Tonkin campaign
Encyclopedia
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
(northern Vietnam
) and entrench a French protectorate there. The campaign, complicated in August 1884 by the outbreak of the Sino-French War
and in July 1885 by the Can Vuong
nationalist uprising in Annam, which required the diversion of large numbers of French troops, was conducted by the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
, supported by the gunboats of the Tonkin Flotilla
. The campaign officially ended in April 1886, when the expeditionary corps was reduced in size to a division of occupation, but Tonkin was not effectively pacified until 1896.
Nine years after Francis Garnier
's failed attempt to conquer Tonkin, French and Vietnamese troops clashed in Tonkin on 25 April 1882, when Commandant Henri Rivière seized the citadel of Hanoi with a small force of marine infantry.
After a lull of several months, the arrival of reinforcements from France in February 1883 allowed Rivière to mount a campaign to capture the citadel of Nam Dinh (27 March 1883). The Capture of Nam Dinh
was strategically necessary for the French, to secure their communications with the sea.
During Rivière's absence at Nam Dinh with the bulk of his forces, chef de bataillon Berthe de Villers defeated a Vietnamese attack on the French positions at Hanoi by Prince Hoang Ke Viem at the Battle of Gia Cuc
(27 and 28 March 1883).
Although these early actions deserve to be considered part of the Tonkin campaign, the campaign is conventionally considered to have begun in June 1883, in the wake of the decision by the French government to despatch reinforcements to Tonkin to avenge Rivière's defeat and death at the hands of Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army at the Battle of Paper Bridge
on 19 May 1883. These reinforcements were organised into a Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
, which was placed under the command of général de brigade Alexandre-Eugène Bouët (1833–87), the highest-ranking marine infantry officer available in the French colony of Cochinchina.
The French position in Tonkin on Bouët's arrival in early June 1883 was extremely precarious. The French had only small garrisons in Hanoi, Haiphong and Nam Dinh, isolated posts at Hon Gai and at Qui Nhon in Annam, and little immediate prospect of taking the offensive against Liu Yongfu's Black Flags and Prince Hoang Ke Viem's Vietnamese. Bouët's first step was to withdraw the isolated French garrisons of Qui Nhon and Hon Gai. He had also been authorised to abandon Nam Dinh at need, but he decided to try to defend all three major French posts. During June, the French dug in behind their defences and beat off half-hearted Vietnamese demonstrations against Hanoi and Nam Dinh.
The early arrival of reinforcements from France and New Caledonia
and the recruitment of Cochinchinese and Tonkinese auxiliary formations allowed Bouët to hit back at his tormentors. On 19 July chef de bataillon Pierre de Badens, the French commandant supérieur at Nam Dinh, attacked and defeated Prince Hoang Ke Viem's besieging Vietnamese army, effectively relieving Vietnamese pressure on Nam Dinh.
The arrival of Admiral Amédée Courbet
in Along Bay in July 1883 with substantial naval reinforcements further strengthened the French position in Tonkin. Although the French were now in a position to consider taking the offensive against Liu Yongfu, they realised that military action against the Black Flag Army had to be accompanied by a political settlement with the Vietnamese court at Hue, if necessary by coercion, that recognised a French protectorate in Tonkin.
On 30 July 1883 Admiral Courbet, General Bouët and François-Jules Harmand, the recently-appointed French civil commissioner-general for Tonkin, held a council of war at Haiphong. The three men agreed that Bouët should launch an offensive against the Black Flag Army in its positions around Phu Hoai on the Day River as soon as possible. They also noted that the Court of Hue was covertly aiding and abetting Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army, and that Prince Hoang was still in arms against the French at Nam Dinh. They therefore decided, largely on Harmand's urging, to recommend to the French government a strike against the Vietnamese defences of Hue, followed by an ultimatum requiring the Vietnamese to accept a French protectorate over Tonkin or face immediate attack.
The proposal was approved by the navy ministry on 11 August, and on 18 August several warships of Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division bombarded the Thuan An forts at the entrance to the Hue River. On 20 August, in the Battle of Thuan An
, two companies of French marine infantry and the landing companies of three French warships went ashore and stormed the forts under heavy fire. During the afternoon the gunboats Lynx and Vipère forced a barrage at the entrance to the River of Perfumes, enabling the French to attack Hue directly if they chose.
