Talk:Second Opium War

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Peabody Essex Museum Edit-a-thon Spring 2014
(1 image added) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cathypem (talk • contribs) 14:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

US involvment
Why isnt the US listed in the campaign box? Just after the wars beginning in 1856, the US Navy warships landed 250-300 sailors and marines and destroyed 4 Chinese forts, aswell as defeated an assault by a 3000 man strong Chinese army. --Aj4444 (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

you have an emotional nationalism and that can distort things. It's hard for people to accept that the US was insignificant in the 19th century. Putting the treaty on Wangxia on a par with European activities is silly, particularly as the US promised not to sell opium, not to appropriate land and dropped its request to meet with the Emperor. What the US asked for would be called 'Most Favored Nation" status today - that US merchants be treated the same as everyone else. Here's a link to documents relate dto the Treaty: http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob51.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaintes (talk • contribs) 21:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * why would we want to be involved?70.90.87.73 (talk) 14:36, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

coolies

 * Permitting Chinese to work overseas is nothing more than the export of Chinese laborers to colonies. Around 1860, a large number of Chinese were recruited as "contractual workers". In reality, these Chinese, labeled as "coolies" were taken to America and Southeastern Asia. Their destiny was as miserable as the black slaves from Africa.

Your point being? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.116.38 (talk) 23:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And you hope to achieve _________ by saying "Your point being?" 173.183.79.81 (talk) 08:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

USS Levant
I removed "American warships, including Levant, bombed Guangzhou. The people in Guangzhou and soldiers launched a resistance against the invaders and forced them to retreat from Humen." 1) The Levant's article says they were fired on, however doesn't mention the ship taking part on the bombardment of Guanhzhou. 2)The next paragraph indicates that the US and Russia sent no military aid, meaning their militaries didn't take part and contradicting this statement. 3) This statement is completely unsourced. 70.168.32.250 13:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Opium Legal or Not?
The article on the Treaty of Nanking apparently says that the treaty legalized the opium trade in China, but this article on the Second Opium War says that the Arrow was boarded partly because it was suspected of opium smuggling. Did the legal status of opium trading change between the first and second war? I'm doing a report on this and the Boxer Rebellion for school. Non-User 02:27, 04 April 2005

some sort of discussion
Oh shut the >.< up you, I grew up in a British Colony and british try to brain-washed us all the time, tell us that we are less worthy and they are like survior to us, blah blah blah. Oh yea, then encourage us to be like Banana and take out mother tounge away. So tell me what exactly the different of brain-washed by Britsh or communist??? Personally I don't appreciate your opinion because before like the last two decade of 1997, Non-British people in Hong Kong are simply nothing. 142.161.94.69 04:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I am not having problem with the article, the article is actually pretty good. I just dont like what 142.161.94.69 said above about the BS of like China have no free speech and stuff. To us, the lost of the opium war is very degrading and to make thing even worse is those British goverment of colonies said that the British are one the ones who set the people of the colonies free and then putting them into melting pot and strip, bash those people's original indentites. .....That why I was furious and type word that is innappropiate word I here, I am sorry. I will put that potty word away and put a >.< face instead. 142.161.94.69 23:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

--Relax, the fact of the matter is that white people tried to get the Chinese addicted to drugs so they could make money. Don't freak out because you can't handle it that the British were brutal monsters in the past. Right-wingers, god it's not enough that your politics of selfishness dominate our dying world, you want to seem like angels too. Give me a break. (Comment left by 24.193.227.161)


 * Fair Trade??? So why today, isn't Colombia allowed to export all the cocaine it wants, and Afghanistan all the heroin it wants. Again, it's going to take some research to find it, but even the British at the time didn't believe what they were doing was right; there was an impassioned debate in Parliament against the opium trade and an escalation into war. If you really can't face the fact about the brutality of the Western powers, maybe it would be easier on your soul if you saw it as a conflict between capitalists and progressive Liberals in which the capitalists won; though I doubt that that would fit into a right-wing world view either.Cetot 07:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

--So why do you think European countries should be allowed to dictate to China what China should allow or disallow to trade? As other articles had stated, Europeans wanted Chinese products but China had little need for European products. How is this unfair trade?

