Читать книгу The Emergence of American Amphibious Warfare, 1898–1945 - David S. Nasca - Страница 13

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Growing Use of Amphibious Warfare from 1900 to 1918

The United States Enters a Brave New World

The Spanish-American War, which resulted in the United States taking control of several overseas possessions in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, confirmed the United States as a major world power in the international system. The transformation brought the United States into contact with certain parts of the globe, establishing vital ties to America’s geopolitical position in the world. The occupation of the Philippines and Guam extended American control into the Western Pacific, creating territorial acquisitions that allowed for the forward deployment and garrisoning of large ground and naval forces. The situation was the same in the occupation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The annexation of Puerto Rico as a commonwealth territory and the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations established strategic locations for the American military to extend its influence over its Caribbean and South American neighbors and, more importantly, to safeguard the construction of a cross-ocean canal in Central America. Therefore, victory over Spain meant that territories seized by the United States through its amphibious capabilities were not necessarily liberated, but incorporated into the American republic in some convoluted form or other. Access to these former colonial possessions meant that U.S. geopolitical power now extended to far-flung parts of the world where it would expand American commercial enterprises abroad and allow for its military forces to be readily available to protect growing U.S. interests.¹

While America’s geopolitical strategy during the nineteenth century was focused on building its political, economic, and military base in North America, the early twentieth century was a period in which the United States extended beyond its continental boundaries and took on a more assertive stance in its interests throughout the rest of the world. The United States’ concern in the Asia-Pacific Region was predicated on its commercial ties with China as well as free access to international shipping routes in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the United States was also concerned with the future of the Philippines. Besides economic development and commercial ties with other European colonies and sovereign states in the region, the Philippines also had geostrategic importance because it was essential to security and stability in the region. While some Americans believed the United States should grant the liberated Philippines immediate independence, there were others who felt that the country would quickly be carved up between the British, Germans, and Japanese. Far from being able to govern themselves, the Filipinos were viewed as being too divided and weak to protect themselves. Therefore, American advocates for expansion used the pretext of state building to maintain a large garrison in the Philippines and impose an American colonial style government to administer the country for an indeterminate amount of time until the United States felt the Filipinos were ready for independence.²

Army and Marine garrisons served as part of this massive state-building project, but they also supported Alfred Mahan’s advocacy on the strategic importance of sea power. America’s possession of the Philippines, as well as its newly acquired Pacific territories, provided essential combat-service support in the refueling and resupply of the U.S. Navy. In addition, from an economic perspective, the Americans feared that if they did not take control of the Philippines, they would be locked out of the Asian market. The British already had a naval base at Hong Kong that gave them access to China; many strategists argued the United States needed its own base.³ The protected chain of islands that stretched from the North American continent to China and Japan allowed the quick deployment of powerful ground and naval forces if war threatened to upset the political and economic interests of the United States.

The United States’ concerns about the security of its overseas interests were justified based on the dynamics of the international system between 1900 and 1918. Nationalism and imperialism were still on the rise and remained the driving forces behind the major world powers’ actions throughout the globe. In both Asia and Africa, few sovereign states were left to their own devices, since most of them had become either protectorates or colonies of the European powers. Richard Langhorne’s study bases the collapse of the balance of power in the international system on the European powers expanding beyond the European mainland. The rush for colonies combined with the ease in which the European powers attacked and subjugated foreign countries led to the creation of imperial trading blocs that provided ready access to labor, markets, and resources to feed the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution. As a result, the old checks and balances established from the Congress of Vienna in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars were being circumvented through the expansion of national power through colonial conquest.⁴

Interestingly enough, the expansion of European territory, power, and influence was based on technology that would be used for amphibious warfare. Militaries around the world were undergoing radical changes as a result of advances in weapons and technology. Studies of European armies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries point out that technology and innovation fueled the extraordinary growth in military power. Industrialization transformed the nature of war because of the standardization of machine tools, which allowed the manufacture of large numbers of identical, interchangeable parts. In addition, technological innovation and industrial mobilization also allowed greater theoretical performance to be transformed into reality where scientific study and the careful management of manpower and resources were coordinated to bring forth a system of innovation and development.⁵ Improvements in small arms and artillery, as well as the invention of the machine gun, the tank, the internal combustion engine, the airplane, and the radio, increased the speed, distance, and lethality of armies on the battlefield. Getting to a location with the most military power in the shortest amount of time was important for a strategic victory.

