Punitive Raid March/April 1899 Shandong Province

[jerryasher]

Can any round out the details of a seaborne operation, based from Tsingtau into the Bohai, What ships and what forces--at lest two villages were occupied for a time while local negotiations took place. What were the dates. In English villages named are Icahn Sichau Thima, Ichuau fu (All the names are probably wrong and certainly obsolete. Best sources would be in German. Some polite criticism in American and British docs feeling the raid was too harsh.

[GregSingh]

According to German sources there were two separate incidents.
In the first one, Provicar Freinademetz had been abducted near Tsimo. (Now called Jimo, 20km NE of Qingdao).
He was rescued by detachment from Litzun garrison.

Tsimo.jpg

In the second one, "German officer Hannemann, interpreter Mootz and the engineer Vorschuite were on their way to I-Tschau-fu, and not far from this city were attacked by the indigenous population."
"for the protection of these Reich citizens a military expedition to the area of ​​riot was sent, ordered by the imperial government. The expedition was taken from the garrison of Tsingtau and is on board of the Kreuzer Gefion."
Just by comparing an old sketch to Google maps, I-Tschau-fu seems to be now called Linyi and it's 200km SW from Tsingtau/Qingdao.
Leutnant Hannemann was from III.Seebataillon. A detachment from the same unit (under command of Hauptmann von Falkenhayn) was sent to the area of riot.
There is a detailed cover of this one in 29th of March issue of Deutsch-Asiatische Warte.

Schantung.png

[jerryasher]

Many thanks Greg.

[GregSingh]

Here is how Deutsch-Asiatische Warte commented on reprisal action:

selb.jpg