THE EIGHT-NATION ALLIANCE’S CAPTURE OF THE TAKU FORTS, June 16-17, 1900

During the Boxer Rebellion, an Eight-Nation gunboat squadron bombarded the Chinese forts situated at the mouth of the Hai (Peiho) river. A force of c. 900 sailors (mostly Japanese, British, Germans and Russians, but also Austro-Hungarians and some Italians) under the command of Imperial German Navy captain Hugo von Pohl then disembarked and stormed the forts. 

Art by German artist Fritz Neumann (1881-1919).

The forts were armed with 177 guns, mostly muzzle loaders, and a few 15 cm Krupp guns. General Lo Young Yan’s Chinese suffered 800 casualties, the Allies 138. The fluvial access to Tianjin was open. This aggression pushed the Qing government definitively to the side of the Boxers and the Chinese army was instructed to resist foreign military forces by all means.  

Russian officer and marines next to a 15cm Krupp gun on the South Taku fort. Photograph by German naval officer Friedrich Carl Peetz of S.M.S. Herta. More from this collection: https://repository.duke.edu/dc/friedrichcarlpeetz

Today, only two forts remain, one on the south shore and the other on the north shore of the Hai River. The South fort has been rebuilt for touristic purposes and opened to the public in 1997 together with the Dagukou Fort Ruins Museum.  

Map showing the Taku forts in 1900

 

 

 

 

A reconstruction of the Taku forts, Dagukou Fort Ruins Museum.