foregone conclusion: the newly crowned 29-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm II gave his consent. Waldersee essentially followed the Moltke line until he ran headlong into the often unpredictable young emperor. In 1890, at the autumn maneuvers [Kaisermanöver] of the Imperial Army, Waldersee had the effrontery to soundly "defeat" the formations under control of the impetuous Wilhelm II. Waldersee thus lost the confidence of his sovereign and was relieved of his duties and reassigned to command IX Army Corps at Hamburg-Altona, a clear demotion but still an assignment of importance. Waldersee, despite all that had happened, would establish his Hamburg residence near the Bismarck retirement estate at Friedrichsruh. In 1898, he was appointed inspector-general of the Third Army at Hanover, the transfer orders being accompanied by eulogistic expressions of Wilhelm II's goodwill. Expedition to China Two thousand European and Chinese Christians were trapped in the legation compound at Peking by Boxer insurgents in 1900. An eight-nation International Relief Force of European, American and Japanese troops maneuvered to the rescue. As Kaiser Wilhelm II’s minister to China, Baron Clemens von Ketteler, had been murdered by the Boxers, the Germans "claimed a certain priority in the crusade against Chinese barbarism." Wilhelm II wanted Waldersee to command the expedition to China, which he announced to the world press had come as a result of the initiative of the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. In fact, Wilhelm had a sent a telegram to his cousin Nicholas asking if he would object if Russian troops were to come under the command of a German general, to which Nicholas replied he had no objection, which Wilhelm then misrepresented at the press conference he called in Berlin as Nicholas having asked for Waldersee to command the expedition. The announcement which went had been made without consulting the other powers caused a great deal of stress for the Auswärtiges Amt who now had to convince the other powers to accept Waldersee's appointment, which was only done by threatening that Wilhelm would feel humiliated if Waldersee's command were in fact rejected by the other powers and this would strain relations with Germany, a form of blackmail that proved effective, through it damaged Germany's diplomatic standing. On 7 August 1900, Waldersee received a telegram from Wilhelm II telling him that he was now in command of the expedition. The now semi-retired, sixty-eight-year-old, but for the occasion the newly promoted Field Marshal Alfred Count