[ 14 July 1900 ] British and Allied troops sent to crush an alliance of Boxer rebels and Chinese imperial forces, seized the northern port city of Tientsin (Tianjin) in the early hours of 14 July 1900. The Dundee Courier noted that ‘after the city was entered, there was at first indiscriminate slaughter, and it is alleged…
31 March 1904 On 31 March 1904, an invading British army used maxim machine guns to massacre retreating Tibetan soldiers who had committed the crime of refusing to be disarmed of their antiquated matchlock muskets. In less than ten minutes between six and seven hundred Tibetans were slaughtered, against not even one British fatality. Lieutenant…
BRITISH OPIUM EXPORTS TO CHINA SOAR [ 31 December 1879 ] By this day in 1879, 105,000 mango wood chests full of opium had been exported by Britain to China during the year.1Â Each contained 160 lbs (72 kg) of opium, which would mean a total for the year of 16.8 million lbs or 7.6 million…
BRITISH BOMBARD CANTON TO PROTECT THEIR OPIUM TRADE [ 28 December 1857 ] On 28 December 1857, twenty five British and French gunboats commenced a heavy bombardment of the Chinese port city of Canton. Prime Minister William Gladstone had dispatched a punitive military expedition, after a Chinese owned and crewed pirate ship, flying a British…
LORD NAPIER – ‘THE EMPIRE OF CHINA IS MY OWN’ [ 26 November 1833 ] On 26 November 1833, just days after being appointed Chief Superintendent of Trade at Canton and over a month before he had even left England, Lord Napier was already exuberant at the prospect of being able to threaten to use…
CABINET BACKS WAR WITH CHINA AFTER OPIUM TRADERS ARE HELD HOSTAGE [ 1 October 1839 ] Today in 1839, the Cabinet decided on a war with China after the Emperor’s Special Commissioner at Canton, Lin Zexu, enforced an imperial decree banning the trade in opium and took several traders and British officials hostage until the…
BRITISH TROOPS USE PRICELESS ANTIQUE BOOKS AS TOILET PAPER [ 19 June 1842 ] Today in 1842, a British army of 10,000 men, under the command of Major General Hugh Gough, seized Shanghai. His Redcoats looted shops, destroyed all the public buildings and used the books from Shanghai’s libraries variously as toilet paper or as…
BRITISH LED POLICE SHOOT DEAD TEN DEMONSTRATORS IN SHANGHAI [ 30 May 1925 ] At 3.37 pm on 39 May 1925, Inspector Edward Everson discharged his pistol into an unarmed crowd of demonstrators who had gathered outside a British police station within the Shanghai international settlement. The Sikh and Chinese officers under his command also…
