Chaffee, Germany with 2,500 under von Hopfner, Austria and Italy with smaller contingents—­in all more than 50,000 men, with 144 guns.  A little later the expeditionary corps from Germany, 19,000 strong, under General von Lessel, and that from France, 10,000 strong, arrived.  At the suggestion, it is said, of Russia, and by agreement among the European Powers, united by a common sympathy and in face of a common danger, the German Field-Marshal, Count Waldersee, was appointed to the supreme command of all the European forces.  At the same time naval supports were hurried by all maritime nations to the scene, and within a short period 160 warships and 30 torpedo boats were assembled off the Chinese coast.

The march to Pekin and the relief of the imprisoned Europeans are incidents still fresh in public memory.  In the crowded British Legation fear alternated with hope, and hope with fear, until, on the forenoon of August 14th, a boy ran into the Legation crying that “black-faced Europeans” were advancing along the royal canal in the direction of the building.  In a few minutes a company of Sikh cavalry, part of some Indian troops diverted on their way to Aden, galloped up, all danger was over, and the refugees were saved.

The Boxer troubles ended on May 13, 1901, with the signature by Li Hung Chang in the name of the Emperor of China of a treaty of peace, the main conditions of which were the payment by China within thirty years of a war indemnity to the Powers of 450 million taels (L66,000,000) and an agreement to send a mission of atonement to the Courts of Germany and Japan—­for among the foreign victims of the Boxers in the previous year had been the Japanese representative in China, Baron Sugiyama.

For two or three weeks the action of the Emperor with regard to the Chinese mission of atonement brought him into universal ridicule.  Prince Chun, a near relative of the Chinese Emperor, who had been appointed to conduct the mission, reached Basle in September, 1901, on his way to Berlin.  Here he lingered, and it soon became known that a hitch had occurred in his relations with Germany.  It then transpired that the delay was caused by the Emperor’s having suddenly intimated that he expected Prince Chun to make thrice to him, as he sat on his throne at Potsdam, the “kotow” as practised in the Court of China.  In view of the surprise, laughter, and criticism of Europe, the Emperor modified his demand for the “kotow” to its symbolic performance by three deep bows.  Prince Chun thereupon resumed his journey.  An impressive, if theatrical, scene was prepared in the New Palace at Potsdam, where the Emperor, seated on the throne, his marshal’s baton in his hand, and flanked by Ministers and the officers of his household, received the bearer of China’s expressions of regret.  Whatever one may think of the scenic effect provided, the reply the Emperor made to Prince Chun, after the three bows arranged upon had been made, is a model of its kind—­general not personal, sorrowful rather than angry, warning rather than reproachful.  The Emperor said—­