Dominos

Events now appeared to be conspiring on an almost cosmic level. While you could not justly call it a conspiracy, they were now truly coming to the point of being connected. This was never truer than what was going on in China. Here you had the power struggle between the Emperor Guangxu and his regent, the Dowager Empress Cixi, coming to a head. It is no longer debated that the timing of the coup was coincidental. Cixi had simply been waiting for a moment to move.

The first American contacts with Guangxu had led to some serious discussions about relations between the two nations. Guangxu accomplished a great deal by simply ignoring the Imperial Court and following the American model of letting unofficial representatives do his negotiating. He was either quite naive to think that Cixi would not find out or, quite possibly, he did not care. The Americans promised him money, guns, and even troops should they become needed. Guangxu appeared to be certain that this would be enough to overcome Cixi and her ultra-conservative supporters which made up most of the Chinese Imperial Court. Apparently Cixi was forming the same opinion and while she realized that she could not dispose of the Emperor, she could take his power away.

As the talks had developed, the two primary American negotiators had become a pair of young geologists who were living in Tientsin at the time. They were a married couple named Herbert and Lu Hoover. On the night of September the 17th, they were detained by Imperial Chinese Soldiers, belonging to a unit known as the Kansu Warriors, at the rail terminal in Peking. The man who was believed to be behind this was Prince Yuan, a close political ally of Cixi.

It would seem that the British had become all to aware of the growing relationship between the Americans and the young Emperor. While many thought that the British had unrestricted access to the Imperial Court this was anything but the truth. They had access to China but, the court remained as closed as ever and it could take months just to get an appointment with someone to schedule an appointment with the man you wanted to talk with. 

The British Ambassador, Claude Maxwell McDonald, had become something of a student of the Chinese bureaucracy and while he had no more luck in getting appointments, than anyone else, he did come to understand that you did not always need them. At the end of August he did manage a meeting with Yuan, under the auspices of being granted a meeting with Li Hongzhang but, in truth, McDonald was only interested in talking with Yuan. McDonald related to Yuan that Great Britain would support the Dowager Empress, in anything she saw fit to do, in so far as her dealings with the Americans. He phrased it in such a way as to sound as if he were promoting the interests of both China, and peace. Yuan was not that stupid and McDonald was well aware of this. 

While McDonald had counted on this message reaching Cixi, that Britain would support her in a move against Guangxu, there were several things he had not counted on. The first was that Cixi hated the British above everyone else. They had burned down her favorite palace and the woman had a very long memory. She could harbor a grudge like no one else could. Another was that while McDonald may have understood the Chinese a little better than your average western diplomat, he was still quite ignorant of the inner workings of the Imperial Court.

The message from McDonald was just enough to allow Yuan to neutralize Li Hongzhang. Up till that time, Li was the only thing standing in between Cixi and the Emperor. While Li nominally supported the conservatives at court, his plans for Guangxu’s reforms were to just let them fail on their own. He was supremely confident they would. Cixi, obviously, disagreed with him and saw these reforms as just another ruse by foreign devils to help conquer China. The last straw for her was when she granted an audience to the newly arrived American General, George Armstrong Custer. Cixi had only granted him the audience to begin with because Custer was, for the day, a media star and just as well known in China as he was in the United States. 

Custer, in his usual headline grabbing way, refused to go to his knees before the Empress. The legendary story goes that he kicked the pillow, at his feet, aside and with no small amount of swagger he proclaimed, “Ma’am, that’s how we do this kind of thing back home.” In reality, that story only surfaced years after the fact and there is no evidence that it was ever true. No matter what the case, Custer was offensive enough and Cixi now had what she needed to move on the upstart Emperor.

The biggest miscalculation that McDonald made was in not realizing that Cixi would go as far as she did. She did keep her promise, to Li Hongzhang, and left Guangxu alive. She did not apply the same courtesy to his wives. One of them she even had rolled up in a rug and dumped down a well. Chinese intellectuals faired little better. Kang Youwei, the Chinese scribe and noted reformist, had never been loved by anyone at court. Cixi ordered him executed in the method that loosely translates into English as, “the death by a thousand cuts.”

