The Open University
Yorkshire Region

Cultural Studies Research Forum
Reports and Abstracts 1995 -2000

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The Ethics of War: The Earl of Elgin in China, 1857-60

Bill Roberts

The paper considered mid-nineteenth-century attitudes towards the ethics of war. It used as its example the case of the Earl of Elgin [son of the 'Elgin Marbles' Bruce], who in 1857-8 authorised the shelling and occupation of the city of Canton and in 1860 ordered the destruction of the Chinese emperor's Summer Palace outside Beijing. The former act left him exposed to charges of having been too lenient, the latter to accusations of vandalism. Elgin wanted to pursue an ethical policy in China but he was pressed by British Diplomats and local residents to make an example of the Cantonese. Before the bombardment he recorded in his diary how ashamed he felt to inflict such punishment on innocent people. After the capture of the city he established an international civil administration which attempted to impose an impartial government, but this too brought criticism of Elgin. Two years later, in the second phase of the war, Elgin faced another ethical dilemma. As he advanced on Beijing a party of British soldiers and diplomats displaying a flag of truce was captured. Some members of the party were tortured and died in confinement. It was in reprisal for this that Elgin ordered the burning of the Summer Palace.

These events took place shortly before the first Geneva Convention was agreed [1864] and the International Red Cross was founded. Elgin played no part in those developments [he died in 1863], but his much-discussed actions would have been fresh in the memory of those who did try to formulate the first International agreements on jus in bello, or right in war.

An extended version of this paper, under the title 'The Ethics of War: The Earl of Elgin and the War with China, 1857-60,' appeared in Keith Dockray and Keith Laybourn (eds.), The Representation of War: The British Experience (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1999, pp. 104-125). This collection of essays was published in memory of David Wright, who was a lecturer and counsellor with the Open University in Yorkshire from 1971 to 1991.