Pescadores Campaign
Encyclopedia
The Pescadores Campaign in late March 1885 was one of the last campaigns of the Sino-French War
(August 1884–April 1885). It was fought to capture a strategically important island group off the western coast of Taiwan. Admiral Amédée Courbet
, with part of the French Far East Squadron
, bombarded the Chinese coastal defences around the principal town of Makung
(馬公) on P'eng-hu Island (P'eng-hu tao, 澎湖島) and landed a battalion of marine infantry which routed the Chinese defenders and occupied Makung.
The Pescadores
were occupied by the French until July 1885 and Admiral Courbet, by then a national hero in France
, died aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour during the occupation.
Islands, also known from their Chinese name as P'eng-hu (澎湖), were an important transit stop for reinforcements to the Chinese army under the command of Liu Ming-ch'uan
(劉銘傳) confronting the French in northern Taiwan around Keelung
(基隆), and their capture would prevent further reinforcements from reaching Taiwan. Courbet had wanted to mount an expedition to capture the Pescadores for several months, but the feasibility of the operation depended on the progress of the Keelung Campaign
. Colonel Jacques Duchesne
's defeat of Liu Ming-ch'uan's forces and capture of the key Chinese position of La Table on 7 March 1885 finally disengaged Keelung, allowing the French to detach troops from its garrison for a descent on the Pescadores.
and Triomphante, the cruisers d'Estaing and Duchaffaut, the gunboat Vipère and the troopship Annamite. His landing force consisted of an understrength battalion of marine infantry (400 men as opposed to the usual complement of 600 men) under the command of chef de bataillon Lange and a marine artillery section of two 80-millimetre mountain guns (Lieutenant Lubert).Lange's battalion consisted of the 25th, 26th, 27th and 30th Companies, 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment (Captains Logos, Harlay, Cramoisy and Vaillance).
The Chinese garrison of the Pescadores, which had been substantially reinforced at the beginning of 1885, was commanded by the generals Chou Shan-ch'u (周善初) and Cheng Ying-chieh (鄭膺杰), and numbered around 2,400 men. A number of foreign officers served with the Chinese garrison, including an American officer named Nelson, responsible for the defence of one of the Makung forts, whose diary of events was later recovered by the French. Initially optimistic, by March 1885 Nelson had despaired of training up the Chinese gunners to the standard necessary to meet the French in battle.
The fortifications of the Pescadores were designed primarily to protect Makung and deny entrance to Makung Bay, and also if possible to cover the southern entrance to P'eng-hu Bay, which would have to be traversed first by an attacking squadron. The most formidable obstacles were the two Makung forts, placed on either side of the entrance to Makung Bay. The Northern Fort, just to the southwest of Makung, deployed three Armstrong cannons, and was flanked by a number of subsidiary positions in which the Chinese had deployed a dozen rifled French Voruz cannon of various calibres. The Southern Fort, or Dutch Fort (it had been built by the Dutch in the seventeenth century), was armed with two 22-centimetre and two 14-centimetre smoothbore cannon. A third battery, sited on Observatory Island just inside Makung Bay, also covered the entrance to the bay, which had also been blocked by a barrier of chains. The Observatory Island battery was armed with two Armstrong cannon and a Chinese 20-centimetre cannon. The Chinese had also built a battery armed with smoothbore cannon to sweep the plain to the east of Makung and a large entrenched camp to the north of the town to house the regular troops of the island’s garrison.
The outer Chinese defences were much weaker. The southern entrance to P'eng-hu Bay was covered on the west by the Hsiaochi battery on Fisher Island (modern Hsi-yu, 西嶼), and on the east by a battery on Plate Island. The Hsiaochi battery was replaced in the late 1880s by the Hsi Tai battery, whose ruins can still be seen today. The Plate Island battery was quite close to the Southern Fort, and could also cover the approach to Makung Bay. Unfortunately for the Chinese, both these batteries were armed only with a mixture of antiquated smoothbore pieces that offered little threat to the French squadron.
The French flotilla concentrated off Tai-wan-fu (台灣府, modern Tainan
, 台南) on 28 March, and approached the Pescadores from the west before dawn on 29 March. During the morning of 29 March the French warships bombarded and silenced the Hsiaochi battery and other Chinese shore batteries guarding the approaches to Makung
.