Had Cixi restricted her purge to just Chinese citizens, and she may have even been able to get away with Chinese Christians as well, then she may very well have gotten off with a free ride. Cixi did not. She had brought in the Kansu Warriors for a reason. She knew they would go too far without her having to order them to do so. Cixi was not completely acting on impulse however. It is often thought that just because the residents of the Forbidden City lived behind those walls, hidden from the view of everyone else, that they could not see what was going on in the wider world. While this might have been true of some it was certainly not for Cixi or Li Hongzhang. 

Li had just finished visiting North America and Europe. He had a very clear perspective of world events. He had spent much time in North America talking with both US and CS officials. He understood their attitudes and animosities. He had made similar contacts in Europe and had even been present for Queen Victoria’s world Naval review where Li got a very good look at nearly every modern battleship on the planet.

Cixi, as world leaders went, was actually one of the more well informed of her time. She began every morning with a meeting of ministers who kept her appraised of the situation abroad. Much of this information was actually gathered right in Peking. The Foreign Legations, that housed most of the European embassies, was right next to the Forbidden City. The various ministers and ambassadors talked quite frequently, in the open, and not realizing that their waiter or servant spoke the same language that they did. All of this information quickly found it’s way back to Cixi through a very efficient system of informers. Having grown up as a royal concubine, literally working her way from the bottom to the top of the universe, Cixi had developed an excellent sense of intrigue. It is not a stretch to think that she knew more about the world situation than the European Ambassadors living next door to her.

This is why it was not such a coincidence that her coup began right on the heels of the Knox Incident that was just starting to unfold in North America. Cixi must have been equally aware that the British were now being confronted with a possible war in South Africa. Her greatest enemy, Great Britain, and her newest threat, the United States, were about to be too busy to bother with her. Cixi must have seen this as her opportunity to rid herself of both foreign powers, along with Guangxu, and all in one swift stroke.

The Kansu did as expected and got out of hand in short order. First they were chasing down suspected Chinese traitors (which meant anyone that looked them in the eye), then Chinese Christians (which meant anyone that looked them in the eye), and naturally that led to hunting down European missionaries who were responsible for the traitors and Christians in the first place. Since one white guy looks about the same as another a missionary could be anybody with white skin. The Legations flooded with people looking for protection and not all of them were Europeans.

Here is where the story takes yet another bizarre twist. A young British Officer, of the Royal Navy, by the name of Christopher Cradock, had only recently been posted to the British Legation. The fighting had started mostly in the Chinese sections of the city, somewhere around mid-day of the 17th. By sundown it was obvious that the European quarter would also be overrun as well. People were already flooding towards the legations for shelter and Cradock requested permission to lead a patrol into the city in order to help rescue foreign nationals. His request was quickly approved.

Somewhere around 10pm he encountered a group of Kansu who were leading two white prisoners towards the Forbidden City. Cradock later admitted that he feared the worst because he had already seen, on that day, atrocities done to Europeans. The fact that one of the prisoners was a woman only spurred him forward that much more. His patrol made challenge and after a brief exchange of fire, with three Kansu dead and no British, the leader of the Kansu decided that he would sell his prisoners to the British with whom he had no quarrel. The final price was settled at three British Pounds (that Cradock paid out of his own pocket) and a pig that a Royal Marine confiscated from an abandoned garden around the corner.

Their two rescued charges turned out to be Americans which, at the time, made little difference to Cradock. They also happened to be Herbert and Lu Hoover. The Hoovers had arrived in Peking only the day before and were there to meet Kang Youwei at the university. Kang never showed up and when the fighting broke out the Hoovers feared the worst. Their fears were not misplaced and they quickly attempted to flee the city. It took them most of the day and well into the night to reach the train terminal where, as they found to their horror, the Kansu were not only waiting on them but, had their pictures as well.

Cradock escorted the Hoovers back to the Legations where they were made comfortable. The Hoovers were not really all that comfortable because they did not wish the British to ask them too many questions as to why they were in Peking. Fortunately the British authorities were too preoccupied at the time. Herbert also kept his cool and played up the fact that he was working for a British mining company. He used this fact to gain access to the embassies telegraph of which, surprisingly enough, was still working.

