Reaction to Angry Comment, Lack of Nuance & War Crimes
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2024
- An answer to a hostile comment on the the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901) video by Justin and Joe, a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Calgary. His Thesis concerns Anglo-Japanese military relations during the period of 1894-1905 with a special focus on the Boxer War. Additionally, we cover the general (lack of) nuance, the difficulty of cover war crimes and other sensitive topics on RUclips.
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Selected Primary Sources:
Brown, Frederick. From Tientsin to Peking with the Allied Forces. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1902.
Giles, Lancelot. The Siege of the Peking Legations: A Diary by Lancelot Giles. L. R. Marchant Ed. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1970.
Hooker, Mary. Behind the Scenes in Peking: Being the Experiences During the Siege of the Legations. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, W. 1910; Internet Archive, 2008. archive.org/details/cu3192402....
Landor, Arnold Henry Savage. China and the Allies. London: W. Heinemann, 1901.
MacDonald, Claude A. “The Japanese Detachment During the Defense of the Peking Legations, 1900,” in Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society London. Henri L. Joly, Ed. Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1971.
Martin, William A. P. The Siege in Peking: China Against the World. London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1900.
Steel, Richard A. Though Peking’s Sewer: Relief of the Boxer Siege, 1900-1901. George W. Carrington Ed. New York: Vantage Press, 1985.
Secondary Sources:
Bickers, Robert and R.G. Tiedemann, The Boxers, China, and the World. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007.
Cohen, Paul. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. Columbia University Press, 1998.
Esherick, Joseph. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Hosoya, Chihiro and Ian Nish Eds. The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600-2000: Volume II: The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1931-2000. Ian Nish and Yoichi Kibata Eds., London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 2000.
---. The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600-2000: Volume III: The Military Dimension. Ian Gow and Yoichi Hirama Eds., London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 2000.
Silbey, David. The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China. New York: Hill and Wang, 2012.
Otsuka, Umio. “Coalition Coordination during the Boxer Rebellion: How Twenty-Seven “Councils of Senior Naval Commanders” Contributed to the Conduct of Operations,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 71: No.4. (2018) digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc...
#BoxerUprising #BoxerRebellion #BoxerWars
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A few remarks on covering war crimes in any conflict:
It would be most useful to differentiate between defined war crimes of the period and combatants of the war in question,
vs "war crimes" as perceived by the modern audience, or the Geneva Convention (sic) (which may not have existed at the time of the war in question, or applied to different areas of the world, or different groups of participants, etc).
Most "discussions" of war crimes I see on the internet seem to be someone's perception of the modern definition of "war crime" applied to some conflict long before such actions were codified crimes in the area where the conflict occurred. Moral outrage is all well and good, but I'm unconvinced that it is necessarily applicable to civilizations that didn't share our modern Internet Values.
These are some very important points you just made. Especially in the times of the 15th to 17th century the definition of improper conduct while at war was almost funny. Looting, raping and plundering a conquered town was alright while looking slightly disrespecting at an army who properly surrendered was considered dishonorable.
The problem is though that a lot of people post WW2 are simply denying their country broke any of the potsdam rules or the crimes created for the nuremberg trials. I mean the best example is the Suez Crisis were Israel, France and Great Britain literally meet ins ecret to writte a secret document agreeing to invade Aegypt but make it appear as a humanitarian mission (Israel invades, then Britain and france come in to "keep the peace" and occupy the suez canal). The important part is that they agreed pre war that Israel would get to annex certain areas of the sinai area. This is literally the definition of "conspiring against world peace", "Fake attack", etc. laid out at the Nuremberg trials for the Invasion of Poland and the Hitler-Stalin Pact to split the land.
But o boy i wish you all the fun in the world trying to argue on that with most people reading the comments because "you cant compare anything to the nazis". It is a pain to argue on war crimes and crimes against humanities........everybody immidiatly gets their *insert nationality* patriotism boner and goes nuts without facts or reason
The main issue with talking about warcrimes is
That the loser (like nazi germany for instance) will be shown as the only person who made wrong and shows the opposite side as "angels who saved the people"
When in reality every single nation go on full rampage on each other
The same thing happened in iraq
The US killed alot of civilians but noone talks about it because they won so they build the history of such war (saddam was an asshole and killed alot of his people yes,but the issue is when warcrime topic is open it is mostly 1 sided and never neutral)
@@noobster4779 The problem with people pointing out that people other than the Nazis committed war crimes is that, all too often, they're doing it to somehow excuse what the Nazis did and divert attention away from them. As if one atrocity cancels out another, or as if that makes them just as bad as the Nazis. "You can't say anything cos your guys once did some bad stuff too", and "yeah but no but, Commies are bad". It's the puerile moral reasoning of a badly brought up child and "whataboutism" at its absolute worse.
