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Show Reform and Revolution the Boxer uprising of 1900, which had the makings of a trádi-tional peasant rebellion but lacked even the social objectives oí the Taiping movement. It was led by fanatical members of a secret society, who eventually got support from xenophobic officials and gentry. The gentry violently resented both the ob-vious aggressions of imperialism and the less spectacular rise of a new class of Christian converts and proteges under the wing of foreign missions and the protection of extraterritoriality. Manchu princes iinally supported this bitter and superstitious eíToit to expel the foreigner by relying on the magic "invulner-ability" of Boxer braves. In the end armed provocation by foreign troops was partly responsible for the outbreak of violence against foreigners. In this sudden frenzy the Boxers killed some 242 missionaries and other foreign civilians in North China and Manchuria. For two months in the hot summer of 1900 they besíeged the foreign cómmunity in the Pekíng legations, yet. the attack was never pushed home because leading Manchus realized its sui-cidal futility. Chinese officials in the Southern provinces quickly asserted that this was a dornestic rebellion, not the anti-foreign war which Peking had declared it to be. By this fiction the dynasty was preserved for another decade, though further humbled by the Boxer Protocol and indemnity of 1901. But the powers egregiously failed to demand or support genuino reform. Once again they used their iníluence to prop up a proíitabie though decadent status quo. 4 The Empress Dowager, on her return early in 1902 from her flight on a "tour of inspection" to the western provinces, took fu 11 responsibility for the Boxer trouble and announced a reform program. During the next decade the Manchus at-tempted, too late, to carry out many of the reforms which had been proposed during the famous Hundred Days of 1898. But history left them behind. The net effect of their reluotant reform efforts was to prepare the grouncl for the revolution. 187 |