The movement was caused not merely by religious and race fanaticism, but by the popular fear that the new European era would change the economic life of China and deprive millions of Chinese of their wonted means of livelihood.  The Dowager Empress and a number of Chinese princes now joined it.  Massacres soon became the order of the day, and it is calculated that in the spring of 1900 alone more than 30,000 Christians were barbarously done to death.  Among the victims were reckoned 118 English, 79 Americans, 25 French, and 40 of other nationalities.  The Ambassadors and Ministers of all nations, conscious of their danger, applied to the Tsungli Yamen (Foreign Office), demanding that the Imperial Government should crush the Boxer movement.  The Government took no steps, the diplomatists were beleaguered in their embassies, and were only saved by friendly police from being murdered.

This, however, was but a temporary respite, and it became necessary to bring marines from the foreign ships of war lying at the mouth of the Pei-ho River just out of range of the formidable Taku Forts.  These troops, 2,000 in all, were led by Admiral Seymour.  They tried to reach Pekin, but failed owing to the destruction of the railway, and retired to Tientsin, from whence, however, on June 16th, a detachment set out to capture the Taku Forts.  The capture was effected, the German gunboat Iltis, under Captain Lans, playing a conspicuously brave part.  Tientsin was now in danger from the Boxer bands, but was relieved by a mixed detachment of Russians and Germans under General Stoessel, the subsequent defender of Port Arthur.

The alarm meantime at Pekin was intense.  The Chinese Government, throwing off all disguise, ordered the diplomatists to leave the city.  They refused, knowing that to leave the shelter of the embassies meant torture and death.  One of them, however, the German Minister, Freiherr von Ketteler, ventured from his Legation and was killed in broad daylight on his way to the Chinese Foreign Office.  Only one of the Minister’s party escaped, to stagger, hacked and bloody, into the British Legation with the news.  This Legation, as the strongest building in the quarter, became the refuge of the entire diplomatic corps, with their wives, children, and servants.  It was straightway invested and bombarded by the Boxers, and as the days and weeks went on the other Legation buildings were burned, and the refugees in the British Legation had to look death at all hours in the face.

The murder of von Ketteler excited anger and horror throughout the world, and in no breast, naturally, to a stronger degree than in that of the German Emperor.  All nations hastened to send troops to Pekin.  Japan was first on the scene with 16,000 men under General Yamagutschi.  Russia followed next with 15,000 under General Lenewitch, then England with 7,500 under General Gaselee, then France with 5,000 under General Frey, then America with 4,000 under General