Beleaguered in Pekin: The Boxer's War Against the ForeignerColtman, Robert
History
Beleaguered in Pekin: The Boxer's War Against the Foreigner
Coltman, Robert
China -- History -- Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
_WORK DURING SIEGE DONE BY RUSSIANS—WORK BY AMERICANS_
[Illustration: YOUAN CHANG
Beheaded August 9, because he favored making peace with foreigners.]
THE Russian legation is situated on the north side of Legation street,
directly opposite the United States legation, one hundred and fifty
yards west of the moat that runs northward from the city wall to the
wall of the Forbidden City; between the British legation and the Su
Wang Fu. Consequently, the Russian legation is directly south of
the British legation, and separated from it only by a small street
containing shops of the humbler sort.
Immediately upon a state of siege being declared, the foreign guards
took possession of this street, drove out the inhabitants, barricaded
both ends of the highway, and so made it possible to go with safety
directly from the position held by the American marines on the city
wall, through the American legation, across Legation street, also
barricaded, through the Russian legation, and on into the British
legation—one continuous foreign occupation. This was a necessity for
our protection, and to secure for the American and Russian marines
a safe retreat into the British legation in the event of their own
locations being no longer tenable.
At the beginning of the siege the following persons resided in the
Russian legation: His Eminence M. de Giers, envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary, his wife, daughter and son, and Miss Edith
Miller, a governess in his family; B. N. Kroupensky, first secretary;
B. N. Evreinow, second secretary; P. S. Popoff, interpreter; Mme.
Popoff and five daughters; N. F. Kolessoff, second interpreter; A. T.
Beltchenko and H. P. Wulff, student interpreters; V. V. Korsakoff,
M.D., surgeon, wife and daughter; N. T. Gomloyeff, postmaster; A.
Polyanoff, clerk in post office; the Rt.-Rev. Father Archimandrite
Innocent Figuroffsky; the Rev. Father Abraham, Deacon Basile, Messrs.
Osipoff and Piskimoff, ecclesiastical students. This comprised the
legation personnel.
There was also the staff of the Russo-Chinese bank, consisting of
the following persons: D. D. Pokotiloff, company manager for China
and Japan, and his wife; D. M. Pozdneeff, his wife and child; R. T.
Barbier, wife and child; Mlle. C. Titoff; E. Wihlfahrt, cashier; F.
Vavier, bookkeeper; Messrs. Brackmann, Mirny, Alexandroff, Wasilieff,
Brauns, and Kehler; and Mr. A. W. Borodavkine, professor of Russian in
the Imperial University.
[Illustration: Russian Minister and Staff of Legation and their
families]
The Russian guards were sailors from the battleships Navarine and
Sissoi Veliku, to the number of seventy-two men, under Naval Lieutenant
Baron von Rahden and Sub-Lieutenant Carl von Dehn, with seven
trans-Baikalian Cossacks.
Captain Jean Wroublevsky, who was on language-leave, also resided in
the legation, and acted with Baron von Rahden alternately as commander
of the forces. Captain Wroublevsky belongs to the Ninth Rifle Corps,
stationed at Port Arthur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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