Neutrality’s Delicate Balance

By DAVID F. WINKLER

Maintaining neutrality yet vigorously responding to provocations is always a difficult balancing act. On April 18, 1988, four days after USS Samuel B. Roberts had struck an Iranian-laid mine while on patrol in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy conducted Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day campaign that destroyed Iranian oil platform command posts and crippled its navy.

Iran had been attempting to expand the scope of its protracted war with Iraq by threatening shipping in the Persian Gulf. Praying Mantis dealt it a stinging blow. While maintaining its neutrality in the Iran-Iraq War, the United States delivered a clear message that it would not countenance interference with freedom of navigation and attacks on the U.S. flag.

Such was also the case 150 years ago, when the United States sought to maintain neutrality in the so-called Arrow War of 1856-1860 between Britain and China. Having bullied China to sign treaties that ceded Hong Kong to its rule and opened Canton, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai as treaty ports, the British discovered that they and the Chinese often had differing interpretations of these treaties.

When Chinese forces seized the British-registered merchant vessel Arrow, the British sought to gain further concessions during a time when civil war challenged the central government in Peking. Although the ship was released and the governor-general of Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces, Yeh Ming-Ch’en, expressed regret, the British launched military operations to seize key facilities and strategic points in and around Canton. With the French joining with the British, a four-year conflict ensued.

With the commencement of hostilities in October 1856, the commodore of the American squadron in the western Pacific, James Armstrong, seeing his mission as protecting American lives and property within Canton’s foreign settlement, deployed a detachment of sailors and Marines ashore to provide security. Canton was reached by a transit up the relatively shallow Pearl River. Halfway up the river, four granite forts stood as sentinels defended by the Chinese. When these forts fired on an American-flagged vessel in late October, Armstrong protested to Yeh. In reply, Yeh suggested the Americans evacuate, arguing that his forces could be prone to confuse the Americans with the British.

To prepare for this possible contingency, Armstrong sent Cmdr. Andrew Foote up the Pearl Nov. 15 to visit the settlement. As he passed the forts, his launch was fired on despite its waving a large American flag. Armstrong ordered Foote to procure steamships to tow the shallow-draft sloops Portsmouth and Levant up the Pearl to deal with the forts. In preparation, Foote sent an armed cutter near the forts to conduct soundings early on Nov. 16. The Chinese fired on the team, killing a sailor. Armstrong’s British counterpart, Adm. George F. Seymour, offered assistance, which Armstrong declined as his objective was to maintain American neutrality.

Later that day, Portsmouth engaged its Dahlgren guns against the main Chinese fort in a vicious duel. By the end of the day, the American warship had fired 230 rounds. Six Chinese shells holed Portsmouth but only one Marine was wounded. The next day was quiet. Levant joined Portsmouth at the base of the forts. Foote had orders not to fire unless fired on.

Meanwhile, Yeh and Armstrong exchanged notes in the hope of a peaceful settlement. However, after a few days of quiet, Foote observed that the Chinese were reinforcing their positions. Early on Nov. 20, the Dahlgren guns again erupted. Foote then put a 288-man landing party ashore on the north bank and seized one fort, turning its guns on another to force its submission.

After twice repulsing an attack by some 3,000 Chinese troops in the late afternoon, the Americans turned their attention to the remaining redoubts, which fell after successful assaults on Nov. 21 and 22. During the next two weeks, Foote’s sailors and Marines had the arduous task of dismantling the granite fortifications — block by block.

Armstrong had made his point to Yeh, who conveyed to the commodore: “There is no matter of strife between our two countries. Henceforth, let the fashion of the flag which American ships employ be clearly defined or made known. … [T]his will be verification of the friendly relations of our two countries.”

Sources: David F. Long, Gold Braid and Foreign Relations: Diplomatic Activities of U.S. Naval Officers, 1798-1883 (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1988); Gerard A. Forlenza Jr., A Navy Life: The Pre-Civil War Career of Rear Adm. Andrew Hull Foote (Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1991).

Dr. David F. Winkler is a historian with the Naval Historical Foundation.