THE CHINESE ARMY

On Friday 30th April 1880, four weeks after his election defeat, William Gill had a speaking engagement. He had been asked to prepare a paper about the Chinese army for private circulation.

Captain Gill started by expressing the trepidation he felt when given this task:

When first asked to read a paper on the Chinese Army, I hesitated, for inasmuch as amongst the heterogeneous forces that compose it there is a complete want of what we understand by organisation, the Chinese Army resolves itself into an unwieldy mass of men and matériel, which, even if complete information were to be obtained, would hardly furnish subject-matter for a critical audience. And even now it can by no means be said that we have at our disposal facts and figures sufficient to give us such a knowledge of the military strength of China as we have of European States, and I feared that I should fail to satisfy the just anticipation of those who might come here today with the hope of forming a fair idea of the Chinese Army.

Nor can I lay claim to the possession of much original knowledge, and the notes that I bring forward are little better than a compilation from other published works. Consideration has, however, led me to hope that, although the description of, and information regarding, the Chinese Army that I can give, is meagre in the extreme, yet that its anomalous condition in the present, and the consideration of its possible future, will afford topics which are not only of the highest interest, but which must also present matter for deep thought as to the destiny in store for this most wonderful nation.

Gill then set out to do his best with the subject. He started with a historical review of the later history of the Chinese Empire, starting with the Ming dynasty, established in 1368. He then dealt with the coming to power of the alien Manchus, who entered Beijing in 1644 and still governed China:

The forces of the alien Manchus are now known as the Banner Army, so called because the three nations that compose it are ranged under eight banners.

These three nations are –
1st. The Manchus.
2nd. The Mongol Tatars.
3rd. Chinese descended from those adherents of Wu-San-Kwei who entered Peking with the Manchus in 1644, and who afterwards furnished vassal princes for the south-eastern provinces.

They number roughly some 230,000 non-commissioned officers and privates, besides 40,000 élèves (paid expectants to the higher ranks), and 5,000 artificers and followers.

Captain Gill then gave a more detailed breakdown of these forces and their roles. He pointed out that information was most difficult to obtain in Beijing:

Military exercises are almost universally carried on in the Imperial hunting park – an immense tract of country surrounded by a wall, the access to which is jealously forbidden to foreigners.

In, and perhaps also in the neighbourhood of, Peking, there is a force of field artillery with modern breech-loading guns, but of their numbers and effectiveness, I can form no idea.

In the remote Western Provinces I can, from my own observation, certify that what we should call soldiers have no existence; the men are there, doubtless, so are their wives and families, but bows and arrows, so far as I saw, were the weapons with which they are armed; and although it is by competitive examination that promotion is gained, when it is borne in mind that, for the most part, in those provinces remote from the capital, at all events, feats of physical strength and proficiency with the bow are the subjects in which the aspirants to military honours are tested, it will be readily conceived that the vast number of men borne on the strength of the Tatar Bannermen are little better than a paper army.

William Gill had praise for some recent Chinese military feats:

No one who has not travelled in the East can form a conception of the badness of the mountain tracks, and the difficulties to be overcome; and at that time immediately after the terrible rebellion in Yun-Nan it can have been no easy matter to feed the army in a country laid desolate and devastated by both sides in what was almost a war of extinction.

And the march of these men and the other Chinese armies from Lan-Chou-Fu to the oasis of Hami, a distance of about 1,000 miles, a portion across a completely arid and waterless region in the fearful Desert of Gobi, must fill us Englishmen with envy, whose miniature armies are always accompanied by huge and cumbersome baggage trains that would render feats such as these of the Chinese utterly beyond our powers.

But he added that nowhere in China was there what Europeans would regard as a disciplined army. In support of this view, he quoted Baron von Richtofen, writing about Chinese troops that he encountered in 1872:

They have mostly a stout frame, and can stand fatigues remarkably well. But they are not animated by either a military or a patriotic spirit, and the only means to keep a slight discipline among them is the fearful power of capital punishment, which every Commander of at least one battalion, wields over his own men. It is made use of liberally, and many are the soldiers’ heads that are cut off by the executioner.

Can there be any more forcible illustration of the complete lack of military spirit than this, that the executioner is one of the comrades of the criminal, and receives 500 cash (about 2 shillings) [equivalent to about £5 today] for cutting off his head.

Captain Gill concluded that recent military successes by the Chinese were not the product of superior courage, discipline or military leadership, but ‘were due to superior arms and superior numbers directed by an all-powerful will at the capital; a will which although it may be slow in making itself felt, is nevertheless felt and obeyed throughout the length and breadth of the Chinese Empire.’