In the late afternoon Lange's battalion was put ashore on the southern cape of P'eng-hu Island, at Dome Hill, where it set up a defensive position for the night. There were no Chinese in sight, and the landing was made without resistance.
During the night of 29 March the French sent boats to scout a barrage of chains thrown across the entrance to Makung harbour. The scouting party discovered that no mines had yet been attached to the chains, and at dawn on 30 March a party of sailors from Bayard went forward in launches to cut a gap in the barrage. Chinese riflemen tried to disrupt this operation, and one French sailor was killed.
With the barrage breached, Courbet's flotilla entered Makung Bay during the morning of 30 March and bombarded the defences of Makung. At the same time, Lange's battalion left its bivouac on Dome Hill and began to advance towards Makung, its flanks covered by d'Estaing and Vipère in Makung Bay and Annamite in Dome Bay. The column was guided towards its objective by an elderly local fisherman, who had volunteered his services for pay. During the afternoon Lange's men cleared a force of Chinese infantry from the village of Kisambo and closed up to the village of Siu-kuei-kang (modern Suo-kang, 鎖港), which was strongly held by the Chinese. Lange's men bivouacked for the night to the west of the village, ready to attack the Chinese the following morning. During the evening the French column was reinforced by the landing companies of Bayard, Triomphante and d'Estaing and by four 65-millimetre cannon.
On the morning of 31 March Lange attacked the main Chinese defensive line around Siu-kuei-kang. Although the marine infantry and sailors were heavily outnumbered, French naval gunfire tipped the balance in their favour. The Chinese were driven back from their positions and attempted to make a second stand before Makung, near the village of Amo. Lange attacked them again, with equal success, and occupied Makung late in the afternoon.
Most of the defeated Chinese soldiers escaped to Amoy (Xiamen
, 廈門) in mainland China
or to Tai-wan-fu on junks and fishing boats under cover of darkness, though a number of soldiers were caught and handed over to the victorious French by the inhabitants of the Pescadores, who saw no reason to distinguish between two equally unwelcome sets of intruders.
French casualties in the Pescadores campaign were 5 killed and 12 wounded. The wounded included one officer, lieutenant de vaisseau Poirot of Triomphante. Chinese casualties may have amounted to 300 dead and around 400 wounded, and included several senior officers. The French were told by islanders that the American artillery officer Nelson was beheaded during the bombardment of 29 March on the orders of an enraged Chinese commander, because his guns were unable to make any effective reply to the French warships.
The French bombardment of the Chinese positions on the Pescadores was heard in Tai-wan-fu (modern Tainan) on the Formosan mainland. The British missionary William Campbell
described the impact of the battle on the town's inhabitants:
The Pescadores campaign was Courbet's last military victory. Although it was a minor operation compared with the capture of Son Tay
or the battle of Foochow, in the eyes of his officers it was his most flawless military achievement. Significantly, Courbet directed operations in person, and chose to fight this brief colonial campaign in the traditional style, with ships of the French navy supporting the land operations of marine infantry and artillery. The decision reflected inter-service rivalries. Courbet was cocking a snook at the army ministry, which had long ago wrested the direction of the Tonkin campaign
away from the navy ministry. His timing was perfect. While the army ministry was struggling to explain away General François de Négrier
's defeat in the battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885) and the subsequent French retreat from Lang Son
, Courbet presented the navy ministry with an elegant, almost bloodless victory in the Pescadores. The Sino-French War ended on a high note for the French navy and the Troupes de Marine
.
On 27 July 1885, in the wake of an enquiry into their conduct, the defeated Chinese generals Chou Shan-ch'u and Cheng Ying-chieh were demoted and punished for the loss of the Pescadores by being posted to the remote northern Chinese province of Heilungkiang (黑龍江).
(the collapse of Jules Ferry's government on 30 March 1885 in the wake of the retreat from Lang Son
).
