Combat· Boxer Rebellion
Tartar Wall sortie
During the long siege of the foreign legations in Peking, the most dangerous part of the line ran along the top of the old Tartar City Wall, right above the legation quarter.
Chinese forces had built a barricade on the wall and kept pushing it closer, threatening to break the defense. Before dawn one morning, Captain John Myers led a force of about fifty-five American, British, and Russian fighters in a surprise attack on that barricade. They stormed it, drove off the Chinese defenders, and tore the position down. The bold strike pushed the enemy's siege lines back and made the Marines' hold on the wall secure for the rest of the siege. Myers was wounded in the charge, and two Marines were killed. The American minister later called it the bravest and most successful action of the entire siege.
Podcast episodes on Boxer Rebellion
Record no. 536