1897 - Francis-Xavier Nies & Richard Henle

November 1, 1897

Zhangjiazhuang, Shandong

Nies and Henle.

Shandong Province in eastern China was a valuable prize to foreign governments because of its rich mineral deposits. A three-way war between China, Britain, and France in the early 1870s had resulted in the British seizing the strategic port town of Yantai (formerly Chefoo). The German government also had imperialistic designs on the province, and the tragic martyrdom of two young German Catholic missionaries in 1897 gave them an opportunity to stake their claim in the rich Shandong soil.

On November 1, 1897, just before midnight, a mob of men belonging to the anti-foreign Big Sword Society attacked the German Catholic Mission in the village of Zhangjiazhuang in Shandong Province. Three priests were asleep inside. One named Stenz managed to escape, but the 38-year-old Francis-Xavier Nies and 34-year-old Richard Henle were sliced to pieces by the mob.

Nies was born on June 11, 1859, at Recklinghausen, Germany; while Henle was a native of Stetten, near Sigmaringen, where he was born on July 21, 1863. Both men had arrived in China a few years earlier. The German government retaliated for the murders of Nies and Henle by invading the city of Jiaozhou with a fleet of warships two weeks later. They demanded the removal of the Governor of Shandong, and used the martyrdoms to seize Qingdao,

“obtaining a 99-year lease, as well as the right to secure mining and railways concessions in Shandong. The German action precipitated a scramble for power by other countries. Russia obtained a lease on Lushun (Port Arthur) and Dalian, while Britain secured a lease on Weihai and the New Territories opposite Hong Kong…. By the close of the 19th century, there was a real prospect that foreign governments would shortly control many strategic provinces and eastern ports.”[1]