The 1884 Post Office Massacre: Part 2

Min Yeong-ik (left in the front row) during his visit to the United States the previous year. Photograph on display at the Post Office site. / Courtesy of Olga Erin Kim

• Published Dec 6, 2020 9:32 AM KST
• Updated Dec 6, 2020 1:40 PM KST

By Robert Neff

When the call of “fire” was heard, the guests got up from their seats and went to the window or outside to view the blaze.

Prince Min Yeong-ik, whose duty it was to help command efforts to fight the fire, went out the door with his servant. The assassin's blow was unexpected. The servant gallantly tried to protect his master but had his arm chopped off in a single blow. The assassin's sword struck quickly and Prince Min staggered backwards into the room and into the arms of von Mollendorff. “An assassin has killed me,” he gasped. Indeed it seemed he had, for there was blood everywhere coming from the seven horrible wounds the prince had received.

The other Korean guests, unnerved by the attack, or part of it, quickly fled into the courtyard and over the walls, stripping away their official garments in an attempt to make themselves less obvious targets. But the assassins had already disappeared into the confusion of soldiers and servants who came to investigate.

Only the Westerners were left with Prince Min. A chair was summoned and the prince was carried to the nearby Korean Customs Department building. The accounts differ but at some point von Mollendorff clumsily attempted to staunch the prince's wounds with bandages and then decided to call for Dr. Allen, instead of the Japanese physician at the Japanese legation, because there was some question as to the Japanese's involvement.

A note was given to Scudder to take to Allen's home and 50 armed Korean soldiers were provided to act as an escort. No one was quite sure who the assassins were and who their targets were.

ALLEN TAKES CHARGE

When Allen arrived at the Customs house he found it a place of terrified confusion. The Korean officials and the foreigner representatives were splattered with blood, while Min Yeong-ik was “all blood and gore.” Surrounding the profusely bleeding prince were 12 or 14 Korean doctors who, as one historian caustically remarked, were “trained in dog-soup therapy.” Allen began to work on the wounds. One was so severe that it “would have cut off his head if he had not dodged.” The wound had sliced through an artery and split the ear “longitudinally and cleanly, one-half lying back on the hair of the head, the other upon the face.”

The Korean doctors hindered Allen's attempts to staunch the bleeding by insisting that pitch be poured into the wounds. Frustrated, Allen enlisted the aid of German businessman Kniffler, who was “a giant of a man” and armed with a pistol. Without any hesitation, “all the Korean doctors were ejected by being invited to a consultation out on the porch.” It was noted that the porch was nearly six feet off the ground and the “magnificent flight of marble steps” were “still in the quarry.”

Horace was alarmed at the action taken by his “aggressive assistant” and would not have sanctioned it had he known what Kniffler was going to do. Fortunately for Allen, they realized he meant well and forgave him for “their sudden exit from the presence of their prince.”

Allen struggled to keep the prince alive. He tied the severed artery, cleansed the wounds with carbolic solution and put in 22 silk and five silver sutures. When it appeared that the prince had stabilized somewhat, Allen returned home at about two in the morning to check on his wife.

He was relieved to discover Bernadou standing guard, but that relief soon turned to fear when a messenger from the palace announced that the Korean population was rioting and a massacre was expected. Allen, realizing he was still needed, reluctantly agreed to leave his wife and small child, but only if a guard of Japanese soldiers was provided to protect his home. Not fully confident the guard could hold off a determined attack, he presented his wife with his only pistol and commanded her “to use it on herself and the baby if it became necessary.”

Allen borrowed a short carbine that he was determined to use to protect himself. “I carried [it] with me constantly to my great discomfort, and which reposed under our bed at night.” It was fortunate that he did not have to use the weapon for later, when things had quieted down, he went out “to try [his] marksmanship...[but] the clumsy weapon could not be discharged since the cartridges, of which the magazine was full, were too large for the caliber of the gun.”

Allen returned to Prince Min and spent the rest of the night “sponging, cleansing, stitching, [and] bandaging the gaping wounds.” Because of the prince's weakened state, Allen did not bother with some of the wounds while others he missed in the darkness or were hidden in the “matted hair dress.” With the morning light brought hope: there was enough improvement in his patient that Allen went ahead and finished dressing all the wounds with the assistance of the Japanese physician from the Japanese legation.

Unfortunately for many in Seoul, the new day also brought the massacre of a great many Japanese and Koreans that has come to be known as the Gapsin Revolution ― an event that would continue to haunt Korea over the next decade.