Battle of Taku Forts (1859)
Encyclopedia
The Second Battle of Taku Forts, in June 1859, was an Anglo
-French
attack on a series of Chinese
forts protecting Taku, China during the Second Opium War
. A chartered American
steamship arrived on scene and assisted the French and British in their attempted suppression of the Taku Forts
.
Taku is a village near the mouth of the Pei-ho River
, which flows between low, muddy banks and runs into the Gulf of Pe-cho-li
. Thirty-four miles above the river is Tientsin, constructed at the fork of the Pei-ho with the Grand Canal. Tientsin is the port of Peking and a place of much commerce. Peking is the capital of China and is about eighty miles above Tientsin. In the year 1858, French and British forces had battled
their way to Tientsin, passing the Taku Forts at the Pei-ho's mouth with little difficulty, the works were insufficiently armed and held by a weak garrison
which put up little defense. When Tientsin was occupied, the Chinese sued for peace, thus the first period of the war ended and a treaty was signed there containing among other stipulations, an agreement that the s of British and France were to be received at Peking within a year, and that the treaty was to be ratified there. Now the Chinese, as soon as the allies withdrew from Tientsin, began to regret having consented to allow the foreign ambassadors to enter their capital and attempted to have it arranged so that the treaty would be ratified elsewhere. The United Kingdom and France insisted on the original agreement and when the envoys of the two countries arrived off the mouth of the Pei-ho in June 1859 and announced their intention of proceeding up the river to Peking. They were opposed by the garrison of Taku.
A British fleet, under the command of Admiral
James Hope, escorted them for protection against the Chinese fortifications. It was found that not only had the forts at the river mouth, which had easily been silenced the year before, been put into a state of repair, also, the river was blocked for stopping anything larger than rowing boats by a series of strong metal barriers. The Admiral was informed that these had been placed on the river to keep out pirates and it was promised by the Chinese government that they would be removed. Despite the promise, the local Mandarins
began to start work on strengthening the defences of the river. On June 21, Admiral Hope sent the Chinese commander, Hang Foo, a letter warning him that if the obstructions were not cleared out of the channel of the Pei-ho by the evening of the 24, he would remove them by force. Three days of peace passed and the Chinese failed to remove their defenses so the Anglo-French fleet began to prepare for battle. Hope had several powerful ships in his squadron, none of these could take a direct part in the coming fight though. This was due to the entrance of the Pei-ho, which was obstructed by a wide stretch of shallows, the depth of water on the bar being only two feet at low tide, and a little more than eleven at high tide.
Because of this, the British could only rely on eleven steam powered gunboat
s for the actual fight against the Chinese forts. The Royal Navy
gunboats were small wooden steamers of light draft built during the Crimean War
for service in the shallow waters of the Baltic
and Black Sea
s. Admiral Hope crossed the bar with his eleven boats and anchored below the forts on the June 23. The gunboats were; HMS Plover, HMS Banterer, HMS Forester, HMS Haughty, HMS Janus, HMS Kestrel, HMS Lee, HMS Opossum and HMS Starling all of four guns apiece. HMS Nimrod and HMS Cormorant , both of six guns, were also present. Each of the gunboats had a crew of around fifty or sixty officers and men, so that the eleven small steamers together brought forty-eight guns
and 500 men into the battle. The more heavily armed steamers, outside the sand bar, were to offload another 500 or 600 men, marines
and sailors via steam launches, boats and an unknown number of junks
. This force was meant to be used as a landing party to attack the forts once they had been silenced.
A French frigate
, the Duhalya, was also on the scene but was too large to engage in the battle. Her crew would participate in the final land engagement. None of the Britons expected that the ensuing battle would prove a difficult task. The Taku Forts consisted of many structures, a big Chinese fort on the south side protected the coast, with earthen rampart
s stretching nearly half a mile long, and guard towers behind them. At the other end of the complex sat another large fortress on the north bank of the river, many other smaller forts sat in between the two larger forts. Though the British believed that only a small Chinese garrison held the defences, this due to a previous bombardment
and attack in which the British and French successfully captured the positions. After this engagement it was found that hundreds of artillery pieces
protected the forts with hundreds of Qing Army troops.