It may seem unfair to the Europeans because they are only eager people wanting more land and resources not avaiable to them. They want people to be converted to christians like them so as to be controlled like the sheeps they are. Today we have a result of all this.

Why do you think you can dictate to a country what their immigration and emigration policies should be? Maybe the United States should allow Mexico to write our immigration policy. And speaking of oppression, look at your own history in the mid 1800s.

Just face it, it was the arrogance of European countries brought about by their superior technology which gave them the license to destroy the native civilizations throughout the Americas, enslave the Africans, colonize India and southeast Asia, and force open doors in East Asia. Whether or not this was good or bad is debateable. Sour pickle 23:14, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

China is a country of tradiotional spirit and nothing and nobody, be it the British, the Japanese the American... can crush that. The more you push us around, the more we rise up against it, because that it the true Chinese spirit. No political parties or ideologies are perfect in the world, becuase perfection doesn't yet exist. But we are striving fornear perfection, and one day we're gonna overtake all of the other countries in the world beca use we are the BEST. We work hard and are ever so determined to right the wrongs all the other countries have done to us. So by next century, Japan, prepare to kiss our backside and America, prepare to beg for forgivness and Britain, you'll regret the Opium War. China is a great nation, the Western countries are just jealous and scared, but let me tell you this, we WILL dominate the world and be the BEST! We will NOT let you push us around any longer, and we will stand for what we believe in!!! Missbrainy.

And what is it you 'believe in' exactly? By the tone of your contribution i would suggest arrogance, xenophobia verging on racism and the pursuit of long-term grudges created by your massive inferiority complex. However, please feel free to enlighten me on these 'beliefs'. I await your response with interest.Samgb 09:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

-For real. Missbrainy, how are you any different than the Europeans in your attitude? You're not. You will dominate the world and be the best? For some reason I feel that the Europeans felt the exact same way. Please leave your racism at home, if you must have it at all.

Small Armies?
OKay, I'm not Chinese but I'm really interested in the size of the Chinese Imperial Army. I mean, why only 10k-20k troops? From what I learned, the Chinese used to field armies by the hundreds of thousands. SO why the very few numbers? & for God's sake, hadn't any of Qing generals read The Art of War? Sorry, this just baffles me for sometime. The approaches to the capital & the capital only guarded by 10k troops....Rad vsovereign 11:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * well, the qing army at the time was extremely depleted. after fighting the first opium wars, the taiping rebellion, and corruption. there was not much that the army could do. sometimes, the non-banner troops were not counted, only Manchus could become banner, regular Han (the vast majority of people in china)could not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.228.120 (talk) 19:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That claim from the article is still wrong, it was obviously more than 7,000 troops (the number written in the first page) in total since for the second battle of Canton alone China fielded 30,000, as shown by the very article about this battle that is linked in this page. Have you ever seen a war where a country involves less troops in total than for a single battle of that war ? Mathematically.
 * Also, it's so different from the First Opium War (200k chinese troops in total), that it wouldn't make sense anyway. The British alone rolled on China with less than 1/10th of the Chinese numbers. Yet for the second war, it would mean that China was able somehow to offer some resistance with even less soldiers than the very small Western expedition ? Let's be serious. 2A01:E0A:912:B310:5089:B0B2:15E8:6EDD (talk) 01:36, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

China was never able to field an army larger than 50k. Logistically speaking it was impossible to feed 50k men with food transported by horse/men drawn wagons. A single 100k+ army as listed in the chinese classics is an exaggeration no doubt. More likely, there were several 30K armies operating separately. One should also note that Chinese mobilization was a snail crwawl. There were no railraods and the roads were not well maintained, the troops lacked any discipline whatsoever and by western standards were nothing more than a sick man. By modern standards the chinese imperial army is in fact a corrupt and expensive circus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.40.202.126 (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * And maybe you can keep your European bigotry right where you come from. If you ever bothered to research the entire history of China, you would have noticed they fielded armies amounting into the millions, but I presume you'll dismiss it all as false and Chinese Communist propaganda with your bullshit American imperialist fallacies. By modern standards, the US army (that's right, your country), is a joke. They fail against random militants armed with AK-47 and take 10 years, trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of casualties and many more civilian casualties to kill one single militant: Osama Bin Laden. Keep your biased views right where you come from. The world has had enough of the Western lies already. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.213.42.184 (talk) 05:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Assessment
A nice, informative article. Nice section breaks, and I like that it includes pictures, and that fancy HongKong banner. Overall, it is still a bit short, particularly in the introduction. The introduction, to my mind, needs to summarize the entire article. LordAmeth 12:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

treaty of Nanjing (Nanking)

opium was specifically never mentioned in the treaty, certainly not legalised it was in the treaty of tianjin.....would delve into my history books to give you the details, but.....

