As Boxer militants besieged foreign legations in Beijing, the Qing imperial court under Empress Dowager Cixi issued an imperial edict declaring war against Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, the United States, and other powers. The declaration escalated a regional uprising into an international crisis that would bring an Eight-Nation Alliance invasion force to crush the rebellion within months.
The Boxers, formally the 'Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists,' had spread across northern China preaching that foreign influence, missionaries, and railways had angered the gods and caused drought. They believed martial rituals made them impervious to bullets.
Cixi, watching foreign powers carve China into spheres of influence for decades, saw an opportunity to channel Boxer fury against the same imperialists rather than suppress it as her provincial governors urged. Her declaration of war, following the killing of the German minister in Beijing, made the conflict official.
The gamble proved catastrophic. An Eight-Nation Alliance of some 20,000 troops relieved the besieged legations by August, and the resulting Boxer Protocol imposed a crushing indemnity on China—450 million taels of silver, payable over 39 years—further weakening the dynasty that would collapse just over a decade later.