, and a few enlisted men to examine the obstacles in the river and see what he could do to remove them. Three armed launches, filled with explosives, accompanied Captain Willes. Rowing up quietly under cover of the darkness, Willes discovered a row of iron stakes, each topped with a sharp spike and supported with a tripod base. The spikes were positioned so that they could pierce through the hull of a ship coming up the river at high tide. The first barrier was just opposite the lower side of the big South Fort as it was called. After passing cautiously between two of the spikes, the British sailors rowed up the river for a quarter of a mile when they came to a second barrier. The barrier was a heavy cable of cocao fibre and two chain cables, all strewn across the channel, twelve feet apart and supported at every thirty feet by a floating boom, securely anchored up and down the river's flow. Two of the British boats were left to place a mine
under the middle of the second floating barrier. Captain Willes pushed on farther into the darkness, headed for a third obstacle in the Pei-ho of two huge rafts, moored as to leave only a narrow channel in middle of the waterway, this passage was also defended with large iron spikes.
Willes got out on one of the rafts and got on hands and knees and after investigating the situation, Willes decided that mere ramming with a gunboat's prow would not be enough to displace the barricade. As he lay on the raft he could see the Chinese sentries on the riverbank, but was unseen by them. Returning to his boat, he rode the Pei-ho's current back down to the second barrier. By this time the mine was ready and once the fuse was lit, the Britons pulled down the stream to the main flotilla
. The resulting explosion revealed the Briton's presence to a Chinese artillery battery
who proceeded with firing a few cannon shots from the South Fort but the cannon ball
s missed. The small expedition was regarded as a complete success; despite Willes failure to destroy two of the three barriers. Before the next morning the Chinese had repaired the space blown clear by the mine, thus rendering Willes mission as pointless. On Saturday morning, June 25, reportedly a bright and hot day, the gunboat flotilla cleared for action. Admiral Hope’s orders were that nine of the ships should anchor close to the first barrier and bring their guns to bear on the forts, while the two others break through the barriers and clear the way for a further advance.
High tide came at 11:30 am, and it was intended that all of the gunboats would be in position by that time. However, the difficulty of moving so many ships in a narrow channel no more than 200 yards wide, with a strong current and with mud banks covered by shallow water on each side, moving gunboats through the channel proved to be a great risk and it was not long before Banterer and Starling were aground. During all of the initial maneuvers, the Chinese forts had not shown any sign of life. Their embrasures were closed; a few black flags flew on the upper works, not a single soldier was seen on the mud ramparts. Plover, with all steam and Admiral Hope aboard, was close to the first barrier of iron spikes with Opossum, now commanded by Captain Willes. The task of Opossum was to destroy the first obstacle. Upon a signal from the Rear Admiral, Opossum attached a cable, passed it over one of her winches, reversed her engines, and tried rip the spike up and out of the river bottom. It was so well emplaced that it was not until 2:30 am, after half an hour of work, that the obstacle finally gave way and removed. The British commander in Plover now steamed through the gap opened by Opossum.
The two little gun boats approached the floating barrier. It was at this point the Chinese in the South Fort opened fire from a leftmost rampart. Immediately along the walls of all the forts; banners were raised on every flag pole, embrasures were opened and guns pushed out. From about 600 yards away on the leftmost rampart and from the front of the North Fort, the Chinese artillery rapidly fired amazingly accurate cannon shots, aimed at the leading ships. General Hope Grant's signal came, "Engage the enemy," flew from the masthead of Plover; her four guns opened, three of them on the big fort to the left. Two hundred yards off, the other gun responded to the North Fort. After the other ten gunboats received the signal, they began to open fire on the Chinese positions. The battle was a close quarters gunnery action, the Chinese fire, instead of slackening from British return fire, seemed to have grown fiercer. The British later reported that when one gun and crew were killed by their fire, another gun and crew would quickly filling the embrasure. Chinese troops fired so steadily and aimed that for years afterwards many of the British veterans believed that trained Europe
an artillerymen were actually firing the Chinese gun batteries. After less than twenty minutes, Plover had thirty-one killed or wounded out of a forty-man crew.
Her commander, Lieutenant
Rason, was cut in half by a round shot; James Hope was wounded in the thigh but refused to leave the deck and Captain McKenna, who was attached to his staff, was killed while at Hope's side. Only nine unwounded men were left on board, but they, with the help of some of their fellow wounded crew, kept two of the guns in action. They fought on a deck covered with blood and bits of splintered wood. Around this time the American steamer Toey-Wan of the Pacific Squadron
arrived and anchored outside the bar. Commodore Josiah Tattnall
of the United States Navy
was on board, and he went to Plover, under fire from the Chinese guns, to offer assistance to the British. Commodore Tattnall, a veteran of the War of 1812
, put aside his mistrust of the British and justified his presence by stating "blood is thicker than water
", a now famous saying. The United States government, as a neutral power, did not order any American vessels to proceed in this attack. Tattnall offered to send in his steam launch to help evacuate the dead and wounded from danger, an offer which was gratefully accepted by the Britons. When Tattnall left Rear Admiral Hope for Powhatan in his launch, he was forced to wait a moment at Plovers port side for his men who had come aboard with the Commodore. A moment later a few men returned, covered in black powder marks and sweaty from excitement.
