English:

The capture of the Taku forts by Anglo-French troops, led by Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, was the decisive battle in a war that was but one episode in the long struggle by the Western nations to open China to trade. The Anglo-French soldiers stormed the forts on August 21, 1860, after an explosion destroyed the powder magazine of the Great North Fort; the Chinese defenders fought to the last man.

Beato's photographs, made inside the fort, show the carnage with a brutal directness. Less than two months later he would take probably the only photographs ever made of the interior of the summer palace north of Peking, before it was destroyed by fire, by order of Lord Elgin.