Second Opium War and the burning of the Summer Palace

Date

1856–1860 (Convention of Peking, October 1860)

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Qing China (Canton, north China, Beijing)

Era

Modern

Significance

The Second Opium War (1856–1860), also called the Arrow War, saw Britain and France wage a joint campaign against the Qing dynasty to expand the privileges won in 1842.

The pretext was the Chinese boarding of the Arrow, a Hong Kong-registered vessel, in October 1856; French grievances over the killing of a missionary added a second belligerent. Allied forces seized Canton, then drove north, capturing the Dagu forts and Tianjin. After Qing forces detained and abused an allied negotiating party, Lord Elgin ordered the looting and burning of the magnificent Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) outside Beijing on 18 October 1860—a deliberate act of destruction that remains a potent symbol of imperial humiliation in China. The war closed with the Treaties of Tianjin (1858) and the Convention of Peking (October 1860), which opened further ports, legalised the opium trade, permitted foreign legations in Beijing and Christian missionary activity in the interior, ceded Kowloon to Britain, and imposed heavy indemnities. Russia exploited the crisis to annex vast territories north of the Amur. The war deepened China's subjection to foreign powers and further eroded Qing sovereignty.

Empires active in 1856–1860 (Convention of Peking, October 1860)

• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related military & conflict events

• American Civil War and the abolition of slavery
  1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)
• The Taiping Rebellion
  1850–1864
• The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
  19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
• First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking
  1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
• Battle of Waterloo
  18 June 1815
• Napoleon's invasion of Russia
  June–December 1812

Also relevant

• The Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris
  October 1853 – March 1856

Further reading

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing

The wider story

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing

William T. Rowe

Readable synthesis of the Qing (Harvard History of Imperial China).

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