The American Commodore asked, "What have you been doing, you rascals?" "Don’t you know we're neutrals" "Beg pardon, sir," said one of the men, "but they were a bit short-handed with the bow-gun, and we thought it no harm to give them a hand while we were waiting." At 3:00 pm, James Hope ordered Plover, now nearly destroyed, to drop down the river to a safer station, and he transferred his flag to Opossum. A few minutes later, a round shot crashed through Opossums rigging close to the Admiral, knocking him down and breaking three of his ribs; a bandage was fastened around his chest and he was seated on the deck of the gunboat where he still kept his command. Later on he even insisted on being lifted into its barge
in order to visit and encourage the crews of Haughty and Lee. "Opossum, ahoy!" called an officer from Haughty, "Your stern is on fire." "Can't help it", shouted back Opossums commander. "Can’t spare men to put it out. Have only enough to keep our guns going." After this Opossum was apparently relieved and gave up the fight for a while to steam down to the first barrier. Lee and Haughty now bore the brunt of the engagement, they suffered severely. Everything on the two gunboat's decks was turned into scraps from Chinese fire and Lee was hit well in several places at and below the water line.
Woods, her boatswain
, informed her commander, Lieutenant Jones, that unless holes in his hull could be plugged Lee would sink, as her pumps and engine could not get the water out as fast as it was rushing in. "Well, then, we must sink," said the lieutenant; "you cant get at the worst of the holes from inside, and I'm not going to order a man to go over the side with the tide running down like this, and our propeller going." Woods replied by promptly volunteering to go over the side and see what he could do. His commander warned him that the screw
must be kept going, or the ship would drift out of place. Besides the possibility of drowning, Woods would risk being killed by the propeller blades; but Woods, went over the side anyway, with a line around his waist and with a few plugs and rags in his hands. when Woods dove in he was almost swept up by the screw several times. Fortunately for him, he was capable of escaping the screw and successfully plugged several shot-holes. All of this became unnecessary though because Lee continued to fill up with river water and had to give up her place in the fight to run aground, preventing her sinking. Cormorant which was now the flagship
, replaced the grounded Lee. Plover, after severe damage was sunk just after Admiral Hope transferred to the other gunboat. Hope suffered from fainting at some point so his doctors persuaded him to send himself to one of the three steamships on the other side of the bar. Captain Shadwell, the next senior officer, then took command of the attacking fleet. At 5:30 pm and after three hours of fighting, Kestrel sank at her anchors. Of the eleven gunboats, six were sunk, disabled or put out of action. The fire of the Chinese forts was slackening though and at 6:30 pm, after a rushed meeting aboard Cormorant, it was resolved to commence with a land attack of marines and sailors who had been waiting in small boats and junks inside the bar. Their objective was to capture the South Fort by means of a frontal assault. The time was after 7:00 pm and very little daylight was left for the landing party, when the boats were towed in by Opossum, Toey Wan and one of the armed steamships, chartered from Chinese sailors.
Captain Shadwell took command of the landing party, which was made up of sailors under Captain Vansittart, and Commander
s Heath and Commerell. Sixty French sailors, under a Commander Tricault, of Duhalya accompanied Captain Shadwell. The marines were under Colonel Lemon and a party of sapper
s with ladders for scaling walls. As the boats pulled into the shore, the fire from the North Fort had ceased, and only an occasional shot was fired from the long rampart of the South fort. The landing zone area was 500 yards in front of the rightmost bastion
of the South Fort. The tide had fallen so far that it was not possible to get very near to the actual shore, this made the landing of almost 1,200 men more difficult than it could have been if the tide was still high. The column of land forces had to make its way across the said 500 yards of mud, weeds, and small pools of water, the ground was reportedly so soft in places that a man could sink to his waist if they step in the wrong spot. As soon as the men of the first landing boat stepped ashore, the entire front of the South Fort responded with a large salvo of cannon fire. The silence of the Chinese guns was obviously a ruse
meant to lure the British and French into making a land attack. The plan of the Chinese worked perfectly. Once hearing the sounds of the South Fort, the gunboats resumed fire until the land force began their advance on the fort.
