MILITARY GENERAL History –
“The dramatic story of how the seizure of a ship called the ‘Arrow’ led to a full-scale imperialist war.”
“On the morning of October 8, 1856, a small vessel flying the British flag under charter, with a Chinese crew, was seized by the Chinese. The relatively minor incident was to trigger an imperialistic war that lasted four years and involved full-scale intervention by the european powers. One of its memorable incidents was the historic looting and burning of the incredibly beautiful Summer Palace, actually a compound of two hundred buildings extending over eighty square miles–pavilions roofed with gold, filled with silks, jade, and objets d’art of great worth.”
The 19th Century war that would cast a shadow over southeast Asia and the war that was going on in Vietnam at the time this book was published. “The Arrow War has been cited as an example of gunboat diplomacy and imperialist bullying; certainly it was a war that caused Chinese resentment that has persisted to the present day, as evidenced by Peking’s attitude toward the world powers of the west.” ~ from the book’s inner jacket blurb ~ “The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860.”
pp. 254 illusts First Edition #300625