I'm not saying you're doing that! - but you know the type.
@@bentilbury2002 One can do that and sill the warcrimes of the Allies just pale in comparisson to the ones of the Germans.
Even the crimes commited by the Soviets, who were the worst in terms of warcrimes on the allied side by a long shot, just fail to begin to reach the scale of the Axis ones. At times they were just as brutal, but if you look at the numbers, even the most notorious NKVD officers will look in shock and awe to the scale of the crimes of the Axis.
Kind of a weird side-note, for which I have no source - years ago, I heard of a Boxer street flyer, which was denigrating Chinese Catholics - 'Their symbol is a naked boy nailed to a tree. Someone should look into this.'
@Niek Vels Thank you for the info - kind of fits with the Qing Dynasty's belief they were manipulating the boxers.
One of my history teacher's a a kid was at the US embassy in Peking when this happened. Yep, I'm that old. He also pointed out that we call it the boxer rebellion they weren't prize fighters, many of them were martial artists.
Damn. You must be old as hell! Congrats for making it this long!
That's really cool, reminds us how close we actually are to history.
well, they were called "boxer" because of the western view on martial arts at that time.
they were martial artists fighting with their hands and feet/legs, so they were "boxing"
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Yeah, at the time Chinese martial arts were called Chinese boxing by westerners. Though that is not a uniqe western thing, the Chinese name for modern MMA translates into American Kung Fu.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 french boxing includes kicks, kickboxing obviously does aswell, so in a way, it's not too inappropriate for them to use "boxers" as an abbreviation
Thank you for this video and the other videos on the Boxer Uprising.
The problem with studying history is there shouldn't be any angry comments. Injecting politics into history doesn't make talking through the history more factual, but less factual. I've made angry comments on other RUclips history channels, but those RUclipsrs have been called out repeatedly in the past for propagating their own narrative on history not backed up by evidence. I can't understand why this channel is getting flak for discussing academic sources and accepted fact rather than the usual localized folk history most people grew up with that is usually built up through decades of propaganda and oral history. This channel does a really good job.
You would think people would recognize good historiography as shown in the videos.... yet we need to address such idiot commentators.
Such is the work of historians.
I actually talked to Hilbert about this. Where he kept in incisting that his job as a hystorian is to have a view form nowhere while I told him that is because of that that he does not understand where there are monument in the Nederland but not in Indonesia to the javanese genocide of the duch. We did not come to an agreement as he thinks all should see the world the same way where as I believe that all must see the world trough their own eyes, and these are fundemental princaples that are very hard to change.
Thank you for your service, and courage, stay safe
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOH ITS JUSTIN awesome.
Great talk, gentlemen.
Man, the Boxers sound like the Q group on the 6th of Jan 2021
I am glad it is not only me who jumps to this conclusion.
@@stephaniewilson3955 Just the way he described them. I was like huh, that sounds a little familiar.
@Niek Vels lol Q anon is just a shitpost
Possibly the best, most concisely distilled, conclusion anybody can come to in the serious study of history summed up in two words. War sucks.
Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" draws heavily from the Boxer Rebellion (among other history). It's fiction, but a great read.
This is the best and most unironic response to a shitpost I've heard in a long time!
It's also very brave - but necessary - for a channel with a largely popular audience to get into serious historiography. The tone difference between this and the kind of comments it's addressing is striking, but very important to pay attention to indeed.
Love this kind of videos, please do more. Thank you Justin!
I would be curious to hear another academic youtuber's reaction to Mark Felton's series he recently posted on the conflict. He seems beloved in general but that is more reason to look critically
@Niek Vels I can see that, he also has some bias as a brit I believe. In the Opium series he regularly refers to them as "us" and "we", which while technically true since he is a brit feels unacademic
@@spyczech There's no greater LARP than modern commentators referring to whichever side in WW2 or older conflicts as 'us' or 'them'.
@@MarxistMedia interesting how when people do it, they tend to be on the winning side 🤔
His mini documentaries do tend to go for a narrative - a story but not about scrutinizing every source in order to piece together the absolute truths. That is ofc just about every other documentary or worse. But ya, sometimes I happen to know the subjects, I notice some details in his videos are not necessarily proven up by evidence. Only plausible perhaps.
