Battle of Amoy

Battle of Amoy
Part of First Opium War
The 18th Royal Irish Regiment storming the fortifications at Xiamen
Date 26 August 1841 Location Xiamen ("Amoy"), Fujian, China Coordinates: 24°27′28″N 118°4′24″E / 24.45778°N 118.07333°E / 24.45778; 118.07333 Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom British East India Company	Qing Empire (China)
Commanders and leaders
Hugh Gough William Parker	Unknown
Strength
15 ships[1] 2,500 troops[2]	5,600–10,000 troops[3]
Casualties and losses
2 killed[4] 15 wounded[5]	Heavy casualties[6] 500 guns captured[7]

The Battle of Amoy or Xiamen was fought between British and Qing forces at Xiamen (then known as "Amoy" from the local pronunciation of the name) on Xiamen Island, Fujian, in the Qing Empire on 26 August 1841 during the First Opium War. The British captured the forts at Xiamen and on nearby Gulangyu Island ("Kulangau").

Battle

Before the engagement, Qing forces prepared defenses along the shores of Xiamen and built batteries on Gulangyu Island. The British began the battle by bombarding the island's batteries for two to four hours (sources vary), with little effect. Land forces then disembarked their transports and took the batteries with little resistance. The day was noted as being very hot and fatiguing to the men. Qing forces withdrew and the city fell the next day. A garrison force of 550 men, mostly from the 18th, and three ships—the Druid, Pylades, and the Algerine—was left moored at Gulangyu to defend Xiamen.^[8]

Rosa Luxemburg provides a brief account of the battle in her magnum opus The Accumulation of Capital.

"On August 25, 1841, the British approached the town of Amoy, whose forts were armed with a hundred of the heaviest Chinese guns. These guns being almost useless, and the commanders lacking in resource, the capture of the harbour was child’s play. Under cover of a heavy barrage, British ships drew near the walls of Kulangau, landed their marines, and after a short stand the Chinese troops were driven out. The twenty-six battle-junks with 128 guns in the harbour were also captured, their crews having fled. One battery, manned by Tartars, heroically held out against the combined fire of three British ships, but a British landing was effected in their rear and the post wiped out."^[9]

Commander John Elliot Bingham (late first lieutenant of HMS Modeste) wrote a detailed first-hand account of the battle from a British perspective.

British order of battle

Ships: Wellesley, 74 ; Blenheim, 74 ; Blonde, 4:4 Druid, 44; Modeste, 18; Cruiser, 18; Pylades, 18; Columhine, 16 Bintinch, 10 ; Algerine, 10 ; Sesostris, 4 ; Phlegethon, 4 ; Nemesis, 4 Queen, 4^[8]

Gallery

• 

  Storming of Xiamen by the British fleet

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  Taking of Xiamen

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  Capture of Xiamen, plate 1

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  Plate 2

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  Plate 3

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Bingham, John Elliot (1843). Narrative of the Expedition to China from the Commencement of the War to Its Termination in 1842. Volume 2. London: H. Colburn.
• Frontier and Overseas Expeditions From India. Vol. 6 (Expeditions Overseas). Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing. 1911.
• Hall, William Hutcheon; Bernard, William Dallas (1846). The Nemesis in China (3rd ed.). Henry Colburn.
• Luxemburg, Rosa (1913) The Accumulation of Capital [Reprinted Routledge, 2013].
• MacPherson, Duncan (1843). Two Years in China (2nd ed.). Saunders and Otley.