The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

The governing factor of the problem was the fear of Russian ambition and of Russian aggrandisement. Both Russia and Great Britain are great Oriental Powers. The Asiatic possessions or dependencies of Russia consisted of over six million square miles, containing a population of about thirteen millions. The Asiatic possessions or dependencies of Great Britain consisted of something over one and a half million square miles, containing a population of some three hundred millions. A comparison between the two demonstrates this remarkable disparity: that whereas Russia had four times as much Asiatic territory as England, England ruled over thirteen times as many Asiatic people. The Russian pressure towards the seaboards, wealthy lands and vast populations of the East, extended along a line measuring 7600 miles, and verging all the way upon India, Turkey, Persia and China. In 1898, Russia was steadily advancing towards India, throwing forward railways through Central Asia, and at the same time inexorably thrusting the Trans-Siberian Railway towards Manchuria and the Amur regions. That line, which to-day bands the entire continent from St. Petersburg to Vladivostock on the Sea of Japan, in 1898 had not reached within 500 miles of Irkutsk on Lake Baikal, which marks roughly two-thirds of the whole distance of 4000 miles from St. Petersburg to Vladivostock as the crow flies.

The vast, inscrutable, dreaded giant Russia, lying right across the top of Europe and Asia, was ever pushing downwards to the south upon Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and China, and reaching an arm sideways to the east and the sea across the upper corner of China. The shoulders of the British Empire were taking some of the weight; and lest China should crack under it and fly asunder, many people were urging that England should prop up that passive and unwieldy bulk, Lord Salisbury standing back to back with the Son of Heaven.

The common interest was of course commercial. Great Britain had 64 per cent. of China's total foreign trade, with some £32,000,000 a year; had invested some hundreds of millions in the Far East; and was amiably and openly desirous to invest a great deal more in what was largely an unexplored and an immense field of profit. But she wanted security, first.

It was Lord Charles Beresford's business to discover what were the existing commercial conditions, how they might be improved and extended, and what was the security required for so much improvement and extension. This enterprise was known as the policy of the "Open Door"; for the British principle was that all nations should enjoy equal opportunities. The alternative policy was known as "Spheres of Influence," which virtually meant the partition of the Chinese Empire among the nations of Europe. Such was the Russian policy, in which she was supported, or was believed to have been supported, by both France and Germany. Russian diplomacy was active at Pekin; Russian agents were numerous in the trading centres of China; and it was constantly alleged at the time by students of the subject, that the Chinese Government regarded Russia as a more powerful friend than England. In the light of subsequent experience, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that whereas China hated and distrusted all foreigners, she hated and distrusted the English less than the Russians, but that the vacillations and inconsistencies of British policy had inspired her rulers with a deep suspicion.

A good deal of nonsense, inspired by a large and generous ignorance of Chinese conditions and affairs, was talked and written in 1898. China was represented as an eccentric barbarian of great size, of uncertain temper, but on the whole amenable to good advice, who was merely waiting pathetically for the English to teach him what to do and how to do it.

In truth, China, in 1898, that is, political China, while haunted by a dread of foreign aggression, was intensely occupied with her own affairs. These were indeed exigent enough. In the summer of 1898, occurred the Hundred Days of Reform, followed by the coup d'état, and the imprisonment of the Emperor. The visit of Lord Charles Beresford to China coincided with the triumph of the reactionary Conservative party at Court and the restoration to absolute power of the Empress Dowager, Tsu Hsi. The history of the affair is related in detail by Messrs. J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse, in their work, China under the Empress Dowager (Heinemann, 1910); but its intricacies were not divulged at the time. A study of the correspondence contained in the Blue Books of the period reveals the singular innocence of the British diplomatic methods employed at this critical moment.

The Emperor, Kuang-Hsu, who had always been at variance with his astute and powerful aunt, the Empress Dowager, the real ruler of China for fifty years, had espoused the cause of the Reform, or Chinese, party of the South, as distinguished from the Manchu, or Conservative, party of the North.