@@ecpgieicg well said, going for the narrative isn't even a bad route for youtube and enjoying content, but I feel it stands at odds with every top comment on his vids screaming he should be everyones dream history teacher. Even a series like Extra History that does prioritize the narrative makes up a lot of ground by ending each series with a "Lies" episode correcting most issues
I find it interesting that the Boxer Rebellion took place only about 36 years after the Taiping Rebellion was repressed; and 32 years after the contemporaneous Nian Rebellion, which was centered in the north. Have to wonder how much oral history/oral tradition on those events were inspiration for the Boxer participants?
I hate the concept that all the blame goes to the losers and the heroes never did anything wrong. The reason is that the other side is just remembered as the bad guys, or even monsters that needed to be slayn,but they forget why the others were fighting and dying and once the time comes where you're in the same spot, you don't know that history is repeating itself and you just think that the others are the bad guys when in fact, you might turn out to be the villains in the end!
"slayn"?
@@penultimateh766 no Ingles LOL.
So the 'history is written by the victors' trope?
@@fulcrum2951 Funny that; considering it was the German Generals that wrote the history of the eastern front for the allies after the war.
@@woah3870 I can't speak for fulcrum 29, but as a current history university student in a university, I can definitely say the answer is no.
Not on the topic, but you mention this war has a simplistic good-guy bad-guy narrative that is not as easy to apply as in WW1 and WW2, because "Nazi are bad".
WW1 did not have Nazi, it was mostly old colonial powers against colonial wannabes. I don't think it was as easy to separate good from bad there either.
Absolutely. Saying there were good guys or bad guys in WW1 is a pretty propagandistic claim.
Every nation who fought the war was in it for their own good and absolutely didn’t shy away from their own war crimes and hypocrisy.
If you want to point at a good guy the US comes closest due to a lack of warcrimes and some well intentions but the US involvement in the war was based on a horrific anti-German propaganda barrage over years that destroyed in many ways the German community in the US (who were completely innocent) and the US were involved in some of the worst peace agreements and not at all involved in keeping the peace. WW1 only ended for Western Europe in 1918. many millions died in the aftermath of the absolutely messy peace.
Not to mention the US saved and then supported the two largest colonial Empires of the world which in turn costed millions of life’s through colonial oppression in the next decades.
@@bingobongo1615 In WW1 they were no good guys, no bad guys, just a lot of idiot guys...
the more you know about ww1 the more you realize there were no good guys, just a lot of dead pawns. Everybody was an eager participant in the slaughter, Germany just got blamed because they were the only member of the Central Powers that still existed at the end of it all.
@@petriew2018 The German Empire was gone, replaced by the Weimar Republic. Austria-Hungary was gone, same for the Ottoman Empire. The only member of the Central Powers that remained was actually Bulgaria, incidentally my home country... but it would be hard to blame us for all of WW1.
Germany was blamed because it was the strongest Central Power, everyone needed someone to blame and France still was bitter from the Franco-Prussian war.
@@nikolatasev4948 very interesting! I actually had to go look up Bulgarian history, but you're quite right. Bulgaria even remained a monarchy after the First World War. It lost a bit of territory, notably it's Aegean sea coast, but that was all. Also, I had no idea what a huge army your relatively small country was able to field in WW1. Remarkable story. I'll have to read more in the future.
Why the name boxers,?
Because they all wore Step One bamboo boxer shorts
@@Lovenought thx
They preferred boxers to their briefs.
Because they practised Kung Fu what was then known as Chinese boxing in the west.
Original the revolution was supposed to be quick, hence the 'Brief Revolution'. However, it took longer than expected.
Boxer magic protection spell:
+15 evasion
+20 armor
Standing applause!👋
In videogames I usually don't care who's good and who is bad. If someone is going against me they don't commit war crimes - I'M THE ONE DOING IT. It is I who will suppres this cunning savage rebellion against myself and I will spill rivers of blood along the way. Where I thread shall grow pillage and destruction to those who dared to stand not on his knees. No human shall go against my will for those who do shall not be humans anymore. There is no good or bad but only me and me alone shall define...
This stuff isn't good IRL though. I know it!
You can kill your own troops in the campaign of CoD World at War
@@iiiiii5772 I know, kid. I know...
This here is proof that video games incite violence and war crimes. I bet that Hilter also had video games in his bunker. I'm reporting this to Karen.
@@madensmith7014
What manager specifically is Karen going to complain to?
I am just here for the angry comment this time. Usually come to be enlightened about military history. Never visualized.. This time I'm here for entertainment and drama!
Thanks. That was interesting.
.
