(This is our fifth post about the films of diplo­mat John Van Antwerp MacMur­ray. See the first post for more background.)

When watch­ing MacMurray’s peace­ful films of China, it is easy to for­get that the coun­try was torn by civil war for most of the time he served as min­is­ter. The films labeled “Peking Misc(ellaneous) I-II,” serve as a reminder. The first film opens with drills of the U.S. Marines of the Lega­tion Guard, who pro­tected the lega­tion and, in emer­gen­cies, Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. In addi­tion, the sec­ond film con­tains elab­o­rate, rare footage of Nation­al­ist troops, which may have been shot dur­ing the “cap­ture”  of Peking in June 1928 that ended the Nation­al­ists’ North­ern Cam­paign and left Chi­ang Kai-shek and his party in con­trol of the country.

Above: News­pa­per clip­ping of June 18, 1928, about a break-in by Nation­al­ist sol­diers of Ta Pei Ssu, a tem­ple leased by Mac­Mur­ray (box 104).

Accord­ing to a news­pa­per clip­ping in MacMurray’s papers, Nation­al­ist sol­diers broke into the ‘Ta Pa Ssu’ tem­ple in the West­ern Hills, which was leased by the Mac­Mur­ray fam­ily. (For more on tem­ple rent­ing, see our pre­vi­ous entry.) Fear of loot­ing and vio­lence against for­eign­ers, as had occurred dur­ing the Nation­al­ist cap­ture of Nanking in March 1927, was wide­spread. These fears proved unfounded, how­ever, as can be read in My Life in China, the mem­oirs of Hal­lett Abend, a reporter for the New York Times. After nego­ti­a­tions with the for­eign lega­tions, the gen­er­als of the armies that sur­rounded the city agreed that Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian war­lord in con­trol of Peking, would be allowed to leave the city, while his best-disciplined troops stayed behind to retain order. When Gen­eral Yen Hsi-shan’s troops entered the city through the South Gate, Chang’s troops would exit through the North­east gate. Does MacMurray’s footage cap­ture these events?

The first film opens with a visit of pre­sum­ably Admi­ral Clarence Williams, com­man­der in chief of the US Asi­atic Fleet (1:09), and a parade by the Marines of the Lega­tion Guard. (The naval offi­cers with bicorn hats (0:53) are not iden­ti­fied). The footage con­tin­ues with a long series of drills, in which the Marines are sim­u­lat­ing their defense of the Lega­tion Quar­ter: first, the gates are closed and mounted Marines are sent out to “res­cue” Amer­i­cans (1:39), while heavy machine guns and sup­plies are retrieved from the armory with two wheel carts (2:01). This is fol­lowed by artillery drill prac­tice from the Tar­tar Wall (2:30). The remain­der of the film shows var­i­ous Peking sites, includ­ing Bei­hai Park, and footage of Peking in snow. In addi­tion, the film con­tains street and mar­ket scenes and shots of musi­cians and performers.

The sec­ond film con­tin­ues with local scenes of Peking and its sur­round­ings, includ­ing a funeral pro­ces­sion (0:12), street and mar­ket scenes, ice skat­ing (2:21), and the sell­ing and burn­ing of incense at a tem­ple (4:34). The footage that may cap­ture the entry of Nation­al­ist sol­diers in Peking starts at 7:14.

Mac­Mur­ray filmed an encounter with an uniden­ti­fied mil­i­tary offi­cer (7:58), groups of vehi­cles and packed camels, and armed and unarmed troops (8:38, 8:43, 8:54, 9:13, 9:19, 9:35), wear­ing dif­fer­ent arm­bands and on two occa­sions car­ry­ing dif­fer­ent flags (8:38 and 8:54). Film­ing the groups from dif­fer­ent loca­tions, Mac­Mur­ray appears to have sought a vari­ety of mil­i­tary and uni­formed groups, alter­nat­ing with shots of onlook­ers and guards. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est are the men with straw hats wear­ing arm­bands with Guo­min­dang stars (9:35). The film ends with footage of a sol­dier rais­ing the Nation­al­ist flag (10:15), and a scene at a train sta­tion, with sol­diers leav­ing on an open car (10:22). The brief footage fol­low­ing, shot aboard a boat, does not seem to be related.

The footage leaves many ques­tions. Did Mac­Mur­ray film this on June 8 1928, the day that the Nation­al­ist troops entered the city, or was it spread over a few days? Who was the mil­i­tary offi­cer who gets so much atten­tion (the fourth from the left in the pic­ture here)? What do the two flags at 8:38 and 8:54 indi­cate, and what is the mean­ing of the dif­fer­ent arm­bands, which were often used to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between forces and units (8:38, 9:19, 9:36)? Ulti­mately, who are the troops in the end, leav­ing by train? When the Manchurian troops, who had been promised safe con­duct, evac­u­ated the city, they were sur­rounded and dis­armed by the sol­diers of a sub­or­di­nate gen­eral, Han Fu-chu. The inci­dent required the inter­ven­tion of the diplo­matic corps. Is any of this footage related to that? If you are able to shed any light on the films, we would love hear from you!

Our thanks to Dirk Haig for his expla­na­tion of the Marine drills, Shuwen Cao for her iden­ti­fi­ca­tions of local scenes, and Edward McCord for his infor­ma­tion about Chi­nese uni­forms, arm­bands, and flags.

• MacMurray’s films of China, 1925–1929 (includ­ing “Kalgan”)
• Trip to attend the rein­ter­ment of Sun Yat-sen, 1929
• A diplomat’s trip along the Yangtze River, 1928
• Rent­ing a tem­ple in the West­ern Hills