The Chinese gunners concentrated their cannons, swivel gun
s and rocket
s on the landing party. As the Britons and French came within range, Chinese riflemen and archer
s opened upon them from a crowded crest of the South Fort's rampart. As the Anglo-French shore party struggled onwards, round shot, grape shot and balls from the Chinese swivel guns, musket
s, rockets and arrow
s, fell among the allies in showers according to survivors. Captain Shadwell was one of the first men wounded; Vansittart fell, with one leg wounded by a musket ball. Dozens of dead and wounded lay on the field. The wounded had to be carried back to the boats to save them from sinking in the mud. Three broad ditches lay between the landing zone and the fort. No more than 150 men reached the second of these and only fifty advanced to the third which was just below the Chinese rampart. The British and French ammunition cartridges were nearly all useless from moist terrain, and had only one scaling ladder by the time they reached the wall. The ladder was raised against the rampart, and ten men were climbing up it when a volley of small arms fire from above killed three men and wounded five others.
The ladder was then thrown back by the Chinese and broken. The British and French were forced to retreat to their boats after facing firm resistance. By the time of retreat the sky was dark but was kept lit by the Chinese who burnt blue lights and launched rockets and fireballs at the retiring French and Britons. After this the battle was over. Sixty-eight men were killed in the land attack and nearly 300 wounded. Twelve of the dead were Frenchmen, along with twenty-three of the wounded, the French commander was also wounded. Eighty-one Britons in total died as result of the fighting with a total of 345 wounded. Sometime during the battle, an American launch, evacuating wounded and with Commodore Josiah Tattnall on board, was attacked by Chinese batteries, one American sailor was killed and one other was slightly wounded, the Commodore was unharmed. Several of the landing boats had been sunk while waiting on the river bank during the land battle. When the Franco and Anglo force retreated, many had to wait in the water till they could be extracted. At 1:00 am on June 26, the last men of the landing party re-embarked their ships. The remaining gunboats retreated down to the bar. Another shore party was sent in later that morning, their mission was to blow up or burn the grounded gunboats that could not be freed and were in threat of being captured by the Chinese, whether this mission was completed or not is not known, though two of the grounded gunboats are said to have been re-floated. Chinese strength and casualties are unknown.
The battle on the Pei-ho ended. Within the next year an allied force of British and French troops, under General
Sir James Hope Grant
and General
de Montauban
, launched an expedition. This engagement led to the 1860 Third Battle of Taku Forts
in which the allies were successful, the Second Opium War ended soon after.
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
-French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
attack on a series of Chinese
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
forts protecting Taku, China during the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
. A chartered American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
steamship arrived on scene and assisted the French and British in their attempted suppression of the Taku Forts
Taku Forts
The Dagu Forts , also called the Peiho Forts are forts located by the Hai River estuary, in Tanggu District, Tianjin municipality, in northeastern China. They are located 60 km southeast of the Tianjin urban center.-History:The first fort was built during the reign of the Ming Jiajing...
.
Background
Hai River
The Hai River , previously called Bai He , is a river in the People's Republic of China which flows through Beijing and Tianjin before emptying into the Yellow Sea at the Bohai Gulf.The Hai River at Tianjin is formed by the confluence of five rivers, the Southern Canal, Ziya...
, which flows between low, muddy banks and runs into the Gulf of Pe-cho-li
Bohai Bay
Bohai Bay is one of the three bays forming the Bohai Gulf, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, in northeast China. It borders Hebei province and Tianjin Municipality...
. Thirty-four miles above the river is Tientsin, constructed at the fork of the Pei-ho with the Grand Canal. Tientsin is the port of Peking and a place of much commerce. Peking is the capital of China and is about eighty miles above Tientsin. In the year 1858, French and British forces had battled
Battle of Taku Forts (1858)
The First Battle of Taku Forts on May 20, 1858 was an engagement of the Second Opium War. The British and French sent a squadron of gunboats, under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, to attack China's Taku Forts. The battle ended as an allied success...
their way to Tientsin, passing the Taku Forts at the Pei-ho's mouth with little difficulty, the works were insufficiently armed and held by a weak garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
which put up little defense. When Tientsin was occupied, the Chinese sued for peace, thus the first period of the war ended and a treaty was signed there containing among other stipulations, an agreement that the s of British and France were to be received at Peking within a year, and that the treaty was to be ratified there. Now the Chinese, as soon as the allies withdrew from Tientsin, began to regret having consented to allow the foreign ambassadors to enter their capital and attempted to have it arranged so that the treaty would be ratified elsewhere. The United Kingdom and France insisted on the original agreement and when the envoys of the two countries arrived off the mouth of the Pei-ho in June 1859 and announced their intention of proceeding up the river to Peking. They were opposed by the garrison of Taku.
