The War of the Dragon Lady by John Wilcox

the heads of the legations assuring them of their safety and deprecating the need for foreign troops to be sent from the coast.
    Then events took a dramatic turn. Each of the heads of legationsreceived an ultimatum from the Chinese Foreign Office. It reported that the Foreign Powers had demanded the surrender of the Taku Forts at the head of the River Pei Ho, the sea gateway to Tientsin. If the demand was not met, the powers would occupy the forts by force. As a result, said the ultimatum, emotions were running high among the people of Peking and the Imperial Government could no longer be responsible for the safety of the ministers and their families in the Legation Quarter and they should leave the legations for Tientsin within twenty-four hours. Imperial troops would be provided as an escort.
    These letters threw the ministers into a state of confusion – and indignation. Firstly, they had no idea that hostilities had broken out at the coast and they blamed their compatriots there for compromising their position at the capital. Secondly, and predictably, they could not agree on whether or not to surrender to the ultimatum. Equally predictably, they decided to play for time. A letter was sent, agreeing to depart but pleading for more time and asking for details of the protection to be provided and of the transport being made available.
    Sir Claude, however, confided to Fonthill that, whatever the reply, he had no intention of ‘moving an inch’. Nevertheless, the ministers and staffs of some legations began their packing, although in fear of what might happen once they had left the walls of the Quarter.
    ‘It would be madness to leave,’ confided Simon to Alice. ‘Once out there on the plain we would all be attacked and butchered by the Chinese troops, just like the Japanese chancellor. We must stay with Sir Claude and, if necessary, concentrate our forces on defending the British Legation.’
    ‘Wherever you are,’ replied Alice calmly, ‘I will be.’
    The denouement of the situation, however, arrived in a quite different way. The ministers fulminated for hours around their large table in the Spanish Legation awaiting a reply but none came. Finally, the bellicose German minister, Baron von Ketteler, declared that he would wait no longer, but journey to the palace himself and demand an answer ‘if I have to sit there all night’.
    He set off with his Chinese secretary to the Foreign Office, both travelling in sedan chairs with canopies of red and green proclaiming their status and with two liveried servants riding on ponies as outriders. Half an hour later, his dragoman, who had been shot through both legs, dragged himself into the American Methodist mission near the Ha Ta Men Gate and declared that the minister had been shot in his chair by a Manchu solider ‘in full uniform with a mandarin’s hat and button and blue feather’. A patrol of fifteen German sailors went out to try and retrieve the minister’s body but were driven back. The word spread throughout the legations. There was no more talk of accepting the offer of evacuation.
    Instead, and with belated speed, the legations prepared to defend themselves at last.
    It was agreed that the British Legation, by far the largest and, by its position, not commanded by the Great Tartar Wall but with a good field of fire, should be a kind of central redoubt. It would be a place where, if the worst came to the worst, all the defenders of the legations could fall back for a last stand. However, it was decided that it should also offer shelter to non-combatants.
    As a result, the whole of the foreign community of Peking, together with ponies and mules, a small flock of sheep and one cow, gathered within the compound. An area of some three acres, which normallyhoused sixty people, was now occupied by nine hundred.
    The separate buildings of the Legation had been hurriedly allocated to the different nationalities. The missionaries who had fled their missions in the