The extract from Marching to the Drums in the last issue of Greenhill Book News was much enjoyed, and some readers have asked for another piece from these vivid first-hand accounts of military adventure. As Ian Knight, editor of Marching to the Drums, describes in this exciting book, soldiers of the British Empire fought across several continents during the last century. In the Far East, troops saw action in a series of wars often prompted by commercial concerns. One of China's attempts to put a stop to European trading in the region led to combined British and French forces bombarding the Dagu ('Taku') forts which guarded the mouth of the river 100 miles from the capital at Beijing ('Peking'). The Allied force of 11,000 British and Indian troops, and 6,000 French, attacked the three forts as Private John Dempsey of the 60th Rifles here recalls: While I was out in China in the war of 1860, I seemed to spend most of my time in the mud, and when it wasn't mud it was water. Put yourself, in imagination, on some of the mud flats on the banks of the Thames, in London, when the tide is out, and you will get some idea of the sort of ground we had to fight over when we stormed the Taku Forts. You might carry the idea a little farther, and fancy that the gloomy buildings on the banks of the Thames are forts, and that you have been landed in boats on the mud and have to plant ladders against the walls and scramble up them to the top, with the very good chance of being hurled back or having a spear or knife or sword thrust through you. That was the kind of entertainment we had to put up with on that August day, nearly fifty years ago, when we rushed to the assault, side by side with Frenchmen, and fought like fiends to be first to plant our country's flag on the ramparts. We all panted to get in, but only as real victors. There could be no half measures with an enemy like ours, because it was worse than death itself to fall into the hands of the Celestials as captives. I shrink even now when I think of what might have happened to me, and when I recall the Temple of Horrors, as we named it a building which we entered when we had won our battle, and where we saw evidence of what the Chinamen could do in the way of torturing and destroying prisoners. We struggled through the mud and water, waistdeep, after we left the ships in the boats, and were a truly filthy army when we got ashore and made preparations for the storming of the forts. I for one was thankful when the bugles sounded the advance, and the hosts of us, French and British, marched to the assault. I liked the French. They were good men, and fine men, and I believe that they were moved by a determination to do their best, and to maintain the reputation of their country for military valour. Those were the days, you know, when we went to our stormings with colours flying and drums beating. All that is a thing of the past, for in these times no man could live who bore a standard. He would be too good a target. I sometimes think that the oldfashioned storming has gone forever. In modern warfare there have been some fine performances by British troops. I may be wrong, or prejudiced, or both. but I cannot help thinking that the storming of the Taku Forts was amongst the very finest. But we had some splendid men to do it, if it comes to that, for many of us, including myself, had served in the Mutiny. We had made a road, by August 20th, to within less than a thousand yards of the forts, and our Armstrong guns, at a range of something more than a mile, had opened fire. The idea was, of course, that the walls should be broken and breached, and that in the openings made we should enter and rout the Chinamen. Things seem so very simple when they are described and laid down for you in orders; but they are so terribly difficult when it becomes a question of putting them into hard practice. They say that it was a Frenchman who was actually first to get a footing in the forts, and 1 am sure that no survivor of the storming will deny the right of his memory to the honour. I believe the Frenchman was a drummer of the 102nd Regiment of the Line. With an agility that seemed incredible, and a luck that appeared to be impossible, in view of the fury of the fire, he gained the summit of the parapet, and there, a solitary figure, he stood, firing rifle after rifle that was handed to him. He went on firing till death claimed him, for he was killed by a spearthrust through the brain. Then another man, carrying a pickaxe, tried with frantic courage to take his place, and he went on fighting and picking until he was shot. It seemed as if no human being could live at such a furiously contested pace, yet Lieutenant Burslem, of the 67th, dashed forward and continued the work of this brave pioneer. Just around two hundred officers and men, in killed and wounded that was the price we paid on the British side to get our colours planted in the forts, and to see the Chinese flying from us, scattering to any place that gave them shelter. Many of them fled towards the Summer Palace of the Emperor, and many more towards Peking, while the rest sought shelter in the neighbouring country and villages. Many there were, too, who remained in Taku Forts, for our guns had told heavily upon them, and the storming had been very stem. I was amazed, on examining the forts, to find that many of the guns were dummies. They were made of bamboo, but from the embrasures they looked just like the real artillery with which the Chinese managed to do considerable mischief. These wooden guns were very tough, in their way, and I daresay they were capable of firing powder, to scare us; but that would be about all. What I noticed most, however, when I got inside the forts, were some poor Chinamen who had been chained to the guns the real guns so that they should not be able to run away. Some of the gunners had been killed by our artillery fire and others wounded. The survivors, I am sure, were better treated by the conquerors than they had been by their own people. We were very merciful to the poor fellows. The capture of the Dagu forts paved the way for an advance on Beijing. Forty years of superficial peace between the Allies and China followed, ending with the old century as the Boxer Rebellion heralded the new. Marching to the Drums reveals, in the words of the survivors, just what it was like to fight for the good of the Empire around the globe. Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 93 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com