regards

Elgin and looting
Here is a passage I removed from the article:


 * Elgin was acutely sensitive to the charge of looting, as it was his own father, Thomas Bruce (1776–1841), who, from 1799 to 1803, removed from the Acropolis in Greece what are now known as the Elgin Marbles to Britain, where they remain to this day, a subject of rancor between the Greek and British governments.

This paragraph is unsourced, misleading and (in its present state) irrelevant. The subject of looting at the Summer Palaces is interesting and has been studied. James Hevia's book, English Lessons, for instance, gives detailed descriptions of how armies of the British Empire (including that involved in the Second Opium War) conducted looting operations in a systematic, institutionalised manner. It makes no sense to talk of Lord Elgin being acutely sensitive to the charge of looting since it was his responsibility to oversee such operations. It is quite unlikely that he felt any sort of remorse for his father's actions in Greece. Pinkville (talk) 19:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Background
In the Background section, it says "The Qing Dynasty court rejected the demands from Britain, France, and the US." However, only British demands were mentioned. What were the French and American demands? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.244.13.112 (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Amur
Amur Annexation is listed as a territorial change but Russia wasn't part of this war. Maybe the war revealed China's weakness to Russia, but this seems to be an independent issue from the war and was conducted separately from it. So I've removed it as a territorial change in the infobox. Spellcast (talk) 09:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Victor Hugo letter regarding looting of Summer Palace?
An anonymous editor wrote in the article (I reverted the change since content questions don't belong in the article itself):

>>> I don't see any comment about Victor Hugo's public letter on the topic of Robbery and Plunder of Summer Palace? Is it too hard to admit yet today? <<<

If anyone knows of this or has time to research it, that may prove useful. Facts707 (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Article Name
Given the discussion at Talk:First Opium War, worth linking on this page's talk space that "Second Opium War" is actually (and increasingly) the preferred term used to discuss this conflict, despite the *Arrow* War having been preferred in the 19th century. — Llywelyn II   13:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

... allegedly murdered ...
"Half were allegedly murdered by the Chinese in a fashion ..." This implies that the murder is uncertain (which it is not - see entries for Parkes and Loch (and probably several original sources)).

I suggest to rephrase: "Half were murdered by the Chinese, allegedly in a fashion ..."

A user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.196.53 (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

"Background"
I've just deleted this part as it was exactly repeating the "outbreak" part that just follow. I thought it was better to keep the text included in a broader structure. Regards, KaptainIgloo (talk) 08:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC) KaptainIgloo

Should the US be played up as a participant in the infobox?
There's a section on the US involvement, and it sounds puny. Battle of the Pearl River Forts arguably wasn't even part of the Opium War and was a self-contained skirmish (i.e. a separate mini-hostilities between the US & China, but with no coordination between the US and the British/French), and the shelling of the Dagu Forts sounds more like a ship gone rogue (apparently under orders to maintain neutrality due to the earlier treaty which were ignored). To be sure talking about these incidents is important, but they're important because of the *period* of history, not because there was a UK/France/US alliance. Or perhaps the article is being misleading and there was more coordination going on? Open to be convinced here, I'm not an expert, just going by what's currently in the article... SnowFire (talk) 16:08, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * US involvement in the Second Opium War was incidental and it would be untrue to say that they were a participant. Bear in mind that the War of 1812 was still relatively fresh in people's minds, making cooperation at best unlikely. Philg88 ♦talk 17:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Hm, I guess it's a matter of definition. Is the definition of this war limited to the Anglo-French goals? Or does it include any other countries that China was in conflict with at the same time? If a country was involved in battles that happened concurrently with others, it doesn't necessarily make them a belligerent to the overall conflict. The British and French obviously cooperated, but it seems the U.S. battles were their own self-contained affairs with separate goals. The Americans were there to protect their interests in Canton and the U.S. commander Andrew Foote tried stressing their "neutrality" between the British and Chinese. Now that is a primary source and things like this are going to need elaboration from scholars or historians in determining whether to include the U.S. as part of the war. I'm not too familiar with this war yet, so I'm not really arguing for or against inclusion at this stage. Just saying we need to establish a definition from what secondary sources generally say. Spellcast (talk) 12:13, 12 August 2016 (UTC)


