Miniature Wargaming --15mm Boxer Rebellion Russians

The Boxer Rebellion was a conflict that occured in 1900 in China. It began when a secret society called "Yi He Chuan" or "Yi He Tuan" emerged. The names mean "Fists of Harmonious Righteousness" and "Society of Harmonious Righteousness" respectively. It was a reactionary group that tried to use magic and Chinese mystical traditions to drive foreign influence from their nation. This included violence against missionaries and their local converts, as well as attacks on the embassies in Beijing. (It is worth mentioning that the Chinese had never really seen much purpose for embassies from foreign countries and had only permitted their appearance as one of the terms for peace following a series of conflicts with the British and other foreign nations.

A Russian force for the conflict in 15mm scale. Most of the figures are from Old Glory 15s but there is a unit of the old Frontier Miniatures infantry in front. Some liberties were taken with uniforms in that most, if I understand correctly, are wearing their winter pants with their summer shirts. This is how they are shown in the Osprey book to the period, but I've seen photos from the conflict that show them dressed entirely in their summer uniforms. In classic wargaming style, I chose color over accuracy. 

The Chinese refer to the conflict as "the Eight Nation War," because it involved warfare between their nation and eight other nations all of whom were involved in colonialist endeavors in China. In fact, however, the bulk of the foreign troops came from four of the nations. These were Britain (who sent mostly Indian troops ), the USA, Japan, and Russia. The other four nations who fought, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary sent much smaller forces, token forces,or forces that arrived after the conflict began.

Russian artillery and a pair of commanders. A force like this really should include some automatic weapons but this one doesn't. Neither range included gatling or machine guns. 

When the conflict began, Russia took advantage of the need to protect foreign interests and civilians by sending a large force into Manchuria, intent on conquest and acquisition of territory.
According to most sources, the Russian forces were very brutal and prone to mistreating and committing atrocities on the Chinese civilian population. However, according to some sources, strangely enough, the Russians, being a force of largely, unsophisticated peasants, did not have some of the condescending attitudes that other Europeans had when in China. In other words, while they did burn down houses, loot indiscriminately, and rape and brutalize people, it wasn't because they felt they were better than those people. Merely because they had the chance to do so. Yeah, not much of a consolation I know. But history is often full of strange, tragic situations.

Russian Infantry. Old Glory 15s. 

Two units of Cossacks

A unit of Russian dragoons. 

If you wish to support this blog, you can purchase these books from Amazon through these links. They are not intended to be a definitive bibliography on the subject. Cohen's a history in three keys is a classic on the conflict but sparse on military details. It does make it clear that in addition to fighting in the main conflict the Russians were fighting their own campaign in the north east. Bayonets before Bullets is considered by many to be the best book available on the Russian army of the period and how it fought and campaigned. However, it is out of print, expensive to acquire, and I read it by borrowing from the library through interlibrary loan and would recommend you consider doing so. The Osprey book on the subject is not a bad introduction although it is considered to have some innacuracies in it.

If interested, these are three of my books written by me. Please feel free to purchase them and support this blog that way as well.

    

Miniature Wargaming -- 15mm Boxer Rebellion British Force -1900

Greetings! It's been almost a month and it seems the most viewed posts on the blog are the ones with the miniature wargaming figures. Fair enough, I shall try to provide a steady stream of them, but I do hope that if you enjoy them you will also take some time and check out some of the other posts on this blog. I'm trying to post here once or twice a week with a steady flow of pieces on real history, historiography (historiography being the study of what is and is not history and how history is presented and defined), discussions of pseudo-historical claims, and product reviews --as well as photos of my and other people's miniature wargames and wargame figures. 

If you'd like, you might even leave a comment, ask a question, or see if you can get a discussion going on a post or two.

A few weeks ago, I shared photos of my American force for the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising that occurred in China in the year 1900. The uprising happened in response to Colonialist pressures on China and reactions to changes in society induced by Colonialism, and the response was large numbers of angry Chinese trying to kill missionaries and their Chinese converts, tear apart railroad tracks and telegraph lines, and besiege the foreign embassies, embassies whose presence had been imposed on China in the aftermath of previous colonial wars including the Opium War. 

