Courrier de Chine
Dispatches from China
Lionel Landry
When our friend Lionel Landry set off as a volunteer to serve in a non-combatant capacity with the expeditionary force, he came to bid us a quick farewell. One might have believed at the time that the expedition would not become what it has become.
— I appoint you, I said to him, inspector general of men and events for the cahiers.
— I accept. Loti will do the literature and I shall do what I can of the history.
We publish today the first two dispatches.
My dear Péguy,
Here are some notes; do with them what you will. They are accurate insofar as I was able to make them so. I have removed the personal accusations that we perhaps cannot allow ourselves. People will understand, and others will speak.
Renew my subscription for my brother. Give me credit, for I have not yet grown rich. Announce everywhere that, to avoid all confusion, and given the absence of any shop where one might buy more or less honestly, I shall bring nothing back from China.
I shall try to write to you with every post.
Lionel Landry
To Lionel Landry
Tientsin, 13 November 1900
My dear Péguy,
Brought back to Tientsin by the onset of winter, I can at last send you these long-promised notes.
Not precisely the information I had announced regarding the transport of troops: there is far less to say about that than I had supposed, and it is a subject that can wait. From the moment of my arrival I saw things more interesting to record, and sadder too — things that have led old colonial hands to say that, up to now, they had never seen anything like it.
I crossed the country between Tientsin and Peking twice. It is deserted and devastated. Over an area of perhaps ten thousand square kilometres, all the inhabitants have fled and the villages are half destroyed.
Tongku, the port of Tientsin, opposite Taku, is in ruins. Only the Europeans and their coolies remain.
From Tongku to Tientsin the country is deserted.
Half the Chinese city of Tientsin is ruined. There is less reason to be astonished by this, for it was there that the most serious fighting of the war took place. In the French concession, one house in two was destroyed by the Chinese. Many were looted by troops from whom resourceful Europeans then bought back enough to stock their shops. The other concessions were spared.
Ruins are piled high in the suburbs of Tientsin, where Colonel de Pélacot fought the fierce engagements of 11 and 12 July.
Yangtsun, which had between 40,000 and 60,000 inhabitants, is now populated by 3,000 or 4,000 famished and thieving Chinese. The houses have neither doors nor windows.
On both sides of the road, on both banks of the river, the houses, the farms, the villages are looted and abandoned — except for a few old people who could not flee and are dying where they stand.
Tongzhou, a considerable city, centre of the porcelain industry, to which 200,000 or 300,000 inhabitants were attributed, now shelters perhaps 10,000. It is, in everyone’s estimation, the most tragic sight to be found in China, and in the estimation of certain officers returned from the Sudan or Tonkin, it surpasses the ordinary horrors of colonial wars.
This unhappy city had welcomed the allied troops in a friendly manner; they left it intact on their way to Peking. The detachments that followed, the stragglers, the marauders and latecomers of all nations then massacred and looted it to the point of annihilation. There, without question, women and children were killed — elsewhere too, probably. The Russians burned and sacked immense
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warehouses of tea and porcelain. The city is deserted, but the dogs have returned to the hearths they used to guard, and now die of hunger there, resigned.
Peking is half deserted: the only commerce conducted there is in looted or stolen objects.
The foreigners did as much and worse than we did.
Here is a summary account of the devastation committed by the French.
The 16th Regiment of Marine Infantry, having come from Tonkin, exasperated by the losses suffered at Tientsin, by the spectacle of Chinese massacres and looting, was not restrained by its officers, and the thirst for pillage spread to the corps that followed.
There was not to be found in the high command, once it was assumed by General Frey, that preaching by example that is necessary for leaders to keep their subordinates in the path of duty.
After Tientsin there was no more fighting; an army of looters can no longer fight. These were Dupont’s soldiers between Cordoba and Baylen. There was no resistance along the road; Peking, if defended, would have been impregnable.
The looting of Peking was thorough, and the example came from on high. What I bring here are not accusations, for I have no absolute proof, but facts true in their broad outlines, generally verified by me as to their results, and which characterise the work being accomplished here.
