The First China Watchers: British Intelligence Officers in China, 1878–1900

Abstract

In 1878, Britain developed the first systematic intelligence collection and analysis of China by a Western nation. Undertaken in response to intelligence failure and military defeat, the British Army in India established an intelligence section in Beijing using small numbers of Chinese-speaking British military officers. Their reports reveal their struggles to understand a culture and government radically different than their own and express a strong respect for Chinese military capabilities. The intelligence reports produced are a unique window into British history, intelligence practices and Chinese strategic thinking.

Notes

¹These reports are available on microfiche produced from originals held by the British Library. Collection title: British Military Intelligence Reports on China and the Boxer Uprising: c. 1880–1930. (Leiden: IDS Publishers, 2004) A total of 185 microfiche are included in this collection comprising 9080 exposures. The period covered spans over forty years with the earliest report dated 1884, the last 1929 and includes material marked confidential and secret.

²Among the sources for intelligence information in the 1884 report were: Colonel Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon, Ambassador Thomas Wade, and several British consular officers spread throughout north China. British officers listed include: Major Trotter, Captain McCalmont and Captain Gill. Information provided from non-British military observers was occasionally included, such as French Naval Captain Ballanger and Commodore Schufelt U.S.N. who visited China as part of military diplomacy efforts. Information passed along from long-term foreign residents in China such as Frenchman Prosper Giquel, Chief Director of the Fuzhou Arsenal, was also prominently featured in final reports.

³Gerald Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy, 1830–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978) p.367.

⁴In an effort to lessen confusion regarding the place-names referenced in maps and quoted accounts, I have used Pinyin rather than the Wade-Giles system. The Wade-Giles form is shown in parentheses in the text and Pinyin is placed in brackets within direct quotations.

⁵Graham, The China Station, p.368.

⁶Sir Reginald Bacon, Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 2 vols (London: Hodder and Stauton 1920) Vol. I, pp.13–14.

⁷T.F. Tsiang ‘Memorial of Imperial Sengkolintsin, Prince of Korsin, Hsien-Feng 6’, American Historical Review 35/1 (1929) pp.80–2.

⁸A.J. Farrington, British Military Intelligence on China and the Boxer Rising: c. 1880–1930: Guide (Leiden: IDS Publishers, 2004) p.3.

⁹Thomas G. Fergusson, British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914: The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organization (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America 1984) p.192.

¹⁰Ibid., p.192.

¹¹Ibid., p.167.

¹²Farrington, British Military Intelligence on China, p.3.

¹³Ibid., p.3.

¹⁴Cited and translation by Francis Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, The Construction of Chinese Railways, etc. (Simla: Government Central Branch 1887) pp.1–9.

¹⁵Patrick French, Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer (London: Harper Collins 2004) pp.xx, 283.

¹⁶Henri Cordier, ‘Thomas Francis Wade, Obituary’, T'oung Pao 6/4 (1895) pp.407–12.

¹⁷William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp 1587–1968: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co. 1968) p.137.

¹⁸David Gates, Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Palgrave 2001) p.85.

¹⁹Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, p.8.

²⁰Ibid., p.7.

²¹Mark S. Bell, China: Being a Military Report on the Northeastern Portions of the Provinces of Chih-Li and Shan-Tung; Nanking and its Approaches; Canton and its Approaches; etc. Vol. I and II (Simla: Government Central Branch Press 1884) p.96.

²²Karl Von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. M. Howard and P. Paret, introductory essays by P. Paret, M. Howard and B. Brodie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1976) pp.595–6.

²³Ibid., p.596.

²⁴Bell, China, p.96.

²⁵John King Fairbank (ed.), The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch'ing, 1800–1910, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1978) pp.245–8.

²⁶The province of Zhili was disbanded in 1928 but its area in the late nineteenth century included large parts of what would become the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as the large parts of what would become the provinces of Liaoning, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Henan.

²⁷Bell, China, Vol. II, p.95.

²⁸Ibid., Vol. II, p.103.

²⁹Eight Memorials are included in Younghusband's 1887 report. The details of how Younghusband acquired the Memorials, which were regarded as secret and confidential by the Chinese is unspecified. The introduction of a telegraph system in China during the 1870s and 1880s might have been an opportunity for the British to make copies of Chinese government correspondence but British reports do not mention direct subversion of Chinese intelligence ‘assets’ among telegraph office staff or the help of a Chinese hired foreign expert to explain their access to the Memorials.

³⁰Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, pp.3–4.

³¹Bell, China, Vol. II, pp.103–5.

³²Ibid., p.112.

³³Intelligence Branch of the Quarter Master General's Department, Simla, Short Military Report of the Province of Chi-Li (Simla: Government Central Printing Office 1900) p.13.

³⁴Ibid., p.2.

³⁵John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (New York: American News Company 1879) p.379.

³⁶Bell, China, p.52.

³⁷Intelligence Branch of the Quarter Master General's Department, Simla, Short Military Report, p.12.

³⁸Ibid., p.10.

³⁹Ibid., p.10.

⁴⁰Ibid., p.10.

⁴¹Bell, China, Vol. II, p.48.

⁴²Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, p.3.

⁴³Bell, China, Vol. II, p.26.

⁴⁴Ibid., p.37.

⁴⁵Stanley Spector, Li Hung-chang and the Huai Army: A Study in Nineteenth Century Chinese Regionalism (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press 1964) p.146.

⁴⁶Bell, China, Vol. II, p.46.

⁴⁷Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, p.5.

⁴⁸Bell, China, Vol. II, p.43.

⁴⁹Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, p.5.

⁵⁰Bell, China, Vol. II, p.44.

⁵¹Ibid., p.116.

⁵²Ibid., p.110.

⁵³Bell, China, Vol. II, p.110.

⁵⁴Ibid., pp.108–10.

⁵⁵Ibid., p.114.

⁵⁶Ibid., p.113.

⁵⁷Ibid., p.114.

⁵⁸Ibid., p.114.

⁵⁹Younghusband, British Military Report; Coast Defense of China, p.5.

⁶⁰Bell, China, Vol. II, p.110.

⁶¹Ibid., p.115.

⁶²Ibid., p.116.

⁶³Ibid., p.120.

⁶⁴Ibid., p.117.

⁶⁵Ibid., p.121.

⁶⁶Ibid., p.131.