The Vietnamese asked for an armistice, and on 25 August Harmand dictated the Treaty of Hue
to the cowed Vietnamese court. The Vietnamese recognised the legitimacy of the French occupation of Cochinchina, accepted a French protectorate both for Annam and Tonkin and promised to withdraw their troops from Tonkin. Vietnam, its royal house and its court survived, but under French direction. France was granted the privilege of stationing a resident-general at Hue, who would work to the civil commissioner-general in Tonkin and could require a personal audience with the Vietnamese emperor. To ensure there were no second thoughts, a permanent French garrison would occupy the Thuan An forts. Large swathes of territory were also transferred from Annam to Tonkin and the French colony of Cochinchina. The French cancelled the country’s debts, but required in return the cession of the southern province of Binh Thuan, which was annexed to Cochinchina. At the same time the northern provinces of Nghe An, Thanh Hoa
and Ha Tinh
were transferred to Tonkin, where they would come under direct French oversight. In return the French undertook to drive out the Black Flags from Tonkin and to guarantee freedom of commerce on the Red River.
Meanwhile, as agreed at the Haiphong conference, General Bouët duly took the offensive against Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army
. Bouët twice attacked the Black Flags in their defences along the Day River, in the Battle of Phu Hoai
(15 August 1883) and the Battle of Palan
(1 September 1883). These offensives met with only limited success, and in the eyes of the world were tantamount to French defeats.
More encouragingly for the French, a column of marine infantry and Cochinchinese riflemen under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Brionval stormed the Vietnamese defences of Hai Duong on 13 August. The capture of Haiduong was notable for atrocities committed by both the French and the Vietnamese. The French discovered, hung up by hooks from the city walls, the mutilated bodies of several missing French and Vietnamese soldiers of the expeditionary corps. The dead soldiers had clearly been tortured to death, and the French took their revenge by bayoneting the Vietnamese wounded. The capture of Hai Duong secured the French line of communication by river between Hanoi and Haiphong. The French occupied the citadel of Hai Duong and also established a post a few kilometres to the north of the town, at Elephant Mountain.
In November 1883 the French further strengthened their grip on the Delta by occupying the towns of Ninh Binh, Hung Yen and Quang Yen. The allegiance of Ninh Binh was of particular importance to the French, as artillery mounted in its lofty citadel controlled river traffic to the Gulf of Tonkin. Although the Vietnamese governor of Ninh Binh had made no attempt to hinder the passage of the expedition launched by Henri Rivière in March 1883 to capture Nam Dinh, he was known to be hostile towards the French. Accordingly, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre de Badens (1847–97) was sent to occupy Ninh Binh with a company of marine infantry, supported by the gunboats Léopard and Pluvier. Cowed by the silent menace of the gunboats, the Vietnamese handed over the citadel of Ninh Binh without resistance, and the French installed a garrison there.
The Treaty of Hue remained a dead letter in Tonkin. Vietnamese mandarins sent to Tonkin to support French administration there were sullen and uncooperative, and Prince Hoang declined to withdraw Vietnamese forces from Tonkin. Meanwhile the Black Flags, with Prince Hoang's active encouragement, stepped up their attacks on French posts during the autumn of 1883. The small French garrisons in Palan and Batang were harassed, and on 17 November the French post at Hai Duong was attacked and nearly overwhelmed by a force of 2,000 Vietnamese insurgents. Only the timely arrival of the gunboat Lynx enabled the defenders to hold their positions.
In December 1883 the French took their revenge. Admiral Amédée Courbet
, who had replaced Bouët in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
two months earlier, assembled a column of 9,000 men and marched on Son Tay for a showdown with Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army
. The decision was of considerable political significance, as an attack on Son Tay would bring the French into direct conflict with Chinese troops for the first time in the campaign. China, the traditional overlord of Vietnam, had for months been covertly supporting the Black Flags, and had stationed Chinese troops in Son Tay, Lang Son, Bac Ninh and other Tonkinese towns to limit French freedom of movement. The French government appreciated that an attack on Son Tay would probably result in an undeclared war with China, but calculated that a quick victory in Tonkin would force the Chinese to accept a fait accompli. On 10 December 1883, after the failure of diplomatic efforts to persuade the Chinese to withdraw their troops, the French government authorised Courbet to attack Son Tay.
