"Hela" spent the first half of 1900 as she had previous years, conducting training exercises with the fleet. Her routine was interrupted by events in Qing China, where on 20 June, during the Boxer Rebellion, the German ambassador, Clemens von Ketteler, was murdered by Chinese nationalists. The widespread violence against Westerners in China led to a creation of an alliance between Germany and seven other Great Powers, the so-called Eight-Nation Alliance: the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the United States, France, and Japan. Those soldiers who were in China at the time were too few in number to defeat the Boxers; in Peking there was a force of slightly more than 400 officers and infantry from the armies of the eight European powers. At the time, the primary German military force in China was the East Asia Squadron, which consisted of the protected cruisers , , "Hertha", and , the unprotected cruiser , and the gunboats and . There was also a German 500-man detachment in Taku; combined with the other nations' units the force numbered some 2,100 men. These men, led by the British Admiral Edward Seymour, attempted to reach Peking but were stopped in the Battle of Tientsin.