For the second half of his paper, Gill considered the future. It was a daunting task, for, as he pointed out:

This nation possesses an authentic political history for 4,200 years, and even at the time when our forefathers knew no other clothing than blue paint, it was almost the nation of the day.

This nation possesses no landed aristocracy, but you may find men in it who can trace an authentic pedigree for 2,000 years; and it boasts what no Western nation can claim in so high a degree – an aristocracy of intellect.

This great Empire has now lived through long ages of varied fortune, and it would be surprising indeed if a people that had survived so many and such great vicissitudes, had been conquered many times, and had each time risen superior to defeat, had absorbed one race of conquerors and had driven out another, did not possess some characteristic that would mark it as a peculiar people, and this characteristic is the individuality of the race. And it seems to me that it is only by an inquiry into the causes of this individuality, and of the long duration and stability of the Chinese empire, that we can hope to speculate on its future as a military power.

In attempting to assess how far was China likely to advance as a military nation, William Gill considered three questions:

What material is there in China for making soldiers?
What for the production of Officers? And
Without altering the fundamental principles of Chinese polity, what changes in the details of the system are necessary to raise from the Chinese people the Generals and subordinate Officers necessary?

He thought the answer to the first question easy:

The Chinese, especially those of the north, are a fine people physically: they are hardy and enduring, frugal and temperate; they can undergo great fatigues on a small amount of food, and will support great privations without complaint. They are law abiding, docile and obedient to authority; and if the discipline in their armies is at present lax, the history of Gordon’s force shows us what it might be if the soldiers were properly paid, properly officered, and properly looked after. [Colonel ‘Chinese’ Gordon of the Royal Engineers, was in 1863 appointed commander of Chinese forces against the Taipings and was made a mandarin first class as a reward for his military success.]

Gill also considered that the belief once prevalent in the West that the Chinese were cowardly had no basis, and quoted examples of Chinese bravery. However, for two reasons he did not think that the Chinese would make good officers:

The first is, that the Chinese are, as a nation, entirely without observation and altogether devoid of originality. A Chinaman can learn anything, but he can conceive nothing; he may readily be taught any number of the most complicated military manoeuvres; but place him in a position slightly different from that in which he has learnt, and he will be found incapable of conceiving any modification to suit the altered circumstances.

The other reason Gill advanced was ‘the national want of any feeling akin to self-sacrifice in the cause of duty’:

If we look at the history of the world, we shall find that two mighty influences have been at work to induce such a feeling as that of self-sacrifice – the first has been religion, and the second the desire so strongly implanted in the human breast of gaining the esteem of fellow-man. … When, therefore, we bear in mind that at all events, so far as military virtues are concerned, both of these influences are completely wanting to a Chinaman, we must be driven to the conclusion that we shall not find these military virtues in China.

As for the changes to the Chinese system necessary to make China a great military power, Gill suggested two were necessary:

First, the admission of military men to positions of honour and esteem at present only open to civilian literati.
Secondly, an alteration in the subjects of the competitive examinations.

These examinations had for centuries been based on revered ancient books, ‘so the national mind has been moulded in uniformity.’ Gill concluded his paper thus:

I have little doubt that if the exact sciences were introduced into the Chinese curriculum, that in course of time originality would be developed, and that China might produce a Tyndall or a Newton. [John Tyndall, a pioneer of molecular physics, was a popular writer on scientific subjects.] It is to be believed that if the military examinations were something better than the childish exercises now in vogue, a race of Officers might appear worthy of a great nation; but then the momentous question arises – a question that must ere now have presented itself with terrible force to some minds in China – What would be the effect of scientific education and its necessary concomitant free thought, would it be possible any longer to keep 300,000,000 of people united; would not the spirit of change or revolution be let loose, and, bursting the floodgates that so long held it back, sweep away the landmarks of centuries, tear up the roots of existing institutions, and leave China even as Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, a mystery to future generations?

The chairman of the meeting, Sir Rutherford Alcock, himself a China veteran, thanked Captain Gill for a very interesting paper and added some observations of his own. Demetrius Boulger, an expert on Chinese military matters, pointed out that the Chinese would only employ foreign officers as a temporary expedient, and that in the past the Chinese had produced generals ‘who showed originality and the power of conception.’ William Gill agreed with Boulger about the Chinese employment of foreign officers. But while conceding that there may in the past have been some skilful Chinese generals, he stuck to his opinion ‘that there is a great want of originality in the Chinese, which will prevent them from being a great military nation.’

The paper, which with the comments from Alcock and Boulger ran to 20 pages, was printed by the royal printers, Harrison and Sons of St Martin’s Lane, London and published for private circulation.