.
Of course, the end result was that the early commander was British Vice Admiral Seymour, and the later commander was German Field Marshal Waldsee. However, although the army has a commander, it is not a unified operation. Although they have made a battle plan, whoever will attack ** has been said. But this is not the case at all. For example, if everyone sends troops together at six o'clock in the morning, some countries leave at three o'clock, and some leave in the middle of the night, without waiting for other countries at all. The reason why this is so is because everyone thinks that the Qing Dynasty is a piece of fat, and if it is late, it will be eaten by others.
As for mutual cooperation and support during the operation, this is even more non-existent, everyone fights on the battlefield independently, and no one coordinates and commands.
Finally, let's take a look at the military discipline of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Many people are familiar with the military discipline of this army, and burning, killing, looting and plundering are all evil. After they occupied Beijing, they divided the whole of Beijing into many parts, and each country occupied a part. The north of Dongsi was occupied by the Japanese army, the east of Dongsi South Street was occupied by the Russian army, the west was occupied by the Italian army, the northeast of the Imperial City was occupied by the German army, the eastern part of the Imperial City was occupied by the Japanese army, the southeast of the Imperial City was occupied by the British army, and the west of Chongnei Street and the south of East Chang'an Avenue was occupied by the German army. The western city was occupied by the U.S. army, the French army, the British army, and the Italian army, and the outer city was occupied by the British, American, and German armies, and the military rule was implemented.
The so-called partition occupation is to divide the territory in Beijing, and what belongs to you and what is mine has been divided. After dividing the territory, each ** team began to do evil in their own jurisdiction, and they did whatever they wanted, without any constraints. To put it bluntly, looking at it this way, these people are about the same as bandits, and they don't look like regular troops at all. Not to mention the armies of several of the most powerful countries in the world.
This is the general situation of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and when you see this, do you think that these people are indeed a rabble, which is completely different from the army in the minds of the vast majority of people. Many people can't figure it out, the Qing Dynasty had 4With a population of 500 million, why can't it be defeated in the face of this rabble of more than 50,000 people?You must know that the Qing Dynasty's army was all foreign equipment, and there were hundreds of thousands of Boxer members in Beijing who supported it. In addition, we are fighting on our own, and we have the right time, location, and population, so it should be easy to win, why did we lose, and we lost so badly.
Actually, the reason for this is more complicated. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was a weak giant. The Qing Dynasty had many troops and advanced equipment, but it had little combat effectiveness at all. Although there were hundreds of thousands of Boxers to support, the relationship between the Boxers and the Qing Dynasty army was not very good, and some of them were hostile to each other. Not only are they unable to unite closely, but they even attack each other. In addition, Cixi has been hesitant about whether to go to war, which made the Qing Dynasty miss the favorable opportunity, so it was defeated so badly later. Moreover, there were many people in the Qing Dynasty who opposed this war, and when the war came, they all sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight, and did not participate at all.
In any case, it is indeed humiliating for the Qing Dynasty to be defeated like this in the face of this army. However, the Qing Dynasty could not win this war at all, and even if it could win one or several battles, it would be useless in the end. After all, the Qing Dynasty faced a country that was too powerful, and the strength of the two sides was not equal at all.