Courbet's victory also came too late to affect the conclusion of preliminaries of peace between France and China on 4 April 1885, but it may have helped to prevent the peace agreement from being sabotaged by hardline elements in China and by the Chinese army commanders fighting the French in northern Vietnam (Tonkin). The Kwangsi Army commanders Wang Te-pang (王德榜) and Feng Tzu-ts'ai
(馮子材), whose forces had recently won a notable victory in the battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885) and reoccupied Lang Son, received the order to cease fire with consternation. The regional mandarins Pao Ch'ao
(鮑超), Ts'en Yu-ying (岑毓英) and P'eng Yu-lin (彭玉麟), who were directing the war effort against the French in southern China, urged the Ch'ing court to continue the struggle against France. The court replied firmly on 10 April 1885 that it was necessary to make peace immediately because the loss of the Pescadores placed the whole of Taiwan in jeopardy:
This communication silenced the protests from the hardliners, and ensured that the peace with France held.
Makung became the main base for Courbet's Far East Squadron for the remainder of the war and during a brief period of occupation in the summer of 1885. The Sino-French War ended in April 1885, and under the terms of the peace settlement the French continued to occupy the Pescadores until July, as a surety for the withdrawal of the Chinese armies from Tonkin. Makung Bay was a superb natural harbour, and many of the squadron's officers hoped that France would retain its recent conquest as a counterweight to the British colony of Hong Kong
. They even renamed the islands the îles des Pêcheurs ('the fishermen's islands', a French version of the Portuguese name 'Pescadores') in anticipation of their future destiny as a French colony. This was never a realistic prospect. France had fought the war to oust the Chinese from Tonkin, not to make colonial conquests in China itself, and the French punctiliously evacuated the Pescadores on 22 July 1885.
Courbet issued strict instructions that his troops should pay for everything they needed, and the islanders seized the opportunity to make as much money as possible out of the occupying forces during their brief sojourn in the Pescadores. Food markets sprang up around the French cantonments. The French were also interested in buying exotic reminders of their stay in the Far East, and local entrepreneurs, including the abbots of Buddhist monasteries, hastened to satisfy their demand for bronze Buddhas, carved screens and other characteristic souvenirs.
During their occupation the French surveyed the coastal waters around the islands and considerably improved the rudimentary facilities of Makung harbour. Meanwhile, during the summer of 1885, nearly thirty French warships of the Far East Squadron rode peacefully at anchor off Makung, in the largest concentration of French naval power in the Far East in the history of the French Navy
.
Several dozen French soldiers and sailors succumbed to cholera during the French occupation of the Pescadores. Cholera broke out within one or two days of the landing, and by 23 April 15 men had died and a further 20 had been hospitalised. The disease had probably been brought over from Keelung by the marine infantry of Lange's battalion, but the French suspected that it originated in Makung, whose Chinese population lived in cramped and insanitary conditions. Courbet therefore isolated the French cantonments from contact with any possible contagion from Makung. All Chinese houses within a certain distance were demolished to create a cordon sanitaire around the French barracks, several nearby mosquito-ridden streams were filled in, and each barrack hut was disinfected with iron sulphate and phenic acid. These precautions gradually brought the disease under control, and most of the French troops hospitalised in April recovered in May.
However, the precautions came too late for Admiral Courbet himself, who contracted cholera at the beginning of June and died aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour on the night of 11 June 1885. Courbet's body was taken back to France for a state funeral, but the other French dead were buried in two cemeteries at Makung, one for the marine infantry of Lange's battalion and the other for the sailors of the Far East Squadron.
Two commemorative obelisks erected in the summer of 1885 in these cemeteries can still be seen. One is in Makung itself, the other on the tip of the southern cape that encloses Makung harbour, formerly known as Dutch Point (from the ruins of an old Dutch fort there). Both bear almost identical inscriptions: A la memoire des soldats [marins] français décedés à Makung ('To the memory of the French soldiers [sailors] who died at Makung'). A third obelisk, erected by Admiral Sébastien Lespès
as a monument to Courbet's memory, was removed in 1954, but its marble inscription has been preserved: A la memoire de l'amiral Courbet et des braves morts pour la France aux Pescadores en 1885 ('To the memory of Admiral Courbet and the brave men who died for France in the Pescadores in 1885').