 * After researching this a bit, the U.S. was officially neutral but later aided Britain (kind of like the First World War). Commodore Josiah Tattnall III couldn't resist intervening after learning of the British wounded (including Admiral Grant) in the Taku Forts and of the stranded British ship. When confronted with this violation of neutrality, he replied with (and helped popularise the phrase) "blood is thicker than water". He also got the approval of American envoy to China John E. Ward to do so. Before this, the only direct U.S. military action was the Barrier Forts as you linked. The ref I added says they were "officially neutral" but the navy "occasionally aided" the British and French. So we have a case of official vs. de facto positions, and I guess whether to include the U.S. in the infobox is a stylistic choice. We don't want to give the misleading impression the U.S. goals were totally aligned with the others, but at the same time we don't want to totally erase/downplay their actual actions. So perhaps adding the U.S. with a supplementary note is good compromise. Spellcast (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Tattnall not only acted against US government policy in this instance, but less than 2 years later was already rebelling against the US government as a commander in the Confederate Navy. He should not be listed uncritically as representing the US government's policy. I propose to change the infobox note to reflect this. --JWB (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * According to Taku Forts, Tattnall only sent a boat to take off British wounded, and on its return found that some sailors had also helped the British operate ship's guns. --JWB (talk) 05:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Battle of Taku Forts (1859) describes it this way: "The United States government, as a neutral power, did not order any American vessels to proceed in this attack. Tattnall offered to send in his steam launch to help evacuate the dead and wounded from danger, an offer which was gratefully accepted by the Britons. When Tattnall left Rear Admiral Hope for Powhatan in his launch, he was forced to wait a moment at Plover's port side for his men who had come aboard with the Commodore. A moment later a few men returned, covered in black powder marks and sweaty from excitement. The American Commodore asked, "What have you been doing, you rascals?" "Don’t you know we're neutrals" "Beg pardon, sir," said one of the men, "but they were a bit short-handed with the bow-gun, and we thought it no harm to give them a hand while we were waiting." --JWB (talk) 05:05, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

"The United States and Russia sent envoys to Hong Kong to offer help to the British and French, though in the end Russia sent no military aid.[citation needed]"
No citation has been added and it seems contrary to other information. It should be removed. --JWB (talk) 04:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Hsu p. 207 seems to contradict it. --JWB (talk) 05:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Gladstone in 1840-1
The article currently says that because of (the then Whig Foreign Secretary) Palmerston's First Opium War in 1840, Gladstone was reluctant to accept office in Peel's Conservative government in 1841. Why should this have been the case? Clarification needed, please.Paulturtle (talk) 00:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The editor even did not provide any info about Casualties and losses.
The editor even did not provide any info about Casualties and losses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Temp8900 (talk • contribs) 10:20, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess we should sack "the editor". Temp8900 is invited to grasp the nettle, find the sources and provide what's missing.  Don't be shy!  sirlanz 10:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

"In China, the First Opium War is considered to be the beginning of modern Chinese history."
needs a strong citation. It's certainly the dividing point for the Shanghai History Museum but that's because of Shanghai's quasi-international status after the Treaty of Nanjing. For the most part, history classes in China seem to make their divisions among the different dynasties with "modern" or "new" China following the Xinhai Revolution and the fall of the Qing in 1911/2. — Llywelyn II   13:11, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Merge duplicative British Delays and British Attacks sections?
These two sections seem to cover the same events in differing levels of detail. Suggest taking the material from the British Attacks section and putting it where British Delays currently is, which seems to make more sense chronologically. Any objections? Ruatcaelum 19:28, 14 March 2021 (GMT)

Current Wikipedia article is too different from britiannica in the causes of war
I read the britiannica version of Opium wars and the current Wikipedia version and they are so different.