As such, the major powers (Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Italy) all vied for geopolitical supremacy in the world and invested in the development of weapons and technology that would give their respective countries an edge in the imperial competition. The “Scramble for Africa” was in full swing among the European powers, despite attempts by the Berlin Conference in 1885 to regulate European colonization and trade in Africa. While the conference attempted to alleviate issues for potential friction and conflict among the great powers of Europe, it only channeled great power hostility toward competing powers on the African continent. The fact was that the major powers were playing for the highest stakes in grand strategy. Although the major powers attempted to create a new balance of power, they instead led an undignified rush for “slices” of Africa.⁶ By 1900, most of Africa was under European rule, and the major powers were focused on consolidating their colonial gains for economic development and geopolitical advantage. In addition, the major powers also utilized their African territorial acquisitions to forward deploy naval and ground forces to protect their national interests.

In scrambling for colonial territory in Africa, the European powers were caught in a series of small wars with various African states and tribes that were quickly overwhelmed by the technological innovations that supported the European colonial armies in the realms of medicine, transportation, and weaponry. In addition, European colonial consolidation became a reality as various industries and businesses sought to capitalize on the availability of African manpower and resources. The administration and development of these colonies varied among the European powers, ranging from the brutal and oppressive to the semibenevolent and laissez-faire. During this time, Great Britain destroyed the Mahdists during its conquest of the Sudan and conducted military operations to defeat the Boers in South Africa. In addition to these conflicts, Great Britain also focused its energies not only on maintaining its global dominance, but also on warding off potential challengers, such as France, Russia, and Germany. Paul Kennedy’s examination of Great Britain’s geopolitical superiority in 1900 led him to conclude, “By her possession of an enormous colonial empire, Britain enjoyed the strategical benefits of the most important collection of naval bases throughout the world…. The numerical, material and strategical superiority of the Royal Navy was cold, hard reality [to all rivals].”⁷

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific Region was becoming the new battleground in the struggle for empire among the major powers. The focus was China under the Qing Dynasty, which was struggling against political and economic collapse. The Taiping Rebellion was the most destructive and costly civil war in human history. After nearly a decade of fighting, the Qing Dynasty crushed the Taipings and attempted to reunite the country and focus on bringing forth modest efforts toward a modernization movement that would strengthen the empire politically, militarily, and economically. Unfortunately, the corruption and lack of unity within the Qing Dynasty caused the modernization movement to fail and resulted in China being defeated by Japan during the First Sino-Japanese War (1895–96).

Japan’s ability to defeat China was the result of its extraordinary period of intense political, economic, and military modernization during the Meiji Restoration. Japan’s transformation during the second half of the nineteenth century revealed that the Japanese made a conscious effort to overcome their cultural and social paranoia of foreign influences and instead embraced new ideas, cultures, and especially all technologies. As a consequence, the Japanese government focused on making the country wealthy and powerful in order to be able to stand up to aggressive foreign powers in the Asia-Pacific Region. The recruitment of foreign advisers and experts, the aggressive quest for foreign capital and resources, and borrowing the latest weapons and industrial technologies set the foundations for Japan’s modernization. This in turn would result in Japan using what it learned from the West to begin shaping these influences in a way that best suited Japanese culture and society. The Japan that emerged to defeat China in 1896 was a country that incorporated the best from the West while retaining its own national and cultural identity.⁸

During this conflict, Japan deployed its military forces to destroy the Chinese Imperial Navy to protect the Japanese home islands, and also conducted two major amphibious operations that led to the occupation of Taiwan, Korea, and the Liaodong Peninsula. Like the United States during the Spanish-American War, the Japanese used wooden boats supported by powerful, modern warships to land troops at undefended key points and quickly push inland before Chinese ground forces could react. Therefore, the quick defeat of Chinese military forces contributed to China’s continued political, economic, and military decline and made it an increasingly attractive target to the European powers. Unfortunately, the crushing defeat of China through Japan’s amphibious capabilities triggered a regional crisis among the world’s major powers, especially Great Britain, which desperately sought to maintain the existing balance of power.

