A Qing dynasty Chinese military training manual is not the sort of book you would expect to find on the shelves of an Australian library.  Even the universities’ Asian Language collection would be unlikely to include such an out-of-the-way item.  In the museum library of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, however, there is a book called Huaijun way gerund caching, or A Military Training Syllabus for the Resolute Divisions of the Haul Army. It is a Chinese army manual of the 1890s.

In Australia, the syllabus is a rare book.  A curious combination of circumstances brought it here.

From June to August 1990, the Legation Quarter in Peking was besieged by hordes of anti-foreign elements known as ‘Boxers’ (from the ritualistic shadow-boxing which they practiced).  The boxer rebellion, as it came to be called, was put down, and the siege was lifted, by a mixed force of British, American, Russian, French, German and Japanese troops.

Australia became involved on 28 June, when the colonial office of the British Government cabled the premier of New South Wales, suggesting that vessels of the Australian Squadron should be sent to assist in the campaigns against the boxers.  The suggestion was taken up.  New South Wales provided a naval contingent of two hundred and sixty men, and Victoria of two hundred.  On 8 August 1900, a requisitioned liner carrying this small expeditionary force sailed for China from circular Quay in Sydney.  This contingent was followed three days later on 11 August by the 960-ton cruiser South Australia’s only sea-going worship, which the government of that state had offered in assistance.  The protector sailed with ninety-six officers and men.  Another warship, the third class cruiser Gallardo, of the Australian Auxiliary Squadron, initially intended to carry an Australian naval brigade to the Boer War in South Africa had been diverted to China on 2 July.  Altogether some seven hundred and fifty Australian sailors and marines saw service in China.

The Australian naval contingent was used mostly for garrison duties and police work in Tianjin and Peking.  The protector did survey work in the Bahia Gulf and was employed in carrying dispatches.  She returned to Adelaide on 8 January 1901.  The naval contingent arrived back in Sydney on 25 April.

Like all servicemen who have been posted to a foreign country, the Australians returned with many trophies and souvenirs.  They brought back a boxer soldier’s plait, cut off before his execution; a bronze temple bell, dated 1715; a chopping spear; a tweeter long, three-man blunderbuss; a double-handed executioner’s sword; and other relics and mementoes.  Among these curios was the syllabus.

Why this book was taken as a souvenir will never be known with certainty, but one reason may be guessed.  Even though the Syllabus has no special importance, its themes-musketry, maneuvering in formation, artillery drill, signaling, and so on are naturally topics of great interest to a soldier.  The man who brought the syllabus back to Australia had found a fitting souvenir of the war in China.  It was in Chinese, and it was about war.

The syllabus was published as a training manual for the instructors and officers of the way Jun, or ‘resolute divisions’ of the Haul Army.  In 1862, Li Hong Zhang, who became one of the most powerful political and military leaders of late imperial China, had formed the so-called Haul Army from troops raised in his native province of Anhui, on the Haul River.  The Haul Army was originally established to fight the Taiping rebels, who controlled the region of the Yangtze about Nanjing.

Though the Taiping rebellion, which came close to overturning the dynasty, was crushed in 1864, the army continued in existence, to a large extent as Li Hong hang’s personal force. The ‘Resolute Divisions’ of the Haul Army were formed in 1866 by Li Hengyang’s brother Li Shoaling.  These were furnished with Western arms, and received modern, Western Training in the art and science of war.

In 1900, units of the resolute divisions fought in the defense of Tianjin.  This city, attacked by the foreign troops which had arrived to relieve the siege of the Peking legations, fell, and the commander, Nye Shushing, was killed.  It may have been in the aftermath of this defeat that the syllabus was the first souvenir.

The book itself is in ten chapters, Juan, bound in seven thin volumes, each about fifteen by twenty-five centimeters. Though the syllabus is nearly one hundred years old, and has probably seen some rough use, it is in surprisingly good condition.  While the box-case is broken, most of the traditional Chinese binding is still intact, and the pages, of fine rice-paper, are not yellowed or brittle.  Book-worms, whose ravages might have made a less well-preserved document unreadable, appear to have confined their interest to musketry and ballistics (the second volume), and have caused little damage even there.

The first volume comprises a detailed table of contents, a preface, and the opening chapter, Juan 1.  This, appropriately, concerns commands.  A small number of well-understood commands, each with a completely precise meaning, is the foundation of an army’s existence, as well as the means by which soldiers are trained and disciplined.  Juan 1 includes commands to come to attention, to slope arms, and the like, as well as the more complicated orders used to drill soldiers in marching and turning.The second volume contains juan 2 and juan3.  Juan 2 concerns small-arms and marksmanship.  There is a detailed discussion of target practice, sighting and aiming, and scoring at the butts.  Diagrams illustrate the variously curved trajectories of rounds fired at different ranges.

Juan 3 is entitled ‘The Ten Principles of Tactics’ Defense against attack while on the march; offensive formations; combined cavalry and infantry operations, and similar topics are covered.

The third volume contains Juan 4 and Juan 5. Juan 4 is a detailed manual of maneuvering in formation. The various ways, for different purposes, of disposing units of cavalry, artillery, and infantry are described and illustrated with precise, well-drawn plans. Juan 5 is about the technical aspects of small arms. In this chapter there are detailed technical drawings of modern rifles and their component parts.

The fourth volume, Juan 6, is about artillery. This chapter has four fine line-drawings of artillery-pieces, and diagrams of the various shells that they fire.

The fifth volume contains Juan 7, artillery drill, the technique of drawing up and maneuvering artillery pieces, and Juan 8, bugle calls and signals. The bugle calls, set down in five-line musical notation, cover everything from ‘attack!’, to ‘strike camp!’.

Volume six concerns signaling. The first part, Juan 9, explains the theory and practice of signaling by flags and semaphore. The second part, Juan 10, covers signaling by means of colored lanterns. Both parts contain many diagrams and illustrations, which for clarity have been hand-colored.

The final, seventh, volume is actually an appendix to Juan 4, on maneuvering in formation.  It contains sixteen fifty-by-fifty centimeter hand-colored prints illustrating the methods of marching in a column, forming a line, forming a square, and other drills and exercises. This is the most attractive section of the Syllabus. While the drawings are precise enough to impart their technical information easily, the artist has painted his figures with far more than the necessary minimum of realism and attention to detail. A coolie carries his load with one hand propped on his hip. An officer sits bow- legged on a white horse, reviewing his troops. A soldier casually brings his right arm across his chest to hold the staff of a flag. The closely-observed detail contrives to give the Syllabus a certain unexpected charm.

The Chinese manual of military training preserved in the Australian War Memorial may have been a souvenir for its prettiness, not as a memento of the death and destruction of war. Perhaps that is not a bad reason.