The Eight-Nation Alliance proceeded to dispatch punitive expeditions to the countryside to capture or kill suspected Boxers. During these expeditions, indiscriminate killings were frequently carried out by the soldiers. Chafee commented that "It is safe to say that where one real Boxer has been killed since the capture of Peking, fifty harmless coolies or laborers on the farms, including not a few women and children, have been slain".Lynch, George (1901). The War of the Civilizations. London: Longmans, Green. p. 84. The majority of the punitive expeditions were conducted by the French and Germans.Thompson, pp. 198–199, 204