China was simply too big, weak, and old to hold itself together. Japan’s victory over China meant that the Asian mainland was open for invasion and occupation. As Japan pondered how much to take from the Chinese, the western powers were drawn into China’s affairs as well. The French, the Germans, and the British were especially interested in expanding their commercial and territorial interests for geopolitical purposes and saw China’s imminent collapse as an opportunity to further their respective national glory and power. However, among the western powers, Great Britain was concerned over the potential geopolitical consequences a power vacuum in China would mean for the rest of the world. Not only would the British balance-of-power system be threatened with the opening of yet another land grab, more importantly, it would allow the Russians to move across its borders with China and take huge parts of territory, thereby potentially locking the British out of China’s vast commercial markets while also posing a threat to British core interests in India and Southeast Asia.⁹ While the British did have some amphibious capabilities to utilize in the Royal Navy, their capabilities were really a haphazard affair that allowed only for ad hoc amphibious operations by a small, professional British Army supplemented by large pools of local native troops.

The major power rivalry soon manifested in Manchuria and Korea when these areas became points of contention between the Russians and the Japanese. Both nations were expansionist powers, and both refused to negotiate control of Northeast Asia. While Russia enjoyed a larger military with virtually unlimited resources and was geographically linked to Northeast Asia, Japan was better organized and had a larger industrial base. That industrial base supported a smaller but more well-trained and well-equipped army and navy. However, Japan suffered geographically by being separated from Asia’s markets and resources by the Sea of Japan.

The main obstacle to Japanese prosperity and dominance in Northeast Asia was Russia. It was the Russians who blocked Japan’s attempt to secure the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 by getting the western powers to back up Russia’s position in pressuring Japan from the region. In addition, to make matters worse for the Japanese, Russia’s stance against Japan to protect Chinese sovereignty proved hypocritical when Russia soon declared Manchuria to be within the Russian sphere of influence and gained access not only to the Liaodong Peninsula’s ports and harbors, but also received permission to begin constructing Russian railroads, gaining further access to Chinese markets and resources. In short, Russian control of Manchuria and its expanding naval influence in the area was a potential national security threat in that it brought Russian ground and naval forces within potential striking distance of the Japanese islands.¹⁰

This impasse led to the Russo-Japanese War, which was opened by Japan launching a surprise attack against the Russian Pacific Fleet in Port Arthur. While the Japanese attacked Russian naval forces, it also used its amphibious capabilities to land in Inchon in order to occupy and secure the Korea Peninsula and set the stage for its invasion of Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula, where it quickly trapped the large Russian garrison in Port Arthur. Afterward, Japan’s extraordinary use of amphibious operations kept the Russians on edge along the maritime districts of the Russian Far East, especially Vladivostok, where Russian military forces remained in place to deter a possible Japanese invasion of the Russian homeland. Due to this commitment, Russian forces were neutralized as a threat to the Japanese since these units were now unable to support the Russian military stationed in Manchuria. As the intensity of the war grew in Northeast Asia, the periodical The Advocate of Peace, from March 1904, observed:

Both the powers [Russia and Japan] have treated these intervening countries [Manchuria and Korea] as if they had no rights of their own. Japan is using Korea, an independent nation, for war purposes, as if she owns it. For this kind of aggression and antagonism there is no superficial remedy. Given the spirit and determination manifested on both sides, war was inevitable. It was to the credit of the civilized world that there was so much talk of reference of the trouble to The Hague Court. But for the two powers to have been willing to let the conflict go to The Hague Court would have been tantamount to a willingness to drop the dispute altogether and to cease all aggression. If Japan and Russia had been actuated by the real spirit of justice and humanity, they would have united cordially in assuring the independence of Korea and the integrity of China including Manchuria. Such a course would have averted all strife and laid the foundations of permanent peace.¹¹

The conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War came about when Japan won a series of decisive victories that helped secure Japan’s control over Northeast Asia. On sea, the Japanese fleet under Admiral Togo Heihachiro destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima when it attempted to relieve the Japanese siege on Port Arthur; while on land, Japanese ground forces defeated the Russians at Mukden in Manchuria. These battles not only placed the Japanese at a strategic advantage against Russia, but also led to the fall of Russian ground and naval forces trapped in Port Arthur. Therefore, in order to preserve a balance of power and prevent the conflict from spreading, the United States intervened to serve as an impartial third party to mediate between the combatants. In the Treaty of Portsmouth in September 1905, Japan became the dominant power in Northeast Asia, while Russian power and credibility were severely compromised. According to Raymond Esthus, “It was at this juncture that President Theodore Roosevelt urged Russia to make peace. Throughout the war he had hoped that a balance of power would emerge in East Asia, and now though his personal sympathies were with Japan, he worried about the possibility that Russian power in the East would be completely shattered.”¹² Japan’s success during the war and the dramatic change in geopolitical positions in the Asia-Pacific Region were made possible only because of Japan’s employment of amphibious operations against the Russians, who initially held a geographic and military advantage. Unlike the ad hoc amphibious operations conducted by the British in Egypt during the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882 and by the Americans during the Spanish-American War, the Japanese naval and ground forces worked in concert with each other to destroy Russian ground and naval forces in Port Arthur. The speed and success in the execution of the campaign and the capture of Port Arthur removed an immediate threat in the Pacific against the Japanese home islands and secured rear communications for Japanese ground forces as they advanced into Manchuria.