The comments section is terrible for this one LOL
WHATABOUT WHATABOUT WHATABOUT
I don't even have to scroll down to know that this comments section is infected with charming characters spouting silly clichés such as "the winners write the history" and thinking they've actually made a telling point. Well done, have a lollipop.
Top comment "the problem with history is" *falls into seven common historiographical errors*
Wow, yeah, you nailed it. Plenty of such comments.
Sad really, but these are the viewers of MHV
Ya know, i would've expected said viewers to have nuance but no
@@fulcrum2951 Why would you expect that? Sturgeon's Law applies to all.
@@Shenaldrac considering MHV and his colleagues provided a nuanced and complex view of history, one would think his viewers would follow their example
9:31 There comes a point where if you're better armed, better trained, better led and adequately supplied *you're going to win the war.* Sure, you'll lose the occasional battle, but when you _better_ armed, trained, led and supplied, *you win.* That's why the Westerners won.
Note: that does *not* make the winners morally righteous; it's just makes them winners.
Counter example: America in Vietnam. There's always more at play than just the tactical or even strictly military aspects. I don't disagree with your point here, but I just wanted mention that in the spirit of this video, which is to consider the context of the whole environment
@@wheelmanv we have to consider in Vietnam that it's a conventional war at strategic level but unconventional at the operational and tactical levels. North Vietnam, and its allies (China and the Soviet Union) conducted a conventional war at the strategic level: running a long and huge logistical line to supply men, weapons, food, munitions, etc .... into the South, the front. There, the war changed into guerilla at the operational and tactical levels.
When we assess the war this way, then we realise that South Vietnam and allies were not at an advantage. They were being inavded and actually couldn't strike back very effectively. If America had wanted to totally stop the North war supply "production", it would have needed to bomb totally any transports from China and SU heading to Vietnam. That wasn't politically possible since it's crazy to provoke a hot WWIII because of a tiny allied state. They tried to stop the flow by hitting a very resilient logistical line, which wasn't very successful. Meanwhile, North Vietnam was free to hit and subvert the South production capacity: government legitimacy, direct controls of land and population, and political capital in America.
@@wheelmanv America in Vietnam is *not* a counterexample. In fact it supports my point, because US troops were *poorly led** at many points in the chain of command, starting at the top.
America in Afghanistan and Iraq would be a better counter-example, but even then you can say that they were poorly led at the very top by not having a grand strategy for victory.
@@RonJohn63 in fact, we are seeing Vietnam syndrome 2.0: Electric Boogaloo happening right in front of our eyes. The US Army is in a hurry to bury all the "lessons learned" in Iraq and Afghanistan and everytime anyone brings that up, they shove fingers into their ears and shout "near-peer competition" until people go away again.
Like in many other cases winners write history ... and once written it is hard to get around whats written and come a bit closer to what really happened.
False. Loosers also write history. That old trope is tiresome and just plain wrong. Only children repeat that stupid saying.
Trying to sound smart op?
If the "winners write history" story would be true, we would have no latin sources about the fall of the roman empire.
"Winners write the history!" says someone in the same universe where former Confederates wrote the history of the American Civil War and where former Wehrmacht generals wrote the history of the Wehrmacht in WW2.
@@marvin4244 We do not have any sources from many people the Romans eradicated.
Uploading this two days after Yellowstone Shaman and his merry men storm the Capitol in Washington? That's bold.
This must be well moderated.
Sounds like they are living rent free in your head. That never crossed my mind.
The thumbnail does look like a stylised person squatting having a poop....history does lose something in the passage of time.... .
If Quing are behind Boxer rebellion then why are there constant regular outbreaks of boxer rebellions whem I am leading great power.
#Victoria2 #justgofascistingames
Boxers or Taiping rebellion? or Braided Band? or White Lotus?
@@atoll2453 The boxers, the most annoying one because it spawns in every region and regardless of its importance if they hold it for a month its automatic win.
Idk if its year restricted, scorebased or just about reforms, but I know that after I switched to fascist china and enacted reforms like minimal wage and labour safety laws, all of them basically, they never seemed to have a problem again.
zzz
War crimes on a national level are basically indistinguishable from international politics. Individuals committing war crimes against the rules of their own government are the only real "crimes". Other than that the whole idea of war crimes is in direct contradiction with national sovereignty and therefore will inevitably degenerate into a mere game of laying blame on the losing side. There can ever be enforcement after both parties are under the same power structure. Consequently, all the war crimes happen before they are legally and legitimately defined as such.