A British fleet, under the command of Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
James Hope, escorted them for protection against the Chinese fortifications. It was found that not only had the forts at the river mouth, which had easily been silenced the year before, been put into a state of repair, also, the river was blocked for stopping anything larger than rowing boats by a series of strong metal barriers. The Admiral was informed that these had been placed on the river to keep out pirates and it was promised by the Chinese government that they would be removed. Despite the promise, the local Mandarins
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
began to start work on strengthening the defences of the river. On June 21, Admiral Hope sent the Chinese commander, Hang Foo, a letter warning him that if the obstructions were not cleared out of the channel of the Pei-ho by the evening of the 24, he would remove them by force. Three days of peace passed and the Chinese failed to remove their defenses so the Anglo-French fleet began to prepare for battle. Hope had several powerful ships in his squadron, none of these could take a direct part in the coming fight though. This was due to the entrance of the Pei-ho, which was obstructed by a wide stretch of shallows, the depth of water on the bar being only two feet at low tide, and a little more than eleven at high tide.
Because of this, the British could only rely on eleven steam powered gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
s for the actual fight against the Chinese forts. The Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
gunboats were small wooden steamers of light draft built during the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
for service in the shallow waters of the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
s. Admiral Hope crossed the bar with his eleven boats and anchored below the forts on the June 23. The gunboats were; HMS Plover, HMS Banterer, HMS Forester, HMS Haughty, HMS Janus, HMS Kestrel, HMS Lee, HMS Opossum and HMS Starling all of four guns apiece. HMS Nimrod and HMS Cormorant , both of six guns, were also present. Each of the gunboats had a crew of around fifty or sixty officers and men, so that the eleven small steamers together brought forty-eight guns
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
and 500 men into the battle. The more heavily armed steamers, outside the sand bar, were to offload another 500 or 600 men, marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
and sailors via steam launches, boats and an unknown number of junks
Junk (ship)
A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages...
. This force was meant to be used as a landing party to attack the forts once they had been silenced.
A French frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
, the Duhalya, was also on the scene but was too large to engage in the battle. Her crew would participate in the final land engagement. None of the Britons expected that the ensuing battle would prove a difficult task. The Taku Forts consisted of many structures, a big Chinese fort on the south side protected the coast, with earthen rampart
Defensive wall
A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements...
s stretching nearly half a mile long, and guard towers behind them. At the other end of the complex sat another large fortress on the north bank of the river, many other smaller forts sat in between the two larger forts. Though the British believed that only a small Chinese garrison held the defences, this due to a previous bombardment
Battle of Taku Forts (1858)
The First Battle of Taku Forts on May 20, 1858 was an engagement of the Second Opium War. The British and French sent a squadron of gunboats, under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, to attack China's Taku Forts. The battle ended as an allied success...
and attack in which the British and French successfully captured the positions. After this engagement it was found that hundreds of artillery pieces
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
protected the forts with hundreds of Qing Army troops.
Battle
On the evening of June 24, no answer having been received from the Chinese commander, Rear Admiral Hope announced that the attack would be made within next day and after dark the General sent in one of his officers, Captain George WillesGeorge Willes
Admiral Sir George Ommanney Willes GCB was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.-Naval career:...
, and a few enlisted men to examine the obstacles in the river and see what he could do to remove them. Three armed launches, filled with explosives, accompanied Captain Willes. Rowing up quietly under cover of the darkness, Willes discovered a row of iron stakes, each topped with a sharp spike and supported with a tripod base. The spikes were positioned so that they could pierce through the hull of a ship coming up the river at high tide. The first barrier was just opposite the lower side of the big South Fort as it was called. After passing cautiously between two of the spikes, the British sailors rowed up the river for a quarter of a mile when they came to a second barrier. The barrier was a heavy cable of cocao fibre and two chain cables, all strewn across the channel, twelve feet apart and supported at every thirty feet by a floating boom, securely anchored up and down the river's flow. Two of the British boats were left to place a mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
under the middle of the second floating barrier. Captain Willes pushed on farther into the darkness, headed for a third obstacle in the Pei-ho of two huge rafts, moored as to leave only a narrow channel in middle of the waterway, this passage was also defended with large iron spikes.
