Burning of the Old Summer Palace (1860): Yuanmingyuan Destroyed

The burning of the Old Summer Palace took place on 18-19 October 1860, at the end of the Second Opium War, when British troops set fire to the Yuanmingyuan, the vast imperial gardens northwest of Beijing. It followed almost two weeks of looting by French and British soldiers and was ordered by the British envoy Lord Elgin as a reprisal against the Qing emperor. The destruction of one of the world’s great palace complexes remains a powerful symbol in China of foreign humiliation, and the fate of its looted treasures is still debated.

The Garden of Perfect Brightness

The Yuanmingyuan, usually translated as the Garden of Perfect Brightness, began in 1707 as a gift from the Kangxi Emperor to his son, the future Yongzheng Emperor. Yongzheng and especially the Qianlong Emperor enlarged it into a complex of three linked gardens covering about 3.5 square kilometres, with lakes, artificial hills, temples, libraries and hundreds of pavilions and halls.

The emperors spent much of the year there rather than in the Forbidden City. Qianlong added a small quarter of European-style palaces, the Xiyanglou, designed from the 1740s by Jesuits at court, including the painter Giuseppe Castiglione and the French priest Michel Benoist, who engineered the fountains. The gardens held vast collections of art, books and gifts from foreign rulers.

Background: the war of 1856-1860

The Second Opium War began in 1856 over trade, diplomatic access and the Arrow incident, and Britain and France fought together against the Qing. The Treaties of Tianjin of 1858 were to be ratified in Beijing, but in 1859 Chinese forts at Dagu repulsed an Anglo-French squadron trying to force its way up the river. In 1860 a much larger allied army of around 17,000 to 18,000 men returned, took the Dagu forts in August and advanced on the capital.

On 18 September 1860, during negotiations near Tongzhou, Qing forces seized a British and French party travelling under a flag of truce. It included the diplomat Harry Parkes, Elgin’s secretary Henry Loch and The Times correspondent Thomas William Bowlby. Some prisoners were bound tightly and badly mistreated, and about twenty of the roughly thirty-nine captives died. After the allied victory at Baliqiao on 21 September, the Xianfeng Emperor fled to his summer retreat at Chengde, leaving his half-brother Prince Gong to negotiate.

Looting, 6-9 October 1860

French troops reached the Yuanmingyuan on 6 October 1860, followed by British forces the next day. Over several days soldiers and officers of both armies stripped the palaces of porcelain, jade, gold and silver, silks, clocks, robes and books. Much was smashed or burned. The British held an auction of their share of the loot and divided the proceeds among the troops, while French officers sent objects home, some of which reached Empress Eugénie’s Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau.

The surviving prisoners were released on 8 October, and the bodies of those who had died were returned soon afterwards. Their condition caused outrage in the allied camp.

The decision to burn

Elgin rejected the idea of demanding a larger indemnity or punishing individuals, arguing that only a blow against the emperor himself would make the point. He chose the Yuanmingyuan, the ruler’s favourite residence, rather than the Forbidden City, which he feared would disrupt the coming peace and hurt the ordinary population. The French commander, General Charles Cousin-Montauban, and the French envoy Baron Gros opposed the plan and took no part.

On 18 October 1860 British troops, chiefly of the 1st Division under Major-General Sir John Michel and under the overall command of General Sir James Hope Grant, set fire to the buildings. The burning continued into 19 October, and a pall of smoke hung over Beijing. Neighbouring imperial estates, including the Qingyiyuan on the site of today’s Summer Palace, were also burned. A young Royal Engineers officer, Charles Gordon, later famous as “Chinese Gordon”, wrote home that the destruction was demoralising work for soldiers.

Consequences

The threat worked. Prince Gong signed the Convention of Peking with Britain on 24 October and with France on 25 October 1860. China ratified the Tianjin treaties, paid larger indemnities, opened Tianjin as a treaty port, ceded Kowloon to Britain and allowed foreign diplomats to reside in Beijing. Russia obtained the Ussuri region by a separate treaty in November.

What remained of the Yuanmingyuan was never fully restored. Parts were damaged again in 1900 during the occupation that followed the Boxer Rebellion, and for decades local people carried away stone, timber and bricks. Today the site is a heritage park whose broken marble columns of the European palaces are the best-known image of the destruction.

The treasures debate

Objects from the Yuanmingyuan are held in museums and private collections across Europe and North America, and Chinese institutions argue that they should be returned. The issue gained wide attention in 2009, when two bronze zodiac heads, of the rat and the rabbit, from a fountain clock of the European palaces were auctioned in Paris. They were later bought and donated to China by the Pinault family in 2013. A horse head was donated to the state in 2019, while several heads remain missing.

Museums holding Yuanmingyuan objects often point to the long history of their collections and to legal rules on ownership, while critics stress the violent circumstances of their removal. The debate is part of a wider discussion about returning cultural property taken in colonial wars. Because records of the 1860 loot are incomplete, the total number of objects removed is unknown, and estimates published in China vary widely. Researchers continue to trace individual pieces through regimental records, auction catalogues and museum archives.

Key people

• Lord Elgin (James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin): British High Commissioner in China, who ordered the burning. He was the son of the Lord Elgin who removed the Parthenon sculptures from Athens.
• Sir James Hope Grant: commander of British land forces in the 1860 campaign, whose troops carried out the burning.
• Charles Cousin-Montauban: commander of the French expedition, later made Count of Palikao; he refused to take part in the burning but his troops had joined in the looting.
• Xianfeng Emperor: Qing ruler from 1850 to 1861, who fled to Chengde and died there in August 1861 without returning to Beijing.
• Prince Gong (Yixin): the emperor’s half-brother, who stayed behind to negotiate and later led China’s early modernising reforms.

Myths and facts

Myth: the gardens were mainly European in style. The Western palaces were a small corner of a complex built overwhelmingly in Chinese style; they are famous today chiefly because their stone ruins survived the fire.

Myth: the Summer Palace in Beijing is the burned palace. The Summer Palace (Yiheyuan) was a separate, rebuilt garden; the Old Summer Palace remains in ruins.

Timeline

• 1707: The Kangxi Emperor gives the Yuanmingyuan to his son Yinzhen, the future Yongzheng Emperor.
• 1747: Work begins on the European-style palaces under Qianlong.
• 1860, 18 September: A British and French truce party is seized near Tongzhou.
• 1860, 22 September: The Xianfeng Emperor leaves Beijing for Chengde.
• 1860, 6-9 October: French and British troops loot the gardens.
• 1860, 18-19 October: British troops burn the Yuanmingyuan.
• 1860, 24-25 October: Prince Gong signs the Convention of Peking with Britain and France.
• 2013: The bronze rat and rabbit heads are returned to China.

Why it matters

The burning of the Old Summer Palace destroyed irreplaceable architecture, libraries and art, and it remains one of the most debated acts of nineteenth-century imperialism. For China it became a lasting emblem of the “century of humiliation”, taught in schools and commemorated at the ruins. For Europe it raised enduring questions about war, plunder and the museums that still hold its spoils.