It would be more appropriate to simply talk about revenge. The process of finding the guilty party and then punishing them is exactly the same, anyway.
Thank you for this point. I have studied the American civil war and especially the people therein to a good degree and here in the part of the US I live in teachers don't teach what Lincoln said in reference to slavery or the fact Robert E Lee freed the ones he inherited. The school system pushes the "good guy vs bad guy image" and it just bothers me as well. When Sherman burned cities as a main tactic that wasn't right and slavery wasn't right either. Everyone in the US Civil War did really bad things but it has become unpopular to even consider looking at the war from other perspectives, and that's not to mention when people try to connect modern politics with those from the 1850's and 60's. There is no relationship and yet people try to force there to be one. I just feel like the school system has let us down in terms of teaching all the facts as they happened. I asked a teacher what she thought of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (stopped the south from breaking through at Gettisburg) and she said that she she "doesn't get starry eyed over generals". But get this, she was teaching "U.S. history up to 1877" and half the class was dedicated to the civil war.
Well theres some issues I can see here. First, I would just suggest watching atun shei films on the civil war, he makes points better than I.
secondly, "try to connect modern politics with those from the 1850's and 60's. There is no relationship and yet people try to force there to be one" is an absurd statement. All history is built on foundations of proceeding periods. History is not a vacuum.
Third "doesn't get starry eyed over generals", nothing wrong with that. if you look at history only though the lens of war and its generals you're effectively looking at history half blind. That said You can give a better, broader telling of history of say the civil war by skipping the battles in any great detail. you'd do better looking at the social, economic, political etc, and how a specific battle may have affected those. particularly in school. you can do that in your own time, or at further study, but if you dont understand, even in a general way other aspects of the time then the Civil War will not be understood.
when you read broader sources, topics, and really learn the interconnected nature of history, you'll develop more nuanced views. looking at military history in a vacuum is not a brilliant approach (but one that many of us do when were young). you can end up hold really interesting views.
@@tisFrancesfault Thank you for your suggestions. I'm currently very busy and don't get the chance to study as much as I would like these days but the films you talked about sound interesting. And I can see your point about the absurdity of my statement of people comparing modern politics to the politics of the 1850's-60's, there was definitely a series of events with a chain of cause and affect. What I was refrencing was the modern "dixie culture" that's embraced. First of all they fly the incorrect battle flag. Secondly the modern idea of what the south was has changed vastly from what it actually was. It is very much romanticised. Having family with southern roots and comparing what they think the south was versus what first hand accounts state are sometimes very different and the modern version quite often leaves out the ugliness. Then quite often the sterilized image of the south is then forced into the modern political scene and in my personal opinion it just ends up complicating matters even more. That's what I was talking about when I said that.
When I study something I tend to kind of go all in, I just begin with "who", then that leads into "why" and "why" has a way of splitting off into social, economic, technological, ect branches of study. I really enjoy the cultural side of that, I like to know and try to understand how and why other people do what they do.
The teacher I had mentioned only studied and taught the socital issues going on but almost entirely separate from other events within the country. The class was supposed to be an overview of US history but it only focused on minorities. I have no problem with that (my own mother was Cherokee Native American and I am proud of that heritage as well). I just felt very mislead in that the class was supposed to be an overview of US but instead ended up ignoring large parts of what occured. The cultural in the class was very tense in that in writing my papers for that class I had to concern myself with not offending my professor as much as citing the sources (specifically provided by her, no exceptions, no outside information was accepted either) correctly.
I guess I kind of went down a rabbit hole and thank you for your comments! I think "nuanced" is a good word. For the civil war for example I definitely agree slavery was bad and should have been abolished. But in terms of it being the sole cause (such as my professor had said) I feel there was much more going on. It was definitely a large driving factor and people played with words back then as well as today to muddy the waters for political reasons (people aren't really so different through the ages). One thing that I find interesting is the dates of the abolition of slavery within the north. Many were two to three years into the war (the dates are a little fuzzy, I would have to go and recheck). But the common reason for that delay that is agreed upon is that if slaves were freed within the union by the federal government, there was fear of border slaveholding states such as Missouri and several others joining the Confederacy. I just feel that a lot of those kinds of facts go directly against the idea of the "good vs bad" "free vs slave". My current opinion of the war is that it was the result of a huge mess that snowballed from the abolition of slavery, cultural clashes, disagreement on the amount of power a growing government had, ect and it culminated in a huge and costly conflict where there were good and bad people on each side and quiet literally everyone in the country suffered (to varying degrees) as a result. My opinion always morphs a little as a result to exposure of new material. Sorry for the long response and thank you for the intelligent conversation!
