What most foreign soldiers and civilians observed, once the German troops arrived, was a resurgence of raping and looting, which had died down. A British officer was not surprised by this behavior. “They say that the Kaiser,54 in his farewell speech told the men to act this way. They are strictly obeying orders.” Indeed, William’s demand that “the name of Germans resound through Chinese history” for a thousand years was on Waldersee’s mind. Determined to prove the mettle of German troops and to make the Chinese pay for the murder of Ketteler, the Field Marshal threw himself into the
...more