Two hours after the Hoover’s rescue, early in the morning hours of the 18th of September, via a British controlled telegraph line, US Navy Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan received a very strange telegraph message at his headquarters in Port Arthur. Mahan was considered by many, both at home and abroad, to be a genius in the field of naval strategy. He had helped organize the US Naval War College, written a book on the subject of naval strategy (and this had brought him into contact with an admirer of his book who was none other than Theodore Roosevelt) and been very influential in the formation of the modern American Navy. The culmination of that last effort was the very fleet he now commanded, what had come to be known as the Great White Fleet. 

While all of this was true, Mahan had a checkered career. Many of the vessels he had commanded had collided with other objects in the water, some moving, some not. It was a miracle that Mahan even still had a career and it is testimony to his strategy skills that he did. Mahan had been prepared to retire a few years before but he found he could not turn down the offer of to command the fleet that was the result of his life’s work. It is quite possible that when he received the telegram from Hoover, that he might have wished that he had retired on schedule.

The telegram was only one sentence long. Besides Hoover, only Mahan, a few members of his staff, and the American Ambassador who was currently in Peking and out of contact with Port Arthur, knew what it meant. The telegram simply stated, “I have ordered the Duck Soup you requested.” Mahan instantly knew who it was from and what it meant. There had been a coup in Peking. This was not something that was entirely unexpected to the Americans. This is evidenced by the fact that plans had already been made for such an event and that Mahan had his orders to carry them out should the situation occur.

The largest obstacle that Mahan had to face, at least in the beginning, was his chief ally in China. The Russians had no idea what the United States had been up to. The US government had obviously regarded their informal alliance with Guangxu as a separate issue from their more formal alliance with the Russians. The real politic of it was that the Russians would not have been happy had they known and the Chinese would have, most likely, not entered into the alliance if they had thought the Russians were involved. Here, the US was walking a tight rope in that they required both parties to make their policies work but, also required that neither be aware of the others involvement.

Technically speaking, the Great White Fleet was anchored in Port Arthur on the direct invitation of the Chinese Emperor. It was equally true that the US Navy was there due to the good graces of the Russian Empire and they were the ones who really controlled the port. The Russian army had already emplaced large guns to protect both sides of the harbor and, those same guns could be used to keep ships from leaving should they so choose. The Russians also had nearly thirty thousand troops that were either in Port Arthur or within a days marching distance. The Americans had barely four thousand. On a single word from Nicholas II, the entire American Pacific fleet could be captured without having to fire a shot. 

While this was unlikely to happen in even a worse case scenario, the two nations were allies after all, it did give the Russians more authority over what military operations would, and could, take place. This genuinely concerned Mahan as he ordered his troops to begin preparations to embark on his transports for their journey, across the Yellow Sea, to Tientsin. He must have felt quite relieved when he heard nothing from the headquarters of General Aleksey Kuropatkin. The American ships sailed quietly out of the harbor with little more than friendly waves from their Russians allies. 

Mahan did not take his entire force with him but, he did take the bulk of it. There were certain agreements with the Russians about participation in the harbor defense that had to be honored. Mahan left behind sufficient troops and ships for that but, nearly everything else went. Further reports from Peking had confirmed the worst and Mahan saw that he would need everything he could muster. He set sail on the early morning of September 20th. General Kuropatkin had been on an inspection tour and did not return until the 21st and only then did he discovered his American allies had deserted him.

By now, the senior American Military Official in the city was Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee, commander of the Battleship USS Maine. Sigsbee had been left with the disagreeable duty of remaining behind with only half of Squadron Four. His rather unimpressive force consisted of the oldest ships in the American fleet. The Maine was one of only two vessels of her class and both were considered obsolete. It was Sigsbee who would have to deal with Kuropatkin.

Neither man spoke the others language and they were left with dealing with the other through interpreters. Sigsbee got the idea across that the US Fleet was engaged in an operation and that the Russian Government would be notified by the proper channels. Kuropatkin took the American at his word. Sigsbee, on the other hand, was not sure what to believe about the Russian general. He really did not know how St Petersburg might take this. Once Kuropatkin wired for instructions he might be charged with a asking for specifics and Mahan had left Sigsbee rather ill informed.