I look at pictures of the size of walls, castles, ports of China and can't help but think that they folded easier than the Aztecs. At least the Spanish had to recruit local allies to beat the Aztecs, and to puppet their government. China fell so easy, that the Boxer rebellion should've been a monumental effort to make up for it. At that point they had rifles, and artillery, and I think machine guns too (or at least training and knowledge of them, to fight them). Considering it was a national struggle for China, but basically a side show for Britain, that may not have gathered popular support at home if things got hairy, I think they would've easily won a war if they made it last and made it ugly. I guess it goes to show that its hard for monarchies to do that.
The reason they "folded easier" is that the European powers had a lot more know-how, infrastructure, and capability to project power than the Spanish did in the 1500s. Spanish forces had to rely on local militias because they had no local ports in which they could reliably build up and strike from, and because ocean-going ships were a novelty, making it rather hard to carry over thousands of troops to half the world away. Also, it was pretty much a side-show for the Habsburgs as well, their main concerns were French influence in Italy, Francis I's attempts to seize German lands and even the Imperial crown, and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, that's why they only had a couple thousand troops to work with in the New World.
The Chinese, on the other hand, had to consider that Britain had Singapore and India a stone's throw away, the French had Indochina, the Germans their Oceanic possessions, and Japan was on their doorstep. If the Chinese tried to "make it long and make it ugly" they should have expected that all of the world's strongest navies would be within striking distance and ready to impose a total blockade on them. Oh, and Russia just invaded Manchuria with a couple hundred thousand troops, that may have been worth considering. The Aztecs didn't really have these issues.
Btw, what do you mean by "national struggle"? I'm no expert on the subject so correct me if I'm wrong here, but the Boxer Rebellion was pretty much exclusive to Northeastern China, plus some fighting against the Russians in Manchuria, wasn't it? I don't think there was any fighting in Guangdong or the Yangtze Delta, and the vast majority of the Qing troops involved were conscripted from Northeastern and Northwestern China. China was not even a nation-state at this point, there was ethnic tension between the ruling dynasty, many minorities of the country, and the general majority population, how could they have fought anything you could call a "national struggle"?
Also, something worth considering. When the Aztecs "folded" their empire fell apart in a matter of decades, their political system collapsed, their society collapsed in general, their population dwindled, etc., until there was next to nothing left of them. From the start of the first Opium War in 1839 until the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, the Qing and then the Chinese fought against Western and Westernised powers, and, while suffering major defeats, didn't disappear from the face of the world as a nation. I don't see how that's supposed to be "folding easier" than the Aztecs.
@@barnabasverti9690 When I wrote that they folded, I meant the government (of China and of Azteca), not the nations. Obviously Chinese culture survived to die another day, by its own hand.
You are right that the European invasion of China had better tech, preparation and logistics than the European invasion of Mexico. On the national struggle bit, I am sure that the Chinese recognize this to be an "us chinese versus them invaders" issue, which is why the armies weren't just the emperor's private force, there were peasant uprisings too. It was a national struggle to throw out the invaders, even if there was little other agreement. Compare it to the similar united front that formed later against Japan, despite internal disunity.
Thanks for the response!
@@giveussomevodka I think part of what may have kept it from becoming a true national movement across the nation is that the boxers didn't necessarily have a ton of support in other areas. I mean their main thing was, from what I understand, that they were tired of these foreigners and their culture influencing their land and fellow citizens, and they wanted them and their weird religion gone. But maybe there weren't as many people that felt that way as they thought, and so the movement didn't spread. Especially considering that a lot of China at the time (and for some time to come) was very decentralized, lots of far flung provinces without paved roads and direct contact with western powers, I could see them being very unaffected by outside influence in the northeast parts of the country.
This is just some thoughts as someone who watches the channel, I don't have any formal credentials or anything so I might be completely wrong but I wanted to share a possible explanation.
The Boxer Uprising was only really in Shandong, Zhili (where Beijing is located), some spillover into Shaanxi and Henan provinces. Predominantly it was a movement based around Shandong's local shamanistic customs and was a reactionary towards the spread of Christianity and local governments inability or paralysis by the Qing court to stop recent Christian converts from gaining favorable results in lawsuits. Missionaries enjoyed extraterritorial legal privileges that effectively made them and their converts diplomatically immune to local government. The German seizure of Jiazhou Bay after the Juye Incident in which came from the Big Sword Society (unrelated to the Boxers but another anti-Christian, anti-bandit reactionary group of peasants) murder of 2 German missionaries laid the groundwork of a Qing government terrified of angering western powers eager to carve up spheres of influence but also unable to project itself into the rural countryside to guarantee the safety of foreign missionaries and convert communities.