The bodies of two marine infantry officers who died of cholera in early June 1885, sous-commissaire Marie-Joseph-Louis Dert and Lieutenant Louis Jehenne, were originally buried in front of Courbet's monument (Courbet had attended their funerals only days before his own death). In 1954, under an agreement reached between the French and ROC
governments, their remains were exhumed with full military honours and transferred to the French Cemetery at Keelung aboard the national frigate Commandant Pimodan, where they rest today alongside their old comrades in the Formosa Expeditionary Corps and the Far East Squadron.
Sino-French War
The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...
(August 1884–April 1885). It was fought to capture a strategically important island group off the western coast of Taiwan. Admiral Amédée Courbet
Amédée Courbet
Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War .-Early years:...
, with part of the French Far East Squadron
Far East Squadron
The French Far East Squadron was an exceptional naval grouping created for the duration of the Sino-French War .- Background :...
, bombarded the Chinese coastal defences around the principal town of Makung
Makung
Makung is the county seat of Penghu, in Taiwan Province, Taiwan . Makung is on the western part of the main Penghu Island....
(馬公) on P'eng-hu Island (P'eng-hu tao, 澎湖島) and landed a battalion of marine infantry which routed the Chinese defenders and occupied Makung.
The Pescadores
Pescadores
The Penghu Islands, also known as Pescadores are an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers....
were occupied by the French until July 1885 and Admiral Courbet, by then a national hero in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, died aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour during the occupation.
Background
The PescadoresPescadores
The Penghu Islands, also known as Pescadores are an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers....
Islands, also known from their Chinese name as P'eng-hu (澎湖), were an important transit stop for reinforcements to the Chinese army under the command of Liu Ming-ch'uan
Liu Mingchuan
Liu Mingchuan was a Chinese official during the Qing dynasty. He adopted a style name of Xingsan . Liu became involved in the suppression of the Taiping rebellion at an early age, and worked closely with Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang as he emerged as an important Huai Army officer...
(劉銘傳) confronting the French in northern Taiwan around Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
(基隆), and their capture would prevent further reinforcements from reaching Taiwan. Courbet had wanted to mount an expedition to capture the Pescadores for several months, but the feasibility of the operation depended on the progress of the Keelung Campaign
Keelung Campaign
The Keelung Campaign was a controversial military campaign undertaken by the French in northern Formosa during the Sino-French War. After making a botched attack on Keelung in August 1884, the French landed an expeditionary corps of 2,000 men and captured the port in October 1884...
. Colonel Jacques Duchesne
Jacques Duchesne
Jacques Charles René Achille Duchesne was a French general of the 19th century. He was born at Sens on March 3, 1837. He entered Saint-Cyr in 1855, and became a Lieutenant in 1861.-Career:...
's defeat of Liu Ming-ch'uan's forces and capture of the key Chinese position of La Table on 7 March 1885 finally disengaged Keelung, allowing the French to detach troops from its garrison for a descent on the Pescadores.
French and Chinese forces
Courbet's flotilla consisted of the ironclads BayardFrench battleship Bayard (1880)
The Bayard was an early stationary battleship of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. Bayard had a wooden hull and a full rigging, as well as a side armour and steam machinery.- Active service :...
and Triomphante, the cruisers d'Estaing and Duchaffaut, the gunboat Vipère and the troopship Annamite. His landing force consisted of an understrength battalion of marine infantry (400 men as opposed to the usual complement of 600 men) under the command of chef de bataillon Lange and a marine artillery section of two 80-millimetre mountain guns (Lieutenant Lubert).Lange's battalion consisted of the 25th, 26th, 27th and 30th Companies, 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment (Captains Logos, Harlay, Cramoisy and Vaillance).
The Chinese garrison of the Pescadores, which had been substantially reinforced at the beginning of 1885, was commanded by the generals Chou Shan-ch'u (周善初) and Cheng Ying-chieh (鄭膺杰), and numbered around 2,400 men. A number of foreign officers served with the Chinese garrison, including an American officer named Nelson, responsible for the defence of one of the Makung forts, whose diary of events was later recovered by the French. Initially optimistic, by March 1885 Nelson had despaired of training up the Chinese gunners to the standard necessary to meet the French in battle.