Willes got out on one of the rafts and got on hands and knees and after investigating the situation, Willes decided that mere ramming with a gunboat's prow would not be enough to displace the barricade. As he lay on the raft he could see the Chinese sentries on the riverbank, but was unseen by them. Returning to his boat, he rode the Pei-ho's current back down to the second barrier. By this time the mine was ready and once the fuse was lit, the Britons pulled down the stream to the main flotilla
Flotilla
A flotilla , or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class of warship, such as frigates, destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, gunboats, or minesweepers...
. The resulting explosion revealed the Briton's presence to a Chinese artillery battery
Artillery battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
who proceeded with firing a few cannon shots from the South Fort but the cannon ball
Round shot
Round shot is a solid projectile without explosive charge, fired from a cannon. As the name implies, round shot is spherical; its diameter is slightly less than the bore of the gun it is fired from.Round shot was made in early times from dressed stone, but by the 17th century, from iron...
s missed. The small expedition was regarded as a complete success; despite Willes failure to destroy two of the three barriers. Before the next morning the Chinese had repaired the space blown clear by the mine, thus rendering Willes mission as pointless. On Saturday morning, June 25, reportedly a bright and hot day, the gunboat flotilla cleared for action. Admiral Hope’s orders were that nine of the ships should anchor close to the first barrier and bring their guns to bear on the forts, while the two others break through the barriers and clear the way for a further advance.
High tide came at 11:30 am, and it was intended that all of the gunboats would be in position by that time. However, the difficulty of moving so many ships in a narrow channel no more than 200 yards wide, with a strong current and with mud banks covered by shallow water on each side, moving gunboats through the channel proved to be a great risk and it was not long before Banterer and Starling were aground. During all of the initial maneuvers, the Chinese forts had not shown any sign of life. Their embrasures were closed; a few black flags flew on the upper works, not a single soldier was seen on the mud ramparts. Plover, with all steam and Admiral Hope aboard, was close to the first barrier of iron spikes with Opossum, now commanded by Captain Willes. The task of Opossum was to destroy the first obstacle. Upon a signal from the Rear Admiral, Opossum attached a cable, passed it over one of her winches, reversed her engines, and tried rip the spike up and out of the river bottom. It was so well emplaced that it was not until 2:30 am, after half an hour of work, that the obstacle finally gave way and removed. The British commander in Plover now steamed through the gap opened by Opossum.
The two little gun boats approached the floating barrier. It was at this point the Chinese in the South Fort opened fire from a leftmost rampart. Immediately along the walls of all the forts; banners were raised on every flag pole, embrasures were opened and guns pushed out. From about 600 yards away on the leftmost rampart and from the front of the North Fort, the Chinese artillery rapidly fired amazingly accurate cannon shots, aimed at the leading ships. General Hope Grant's signal came, "Engage the enemy," flew from the masthead of Plover; her four guns opened, three of them on the big fort to the left. Two hundred yards off, the other gun responded to the North Fort. After the other ten gunboats received the signal, they began to open fire on the Chinese positions. The battle was a close quarters gunnery action, the Chinese fire, instead of slackening from British return fire, seemed to have grown fiercer. The British later reported that when one gun and crew were killed by their fire, another gun and crew would quickly filling the embrasure. Chinese troops fired so steadily and aimed that for years afterwards many of the British veterans believed that trained Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an artillerymen were actually firing the Chinese gun batteries. After less than twenty minutes, Plover had thirty-one killed or wounded out of a forty-man crew.
Her commander, Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Rason, was cut in half by a round shot; James Hope was wounded in the thigh but refused to leave the deck and Captain McKenna, who was attached to his staff, was killed while at Hope's side. Only nine unwounded men were left on board, but they, with the help of some of their fellow wounded crew, kept two of the guns in action. They fought on a deck covered with blood and bits of splintered wood. Around this time the American steamer Toey-Wan of the Pacific Squadron
Pacific Squadron
The Pacific Squadron was part of the United States Navy squadron stationed in the Pacific Ocean in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Initially with no United States ports in the Pacific, they operated out of storeships which provided naval supplies and purchased food and obtained water from local...
arrived and anchored outside the bar. Commodore Josiah Tattnall
Josiah Tattnall
Commodore Josiah Tattnall, Jr. was an officer in the United States Navy during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War, and the Mexican-American War. He later served in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War....
of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
was on board, and he went to Plover, under fire from the Chinese guns, to offer assistance to the British. Commodore Tattnall, a veteran of the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, put aside his mistrust of the British and justified his presence by stating "blood is thicker than water
Blood is thicker than water
"Blood is thicker than water" is a German proverb , which is also common in English speaking countries. It generally means that the bonds of family and common ancestry are stronger than those bonds between unrelated people .It first appeared in the medieval German beast epic Reinhart Ficks "Blood...
