ABSTRACT
The Boxer Uprising was not a typical conflict by any means, but a combination of domestic and anti-imperialist war. In addition, the participants made extensive use of both traditional and modern military methods. It deserves special attention in a work on modern Chinese warfare because it represented the last major retreat in China’s path toward military modernization. The Boxers were members of a Chinese secret society known by 1900 as the “Yihe Tuan” or the “Righteous and Harmonious Militia.” They practiced traditional Chinese martial arts, spurning the use of guns in favor of swords and lances, weapons that had already proven themselves to be singularly ineffective against the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War. The Boxers also believed in magic, and claimed to new converts that their followers could become immune to bullets after only a hundred days’ training and could fly after 400 days.
