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335 Germany’s involvement, motivated by self interested concerns as
A Sino-German map of the Shanhai Pass to the direction which Imperial China might now follow, was the
Probably circa 1900 culmination of several events. Two German missionaries had lost their
Ink and pigment on textile. The panoramic vista depicting the garrison lives in China during 1897, and Germany’s response had been to seize
town and pass at Shanhai in Hebei Province where the easternmost Kiachow, a process by which Tsingtao, had been virtually occupied by
part of the Great Wall and the Bohai Sea meet together; the Imperial the Imperial German Navy.
Northern Railway to Tientsin also in evidence. Some inscriptions in A subsequent diplomatic solution had not been agreed upon, creating
Chinese and German beside dwellings and gates, inscribed 山海關地 an obvious focus of tension for the anti-foreign Boxers. By the time
舆圖 or ‘Comprehensive Map of the Shanhai Pass Territories’. that Prince Duan had brought the Boxer leader, Cao Futian, to Beijing,
52cm (20 1/2in) x 92cm (36 1/4in) the German Plenipotentiary, Clemens von Kettler, had presumably
advised Berlin that swift military action was necessary. Von Kettler’s
£600 - 1,000 HK$7,100 - 12,000 assassination on June 20th, 1900 was a further catalyst.
CNY5,700 - 9,500 The map here illustrates buildings which fly the flags of France, Britain,
The Kingdom of Italy, Japan, The German Empire and The Russian
In July 1900, 15,000 Imperial Japanese troops, sent by The Meiji Empire. Fourteen years later, following another failure of diplomacy, the
Emperor, arrived in Shanhai prior to their march on Beijing in order same flags were not to appear side-by-side.
to assist the Western Legations, besieged by the Boxers. The same
month, Wilhelm II, Kaiser of Germany, addressed the German military,
embarking for China as part of a Western force of intervention whose
aim was also to suppress the Boxer uprising. The German inscriptions
on this map implies that there was also a significant German military
presence beside the Japanese in Shanhai.
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