The outer Chinese defences were much weaker. The southern entrance to P'eng-hu Bay was covered on the west by the Hsiaochi battery on Fisher Island (modern Hsi-yu, 西嶼), and on the east by a battery on Plate Island. The Hsiaochi battery was replaced in the late 1880s by the Hsi Tai battery, whose ruins can still be seen today. The Plate Island battery was quite close to the Southern Fort, and could also cover the approach to Makung Bay. Unfortunately for the Chinese, both these batteries were armed only with a mixture of antiquated smoothbore pieces that offered little threat to the French squadron.
The campaign
Tainan
Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...
, 台南) on 28 March, and approached the Pescadores from the west before dawn on 29 March. During the morning of 29 March the French warships bombarded and silenced the Hsiaochi battery and other Chinese shore batteries guarding the approaches to Makung
Makung
Makung is the county seat of Penghu, in Taiwan Province, Taiwan . Makung is on the western part of the main Penghu Island....
.
In the late afternoon Lange's battalion was put ashore on the southern cape of P'eng-hu Island, at Dome Hill, where it set up a defensive position for the night. There were no Chinese in sight, and the landing was made without resistance.
During the night of 29 March the French sent boats to scout a barrage of chains thrown across the entrance to Makung harbour. The scouting party discovered that no mines had yet been attached to the chains, and at dawn on 30 March a party of sailors from Bayard went forward in launches to cut a gap in the barrage. Chinese riflemen tried to disrupt this operation, and one French sailor was killed.
With the barrage breached, Courbet's flotilla entered Makung Bay during the morning of 30 March and bombarded the defences of Makung. At the same time, Lange's battalion left its bivouac on Dome Hill and began to advance towards Makung, its flanks covered by d'Estaing and Vipère in Makung Bay and Annamite in Dome Bay. The column was guided towards its objective by an elderly local fisherman, who had volunteered his services for pay. During the afternoon Lange's men cleared a force of Chinese infantry from the village of Kisambo and closed up to the village of Siu-kuei-kang (modern Suo-kang, 鎖港), which was strongly held by the Chinese. Lange's men bivouacked for the night to the west of the village, ready to attack the Chinese the following morning. During the evening the French column was reinforced by the landing companies of Bayard, Triomphante and d'Estaing and by four 65-millimetre cannon.
Most of the defeated Chinese soldiers escaped to Amoy (Xiamen
Xiamen
Xiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...
, 廈門) in mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
or to Tai-wan-fu on junks and fishing boats under cover of darkness, though a number of soldiers were caught and handed over to the victorious French by the inhabitants of the Pescadores, who saw no reason to distinguish between two equally unwelcome sets of intruders.
French casualties in the Pescadores campaign were 5 killed and 12 wounded. The wounded included one officer, lieutenant de vaisseau Poirot of Triomphante. Chinese casualties may have amounted to 300 dead and around 400 wounded, and included several senior officers. The French were told by islanders that the American artillery officer Nelson was beheaded during the bombardment of 29 March on the orders of an enraged Chinese commander, because his guns were unable to make any effective reply to the French warships.
The French bombardment of the Chinese positions on the Pescadores was heard in Tai-wan-fu (modern Tainan) on the Formosan mainland. The British missionary William Campbell
William Campbell (missionary)
William Campbell was a Scottish missionary to Taiwan. He wrote extensively on topics related to Taiwan and was also responsible for founding the island's first school for the blind. Interested in the early history of the island , his knowledge of the time was such that he was called "without...
described the impact of the battle on the town's inhabitants:
One quiet afternoon during the spring of 1885 the people of Formosa were startled on hearing what seemed to them the sound of distant thunder. It was not thunder, but the ponderous ironclads of France engaged in demolishing the fortifications over against Fisher Island and Makung. Those fortifications were mounted with good-sized guns of foreign make, and occupied by several thousands of soldiers who had been hastily called from various centres on the mainland. It all availed nothing. Fighting was to be conducted in a very different style from that of other days; and, sure enough, the large floating batteries of the French fleet loomed into sight.