The enmity of the South towards the North, the latent inbred hostility of the Chinese to the Manchu, had been roused to violence by the defeat of China by Japan in the war of 1894-5. It was very well known that the Empress Dowager had spent the money allocated to the Navy and other departments of State upon the rebuilding of the Summer Palace at Pekin and other æsthetic diversions. But the Empress Dowager, with her habitual skill, contrived to shift the responsibility for the disaster upon the puppet Emperor, who in fact was guiltless of it. The injustice so exasperated the young man, that he joined the Reform Party, and issued Decree after Decree, all of which were tinctured with Western ideas, and all of which were expressly repugnant to the Empress Dowager. Tzu Hsi, however, approved the Decrees without remark, biding her time. It came. The Emperor was induced to assent to a plot to seize the person of the Empress Dowager, and afterwards to sequester his terrible aunt for the rest of her life.

Now came the intromission of Yuan Shih Kai, who had been Imperial Resident in Corea. In 1898, he was Judicial Commissioner of Chihli, and exerted considerable influence at Court. Yuan Shih Kai, professing great interest in reform, won the confidence of the Emperor; who, believing that in Yuan he had gained an adherent at Court, informed him of the details of the conspiracy. That design included the assassination of Yung Lu. Now Yung Lu was Governor-General of Chihli, commander-in-chief of the foreign-drilled army, which was one of the efficient armies in China, an old friend and a loyal servant of the Empress Dowager, and altogether a most formidable person. The Emperor's plan was to slay Yung Lu swiftly, to put himself at the head of Yung Lu's ten thousand soldiers, and then to march with them upon Pekin and seize the Empress Dowager. All might have gone well, had not Yuan Shih Kai (according to Messrs. Bland and Backhouse) been blood-brother to Yung Lu, and also, presumably, loyal to the Empress Dowager. In any case, Yuan went straightway to Yung Lu and divulged the plot.

The next day, it was the Emperor Kuang Hsu, and not his aunt, who was ceremoniously escorted to prison.

Six of the conspirators were subsequently executed. Another, Kang Yu Wei, escaped under British protection in October, 1898. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was another fugitive. It was in October, 1898, that Lord Charles Beresford arrived at Pekin.

The Empress Dowager resumed the Regency and therewith the formal investiture of that supreme power which she had exercised since, as a girl of twenty-two, a lady in waiting at Court in the time of the Emperor Hsien-Feng, she had unofficially assumed the conduct of affairs, and which she continued to wield until the end. Yung Lu was appointed to be member of the Grand Council, and Minister of War. When he was in Pekin, Lord Charles Beresford had an interesting conversation with Yung Lu.

The Emperor Kuang Hsu remained imprisoned in his palace in the Ocean Terrace at Pekin; and it was rumoured throughout the South that he would presently die. Whether or not the Empress Dowager desired his death, she considered it politic, having regard to the anger which his dethronement inspired in the South, to keep him alive. Moreover, the British Minister, referring to the reports that "the Empress Dowager was about to proceed to extreme steps in regard to the Emperor," solemnly suggested that any such course of action would be highly repugnant to the susceptibilities of Foreign Powers.

Such, briefly indicated, was the posture of affairs in 1898, when the British Government was being urged to initiate a definite policy in China, and when Lord Charles Beresford went to investigate commercial conditions in that puzzling Empire. But the British Government had the rest of the world to consider, as well.

In the preceding year, 1897, it was announced that Russia would winter at Port Arthur; whereupon Lord Charles Beresford remarked in the House of Commons that the winter would probably be of long duration. Germany was in occupation of Kiao Chao, originally demanded as compensation for the murder of a German missionary – a most profitable martyrdom. There were troubles on the Indian frontier; there was fighting in Crete, and consequently there was danger of a war breaking out between Greece and Turkey. It is sufficiently obvious that, under such conditions – at a time when the European nations were each waiting to take of China what it could get; when Russia was more or less in agreement with France and Germany; and when England stood alone; – any very definite move on her part might have led to bigger difficulties than she cared to encounter. At any rate, peace was maintained; the policy of the "Open Door" prevailed; and the influence exerted by Lord Charles Beresford upon international affairs, although perhaps not to be defined, was considerable. For further information concerning this epoch, the student may be referred to China under the Empress Dowager, by Messrs. J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse (Heinemann, 1910); China in Transformation, by A. R. Colquhoun (Harper, 1898); and the Blue-book China. No. 1 (1899) C. – 9131.

