On August 4, 1900, 2,500 US soldiers and marines of the China Relief Expedition joined forces of seven other nations—Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Japan—to begin a fighting march from Tientsin to relieve the embassy personnel and Chinese Christians besieged in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion.
The multi-national alliance marked a rare moment of military cooperation between rival global empires, united by a desire to protect their diplomatic delegations. The grueling 80-mile march through oppressive summer heat and heavily fortified terrain tested the coordination of the different armies, who spoke different languages and utilized wildly distinct combat tactics. The successful relief of the besieged Legation Quarter days later permanently shifted Western-Chinese relations and paved the way for decades of heavy foreign intervention in Chinese sovereignty.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain in the US