According to popular report, no time was lost with any kind of preliminary formalities. The Chinese commenced to fire on the advancing ships, which continued steadily and with ominous silence to press forward in the direction of Makung. When within about rifle-shot range, there burst from them such a tremendous discharge against the large fort outside of the town that many a heart must have been filled with terror and amazement. Indeed, some say that on witnessing the fearful havoc caused by this opening volley from the French guns, both officers and men began to scamper off from the entrenchments; a statement which, however, cannot be altogether correct, since the number of soldiers suffering from frontal wounds, who afterwards found their way to the mission hospital at Tai-wan-fu showed conclusively that not a few of those poor matter-of-fact Chinamen must have made a noble stand against the invaders of their country.
The Pescadores campaign was Courbet's last military victory. Although it was a minor operation compared with the capture of Son Tay
Son Tay Campaign
The Son Tay Campaign was a campaign fought by the French to capture the strategically important city of Son Tay in Tonkin from Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army and allied contingents of Vietnamese and Chinese troops...
or the battle of Foochow, in the eyes of his officers it was his most flawless military achievement. Significantly, Courbet directed operations in person, and chose to fight this brief colonial campaign in the traditional style, with ships of the French navy supporting the land operations of marine infantry and artillery. The decision reflected inter-service rivalries. Courbet was cocking a snook at the army ministry, which had long ago wrested the direction of the Tonkin campaign
Tonkin campaign
The Tonkin Campaign was a armed conflict fought between June 1883 and April 1886 by the French against, variously, the Vietnamese, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army and the Chinese Guangxi and Yunnan armies to occupy Tonkin and entrench a French protectorate there...
away from the navy ministry. His timing was perfect. While the army ministry was struggling to explain away General François de Négrier
François de Négrier
General François Oscar de Négrier was one of the most charismatic French generals of the Third Republic, winning fame in Algeria in the Sud-Oranais campaign and in Tonkin during the Sino-French War .- Early career :Born in Belfort, France on October 2, 1839, De Négrier served with Marshal...
's defeat in the battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885) and the subsequent French retreat from Lang Son
Retreat from Lang Son
The Retreat from Lang Son was a controversial, and almost certainly unnecessary, French strategic withdrawal in Tonkin at the end of March 1885 that brought down the government of the French premier Jules Ferry and brought the Sino-French War to an end in circumstances of considerable...
, Courbet presented the navy ministry with an elegant, almost bloodless victory in the Pescadores. The Sino-French War ended on a high note for the French navy and the Troupes de Marine
Troupes de marine
The or Infanterie de marine, formerly Troupes coloniales, are an arm of the French Army with a colonial heritage. The Troupes de marine have a dedicated overseas service role. Despite their title they have been a part of the Army since 1958...
.
On 27 July 1885, in the wake of an enquiry into their conduct, the defeated Chinese generals Chou Shan-ch'u and Cheng Ying-chieh were demoted and punished for the loss of the Pescadores by being posted to the remote northern Chinese province of Heilungkiang (黑龍江).
Significance of the campaign
The news of the French capture of the Pescadores initially caused little stir in Paris, as the headlines in early April 1885 were monopolised by the so-called 'Tonkin affair'Tonkin Affair
The Tonkin Affair of March 1885 was a major French political crisis that erupted in the closing weeks of the Sino-French War. It effectively destroyed the political career of the French prime minister Jules Ferry, and abruptly ended the string of Republican governments inaugurated several years...
(the collapse of Jules Ferry's government on 30 March 1885 in the wake of the retreat from Lang Son
Retreat from Lang Son
The Retreat from Lang Son was a controversial, and almost certainly unnecessary, French strategic withdrawal in Tonkin at the end of March 1885 that brought down the government of the French premier Jules Ferry and brought the Sino-French War to an end in circumstances of considerable...
).
Courbet's victory also came too late to affect the conclusion of preliminaries of peace between France and China on 4 April 1885, but it may have helped to prevent the peace agreement from being sabotaged by hardline elements in China and by the Chinese army commanders fighting the French in northern Vietnam (Tonkin). The Kwangsi Army commanders Wang Te-pang (王德榜) and Feng Tzu-ts'ai
Feng Zicai
Feng Zicai was a bandit from Qinzhou, Guangxi, China who later became a general in the Imperial Army during the Qing dynasty. His ancestry is Bobai, Guangxi.-The Taiping Rebellion:...
