The attack on the native city--Troops taking part in the operations
and their respective positions--Chinese quick-firing guns and modern
rifles--_Gingals_--The defenders of the city--Swampy ground and lack
of cover--Plucky Pathans--The death of Colonel Liscum--A difficult
position--A reported conversation--The plucky Japanese--At the South
Gate--Blowing up the gates--Scaling the wall--The gate opened--The
fall of the city--Town set fire to--The devotion of a practical
son--The Arsenal and Armoury.
An attack on the native city was to take place early in the morning of
the 13th. A well-concerted bombardment began at sunrise from all the
available pieces of artillery in the possession of the Allies.
As we have seen, there were the two 4-inch rapid-fire naval guns, one
mounted on the road to the Arsenal with a 12-pounder next to it, the
other near the mud wall; while three more 12-pounders were on the wall
itself, with five 6-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firing guns. A number of
9-pounders, and about twenty-eight or thirty field-pieces, were also
brought to bear on the city wall. The 4.7 was still unmounted, as it
was not required.
In the forenoon of the 13th the Allied forces, numbering 4300, viz.:
2000 Japanese, 800 British, 600 French, 900 Americans, 100 Germans and
Austrians (the latter not taking part until night), made an attack on
the walled city from the south, under the protection of our guns on the
mud wall.
[Illustration: A 6-POUNDER GUN ON THE MUD WALL]
The American marines were on the extreme left wing; next to them came
the Welsh Fusiliers. The Japanese occupied the centre, and the French
marched along the Taku road as reserves and support. The British
bluejackets and marines were on the right of the Japanese force, and
the 9th United States Infantry on the extreme right wing. It will be
seen that the Americans thus occupied the two extreme wings.
On the first day the Chinese kept up a terrific fire from quick-firing
machine guns, Mauser, Mannlicher, and Winchester rifles, and
gingals. These gingals are a purely Chinese adaptation of the modern
breech-loading stock to a barrel about seven feet in length. Three men
are required to fire one of these weapons, which can do much execution,
and are greatly favoured by the Chinese. They can be sighted very
accurately to a very long range, and, compared with small-bore weapons,
the bullet undoubtedly has considerable stopping power, especially
when the cartridge has a split-nosed projectile, a wound from which is
terrific.
[Illustration: ATTACK OF THE ALLIES ON TIENTSIN NATIVE CITY
_SKETCH MAP
by
A. Hy. Savage Landor._
]
The wall of the native city was well manned by artillerymen of the
Imperial Chinese army, in addition to a mob of Boxers firing with
old-fashioned matchlocks and other obsolete weapons. In the suburbs
outside the South Gate great numbers of Boxers had been employed to
snipe from their mud houses at the Allies.
[Sidenote: SWAMPY GROUND]
Considerable difficulty was encountered in advancing towards the city,
owing to the swampy nature of the ground and the lack of shelter from
Chinese bullets. In fact, the loss of the Allies was great--708 in all,
without counting the losses of the Germans and Russians, who moved on
the city from the north-east, and carried everything before them.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH GATE SCALED BY THE JAPANESE]
The Wei-hai-wei Regiment and more marines were sent as reinforcements,
but were mostly employed in carrying away the wounded, while the
Pathans conveyed ammunition to the front.
Four of these plucky fellows, with a convoy of mules, were despatched
to the front. One was shot; his companions went on; two more fell
dead, and the only one remaining to lead the convoy faced the bullets.
Alas! he, too, was hit in the head and fell bravely. The mules
stampeded, and the ammunition never reached its destination.
The Americans on the right were proceeding under shelter of the dykes.
In getting over one of these dykes their much-honoured Commander,
Colonel Liscum, was killed while performing a gallant and patriotic
deed. It appears that in the hail of bullets his standard-bearer was
shot. Colonel Liscum, who was near him, would not see the Stars and
Stripes precipitated in the mud, but seized the flag, and, waving it,
ordered his men to storm the dyke, he running ahead. Unhappily he was
struck by a bullet, and died shortly after.
The position occupied by the Americans was a very difficult one, as the
distance from the two Chinese guns across the canal to the dyke was
only seventy-five yards. Moreover, the Chinese, strongly entrenched
in the German flour mill, kept up a deadly fusillade. By sunset the
Americans had 120 killed and wounded, ninety of the 9th Infantry and
thirty marines.
Besides Colonel Liscum, Captain Davies was killed, and Captain Long,
Captain Lemly, Lieutenant Leonard and Lieutenant Butler were wounded.
Lieutenant Leonard’s arm required amputation. The Americans found it
impossible to hold their position, and after dark retired.
The story goes that at nightfall a Commander of the Allies approached
the Japanese General Fukushima and proposed to give the order to retire.
“If I give an order at all,” the Japanese replied firmly, “it will be
to go still further forward.” So all stayed and conquered their way
inch by inch under cover of the night. In this engagement the British
marines had five killed and forty wounded.
[Sidenote: THE SOUTH GATE BLOWN]
The plucky Japanese, who always led during the engagement, at last
reached the South Gate, which was already much battered by the 4-inch
gun and by the 6-pounders on the mud wall.
[Illustration: A CHINESE FLAG AND LANCES
The property of the Author]
At twenty minutes past three +A.M.+ on July 14, the South Gate was
blown up by the Japanese. As, however, the city gates were double, yet
another effort was made to blow up the second gate. While this was
being done a number of Japanese soldiers climbed the wall, hand over
fist, and as quick as lightning were on the other side. They opened
the gate amid the hurrahs of their companions, and a flood of foreign
troops, Japanese, British and French, poured into the town, bayoneting
and shooting the Chinese, who still sniped from inside their houses,
and made a desperate resistance. Too high praise cannot be given to the
Japanese officers and soldiers. They proved themselves perfect soldiers
in every way.
The actual losses in entering the city on the 14th were about ten
wounded--a small loss indeed when compared to that of the previous day.
The greater portion of the town was set on fire, and the rush of
foreign soldiers and of stampeding Chinese hustling in the narrow
streets and along the wall was a curious sight.
One of the snapshots here reproduced shows a number of natives bolting
at our approach upon the day that Tientsin fell, as well as the
pathetic and humorous picture of a young man carrying his decrepit and
paralysed mother in a contrivance of double baskets, her weight being
accurately balanced on the opposite side by a number of bricks, a few
cucumbers, and some cabbages.
Dead men lay about in the streets and piled along the wall; others,
wounded, lay quietly, and, if you approached, simulated death for fear
of being killed. Every now and then a revolver or rifle shot came from
a sniper inside a house, and when discovered, short work was made of
him there and then. The Americans took possession of the Arsenal by
nightfall, fort after fort had fallen, and the flags of all the Allies
floated victorious all along the battered wall of Tientsin Chinese city.
The troops who defended the city were General Ma’s soldiers, ten camps
infantry (5000 men) and three camps cavalry (750 men); Viceroy’s
soldiers, 1000; the Lien-Chün and Hwai-Chün (troops with artillery
raised by Li Hung Chang); General Nieh’s army; 1000 Salt Commissioner’s
soldiers. The latter behaved with extraordinary bravery.
[Illustration: THE DEVOTION OF A PRACTICAL SON]