germany and the boxer war

As we look back from the perspective of the twentieth-century experience of total war, we can see that some of the wars conducted by the colonial powers at the overseas peripheries of their empires seem to foreshadow the unlimited conflicts of a later age. One example is the war in China that took place under German supreme command in 1900-1 as a result of the Boxer Rebellion. Although the German action in China occurred on a modest scale when compared with the German colonial wars in Africa and the United States' engagement in the Philippines, German behavior in China displayed some important features of modern total war. The ideological dehumanization of the enemy and the destruction of entire villages during “cleansing operations” and “punitive actions” reminds us of activities of the German military and security forces in the twentieth century. An examination of the German expedition to China can, therefore, provide insights into the mentality that came to underpin total war.

Unlike France, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia, Germany did not take part in the wars of aggression against the Chinese empire until the very end of the nineteenth century. The seizure of Jiaozhou Bay in 1897 by the German navy was an act of limited military significance. It did not result in major bloodshed. The proper “German war in China” was restricted to a brief period of time in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion (1900-1).