While one British admiral, Rear-Admiral Noel, stopped the trouble in Crete, which had defeated the united intellect of Europe for generations; another, Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, was employed in conducting a swifter, more thorough and more practical investigation into the commercial military and social conditions of China than had ever before been accomplished; so that its results, set forth at the time in the admiral's many speeches and afterwards in his book The Break-up of China, struck the two great English-speaking peoples of the world, the British and the American nations, with something of the force of a revelation.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE INTROMISSION OF THE ADMIRALS

In August, 1898, I received from the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, whose President was Sir Stafford Northcote, an invitation to proceed on their behalf to China, "to obtain accurate information as to how security is to be ensured to commercial men who may be disposed to embark their capital in trade enterprise in China." Sir Stafford Northcote added that he desired to obtain a report on these matters from a "non-official source," and that, further, it should be supplied by an officer of naval or military experience, by reason of the importance of the question of adequate protection for British commercial ventures.

Accompanied by Mr. Robin Grey, who acted as an additional secretary, and by my secretary, Mr. Macdonald, I sailed for China towards the end of August. My commission, to report on the future prospects of British trade and commerce in China and especially to what extent the Chinese Government would guarantee the safe employment of British capital, was sufficiently wide in its scope.

At that time, there was much public discussion concerning the rivalry manifesting itself among the European nations interested in China, particularly with regard to railway concessions and like privileges. The public in general were of opinion that the British Government was very slow to assert British rights. In July, 1898, Sir Claude Macdonald, British Plenipotentiary at the Court of Pekin, was "authorised to inform the Chinese Government that Her Majesty's Government will support them in resisting any Power which commits an act of aggression on China or on account of China having granted permission to make or support any railway or public work to a British subject."

This was something, but it was not much; for China, comparing British assurances with Russian actions, entertained her own opinion concerning their comparative value. Nevertheless, the British policy was quite definitely the policy of the "Open Door"; which Mr. Balfour defined (10th August, 1898) as "the right of importing goods at the same rate that every nation imports goods, the same right of using railways that other nations possess. In other words, equal trade opportunities." The alternative policy of "Spheres of Influence," Mr. Balfour oracularly described as "a wholly different set of questions connected with concessions, and they cannot be treated in the same simple and obvious manner." But in what the treatment should consist, the public were not told.

It was not, perhaps, understood by the public at the time, how delicate was the international situation, nor how serious might be the consequences, not only of hasty action but, of any decisive action; and although it did not necessarily follow that nothing should be done, the difficulties and complications, many of which were known only to the Government, should be taken into consideration.

Russia was establishing herself in Manchuria, and was arming Port Arthur and Talienwan. Germany had declined to pledge herself not to levy preferential duties at Kiao Chao, and claimed exclusive rights over railway construction through the Shantung Province. France was claiming preferential rights with regard to her leasehold in Southern China. France and Russia were interesting themselves in the sanctioned trunk line from Pekin to Hankow and from Hankow to the south.

Nothing was settled with regard to the important question of the rights over the Yangtse basin.

Lord Salisbury had stated that he did not consider it to be the duty of Her Majesty's Government to make railways in China, or to find the money to make them; and both Lord Salisbury and Mr. Curzon (afterwards Viscount Curzon of Kedleston) affirmed that the failure of British syndicates to apply for concessions in China was due to their lack of initiative.

On the other hand, it was argued in the Press that the lack of initiative on the part of British enterprise was due to the lack of support and to the absence of a definite policy on the part of the Government, a criticism which, among others, was formulated by Sir Edward Grey, who was then of course in Opposition.

