The Marine Corps in the Boxer Rebellion

At the dawn of the 20th century, long before the Marines fought at Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, or the Chosin Reservoir, United States Marines found themselves fighting thousands of miles from home in the streets and fortified compounds of China.

The year was 1900, and an anti-foreign uprising known to history as the Boxer Rebellion was sweeping across northern China.

For the Marines sent into the crisis, it would become a brutal campaign of besieged compounds, long marches, street fighting, snipers, artillery fire, and desperate attempts to reach Americans trapped inside the Chinese capital.

It would also introduce Marine Corps history to one of its greatest fighting men: Private Daniel Joseph Daly.

Trouble in China

By the late 1800s, China had come under enormous pressure from foreign powers. European nations, Japan, and the United States had established trading privileges and foreign enclaves, while Christian missionaries operated throughout parts of the country.

Resentment toward foreign influence grew.

One organization emerged at the center of the resistance: the Yihequan, commonly translated as the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists.” Westerners called them the Boxers, partly because of the martial arts and physical exercises practiced by their members.

The movement became increasingly violent.

Foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians were attacked, railroads and telegraph lines were destroyed, and foreign communities found themselves increasingly threatened.

By the spring of 1900, the crisis was rapidly moving toward Peking — today's Beijing.

Marines Arrive in Peking

Foreign diplomats requested military protection, and several nations dispatched small contingents to defend their legations in the capital.

The American contingent included 48 United States Marines, three sailors, and a Navy surgeon.

They joined troops and sailors from Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria-Hungary and other nations in what became a multinational defense force.

Soon, however, the routes into Peking were cut.

The defenders were trapped.

Beginning in June 1900, the foreign Legation Quarter came under siege. Chinese Boxers and Imperial troops surrounded the area while rifle and artillery fire struck the defenders' positions.

For the next 55 days, the Marines and the other defenders would fight to survive.

Holding the Tartar Wall

One of the most important American positions was along the massive Tartar Wall, an ancient fortification overlooking portions of the Legation Quarter.

Whoever controlled the wall possessed an enormous tactical advantage.

Marines defended their section while Chinese forces fired from nearby positions and attempted to push the defenders from the fortifications.

The fighting could occur at extremely close range.

Barricades were constructed and destroyed. Snipers searched for targets. Artillery shells crashed into the defended area. Food, ammunition, medical supplies, and sleep became increasingly precious as the siege continued.

The small Marine contingent simply had to hold.

There was nowhere else to go.

Dan Daly Makes His Stand

Among the Marines defending Peking was a young private named Daniel Joseph Daly.

Daly had enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1899. He was still near the beginning of a career that would eventually make him one of the most celebrated enlisted Marines in Corps history.

During the fighting on the Tartar Wall, Daly volunteered to occupy an exposed defensive position while reinforcements were brought forward.

He remained there alone during the night.

Under fire and isolated from his fellow Marines, Daly continued defending the position against repeated attacks.

He held.

For his actions during the defense of Peking, Private Dan Daly received the Medal of Honor.

It would not be his last.

Fifteen years later, while serving in Haiti, Daly would perform another extraordinary act of bravery and receive a second Medal of Honor.

He became one of the rare American servicemen to receive the nation's highest military decoration twice for separate actions.

Marines Fight Toward Tientsin

While one group of Marines fought inside Peking, other Marines were trying to reach them.

Major Littleton W. T. Waller led a Marine force into China as part of the international effort to break through to the besieged foreigners.

The conditions were miserable.

Railroad lines had been torn up. Communications had been severed. Water supplies were threatened. The summer heat was punishing, and enemy resistance could appear from villages and fortified positions along the route.

Waller's Marines fought alongside troops from several nations as they attempted to reach Tientsin, today's Tianjin.

The Marines marched for miles under difficult conditions, sometimes surviving on extremely limited rations while repeatedly engaging enemy forces.

Waller later described men whose uniforms were practically falling apart after days of marching and fighting.

But the Marines continued forward.

The Battle of Tientsin

Tientsin became one of the major battles of the campaign.

The city was heavily defended, and the multinational force attacking it faced rifle fire, artillery, fortified walls, and difficult terrain.

American Marines participated directly in the assault.

Among the young Marine officers fighting there was Smedley D. Butler, another name that would eventually become legendary in Marine Corps history.

Butler was wounded during the fighting in China and would later receive a brevet promotion for his actions at Tientsin.

Like Daly, his greatest fame was still years ahead of him.

The Boxer Rebellion therefore brought together several Marines who would later become major figures in the history of the Corps.

The Relief Column Heads for Peking

After Tientsin was secured, the international relief force turned toward Peking.

The distance was roughly 80 miles.

The column fought its way north through intense summer heat, crossing rivers and confronting Chinese forces attempting to slow its advance.

Inside Peking, the defenders had little way of knowing exactly when — or whether — relief would arrive.

They continued holding their positions.

Finally, on August 14, 1900, the international relief force reached Peking.

After 55 days, the siege of the foreign legations was broken.

The Marines inside had survived.

Marines Enter Peking

American forces moved into the city as organized resistance collapsed.

Marines participated in the final fighting and occupied portions of the American sector.

The campaign had carried Marines from ships and bases in the Pacific into a multinational war on Chinese soil, where relatively small Marine detachments had performed everything from embassy defense to major infantry assaults.

The experience was another demonstration of the role the Marine Corps increasingly filled at the beginning of the 20th century.

When an American crisis erupted overseas, Marines could be dispatched quickly from ships and naval stations and placed ashore with little warning.

China was exactly that kind of fight.

A Generation of Marines Forged in China

The Boxer Rebellion occupies an unusual place in Marine Corps history.

It came after the Spanish-American War but before the famous campaigns that would define the Corps during the two World Wars.

Yet many characteristics associated with later generations of Marines were already visible.

Small units operated far from the United States.

Junior Marines were given enormous responsibilities.

Officers and enlisted men fought in isolated positions.

And Marines operated alongside foreign military forces during a complicated international crisis.

The campaign also produced an extraordinary number of Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipients.

The Marine Corps History Division lists more than 30 Marines who received the Medal of Honor for actions connected with the Boxer Rebellion.

Among them was the young private who had stood his ground on the walls of Peking.

Dan Daly would go on to serve in some of the most famous actions of the early 20th-century Marine Corps.

But his legend began in China.

The China Marines

The Boxer Rebellion was not the end of the Marine Corps' connection with China.

Marines would return repeatedly during the decades that followed, eventually becoming known collectively as the “China Marines.”

Marine detachments guarded American interests in Peking, Tientsin, Shanghai, and other locations during periods of political instability.

Some Marines even served mounted on horseback.

The 4th Marine Regiment would become particularly associated with China before World War II.

But the fighting of 1900 had established an important chapter in that long relationship.

Decades before Marines stormed Pacific beaches against Imperial Japan, another generation of Leathernecks had already fought in Asia.

They had marched through the heat toward Peking, assaulted fortified cities, defended ancient walls, and endured nearly two months under siege.

For the United States Marine Corps, the Boxer Rebellion became another early example of a tradition that was already taking shape:

When Americans were trapped in danger far from home, send in the Marines.