Juye incident

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Contemporary German depiction of the Juye incident
Blood-stained undershirt by Franz Xaver Nies
Road marking at the scene of the incident

The Juye incident (Chinese: 曹州 敎 案 or 巨野 敎 案; Pinyin: Cáozhōu Jiào'àn or Jùyě Jiào'àn) relates to the murder of two German Catholic missionaries, Richard Henle and Franz Xaver Nies , Steyler missionaries , in of Juye Province , Shandong , on the night of November 1st to 2nd, 1897 (All Saints 'Day to All Souls' Day). A third missionary, Georg Maria Stenz , survived the attack unscathed.

The mission site where the incident occurred was located in the village of Zhang Jia (Simplified Chinese: 张家庄; Traditional Chinese: 張家莊; Pinyin: Zhāng Jiā Zhuāng, written Tshantyachuang in the writings of Georg M. Stenz), about 10 km northeast of the city Juye and about 25 km northwest of Jining city. Georg M. Stenz was the priest stationed in Zhang Jia Village, and the other two missionaries, Henle and Nies, had come to visit him. Stenz describes the events of the incident as follows: Before going to bed shortly before midnight, the missionaries had practiced the Requiem Mass (Miseremini mei) for the following All Souls' Day. Stenz had given his room to his guests for the night and had moved into a vacant porter's room himself. The missionaries believed the area was quiet and did not take any precautions. Stenz left the door to his room unlocked. A group of twenty to thirty armed men broke into the mission area shortly after the missionaries went to sleep. They broke the door to the room where Henle and Nies lived and killed the two missionaries. Both victims had numerous stab wounds and were dead shortly before midnight. The attackers looked for Stenz but could not find him. They withdrew when the local Chinese Christians arrived at the scene to help. It is not certain who committed the murders, but it is most commonly believed that the attack was started by members of the Society of Great Swords . Stenz accused the guard of a neighboring village (Cao Jia Zhuang, written by Stenz Tsaotyachuang and located about 10 km south of Zhang Jia village), believing the attack was based on a dispute between them and comparatively wealthy relatives who converted to Christianity and therefore refused to pay for local temple festivals.

Less than two weeks after the Juye incident, the German Reich used the murders of the missionaries as an excuse to seize the concession in Kiautschou Bay on the south coast of Shandong. Under German gunboat threats, the Qing government was also forced to remove many Shandong officials (including Governor Li Bingheng) from their posts and to build three Catholic churches in the region (in Jining, Caozhou and Juye) at its own expense. The attacked mission also received 3,000 taels of silver in compensation for stolen or damaged property and was given the right to build seven fortified houses in the area, also at government expense. This settlement strengthened missionary work in southern Shandong Province and was part of the events that led to the Boxer Rebellion (1899/1900), a movement directed against the Christian and foreign presence in northern China. In imitation of Germany, other powers (Russia, Great Britain, France and Japan) began a scramble for concessions to secure their own sphere of influence in China.

Historian Paul Cohen has called the Juye incident the opening wedge in a process of intensified imperialist activity in China, and Joseph W. Esherick commented that the Juye murders sparked a chain of events that radically changed the course of Chinese history .

Web links

Commons : Juye Incident  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stenz 1915
  2. ↑ Stenz 1915
  3. ↑ Stenz 1915
  4. ↑ Esherick 1987
  5. ↑ Clark 2011. p. 52.
  6. ↑ Stenz 1915
  7. ↑ Esherick 1987 p. 131.
  8. ↑ Tiedemann 2007a, pp. 27-28.
  9. ↑ Esherick 1987, pp. 134-35; Cohen 1997, p. 21.
  10. ↑ Esherick 1987, pp. 129-30.
  11. ^ Cohen 1997, p. 21
  12. ↑ Esherick 1987, p. 123.

literature