The imperial palace was completely emptied; yet a few cups were seen there last week; they will not remain.
Many military and civilian visitors girded themselves with binocular cases or camera pouches that gradually filled with bric-a-brac.
It seems that M. Pichon reconstituted and then some the furnishings destroyed in the French legation while he was safe in the British legation. It is said that Madame Pichon had furniture earmarked for barracks and field hospitals added to the collection.
M. Favier had remained at his post at the Peitang. He had the misfortune, if not of having the palace of Prince Li doused with petroleum and partially set ablaze — as he is accused of doing — at least of buying from looters, in exchange for cheques payable in France, the most precious objects, which he has put up for sale, at rather high prices moreover, for he is a connoisseur. He will be able to explain himself on this matter in Rome, where it is said he is going.
The nuns had themselves assigned fatigue parties of orderlies, whom they led to the good spots; they unearthed from beneath the ruins objects of great value — furs, furniture, and the like. For that matter, they do not keep shop with them and generously pass them on to the sick; needless to say, the orderlies did not forget themselves.
There is debate over the number of crates carried off by a very high-ranking officer. Some say two hundred, others two thousand. An officer saw crate Series H, number 47; the number is surely considerable. Duplicate items from the collection were sent to the Ministry of the Navy, the Louvre, and the President of the Republic. This last crate caused much talk along the route, on account of the particular care with which it was surrounded. I do not know whether the recipient gave it the welcome it deserves. Another crate, labelled “porcelain” and more discreetly transported, contained, it is said, gold ingots. I do not wish, I repeat, to formulate accusations here, but to note a state of mind and certain tendencies. A naval surgeon, more clever, dispatches his crates one by one on various convoys. On departure, he will go, like Hippocrates, with regulation trunks only. And then there are strange and murky stories of prize shares: I saw — this is certain — officers protesting loudly against fate because their share was only 1,500 francs.
Ferocity has equalled greed.
At the beginning the massacre was general; the Chinese were killed for sport, or because their hands could not be seen. Later, they only fired on those who did not carry the flag of one of the powers.
At present villages are being burned; missionaries, notably Father D., at Tongzhou, guide the columns, point out the places to loot, the houses to burn, the people to shoot. In certain areas the indigenous Catholics are armed and go off to loot their compatriots. These, for that matter, had not spared them.
The non-commissioned officers entrusted with outposts use them as a base from which to go looting at the head of a few brigands in uniform. When they meet with resistance, they have the village burned.
The marine infantry soldiers, and the others who envy and imitate them, strike the Chinese with unheard-of brutality. One soldier was hammering a Chinese man’s face with his boot and gouging out his eye, because the Chinese man had given him a bad haircut. The officer who witnessed the incident had this brute seized and will see to his future. Soldiers steal the rags off coolies to resell them to other coolies.
I heard a naval surgeon say to soldiers boarding junks: “Don’t
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take any firewood; you’ll take the coolies’ firewood. There’s no point setting up a stove; you’ll take the Chinese stove — those people don’t need to eat.”
Generally speaking the officers are outraged and distressed by the very excess and futility of these devastations. I saw, I repeat, old colonial hands, returned from the Sudan and Madagascar. This is the Voulet-Chanoine mission over ten thousand square kilometres, with a million victims. Energetic officers are trying to restore order; there are deplorable elements — half the marine infantry, all the reservists, who came to loot summer palaces. The brigands of the 16th Marine Infantry are coming down from Peking loaded with booty, which they hawk from door to door. One is driven to dream of courts-martial.
The general indignation of all thinking people, the honest leadership of General Voyron, have now more or less put a stop to the looting. But the damage is irreparable.
The Russians everywhere set the example in looting and massacre. It was they above all who destroyed Tongzhou. Their brutality, their political duplicity, excite universal disgust; people are glad to see them leave for Manchuria.