The Qing court was torn on cracking down hard on the boxers (which they should've done) or supporting them; the Big Sword Society was allowed to disperse peacefully and its leaders arrested or quietly executed and the movement never became anything more than a pretense for the Germans to begin carving up influence in the Shandong Peninsula. The Boxer Rebellion however was much more decentralized with no clear leadership- this was both a strength and weakness for the movement as no individual leader could be arrrested and have the movement snuffed out but it also meant cooperation was hard between bands of Boxers so they were never really able to present an organized, cohesive resistance beyond scaring off poorly equipped Qing garrisons who were sentimental to their anti-Christian, anti-Western popular message. The rural Chinese populace were willing to fight a total war against the western powers on behalf of the Qing, after all their motto was "Support the Qing, destroy the Foreign". The Government however was unwilling to fight said war. You can see similar results of the Qing government desiring localization against the desires of an upset rural populace in the Opium war when the gentry-led militia at Sanyuanli wanted to mobilize an additional half a million men to expel the British in Guangdong but the court refused. You could argue these were the seeds of a proto-Chinese Nationalism that the government was likely fearful of unleashing due to Manchu paranoia of losing their apartheid control over the Han majority.
It's easy in hindsight to see their shamanistic rituals of invulnerability as quite silly but the traditions of the movement go back deep into Shandong's history several thousand years.
I highly recommend reading Joseph Esherick's "The Origins of the Boxer Uprising" which goes in depth into Shandong's history of popular unrest, banditry, shamanism and difficulty of the Chinese Gentry to effectively govern the area.
@@giveussomevodka
The fellow above summed it up a lot better than I could, but yeah, the Boxer uprising was pretty much exclusive to Northeastern China, and the troops involved were mainly conscripted from Northeastern and Northwestern China. The Yangtze Delta, which I'd argue was China's most important center of culture, politics and population, saw little action during the uprising and the war.
Again, it was no "struggle" to throw out the invaders, and such would have been hard to coordinate, considering large swathes of the population, especially in Southern China, saw the Qing Dynasty as invaders as well. The Taiping civil war, the Panthay rebellion and the Red Turban rebellion saw widespread atrocities committed against ethnic Manchus and displayed the general disdain much of the population felt towards the Qing, and the European powers eventually came to assist the Qing in defeating these uprisings. Examples of this sentiment can be plainly seen after the defeat of the Boxers as well. The Xinhai Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the Qing, was seen by many as a liberation of China from a foreign invader, and saw widespread massacres of ethnic Manchus. Sun Yat-sen, one of the few people respected by Chinese communists and republicans alike as a national hero, was a member of the anti-Manchu Tongmenghui, and regarded the Manchus as nomadic barbarians.
Even disregarding that, China at this point could in no way be construed as a unified nation-state. Northern and Southern China were not united by any means, not to mention its many minorities. For example, the muslim Huis, the Tibetans, the Hakkas and the Miao were all united in their opposition and mounted significant rebellions against the Qing, but were by no means unified behind some sort of national banner, e.g. the Miao were a particularly nasty thorn in the side of the Han Chinese even during the times of the Ming.
There was no Chinese nation-state at this point which could have been capable of waging any national struggle, and if there had been, the Qing would probably have been more scared of it than the British.
As for the Qing government folding easier than the Aztecs, I'd still disagree with that, for one of course you're gonna fold easier if the foreigners demand reparations and legation quarters as opposed to the total destruction of your state, plus part of the reason the Aztecs didn't "fold" was that their government collapsed totally before they could even start to negotiate - though a coup by Aztecs who wanted to give up did take place - but RUclips comments are not the best medium for something that could easily fill up a 30-page paper.
that comment section who his "history is written by the victor!" ,god I hate this myth
No, it's more written by the survivors... Those who had died generally have no chance to later write their memoirs. Plus when I see how different two main totalitarian ideologies are being treated, it's hard not to notice that there is some grain of truth in it.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 I remarked the survivor thing with eastern europe with some peopple claiming autonescu did nothing wrong per example
@@thebunkerparodie6368 In eastern Europe local perception is overriding this overall trend. But even here, there is undertone of the winner part, as under Soviet occupation they were taboo and are discussed openly after regaining independence (or de facto independence).