In britiannica, it explicitly states in the intro that the British had wanted any excuse to wage war and extend their trading rights. When China seized a former pirate ship registered to British and arrested several Chinese crew members. The British used that incident as a pretext to wage war. China was also in no position to fight as they were in the middle of Taiping rebellion. Generally it blames the British for using the arrow incident as an excuse to attain political benefits.

In current Wikipedia version however, that narrative is missing. Instead it makes it seem like the reason for the war was because China broken the treaty and also stresses on how Chinese acted horribly to the British by Arresting the 12 Chinese crew members. Refused to apologize or completely release all Chinese sailors and so Deserved to have a war that conveniently expanded British trading rights. ... basically implying only China was the one who created the war and had pushed Britian too far.

Ie. Current article writes

The remaining crew of the Arrow were then released, with no apology from Viceroy Ye Mingchen who also refused to honour the treaty terms. Seymour, Major General van Straubenzee and Admiral de Genouilly agreed the plan to attack Canton as ordered.[6]:503 This event came to be known as the Arrow Incident and provided the alternative name of the ensuing conflict.[15][page needed]

Same exact deal with the French. In britiannica, It says "the French decided to join the British military expedition, using as their EXCUSE the murder of a French missionary in the interior of China in early 1856."

But current Wikipedia says the death of a Frenchman had inspired the French.

Is the britiannica version wrong or is current Wikipedia article a deeply flawed revisionist version? Because they are too different from each other. I do think britiannica is correct in that it's ridiculous to think the British felt justified to invade a country and expand their trading priveleges just because one chinese officer arrested a former pirate ship of mostly Chinese sailors. Even britiannica could not lie to themselves of what is obviously a British pretext for war. Even in British parliament, they had another argument on the morality of the war as they clearly knew it wasn't right to force Chinese to buy what they refused to buy.

The current Wikipedia article is a flawed revisionist version that needs to be fixed and match the britiannica encyclopedia version which is relatively a more honest version that admits the real causes of opium war as obviously British greed and opium profits. Casualfoodie (talk) 16:23, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for updating the total of casualties with a new source
Hi! I found this rather recent and credible source (from 2016) in the form of a book titled "Battle for Beijing, 1858-1860: Franco-British Conflict in China" by author Harry Gelber; this book mentions that the total casualties for the allies was of at least 1,200 while the article in its current form with its current sources claims their casualties were of 981 at worst; on the other hand, the article in its current form with its current articles mentions that the Chinese sustained 4,901 casualties at worst while the book by Gelber mentions at least 20,000 and as much as 25,000 casualties in total. The data presented by Gelber seems credible in my opinion, although the differences are way too high in the case of the Chinese side, but we can quote it to mention in the infobox that the total casualties for the allies (which aren't mentioned as of now) was of anywhere between 981 to 1,200 and for the Chinese we could either use Gelber's statistics or leave the current ones with a footnote stating that some authors (Gelber obviously) claim that the Chinese casualties might number as many as 25,000. What do you think? I already prepared the sources for Gelber's book from its two relevant chapters so if we decide to use them we can just copy and paste this:

So what do you think? Thanks in advance and have a nice day. 177.227.43.209 (talk) 00:38, 13 June 2021 (UTC)


 * It seems reasonable to add these figures, particularly if you can explain why Gelber's numbers are greater. Does he explain? That is, did he find new sources, perhaps Chinese ones that had been passed over? Chinese scholars would have found them, so I'm curious. Did he use sources that earlier scholars examined and found unreliable? I checked my local university library web catalogue, which finds books reviews, but there were none for this book.
 * In any case, thank you for finding this new material.ch (talk) 18:17, 13 June 2021 (UTC)


 * PS Why are there so many editors' names? The publisher's webpage [here lists Gelber as the sole author. In any case, a single editor and "and others" would be fine.[[User:CWH|ch]] (talk) 18:26, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced paragraph. In need of editing for English
"In August 1860, the Anglo-French army reorganized 18,000 men and captured Tianjin first.."

This paragraph, set amid actions of 1858, is misplaced, and the English in places is barely coherent. JF42 (talk)