At the same time, underlying these controversies, there was the consciousness that detailed practical information concerning the real posture of affairs in China was lacking. Under these conditions, considerable responsibility attached to the task upon which I had entered. Its rapid and successful fulfilment clearly depended upon the method of its organisation. Before starting, a letter was addressed by me to every Chamber of Commerce in China, requesting it to prepare a report giving details of:

1. The State of British trade now.

2. The state of British trade ten years ago.

3. The state of foreign trade.

4. Increase and decrease of trade.

By this means, the reports were ready for me upon my arrival; and I was immediately placed in possession of the material which served to guide my inquiries and upon which I could base my observations. As these are set forth in detail, in my book The Break-up of China, published by Messrs. Harper and Brothers in 1899, and as the conditions have since changed, I do not propose to repeat them at length in these pages. I have here to acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Harper and Brothers in granting me permission to quote from The Break-up of China.

I wrote that work in thirty-one days; a feat of which I was not unjustly proud; for it was a long book, crammed with facts and statistics, extracted from a pile of memoranda and documents three feet high. I used to ride before breakfast in Richmond Park; after breakfast, I worked all day until 7.30; and when I had finished the book, I said I would never write another.

While I was on my way to China – while all the Chambers of Commerce in China were hard at it compiling reports for me – a brother officer, Rear-Admiral Noel, was engaged in settling, in his own supreme way, a difficulty which had long exercised the Chancelleries of Europe in vain, and which might at any moment have given rise to what are called European complications.

In January, 1897, broke out the insurrection of the Christians in Crete; which, put shortly, was the result of two centuries of oppression under Moslem rule. During the previous year (to go no farther back) the Sultan of Turkey, at the request of the Powers of Europe, had promised to introduce certain reforms. As these were not carried into execution, the Cretan Christians, encouraged thereto by Greece and aided by Greek soldiery, rose in rebellion. Roughly speaking, the Christians held the country districts, and the Turkish garrison, reinforced by an irregular and undisciplined horde of Bashi-Bazouks, occupied the towns. No doubt but Turkey could have put down the revolt by extensive bloodshed; but the Powers of Europe had forbidden the Sultan either to reinforce his garrison in Crete, or (at first) to make war upon the insurgents. The Powers were therefore morally bound to restore order themselves. Recognising this obligation, they dispatched men-of-war to Crete. Italy, France, Russia, Austria, Great Britain and Germany were represented. Vice-Admiral Count N. Canevaro, the Italian, being senior officer, was president of the Council of Admirals. Great Britain was represented by Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Harris. The admirals arrived off Canea in February, 1897; intercepted and sent away a Greek squadron of reinforcements; established a blockade; and proceeded, as best they might, to enforce order. They succeeded for the time being; but it was not within their province to attempt a radical remedy. So long as the Turks remained in Crete, so long would the trouble continue. The Christians dared not resume their occupations, for fear of a further outbreak of Moslem aggression, when they could not rely upon the Turkish garrison for protection; the Moslems, dreading Christian reprisals, clung to the Turkish troops as their only salvation.

In the face of this dilemma, Germany and Austria withdrew from the concert, and the island remained in charge of Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy, each Power being assigned a district. Great Britain retained Candia, where the British garrison was reduced to one regiment, the Highland Light Infantry. The discontent, temporarily quelled, soon became acute.

The decision of the Council of Admirals to collect a proportion of the export duties aroused intense indignation. When, on 6th September, 1898, the British came to take over the Custom House at Candia, the mob rose, attacked the tiny force of British seamen and soldiers and the British camp and hospital, and massacred some 50 °Christians in the town. The British fought like heroes and lost heavily; but for the moment they were helpless; the only man-of-war off Candia being the gunboat Hazard.

Then, on 11th September, Rear-Admiral Gerard Noel (now Admiral of the Fleet Sir Gerard H. U. Noel, G.C.B., K.C.M.G.), who had relieved Sir Robert Harris early in the year, arrived at Candia in H.M.S. Revenge. The next day, he landed, inspected the scenes of the recent fighting and ordered the Turkish governor, Edhem Pasha, to repair on board the Revenge.

Admiral Noel required the governor to demolish all houses from which the insurgents had fired upon the British camp and hospital; to give up to British troops certain forts and positions; and to surrender the principal persons concerned in the rioting and attack. The admiral also informed the governor that the Moslem population would be disarmed.