Through Japan’s and the United States’ recent success in their wars against Russia and Spain, respectively, amphibious operations were beginning to be viewed as an option that had significant strategic implications in the power dynamics of the international system. In the Asia-Pacific Region, Russian expansion was halted as a result of its defeat, resulting in Northeast Asia becoming open for Japanese expansion. Meanwhile, the United States removed the last vestige of Spanish colonial rule and also turned the Caribbean into an “American lake.” In both cases, these successes gave positive reinforcement for the continued usage and experimentation in amphibious warfare for future geopolitical gains. The new interest in amphibious warfare became apparent after World War I, when Japan focused an extraordinarily large amount of its time and resources to further develop its amphibious tactics, techniques, and technological capabilities. The Japanese understood the importance of amphibious capabilities and how it tied to its geopolitical strategy in the Asia-Pacific Region where it was used to great effect against the Chinese and later the Russians. The Japanese believed that their nation had a special destiny, and according to their culture and beliefs, they saw Japan eventually contending with the other major powers for domination over Asia. Not only would the inevitable Japanese victory result in the conquest of China, but it would also finally drive out the western powers for good and leave Asia for the Asians.¹³

While the other great powers recognized Japanese and American success, they were not as concerned about developing their own amphibious capabilities. While Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy enjoyed having powerful navies, they also had the advantage of using either their homeland or colonies as a base of operations in landing ground forces against enemy states. France, Germany, and Italy were influenced in the employment of their ground forces based on their lack of need to focus on the development of amphibious capabilities. All three had lands, colonies, and outposts close enough to launch military campaigns to expand their colonial holdings, especially in Africa. France used Southern France, Algeria, and the French Congo to secure most of West Africa; Germany slowly secured key African coastal regions by incorporating the cooperation and support of tribes and settlements friendly to the German cause; Italy had geography on its side when the Ottoman Empire was unable to send enough military forces to protect Libya from invasion. Thomas Pakenham observes that the Scramble for Africa bewildered both Europeans and Africans in that within half a generation, the European powers occupied almost the entire continent by controlling nearly 10 million square miles of new territory and ruling over 110 million new subjects. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Scramble for Africa poisoned the diplomatic climate to the extent that no European power was satisfied with just their vast colonial conquests, but now wanted more land, markets, and resources.¹⁴

Despite each major power’s successes in colonial expansion, the international system was changing. Intensive imperial competition, combined with the political, social, and economic forces of modernization of the Second Industrial Revolution, was about to dramatically transform the world. The first decade of the twentieth century brought about rapid industrialization and, with it, a new form of confidence. Mankind was not only making extraordinary leaps in all fields of human knowledge, but was also creating extraordinary machines and constructing architectural wonders that were once considered impossible. To add to the growing achievements of human civilization of the new century, explorers around the world were conquering the final frontiers of the planet and slowly mapping the last corners of the Earth’s surface. However, these new advancements in technology and new conquests for the good of human civilization were not entirely positive when the global race for power and glory came to a head with the opening of World War I.¹⁵

As the United States entered the twentieth century, it encountered geopolitical obstacles that reinforced the need for developing technologies for amphibious warfare. The importance of amphibious warfare in the United States’ geopolitical strategy increased gradually during the next forty years, both through the practical experience of small wars and exercises and, more theoretically, in the war colleges. The balance of power established by Great Britain as a result of the Napoleonic Wars was changing, and the United States and the other major powers were utilizing geopolitical strategies and technologies to prepare for it.

