The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that carried out expeditions to northern China in 1900 to relieve the foreign legations in Beijing besieged by the popular Boxer militia determined to expunge foreign influence. The Allied forces consisted of approximately 45,000 troops from the eight nations of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy and Austria-Hungary. Neither the Chinese nor the foreign allies issued a formal declaration of war. No treaty or formal agreement bound the Alliance together. Some western historians define the first phase of hostilities as starting in August 1900 and "more or less a civil war", although the Battle of the Taku Forts (1900) that took place in June pushed the Qing government to support the Boxers. With th