The governor broke into a cold perspiration and accepted the admiral's demands. He was then suffering under the delusion that he could evade them. He never made a bigger mistake. When he tried to avoid the demolition of the houses, he was suddenly confronted with the spectacle of two hundred British seamen coming ashore to do the work, and hurriedly gave in. When he endeavoured to postpone the delivery of the prisoners, he was informed that if they were not delivered by the hour appointed, they would be taken. His every excuse and pretext were met by the same composed and invincible determination. At the last moment, when the scaffold awaiting the malefactors stood stark upon the highest point of the bastions, Edhem Pasha's frantic plea for delay was received by a terse intimation that if he did not hang the prisoners, he, Edhem Pasha, would himself be hanged.

The disturbers of peace were hanged at the precise time appointed; and swung in a row until sundown, in sight of all the city. Twice again the bodies of murderers darkened above the ramparts, to the abiding terror of evil-doers.

The Powers ordered the evacuation of the island by the Turks within a month, which expired on 5th December. On the evening of the 4th, some 600 troops had still to leave, together with their women, horses and baggage. Admiral Noel ordered the baggage to be embarked on board the British transport Ocampo and a small Turkish transport that night. Next day, the governor, Shefket Bey (who had succeeded Edhem Pasha), informed the admiral that he had received orders from the Governor of Crete to keep the remaining troops and to disembark the baggage. What followed is described in an account of the affair contributed by "A Naval Officer" to The United Service Magazine, February, 1899.

"An armed boat was sent to prevent interference with the Turkish transport. The admiral signalled to the Fleet: 'Prepare to man and arm boats. I intend to compel the Turkish troops to embark by force after noon'; and to the commandant of British troops, 'All Turkish troops remaining in the town after noon are to be made prisoners and compelled to embark at the quay.'"

It was a bold decision, worthy of the Royal Navy. For all the admiral knew, the Turks might have fought, in which case they would have been reinforced by some thousands of Bashi-Bazouks. But they gave in, and were marched on board. Their "furniture, beds, pianos, carpets and general loot and rubbish, making a pile as big as a frigate," says the eye-witness aforesaid, "which, together with nearly three hundred horses, was bundled into boats and lighters by the seamen of the Revenge and Empress of India, and stowed away on board the transports, the work taking all night."

Thus did Rear-Admiral Gerard Noel cut the knot which all the diplomatists in Europe had failed to unloose. The Marquess of Salisbury publicly complimented the admirals upon their diplomatic ability, saying that he wished the Cabinets of Europe could work together with equal unanimity and rapidity.

In December, 1908, H.R.H. Prince George of Greece took over the government of Crete from the admirals.

The settlement of the Cretan difficulty undoubtedly exercised an appreciable effect upon the international situation, with which my own enterprise in China was necessarily connected. For Admiral Noel had removed what had been a chronic danger to the peace of Europe; and in so doing had demonstrated that combined action on the part of the Great Powers (if entrusted to naval officers) could be both cordially conducted and successfully accomplished. I have recalled the affair, not only because it gives me pleasure to record the ability, courage and resolution of my old friend and brother officer, but because no account of the time, lacking the Cretan episode, can be wholly intelligible. For, although it is consistently neglected by political historians, whose views are usually distorted by party, it remains, and will remain, a classic example of the consummate exercise of British sea-power for the inspiration and instruction of honest men.

CHAPTER XLIV

TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES

I. CHINATHE MISFORTUNES OF KANG YU WEI

On my way up to Pekin, I visited Hong Kong, arriving there on 30th September. The island of Hong Kong, being British territory, is a city of refuge; to which sanctuary, just before my arrival, had fled Kang Yu Wei, the leader of the Reform Party. To the influence of Kang Yu Wei may be ascribed the conversion of the young Emperor, Kuang Hsu, to Reform; and the issue by the Son of Heaven of the series of Decrees, during the Hundred Days of Reform of the preceding summer. The movement culminated in the plot to seize the person of the Empress Dowager, which was frustrated by the coup d'état. But before that decisive event occurred, Kang Yu Wei receiving a broad hint from the Emperor that his arrest had been ordered by the Empress Dowager, took the next train from Pekin to Tongku, and embarked on board the coasting steamer Chungking bound for Shanghai.