I really, really, really hate this myth too. What it really means is "I can't support my claims with evidence, so I'll just claim historiography is unfairly biased against me and my lack of evidence actually supports that I'm right." Every time I've seen someone bring up legitimate issues with how some sources survived and became widely accepted, while other sources were discounted or didn't survive, they do so by stating their case and begin to support it, they don't just shout that phrase out and expect to win.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 You seem to be forgetting that historians don't only read memoirs, and that people produce a lot of documentary evidence throughout all stages of their lives, and that a lot of sources about certain people are written by others who knew them.
Edit: Sorry, the original version of this comment sounded WAY more argumentative than I intended it to.
Taiwan #1
Republic of China #1
🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼
1450?
Mongol empire numba #1!!
- *statement*
- we dont do that around here
- reasons?
- we dont do that around here
highly informative, thanks so much, great content /S
So basically, not watching the video?
And then we wonder today why China feels the way they do about the rest of the world. I wish the USA had stuck to not going abroad to slay dragons. I blame the same power block that started the Spanish-American war for lebensra...er, I mean manifest destiny.
Liebensraum. I adopt this from know own. Was this intentional? Because that means literally love room
That's actually a good point. How was the Manifest Destiny justified in order to get people on board with the idea?
No, there’s more, go listen to Mark Feldman’s episodes on the opium wars that happened before this.
You forget about America’s little adventure in Siberia in the Russian civil war.
@@jadedengineer Mark Felton* ;)
Criticize the comment, but don't let the author defend himself. Don't even show the comment so the audience can evaluate it themselves. Real great analysis there.
You clearly have no idea how RUclips works: 1) About 50-80 % of people don't even answer to a reply to their comment. 2) He insulted people. 3) If we get in contact with everyone who makes an insulting and/or uninformed comment we would be doing nothing else.
You seem to miss the fact that typing a comment takes about 1-5 minutes, whereas 1 minute of video takes a production time of about 5 minutes up to 240 minutes (or even more).
nobody's stopping the author from making his own video if he wants to
"In the second world war there where good guys and bad guys" Hahahahahahahaha, in WW2 it was exactly like this one moraly grey. But you can chose a side and say they where the good guys because their the guys you support, for you englishmen obviously the Western Allies, for someone like me no one my country did not exist during the war, for germans the germans, for reds the reds.
@@---ii8hl Kill half of the planet? LOL. If this where the case I would not be here talking to you as my ancestors would have been killed while under german rule. Dont believe western propoganda. If you do you wont get the meme - "Its not an invasion, its surprise liberty." - USA.
@@---ii8hl don't bother, he's probably a nazi apologist.
@@rapter229 Nazi apoligist?!? What an insult. My ancestors fought and died in the red army to end the 700 years of german rule over my fatherland. What I am good ser is someone who values the truth rather than USA propoganda.
@@rapter229 an extraordinarily ignorant statement. There were many ambiguous parts of WWII where the "good guys / bad guys" formula fails, for example the Winter War. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland and the Baltic states.
@@RobinRobertsesq Yes yes of course, the nit pickers can in any number of isolated cases find situations where one side was 'the good guys' or the other side 'the bad guys'. But anyone trying to argue that the characterization of the Nazis as the premier 'bad guys' of the second world war is just US propaganda is either trying to minimize the weight of the evils committed by that regime on purpose, or doing so inadvertently via a sense of intellectual superiority borne from thinking they have some deep insight into the 'real truth' that others lack.
Just like the MAGA people who storms congress this week
@Ivdea Delenda Est works the other way around too... "The news outlets I watch are correct because the ones I don't watch are wrong. THEY are corrupt, the other side is lying."
@@mightymediocre3352, strange how many people forget about the Supreme Court hearing for Brett M. Kavanaugh, where lefty protesters literally broke into the room to protest....
ruclips.net/video/lH1VWpGszSM/видео.html
@@mightymediocre3352 not saying D. Trump is the good guy on that story because he isn't. But they are quite much exaggerating this whole story and Trump's own narrative as a threat with the objective not only to clean some old reputations there in the US but also having the opportunity to control and censor people. Have a look:
greenwald.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-authoritarianism-in
@@andrewmattox1233 definitely the same as trying to stop the final vote for the president by forcing an entry. Good one.
@@TheStugbit tbh, Trump doesn't have a narrative, he will change his story to what he thinks the people he is talking to wants to hear. One day the people who entered are loved and the other day they should feel ashamed. But yeah I watching this from the other side of the world and I can't fathom the extremism from all sides in the US. All sides thinks they have ultimate knowledge, a middle solution doesn't seem to exist in their eyes.