Historian sheds new light on foreigners who fought in first Sino-Japanese war
- By Ni Tao
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 25, 2014
The tale of the eight foreigners who took part in the great naval battle during the first Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895) has fascinated Ma Jun for 20 years.
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The Museum of Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 (The naval commanding office of Beiyang Navy) in Liugongdao, Weihai, Shandong. |
Since 1995, the Shanghai-based historian has delved into the life of the first eight foreign mercenaries who fought on the side of China, then Qing Empire.
Although the results of that battle, which broke out on September 17, 1894, are widely known — China lost five ships, Japan none — and often cited as a source of humiliation, the involvement of foreign officers and sailors is a far less-known story.
Shedding light on their contribution and experiences helps to foster a better appreciation of the course of the war and, hopefully, reconstruct a fuller version of history, said Ma at a seminar held on September 17, the 120th anniversary of battle's start. Ma is a senior researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Modern History.
According to his research, among the eight were three Englishmen, four Germans and an American. Six suffered light or serious injuries, and two were killed in action, including gunner Thomas Nicholls (1852-1894) and engineer Alexander Purvis (1865-1894). Both were English.
The survivors, including American Vice Captain Philo Norton McGiffin (1860-1897) and British Vice Captain William Ferdinand Tyler (1865-1928), went on to recount their experiences in memoirs or commemorative essays that added to a copious amount of literature on the war.
Truer picture
By perusing their accounts, Ma said, it helped to paint a truer picture of what happened on that fateful afternoon of September 17.
For instance, it was believed that the Chinese navy was a poorly trained fleet, far less war-ready than its Japanese counterpart. But according to Tyler's memoire, “Pulling Strings in China,” the Chinese mechanics working on deck and in engine rooms were first-rate soldiers. The problem lay more with their superior officers, who, with a few exceptions, were inept and bureaucratic, Tyler was quoted as saying.
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