", a now famous saying. The United States government, as a neutral power, did not order any American vessels to proceed in this attack. Tattnall offered to send in his steam launch to help evacuate the dead and wounded from danger, an offer which was gratefully accepted by the Britons. When Tattnall left Rear Admiral Hope for Powhatan in his launch, he was forced to wait a moment at Plovers port side for his men who had come aboard with the Commodore. A moment later a few men returned, covered in black powder marks and sweaty from excitement.
The American Commodore asked, "What have you been doing, you rascals?" "Don’t you know we're neutrals" "Beg pardon, sir," said one of the men, "but they were a bit short-handed with the bow-gun, and we thought it no harm to give them a hand while we were waiting." At 3:00 pm, James Hope ordered Plover, now nearly destroyed, to drop down the river to a safer station, and he transferred his flag to Opossum. A few minutes later, a round shot crashed through Opossums rigging close to the Admiral, knocking him down and breaking three of his ribs; a bandage was fastened around his chest and he was seated on the deck of the gunboat where he still kept his command. Later on he even insisted on being lifted into its barge
Barge
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...
in order to visit and encourage the crews of Haughty and Lee. "Opossum, ahoy!" called an officer from Haughty, "Your stern is on fire." "Can't help it", shouted back Opossums commander. "Can’t spare men to put it out. Have only enough to keep our guns going." After this Opossum was apparently relieved and gave up the fight for a while to steam down to the first barrier. Lee and Haughty now bore the brunt of the engagement, they suffered severely. Everything on the two gunboat's decks was turned into scraps from Chinese fire and Lee was hit well in several places at and below the water line.
Woods, her boatswain
Boatswain
A boatswain , bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun is an unlicensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The boatswain supervises the other unlicensed members of the ship's deck department, and typically is not a watchstander, except on vessels with small crews...
, informed her commander, Lieutenant Jones, that unless holes in his hull could be plugged Lee would sink, as her pumps and engine could not get the water out as fast as it was rushing in. "Well, then, we must sink," said the lieutenant; "you cant get at the worst of the holes from inside, and I'm not going to order a man to go over the side with the tide running down like this, and our propeller going." Woods replied by promptly volunteering to go over the side and see what he could do. His commander warned him that the screw
Screw
A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...
must be kept going, or the ship would drift out of place. Besides the possibility of drowning, Woods would risk being killed by the propeller blades; but Woods, went over the side anyway, with a line around his waist and with a few plugs and rags in his hands. when Woods dove in he was almost swept up by the screw several times. Fortunately for him, he was capable of escaping the screw and successfully plugged several shot-holes. All of this became unnecessary though because Lee continued to fill up with river water and had to give up her place in the fight to run aground, preventing her sinking. Cormorant which was now the flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
, replaced the grounded Lee. Plover, after severe damage was sunk just after Admiral Hope transferred to the other gunboat. Hope suffered from fainting at some point so his doctors persuaded him to send himself to one of the three steamships on the other side of the bar. Captain Shadwell, the next senior officer, then took command of the attacking fleet. At 5:30 pm and after three hours of fighting, Kestrel sank at her anchors. Of the eleven gunboats, six were sunk, disabled or put out of action. The fire of the Chinese forts was slackening though and at 6:30 pm, after a rushed meeting aboard Cormorant, it was resolved to commence with a land attack of marines and sailors who had been waiting in small boats and junks inside the bar. Their objective was to capture the South Fort by means of a frontal assault. The time was after 7:00 pm and very little daylight was left for the landing party, when the boats were towed in by Opossum, Toey Wan and one of the armed steamships, chartered from Chinese sailors.