(馮子材), whose forces had recently won a notable victory in the battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885) and reoccupied Lang Son, received the order to cease fire with consternation. The regional mandarins Pao Ch'ao
Bao Chao
Bao Chao was an eminent Han Chinese official, military Captain General, and an unlettered Coolies of the late Qing Dynasty in China...
(鮑超), Ts'en Yu-ying (岑毓英) and P'eng Yu-lin (彭玉麟), who were directing the war effort against the French in southern China, urged the Ch'ing court to continue the struggle against France. The court replied firmly on 10 April 1885 that it was necessary to make peace immediately because the loss of the Pescadores placed the whole of Taiwan in jeopardy:
The Kwangsi Army has recovered Lang Son, but the French now occupy P'eng-hu. If Generals Feng and Wang do not cease military operations now, after saving China's military honour, the overall situation in China will once again worsen. It is very dangerous to send an army deep into a strange country, and nothing is certain in warfare. Even if we are successful, Vietnam does not belong to us. But Taiwan is a part of China. If money and reinforcements fail to get through to Taiwan, we will lose it and never get it back. It will then be difficult both to fight on and to make peace, so why should we consider it? Why should we not end the war now, after having won a victory?
This communication silenced the protests from the hardliners, and ensured that the peace with France held.
The French occupation of the Pescadores
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. They even renamed the islands the îles des Pêcheurs ('the fishermen's islands', a French version of the Portuguese name 'Pescadores') in anticipation of their future destiny as a French colony. This was never a realistic prospect. France had fought the war to oust the Chinese from Tonkin, not to make colonial conquests in China itself, and the French punctiliously evacuated the Pescadores on 22 July 1885.
Courbet issued strict instructions that his troops should pay for everything they needed, and the islanders seized the opportunity to make as much money as possible out of the occupying forces during their brief sojourn in the Pescadores. Food markets sprang up around the French cantonments. The French were also interested in buying exotic reminders of their stay in the Far East, and local entrepreneurs, including the abbots of Buddhist monasteries, hastened to satisfy their demand for bronze Buddhas, carved screens and other characteristic souvenirs.
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
.
Several dozen French soldiers and sailors succumbed to cholera during the French occupation of the Pescadores. Cholera broke out within one or two days of the landing, and by 23 April 15 men had died and a further 20 had been hospitalised. The disease had probably been brought over from Keelung by the marine infantry of Lange's battalion, but the French suspected that it originated in Makung, whose Chinese population lived in cramped and insanitary conditions. Courbet therefore isolated the French cantonments from contact with any possible contagion from Makung. All Chinese houses within a certain distance were demolished to create a cordon sanitaire around the French barracks, several nearby mosquito-ridden streams were filled in, and each barrack hut was disinfected with iron sulphate and phenic acid. These precautions gradually brought the disease under control, and most of the French troops hospitalised in April recovered in May.
Two commemorative obelisks erected in the summer of 1885 in these cemeteries can still be seen. One is in Makung itself, the other on the tip of the southern cape that encloses Makung harbour, formerly known as Dutch Point (from the ruins of an old Dutch fort there). Both bear almost identical inscriptions: A la memoire des soldats [marins] français décedés à Makung ('To the memory of the French soldiers [sailors] who died at Makung'). A third obelisk, erected by Admiral Sébastien Lespès
Sébastien Lespès
Sébastien-Nicolas-Joachim Lespès was a French admiral who played an important role in naval operations during the Sino-French War , as second-in-command of Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron.- Early career :...
as a monument to Courbet's memory, was removed in 1954, but its marble inscription has been preserved: A la memoire de l'amiral Courbet et des braves morts pour la France aux Pescadores en 1885 ('To the memory of Admiral Courbet and the brave men who died for France in the Pescadores in 1885').
The bodies of two marine infantry officers who died of cholera in early June 1885, sous-commissaire Marie-Joseph-Louis Dert and Lieutenant Louis Jehenne, were originally buried in front of Courbet's monument (Courbet had attended their funerals only days before his own death). In 1954, under an agreement reached between the French and ROC
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
governments, their remains were exhumed with full military honours and transferred to the French Cemetery at Keelung aboard the national frigate Commandant Pimodan, where they rest today alongside their old comrades in the Formosa Expeditionary Corps and the Far East Squadron.