During this time, the international system originally created by Great Britain based on the balance of power following the Napoleonic Wars was beginning to reach an impasse among the great powers. In fact, the wars, international crises, and unresolved diplomatic and territorial issues in Europe were slowly dividing the world into two armed camps based on two alliance systems: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The polarization of Europe’s geopolitical system was the crucial element for the global war that broke out in 1914. The nature of the Austro-Serbian crisis should not have been the event to trigger a world war. The balance-of-power system created by Great Britain as a result of the Napoleonic Wars should have prevented a confrontation among the major powers and should have instead minimized conflicts while encouraging dialogue and conflict resolution. Between the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, despite intense nationalistic competition, saber rattling, and local wars between the major powers, peace was quickly restored. However, in 1914, the bipolar system created between the Allied and Central Powers structured the international environment from which crucial decisions were made.¹⁶

These alliances were activated on June 28, 1914, when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That August, World War I began, and as a result, the major powers of the world were pulled into the conflict. The societies of every belligerent country were mobilized and put on a total war footing, either siding with the Allied Powers (the former Triple Entente) or the Central Powers (once known as the Triple Alliance). Initially viewed as a war of maneuver, the conflict quickly became a war of attrition. Machine guns and quick-firing artillery made short work of the massive conscript armies of both sides. Locked in a stalemate, both the Allied and Central Powers turned to various technologies and tried to use them to change the strategic dynamics of the war in their favor. In 1917, the United States was also pulled into the conflict. Robert Bruce points out that during the global struggle between the two alliance systems, technological development dramatically accelerated: “The rule seemed to be: in war, no time; in peace, no rush. The European arms race in the early twentieth century, which might be called Cold War I, and the outbreak of the First World War sounded an alert in American military circles…. But this time American participation in the war was indeed too brief for R&D [Research and Development] to play a part in the victory.”¹⁷

Map 2. U.S. Amphibious Operations in East Asia (1898–1902)

Geopolitical Events in Amphibious Warfare in the Philippines and China

The beginning of the twentieth century saw extraordinary advances in science and technology that dramatically changed the makeup of the globe. As a result of the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 1900s, the world was making fundamental changes in economics, society, governance, and especially the military. These advances also ushered in a more dynamic environment in which the need to adapt to future expectations and challenges was becoming more important than ever. According to Tony Zinni, a former Marine general, any organization that hopes to survive and flourish must be adaptive; if it is not, the organization risks becoming irrelevant in this dynamic, competitive, adapt-or-die world.¹⁸ In the early 1900s, this drive to adapt and flourish influenced the United States to retain and further develop its amphibious capabilities. American political and military confidence encouraged a more aggressive gunboat diplomacy in which the United States used hard power to not only protect its interests, but also to deter potential enemy powers.

Amphibious warfare was the way of the future for the United States’ geopolitical strategy during the twentieth century. This emphasis on amphibious warfare was based on the United States’ smashing success in the Spanish-American War, and it continued to influence the American political and military leadership until the country’s entry into World War I. However, the United States continued to focus applying its nascent amphibious capabilities in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. In the Pacific, the United States focused its military efforts in the Philippine-American War, in which it became increasingly evident that the Filipinos did not care for a long-term American occupation. While the American military did send observers to watch Japanese amphibious operations during the Russo-Japanese War, it also continued to perform ad hoc amphibious operations to attack and pacify hostile islands, especially when the Philippine insurgency began to spread beyond the main island of Luzon to other remote, isolated islands. “The first years of American occupation of the Philippines were marked by full scale war,” writes Warren Zimmermann in his study of American involvement in the Philippines during the first decade of the twentieth century. “The shape of the Philippines, an archipelago of more than seven thousand islands stretching a thousand miles from north to south, complicated the task of the U.S. Army. Also, [Emilio] Aguinaldo’s [insurgent] forces at first outnumbered the Americans by about seventy-five thousand troops in the Philippines.”¹⁹

To continue to pressure the Philippine insurgency, small naval squadrons (usually composed of a few cruisers and gunboats) dropped off company- or battalion-sized elements on various Philippine islands to either flush out the insurgents or settle down as a long-term garrison post. First Lieutenant Smedley Butler’s experience as a U.S. Marine serving in the Philippines provides the context of the environment where men like him had to operate for years occupying the island of Olongapo using a native outrigger during a storm. The driving rain combined with the rough seas quickly drained the strength of Butler and his men. While they were not attacked by Filipino insurgents during their amphibious operation, not only did the weather and the ocean severely damage their ship, but the Marines also had to deal with the laborious task of moving supplies and artillery ashore onto an island hostile to an American occupation.²⁰