Well-informed people have told me that the articles published by the Dépêche de Toulouse on the attitude of Russia were the exact truth. I have not yet been able to read them; they foretold what we are seeing here.
There is much to say about what we are seeing here. I shall try to write to you with every post.
Generally speaking the role of the English has been inconspicuous and even ridiculous from the start. They affect the air of having done everything; your readers should correct for themselves the English exploits performed by the newspapers.
Regards to our comrades and to you.
Lionel Landry
Tientsin, 27 November 1900
My dear Péguy,
I return a little to the subject I wrote to you about last time.
Since the arrival of General Voyron, great progress has been made. In the columns of Lieutenant-Colonel Drude, Lieutenant-Colonel Chirlonchon, and General Bailloud, there was no looting, except in villages that had resisted. General Bailloud managed to ensure complete respect — at least serious and honest witnesses have told
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me so — for the part of the city occupied by French troops. He refused a rather considerable gift brought to him by notable Chinese, and he requested sheepskins for his troops, which will doubtless not go unused.
But disorder resumes as soon as the soldiers are no longer under the eye of their commanders.
For some, it is a habit that has taken hold. For others, it is the effect of the brigand stories with which their heads were filled, and of the marvellous tales circulating about the riches of the country.
Our troops are those that loot the least and are least ferocious.
It is said that the Japanese looted, for the benefit of the State and to cover the costs of the war, approximately one hundred and ten million. Naturally, the fact being certain, the figure is known only by hearsay.
The Russians looted and massacred savagely.
I have already spoken of the general disgust they inspired.
I interviewed an officer who gave me his impressions. I present them in a general way, linking together observations and remarks that he made to me in various conversations after his return from Peking:
“I am disgusted to have come here, for I have seen revolting things. I would be devastated not to have come, for the impression I have had is unforgettable.”
“In Madagascar, I had seen villainy. I had the humiliation of hearing an interpreter translate for me that the Malagasy no longer had confidence in the good faith of the French. I have never seen such devastation anywhere. The Gérard column was an isolated incident. General Galliéni had forbidden the burning of villages except in cases of absolute necessity: and even then, a market and a school were to be rebuilt immediately.”
“Here, it is those swine the Russians who set the example, and the others followed them. These are people who are, it seems, pious; that did not prevent them from looting these poor bonzeries, these little village temples, which are like our own, and from splitting open gods made of painted plaster, tow, and clay to search for treasure! This spectacle broke my heart; upon reflection one finds that the Chinese did as much and are not sympathetic — but that is no reason to become brutes like them. What breaks my heart is the collapse of morality in everyone who arrives here.”
“In fact, with the exception of a few brigands in the marine infantry (and they have officers who have reflected, who understand things and who keep them in check, for example Captain D**** at T******), our troops are still those that have looted the least. I have met those so elegant German officers who come back down from Peking parading furs that did not cost them much. In fact, a given German lieutenant has six thousand francs in savings; we have none yet.”
“General Bailloud brought honour to himself and to us at Paotingfu.”
“Militarily speaking, the only serious forces here are the French, German, and Japanese forces. The Americans are a fine band of adventurers, very handsome men and well equipped. The Indians are handsome opera brigands. The Russians are vile. They have done nothing for us, opposed difficulties to everything we asked of them, and have yielded to the Germans everything of value. They have the advantage of being somewhat in their own country and of having the equipment and organisation that the situation requires, etc., etc.”
Here I break off my interlocutor. I shall not return, I think, to the subject of looting. You have had the first impression, which was one of grief and outrage; I have since seen that there has been improvement, and that the very excess had struck ordinary minds and brought about a salutary reaction.
Besides, people will talk about all this in France, and there will be those who bell the cat. You have here sincere impressions, as accurate as possible, and stripped of partisanship.
There is much to say about the question of the missionaries. I have gathered a great many unfavourable impressions about them, but I owe it to myself to discuss and verify them.
These notes were written in haste and I have not had time to reread them. Correct them if need be; you know that I leave you complete freedom.
Yours faithfully,
Lionel Landry