Reading about the war online, I saw many sources about how conscription was used and entire villages and cities were detroyed. Sources say that tens of millions of people died. Also, the Hakka people were targeted as well. How did the rest of the world react? Did anyone have some foresight to see that something like this could occur again? Also, do historians think there were similaries between the Taipeng rebellion and WW1, the next total war? Thabks very much. I started reading on the war because I stumbled across it and it is not taught about at all in American schools. I was pretty confused as to why not.
Regarding the former half of the question, I’m not aware of any contemporary source commenting on the Taiping War as a ‘total war’ or similar – it’s not just that the term would not be coined until 1935, but also that there really wasn’t any way for the foreign press to know the state of the war in much detail. While some certainly pointed out the conflict’s destructiveness, with The Times in particular having particularly harsh words to this effect in 1862, accurate figures for its actual death toll are still very much in doubt due to the unreliability of census data during and after the war.^1
The latter half, however, is particularly interesting. Again, I can’t think of any contemporary source that believed the Taiping War was in some way a harbinger of future conflicts of a similar scale. The only example I can think of before the First World War in which someone commented on potential future conflict was Japanese statesman Itō Hirobumi, who in 1908 commented in an interview that
There can be little doubt that the Manchu Dynasty had reached the end of its tether when the Taiping Rebellion occurred, and, by preventing its overthrow, Gordon and his ‘Ever-Victorious Army’ arrested a normal and healthy process of nature. Nothing that the Manchus have done since then affords the slightest evidence that they deserved to be saved. Rather the contrary. And when the fall, as fall they must and will before very long, the upheaval will be all the more violent and all the more protracted for having been so long and unduly postponed.^1
But Itō here was commenting on potential future conflict in China, not the potential death toll of a European war like the First World War. In any case, the causes of death in the Taiping War were largely non-combat, as had been the case for centuries.^4
The interesting question, however, is what foreigners did think the Taiping War would entail at the time. Far from being a mere statistic, the Taiping had, for a while, been seen by many as the downfall of the Qing Empire, and a potential avenue by which trade could be obtained and – almost as importantly – Christianity could be spread. Augustus Lindley (a generally pro-Taiping writer) proudly asserted that:
At present civil war is raging in every part of China, and if the natives—as represented by the Ti-ping, Nien-fie, or other insurrectionists—should succeed in overthrowing their Manchoo oppressors, a vast field will be thrown open to European enterprise, and the opportunity that will exist for civilising and Christianising the largest country in the world cannot be exaggerated.^2
Thomas Taylor Meadows, the British consul at Shanghai, was similarly pro-Taiping, but emphasised the Taiping as a continuation of the Chinese tradition, as stipulated by the Mandate of Heaven, of rebels overthrowing a corrupt regime and renewing the dynastic cycle. Meadows would not be alone in viewing the Taiping War as the event by which the Qing would be overthrown, but not all agreed that the Taiping would be the ones to do it.^1 ^3 Lindley, above, mentions the Nian rebels, but some of the Western press in 1864 pointed to the Hunanese general Zeng Guofan, speculating that he might make use of his army to overthrow the child Tongzhi emperor and place himself on the throne.^1 The one thing uniting all these contemporary opinions is that they turned out to be wrong. The Qing held on for a further 47 years after the fall of Nanjing.
Ultimately, it would be with hindsight that people saw the potential for future conflict through the Taiping War. Itō’s 1908 prediction was correct. After the 1911 Revolution (which Itō did not live to see, having died a few months after making said prediction) China would be embroiled in almost continuous conflict until 1949.
Sources, Notes and References:
Also see my older answers on how missionary opinion changed over time and Western perceptions of the Taiping during the earlier years.