After the meeting, Kuropatkin did wire St Petersburg for instructions and information. None were forth coming since both St Petersburg and Nicholas were completely in the dark. They were not only ignorant of the developing situation in China but, they had no idea that the world was facing a major crisis. Kuropatkin’s request, to Naval Headquarters, was the first news in the Russian capital that something was wrong. This seems rather impossible to believe but it illustrates exactly how insular the thinking of the Russian leadership was at the time.

In many ways Nicholas II was the exact opposite of the Dowager Empress. He had real power but unlike Cixi, he had no intelligence apparatus that allowed him to effectively use that power. That seems absurd when you consider that the Russians probably had more spies, per capita, than any other nation in the world at the time. The problem that Russia had was that these spies were only spying on their own people.

Nicholas had never wanted to rule. As a child he had showed little interest in the lessons of state. His father, Alexander III, had thought him too soft. As a result, Nicholas knew very little about being a Tsar when his father had unexpectedly died. By September of 1898 he had only been on the throne for four years and had learned very little. The one thing he had done with enthusiasm was attempt to squash the dissidents that were ripe within his empire. It can be said that similar unrest was common in most of the industrialized world at the time but not to the degree you found in Russia. This is a testimony to how poorly Nicholas handled his affairs of state and the situation he was now facing was a perfect example.

The sailing of the American fleet from Port Arthur came as quite a shock to him. Up until he was informed of it, he had thought that his pet project in the Far East, and Alaska, were moving along smoothly. This is not to say that everyone in the Russian government was ignorant of what was going on. His ministers were well aware but, even when they were given time to speak with Nicholas, he would not listen. Nicholas became easily bored with technical details, all too quickly, and just before the yawn he would dismiss his people and say that he would handle the matter or write it off as unimportant. 

In most of the nations of the time there were established bureaucracies that would negate many of the ill effects of their hereditary leadership. Russia had been developing such a system but, one of Nicholas’ first and most successful policy changes was to do away with it. His ministers and nobles, the people who could effectively act, were powerless to do so. Now, Nicholas was about to get a hard lesson in exactly how much he needed these people that he had ignored for so long.

It was September 23rd and the mighty Cesar of the Russian Empire had just woken up. His allies were deploying military forces in China. The French and German armies were mobilizing in Europe. The US and Confederate armies were mobilizing in America, and then the hardest news of all arrived, the Germans were attacking the Chinese coast. It would seem that Nicholas was not thinking along the lines of a war being imminent. From his point of view it had already started. The Russians began to make preparations for war.

Rear Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz could have never realized how poorly his timing was. It is safe to say that his operations in the pacific had been one unlucky break after another. His emperor had ordered him to begin operations against Kiaochow on September 3rd. He was only reaching the coast of China, with his invasion force, on the morning of September the 22nd. He had only received those orders on the 17th when his ships finally returned to Manila to refuel. It might have even taken him longer than five days, to undertake operations, except that the consulate had already made many of his preparations for him, with stereotypical German efficiency, in advance. Tirpitz pushed his men and machines to their limits and spent very little time in Manila.

He had spent so little time in port that he had not reviewed his dispatches or even read a newspaper. He had no idea about the series of crisis’s that were developing in different parts of the world. It would be safe to say that Tirpitz had been wanting the prize of Kiaochow for so long that he developed a very strong case of tunnel vision. Of course, he could not have known about the developments in Peking. Word had not reached Manila until the day after he sailed. He could not have known about the US landings in Tientsin, they only happened the day he arrived off the coast of Kiaochow. He could not have known about the skirmishes between Boer and British cavalry on the borders of the Orange Free State, they did not occur until the 23rd, the very day he began landing troops.

What Tirpitz could be held accountable for was the fact that his operational security had long since been comprised. It is true that the Confederates and Spanish both knew about his operation long before he did. That was not his fault. What Tirpitz did know was that his cruiser force was being shadowed by a like number of French vessels. When he left Manila, almost as quickly as he had arrived, now with the addition of transports full of troops, the French quickly detailed their fastest frigate to return to their homeport of Hue and report this movement to Paris. Tirpitz even noted in his log that the one French ship had left their formation. Tirpitz was a seasoned sailor and he must have realized the implications. If he had acted on that realization then, just maybe, the world might have turned back. Of course, that does not consider the fact that by this point, the first battle of the new war had already taken place, the world simply had not heard about it yet.