Marines and sailors from several nations scrambled to defend the missionaries and their converts as well as to protect and defend their national interests. Meanwhile, an international force from several nations was gathered to march and protect the embassies were under siege. While all this was going on, the Chinese military responded by first trying to put down the Boxers but then sided with them to try to keep foreigners from invading their nations. 

The British force assembled.

This is my British force for the Boxer Rebellion. The figures are in 15mm scale where a man is approximately 15mm or a little larger. The ruler is to show scale. If one notices the British force, while quite large, actually contains very few British, but instead is mostly Indians from India. 

Another view of the assembled British force in 15mm scale.

British artillery and machine guns for the Boxer Rebellion. Details below in the close ups.

An artillery unit from Hong Kong was sent to fight in the Boxer Rebellion. They were Indians (Sikhs and Punjabis if I remember correctly but don't quote me on that) with small mountain guns. These figures and cannons come from Irregular Miniatures. 

British machine guns --the crews are Irregular Miniatures British colonial era artillery crew figures, but the guns were converted from left over plastic machine guns found in the spare parts box --the manufacturer long forgotten,.

Indian machine gun crews in British service. As above the crews are from Irregular Miniatures with the guns cobbled together from items taken from the spares box. (most serious wargamers have a spare parts box..) 

British artillery crews with larger guns as used in China. Figures and crews come from Old Glory 15s. As always painted and based by myself.

British marines circa 1900. In actual practice, in the field, they tended to take their bright,blue jackets and replace them with white clothing that they would dye tan or khaki. Yes, they would dye the while clothes themselves sometimes by soaking them in tea until they became permanently stained. On the other hand, a Boxer Rebellion force has enough tan and those blue coats look nice. Notice the officer (not in blue) and the trumpeter. Again figures are from Old Glory 15s and painted by myself.  

Sikhs with a White officer. The first allied unit to enter Beijing to lift the siege on the embassies was a unit of British sikhs. They entered the city through the sewer gate. 

British sailors formed into a naval landing party for duty on land. These figures are from minifigs, probably from their Zulu War range. It's tough to say after many years.

Bengal lancers. If you've got a British colonial force, well, you've got to include Bengal lancers. And, yes, several units of Bengal lancers were sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion. Most fought quite well. 

This is an unusual unit that served in the British force during the Boxer Rebellion. The British at the time had not only taken Hong Kong as their colony (I feel compelled to point out that when the British took Hong Kong from the Chinese there was no city there. The city developed under the British.) but they had also taken an area of China called Wei-Hai-Wei and made it another colony. For several reasons, the British raised a regiment of soldiers there and recruited them from the local populace. So at the beginning of the Boxer Uprising the British had a regiment of Chinese troops with White officers already in China. This became part of the British forces that fought against the Boxers. They fought quite well, much to the surprise of many. The surprise was not only that the Chinese fought well against other Chinese but that many Europeans did not believe Chinese were genetically capable of being good soldiers. The British proved that with good leadership and training, they were quite capable of becoming good soldiers.






Another view of the Chinese Regiment in the British army in 15mm scale. Again the figures are manufactured by Old Glory 15s and painted by me.




A close up of soldiers of the Chinese regiment. Three troopers and a White officer.

Finally, the only actual non-colonial infantry unit that fought for the British in the Boxer Rebellion, the Welsh Fusiliers. A distinguished regiment, this regiment fought well in the conflict. Two points of history. First, ever since the Boxer Rebellion, the Welsh Fusiliers and the United States Marine Corp swap Birthday cards on their birthday in memory of having served side by side in this conflict. Second, this same regiment, over a century previously, had fought in the American revolution.

Although few modernized military forces of the time carried flags in battle at this time, during the Boxer Rebellion many of the allied units took to carrying national flags while in combat during the conflict. This was to reduce friendly fire incidents.  

A second shot of the Welsh Fusiliers in 15mm scale. These figures, again, are from Old Glory 15s and painted by myself.