In each case, ground and naval forces planned and worked together to implement small-scale landings involving the U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps, with the occasional participation of Filipino auxiliary troops. However, Filipino guerrillas used ambushes as well as hit-and-run tactics to attack American military forces. In addition, the use of pits and mantraps was not uncommon in order to add to the frustration and misery of the Americans. By avoiding the strength of the U.S. military and nibbling along the edges and weak points of the occupational force, American soldiers were either forced to fight the Filipino rebels from a position of weakness or put them in morally compromising positions that undermined support for the U.S. occupation. The American military tried to avoid the advantages that the Filipino guerrilla enjoyed by instead sticking to the coast and employing gunboats to move, land, and support U.S. military forces. By cutting insurgency support from the ocean, the United States forced the Filipino rebels to attack the American military in fortified positions along the coast while also creating conditions where insurgents were vulnerable either to naval gunfire or an amphibious landing from a powerful American force.²¹

This approach ultimately broke the backbone of the insurgency and led to the incorporation of the insurgency’s top leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, into the establishment of an American territorial government to administer the Philippines. When the Philippine insurgency was finally suppressed, the United States continued to deploy its ground and naval forces in support of small-scale amphibious operations in the Philippines, while also utilizing a series of counterinsurgency operations against the last Filipino insurgent hold outs. This course of action proved to be long and expensive, and it plagued both the American political and military leadership from 1899 to 1903. Senator Frisbie Hoar, a prominent United States politician and senator from Massachusetts, remarked critically:

You [President Roosevelt] have wasted six hundred millions of treasure. You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives—the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit…. I believe—nay, I know—that in general our officers are humane. But in some cases they have carried on your warfare with a mixture of American ingenuity and Castilian cruelty.²²

The Americans put the Philippine-American War on hold when the Boxer Rebellion threatened the Foreign Quarter in Beijing in June 1900. While these rebel forces had existed years prior as a secret society against westernization, they quickly picked up credibility and strength due to the Chinese population’s growing dissatisfaction with the military, political, and economic strength of China, as well as the unfair economic and diplomatic advantages that the foreign powers enjoyed at the expense of the Chinese. Things came to a head when the Boxers’ growing appeal to the Chinese population and the encouragement of the Chinese monarchy, Empress Cixi, incited the Boxers to kill and drive all foreigners out of China. In addition, the Boxers also mistakenly believed that their spiritual powers, developed through physical exercises and martial arts, made them immune to small arms and artillery fire.²³

When tensions between foreigners and the Boxers finally broke out into full-scale warfare, the overwhelming numerical strength of the Boxers, combined with a supportive Chinese government, forced the foreigners to seek protection at the Peking Legation Quarter where they were under siege for fifty-five days. While the major powers took measures to strengthen their respective legation garrisons in Peking and sent quick reaction forces to Tientsin, no one was ready for the size and intensity of the Boxer Rebellion. Due to the support of Empress Cixi, the Boxers quickly seized the initiative from the foreign powers and quickly came close to destroying all foreign military garrisons and massacring the resident foreign population. The situation in China was so severe that it temporarily brought all the world’s major powers together to crush the Boxer Rebellion. The international fleet that was hastily assembled and sent to seize the Taku Forts that protected the entrance of China’s Yellow River was a complicated operation. Having to overcome linguistic and operational differences in the deployment of an army composed from over a half dozen nations, the great powers strained their military resources in a common effort to break China’s coastal defenses near Peking with a massive amphibious assault. Despite nationalistic rivalries and differences among the coalition forces, the international fleet managed to successfully coordinate their naval gunfire support and carefully land their troops to attack and defeat the Chinese garrison in the Taku Forts. The ability for the international force to successfully accomplish its mission and open the way for the relief of the Peking Legation Quarter in Peking was ironically based on the collective amphibious experiences of the participating powers. Having been involved in several amphibious operations in Venezuela, the Upper Nile, the Philippines, Manchuria, Panama, North Africa, and the Balkans, these same armies now worked in a tenuous alliance.²⁴ Both the Peking Legation Quarter and the Tientsin garrisons held out against the Boxers and Empress Cixi’s imperial armies, which actively supported the Boxers. While fierce fighting raged in Peking and Tientsin, a second relief force was organized, and soon a large naval and ground force composed of eight nations approached the Taku Forts by the Peiho River near Tientsin. During this time, both Secretary of the Navy Long and the Adjutant General’s Office in Washington, DC, sent telegraph messages requesting that more ground and naval forces be sent to take part in the international relief force in China. General Arthur MacArthur, Military Governor of the Philippines, voiced his concerns when he responded via telegraph to his superiors in Washington: “Force in Philippines has been disseminated to limitation of safety; concentration slow to avoid evacuation of territory now occupied, which would be extremely unfortunate.”²⁵ Despite the shortage of ground and naval forces left in the Philippines, additional reinforcements were sent to China to supplement the relief force. The situation in China was desperate, and the international community feared that the foreign garrisons in Peking and Tientsin would be overwhelmed and massacred. Facing the Boxers and the Chinese Imperial Army, the Eight-Nation Alliance managed to coordinate its naval gun support to neutralize the guns of the Taku Forts and allow the multinational landing force to conduct an amphibious assault in order to seize control of the forts and open the entrance of Peiho River. Once the Chinese garrison was driven out of the fortifications, the Eight-Nation Alliance landed the rest of its ground forces unmolested and pushed into the interior to relieve Admiral Seymour’s forces, which were trapped in Tientsin. While American and alliance forces fought their way through Tientsin, First Lieutenant Smedley Butler described the assault against Tientsin in detail:

Chinese bombs were exploding about us, and Chinese snipers on both sides of the river [in Tientsin] were pouring a steady stream of bullets in our direction. The sky flashed with fiery zigzags. Our artillery was also keeping up a heavy bombardment [on the city]. The British were hammering at the stone wall with the guns they used to defend Ladysmith in South Africa during the Boer War. It took many men to drag around these clumsy guns mounted on boiler plate wheels. But they did real damage with their shells. We cheered every time one of their projectiles crashed in the native city.²⁶

After bitter fighting to take the city and relieving Admiral Seymour’s trapped forces, the multinational force began a second relief expedition in Peking. With about eighteen thousand men, the relief force fought its way through a series of battles until the combined force of Boxers and the Chinese Imperial Army was crushed and driven from the city. However, the occupation of Peking and certain areas in China by the various foreign powers created a power vacuum that potentially set conditions for the possible collapse of the Qing Dynasty and civil war. Fortunately, peace was concluded with the major powers in which China not only had to pay an extraordinarily heavy indemnity, but was also required to exile all surviving Boxers from China.

Despite talks of possibly dividing China into permanent spheres of influence, the United States decided to stick to the Open Door Policy of 1898, in which all nations enjoyed equal access to the China market. America’s involvement until 1898 was more or less that of a bystander nation; however, the U.S. military’s growing capabilities, especially in regard to power projection through amphibious warfare, finally gave the Americans creditability as a world power. America’s ability to project hard power into the Asia-Pacific as a result of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, and now the Boxer Rebellion allowed Secretary of State John Hay to negotiate from a position of strength in influencing the other major powers over the fate of China. The last thing the United States wanted was to watch China get carved, like Africa and Asia, into various colonial possessions, resulting in American commercial interests being blocked out in the process. In order to save China and prevent the major powers from using the country as another potential battleground, Secretary Hay proposed the Open Door Policy that balanced between maintaining Chinese sovereignty while leaving the country open for commercial trade for all the major powers.²⁷

Unfortunately, once Empress Cixi returned to power and the relief forces withdrew, Russia disregarded the Open Door Policy and began to once again encroach on Chinese sovereignty by investing heavily in developing Manchuria, constructing railroads and industries, and moving large military forces into the area. While the United States did little to stop Russian ambitions, both Great Britain and Japan viewed these moves as a threat to peace in the Asia-Pacific Region. In order to deter further Russian aggression and contain its expansion, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was formed as a counterbalance to continue maintaining a balance of power in the region.

Despite the alliance, Russia continued pursuing its ambitions in China and became progressively more aggressive toward Japan to where Japanese political and military leaders felt that Russia was a clear and present danger to Japanese security. This would essentially be used from a geopolitical standpoint for Japan to begin secretly preparing for a confrontation with the Russians that would eventually lead to the Russo-Japanese War. While tensions began to build, Russia was supremely confident in defeating Japan, while the Japanese understood that they needed to win a quick and overwhelming victory and saw amphibious warfare as an essential part in protecting Japan and finally driving the Russians out of Northeast Asia.