as it would have amounted to handing them over to be massacred by the Boxers. The French priests behaved with the greatest humanity throughout. They fed and protected all the converts who came to them, Catholic and Protestant alike. Bishop Scott, of the S. P. G., took charge of a number of Chinese women belonging to his mission, and other missionaries did the same; and so did many of the private firms. But, in spite of this, many of the friendly Chinamen suffered terribly, their houses being mostly in exposed positions. One of them, a man of influence and position, had his wife and both his daughters killed by a bursting shell.

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CHAPTER V

ASSAULT OF TIENTSIN CITY

ON July 13 a heavy and continuous bombardment of the Tientsin native city was maintained from early dawn until about midday, most of the guns being on a mud wall, enclosing both the native city and the foreign settlements, known as San-ko-lin-sin's Folly, having been built by the Viceroy San-ko-lin-sin, after the Tientsin massacres in 1870, in the vain hope of being able to keep the obtrusive foreigners under efficient control.1

1 The intensity of the fire may be gauged from the fact that 1,500 shells were poured into the city during that time from the British guns alone. The guns engaged were:

British. Two 4-in. quick-firing guns from H.M.S. 'Algerine,' throwing 25-lb. shells of lyddite or ordinary powder, and seven naval 6-pounders; four 12-pound quick-firing guns from H.M.S. 'Terrible ;' four small 7-pound muzzle-loading mountain guns, belonging to the Hong-Kong Artillery, and a Maxim battery of four Maxims, mounted on ponies, also belonging to it. The Hong-Kong Artillery being under the command of Major St. John, R.A.

American.-Three 3-in. field-guns, using smokeless powder, and three Colt's automatic (6 millimètres).

Japanese.-Twelve mountain guns (7 centimètres), using ordinary powder, and firing four shots a minute, mounted on Japanese ponies. French. Six mountain guns, 6-pounders of 1879 pattern, using melinite, with high trajectory and low velocity.

Austrian.-Two Maxim-Nordenfeldt machine guns from the

'Zenta.'

The Chinese guns, which for several days previously had shelled the settlements incessantly, were entirely dominated by the intensity of the fire directed upon them and hardly replied at all.

As soon as the bombardment began an allied army of some 5,000 men, under the command of the Japanese Brigadier-General Fukushima, as the senior officer present (Colonel Aoki being the Chief of his Staff), advanced under cover of the darkness on the western side of the Peiho, to a little arsenal, about two miles to the north-west of the settlements, which is known either as the Hai-Kwan-Su Arsenal or as the Treaty Pagoda Arsenal, there being in it a pagoda in which the Treaty of Tientsin was signed in 1860. The force was composed of 1,500 Japanese, who were largely in excess of the others (four battalions of infantry, one squadron of cavalry, two batteries of artillery with six guns each, and one company of sappers). The British, who were under BrigadierGeneral Dorward, C.B. (Admiral Seymour having returned to Taku some days previously), consisted of 150 bluejackets, 150 Marines, 160 men of the Welsh Fusiliers, 100 men of the 1st Chinese Regiment, and 150 of the Hong-Kong Regiment; in addition to whom were also the Hong-Kong Artillery and the naval guns. Under General Dorward's command were besides 45 Austrian Marines from the 'Zenta,' under Captain Indrach, and 900 Americans (infantry and Marine Artillery), under Colonel Meade, of the United States Marine Artillery. There

were also 900 French soldiers under Colonel de Pelacot.

The remainder of the Welsh Fusiliers and a number of bluejackets were despatched at the same time to hold the enemy in check at the railway station, whilst the Russians and Germans advanced in force on the east bank of the river to attack the batteries on the Lutai Canal.

As the day dawned and the troops came within the enemy's range they were met by a well-directed fire from the southern wall of the city, and from the suburbs outside it, and a number of men were wounded before they could be got under cover of the Arsenal embankment; Captain Lloyd, of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who had gone all through the Seymour expedition unscathed, and who has been specially mentioned by Admiral Seymour for the great courage and zeal he then displayed, being killed almost instantaneously by a bullet in the throat. The most favourable point for attack would seem at first sight to have been the angle of the wall at its southwestern corner in order to avoid the converging fire from the whole length of the crenellated battlements; but a canal intervened, which there was no means of bridging, the Chinese having opened the sluices and flooded the country on both sides of it. There was, too, another strong reason against attacking at the corner, inasmuch as there was a Chinese fort about 2,000 yards beyond, in which were posted several powerful modern guns. It was decided, therefore, to operate

instead against the south gate, advancing by a narrow paved causeway which runs in a straight line to it from the Arsenal. The troops deployed in the following formation: The French on the right, the Japanese, British, and Austrians in the centre, the Americans on the left; the Japanese cavalry forming a screen to protect the left front. The canal is crossed at the Arsenal by a small wooden bridge, 2,300 yards from the city gate, leading directly on to the flagged causeway. It had been burnt on July 9, during the successful attack on the Arsenal, in order to keep the Chinese guns from going from the city to the race-course, from which they had for some days previously maintained a galling flanking fire. The Arsenal itself was not held in strength, being too exposed to the fire from the city wall, but a Maxim was stationed in one of the houses beside the bridge to prevent the Chinese from repairing it. When the French reached this broken bridge, to take up their place on the right of the attacking line, they found there was no means to cross it, and they had to stay where they were under a withering fire whilst the Japanese sappers quickly made it passable. The French and Japanese troops then crossed it together, and proceeded along the causeway until they arrived at a little ditch, about six feet in width, running at right angles to the causeway, and filled with two or three feet of stagnant water. This ditch was barely 900 yards from the city gate, and on its far side was a