In his talk, exterminate the foreigner, Dr. Silbey discussed the unanswered questions in regard to the Boxer rebellion in China to remove foreign interests from the mainland. He first discussed the traditional textbook story of the Boxer rebellion. From their siege of the British, American and French Embassies in China to the Boxers victory of the original British force sent to liberate the embassies, the Chinese empresses audacious declaration of war against the eight strongest global powers, the abandonment of the Chinese army by the Boxers and the final defeat of the Chinese army and the liberation of the embassies in Beijing led by the American 9th Infantry. There are some aspects to this event that he claimed were not fully explained by the traditional story of the Boxer uprising in China. The first was that how were this ragtag group of farmers armed with hatchets and single shot rifles able to defeat the modern British army armed with bolt action rifles in battle. The second question that remained unanswered was why the Boxers left the Chinese army to fight the western powers alone.
To reexamine these new questions he looked at the professions of the Boxers. They were farmers but because of a horrendous drought that had hit the region they had been unable to fully sustain themselves through farming alone and had taken up stealing from the rich who traveled through the province as bandits. This is an important note as it is essential to remember that in the face of poverty and starvation people will behave in ways the otherwise would not. Thus natural disasters, economic depression or other domestic issues can have a profound impact on the international world outside the state. Second, he wanted to examine why the Boxers seemed to simply vanish before the second engagement with western forces. He found it partly by random chance when looking at NOAA’s website and realized that there was rainfall data available for the months of the rebellion. Through this data he confirmed that the drought had ended and made the reasonable assumption that the boxers had simply returned to their farms. This is important in that it reminds us that sometimes the missing piece of analysis may come from unexpected sources. That more impacts global issues and conflict than battlefield tactics and the decisions of politicians. Even weather can change history.