But The Assault Was Premature, For,
Although The Assailants Gained The Inside Of The Fortification, They Could
Not Advance.
The insurgents fought desperately behind the earthworks and
in the streets, and after four hours' fighting they put the whole
imperialist force to flight.
The French were carried along by their
disheartened allies who, allowing race hatred to overcome a temporary
arrangement, even fired on them, and when Admiral Laguerre reckoned up the
cost of his intervention he found it amounted to four officers and sixty
men killed and wounded. Such was the result of the French attack on
Shanghai, and it taught the lesson that even good European troops cannot
ignore the recognized rules and precautions of war. After this engagement
the siege languished, and the French abstained from taking any further
part in it. But the imperialists continued their attack in their own
bungling but persistent fashion, and at last the insurgents, having failed
to obtain the favorable terms they demanded, made a desperate sortie, when
a few made their way to the foreign settlement, where they found safety,
but by far the greater number perished by the sword of the imperialists.
More than 1,500 insurgents were captured and executed along the highroads,
but the two leaders of the movement escaped, one of them to attain great
fortune as a merchant in Siam. The imperialists unfortunately sullied
their success by grave excesses and by the cruel treatment of the
unoffending townspeople, who were made to suffer for the original
incapacity and cowardice of the officials themselves.
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