Captain Shadwell took command of the landing party, which was made up of sailors under Captain Vansittart, and Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
s Heath and Commerell. Sixty French sailors, under a Commander Tricault, of Duhalya accompanied Captain Shadwell. The marines were under Colonel Lemon and a party of sapper
Sapper
A sapper, pioneer or combat engineer is a combatant soldier who performs a wide variety of combat engineering duties, typically including, but not limited to, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, general construction and building, as well as road and airfield...
s with ladders for scaling walls. As the boats pulled into the shore, the fire from the North Fort had ceased, and only an occasional shot was fired from the long rampart of the South fort. The landing zone area was 500 yards in front of the rightmost bastion
Bastion
A bastion, or a bulwark, is a structure projecting outward from the main enclosure of a fortification, situated in both corners of a straight wall , facilitating active defence against assaulting troops...
of the South Fort. The tide had fallen so far that it was not possible to get very near to the actual shore, this made the landing of almost 1,200 men more difficult than it could have been if the tide was still high. The column of land forces had to make its way across the said 500 yards of mud, weeds, and small pools of water, the ground was reportedly so soft in places that a man could sink to his waist if they step in the wrong spot. As soon as the men of the first landing boat stepped ashore, the entire front of the South Fort responded with a large salvo of cannon fire. The silence of the Chinese guns was obviously a ruse
Deception
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, bad faith, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth . Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment...
meant to lure the British and French into making a land attack. The plan of the Chinese worked perfectly. Once hearing the sounds of the South Fort, the gunboats resumed fire until the land force began their advance on the fort.
The Chinese gunners concentrated their cannons, swivel gun
Swivel gun
The term swivel gun usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to...
s and rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
s on the landing party. As the Britons and French came within range, Chinese riflemen and archer
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
s opened upon them from a crowded crest of the South Fort's rampart. As the Anglo-French shore party struggled onwards, round shot, grape shot and balls from the Chinese swivel guns, musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
s, rockets and arrow
Arrow
An arrow is a shafted projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.An arrow usually consists of a shaft with an arrowhead attached to the front end, with fletchings and a nock at the other.- History:...
s, fell among the allies in showers according to survivors. Captain Shadwell was one of the first men wounded; Vansittart fell, with one leg wounded by a musket ball. Dozens of dead and wounded lay on the field. The wounded had to be carried back to the boats to save them from sinking in the mud. Three broad ditches lay between the landing zone and the fort. No more than 150 men reached the second of these and only fifty advanced to the third which was just below the Chinese rampart. The British and French ammunition cartridges were nearly all useless from moist terrain, and had only one scaling ladder by the time they reached the wall. The ladder was raised against the rampart, and ten men were climbing up it when a volley of small arms fire from above killed three men and wounded five others.
The ladder was then thrown back by the Chinese and broken. The British and French were forced to retreat to their boats after facing firm resistance. By the time of retreat the sky was dark but was kept lit by the Chinese who burnt blue lights and launched rockets and fireballs at the retiring French and Britons. After this the battle was over. Sixty-eight men were killed in the land attack and nearly 300 wounded. Twelve of the dead were Frenchmen, along with twenty-three of the wounded, the French commander was also wounded. Eighty-one Britons in total died as result of the fighting with a total of 345 wounded. Sometime during the battle, an American launch, evacuating wounded and with Commodore Josiah Tattnall on board, was attacked by Chinese batteries, one American sailor was killed and one other was slightly wounded, the Commodore was unharmed. Several of the landing boats had been sunk while waiting on the river bank during the land battle. When the Franco and Anglo force retreated, many had to wait in the water till they could be extracted. At 1:00 am on June 26, the last men of the landing party re-embarked their ships. The remaining gunboats retreated down to the bar. Another shore party was sent in later that morning, their mission was to blow up or burn the grounded gunboats that could not be freed and were in threat of being captured by the Chinese, whether this mission was completed or not is not known, though two of the grounded gunboats are said to have been re-floated. Chinese strength and casualties are unknown.
The battle on the Pei-ho ended. Within the next year an allied force of British and French troops, under General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Sir James Hope Grant
James Hope Grant
General Sir James Hope Grant GCB , British general, was the fifth and youngest son of Francis Grant of Kilgraston, Perthshire, and brother of Sir Francis Grant, President of the Royal Academy.-Military career:...
and General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
de Montauban
Charles Cousin-Montauban, Comte de Palikao
Charles Guillaume Marie Appollinaire Antoine Cousin Montauban, comte de Palikao was a French general and statesman.-Biography:Montauban was born in Paris. As a cavalry officer he saw much service in Algeria, but he was still only a colonel when in 1847 he effected the capture of Abdel Kadir...
, launched an expedition. This engagement led to the 1860 Third Battle of Taku Forts
Battle of Taku Forts (1860)
The Third Battle of Taku Forts was an engagement of the Second Opium War, part of the British and French 1860 expedition to China. It took place at the Taku Forts near Tanggu District , approximately 60 kilometers southeast of Tianjin City .-Background:The aim of the allied French-British...
in which the allies were successful, the Second Opium War ended soon after.