The Son Tay Campaign
was the fiercest campaign the French had yet fought in Tonkin. Although the Chinese and Vietnamese contingents at Son Tay played little part in the defence, Liu Yongfu's Black Flags fought ferociously to hold the city. On 14 December the French assaulted the outer defences of Son Tay at Phu Sa, but were thrown back with heavy casualties. Hoping to exploit Courbet's defeat, Liu Yongfu attacked the French lines the same night, but the Black Flag attack also failed disastrously. After resting his troops on 15 December, Courbet again assaulted the defences of Son Tay on the afternoon of 16 December. This time the attack was thoroughly prepared by artillery, and delivered only after the defenders had been worn down. At 5 p.m. a Foreign Legion
battalion and a battalion of marines captured the western gate of Son Tay and fought their way into the town. Liu Yongfu's garrison withdrew to the citadel, and evacuated Son Tay under cover of darkness several hours later. Courbet had achieved his objective, but at considerable cost. French casualties at Sontay were 83 dead and 320 wounded. The fighting at Son Tay also took a terrible toll of the Black Flags, and in the opinion of some observers broke them once and for all as a serious fighting force.
On 16 December 1883, the very day on which he captured Son Tay, Admiral Courbet was replaced in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
by général de division Charles-Théodore Millot
, as a result of the despatch of strong reinforcements to Tonkin in November 1883 and the consequent expansion of the expeditionary corps into a two-brigade army division. Although the capture of Son Tay paved the way for the eventual French conquest of Tonkin, the French now had to deal with opposition from China as well as the Black Flag Army. Having exhausted diplomatic efforts to persuade the Chinese to withdraw their armies from Tonkin, the French government sanctioned an attack by Millot on the fortress of Bac Ninh, occupied since the autumn of 1882 by China's Guangxi Army. In March 1884, in the Bac Ninh campaign
, Millot routed the Guangxi Army and captured Bac Ninh. Millot put just over 11,000 French, Algerian and Vietnamese soldiers into the field at Bac Ninh, the largest concentration of French troops ever assembled in the Tonkin campaign.
Millot followed up his victory by mopping up scattered Chinese garrisons left behind by the Guangxi Army after the rout at Bac Ninh and by mounting a major campaign against Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army, which had retreated to Hung Hoa. On 11 April 1884 Millot captured Hung Hoa and Dong Yan, flanking the Black Flag Army and its Vietnamese allies out of a formidable defensive position without losing a man.
The Black Flag Army retreated westwards up the Red River to Thanh Quan, while Prince Hoang Ke Viem's Vietnamese forces fell back southwards from Dong Yan towards the Annam-Tonkin border, making for the sanctuary of the province of Thanh Hoa, where the French had not yet installed any garrisons. Millot despatched Lieutenant-Colonel Letellier with two Turco
battalions and supporting cavalry to harry Liu Yongfu's retreat, and sent General Brière de l'Isle with the rest of the 1st Brigade in pursuit of Prince Hoang. In early May Brière de l'Isle cornered Prince Hoang in Phu Ngo, several kilometres to the northwest of Ninh Binh, but the French government forbade him to attack the Vietnamese defences, having just received news that China was ready to treat with France over the future of Tonkin.
Elsewhere, though, the French kept up the pressure. On 11 May chef de bataillon Reygasse attacked the Chinese garrison of Thai Nguyen and drove it out. In the same week the landing companies of Admiral Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division exterminated nests of Vietnamese pirates along the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin around Dam Ha and Ha Coi.
On 11 May 1884, the same day as French and Chinese forces clashed at Thai Nguyen, France and China concluded the Tientsin Accord
. This treaty provided for the immediate evacuation of Tonkin by the Chinese armies, and the implicit recognition by China of the French protectorate over Tonkin (the Chinese agreed to recognise all treaties concluded between France and Annam, including the 1883 Treaty of Hue which formalised the French protectorate in Tonkin).
The conclusion of the Tientsin Accord allowed the French to consolidate their hold on the Delta in May and June 1884. By the end of June the French had established forward bases at Hung Hoa, Tuyen Quang, Phu Lang Thuong and Thai Nguyen. These posts, together with the bases established further to the east at Hai Duong and Quang Yen the previous autumn, formed a cordon that enclosed most of the Delta. Behind this chain of frontline posts the French were strongly entrenched in Son Tay, Hanoi, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Bac Ninh and Sept Pagodes. It only remained for them to occupy Lang Son and the other fortresses of northern Tonkin once they were evacuated by the Chinese under the terms of the Tientsin Accord.
In theory, the Tientsin Accord should have resolved the confrontation between France and China in Tonkin, but a clash between French and Chinese troops at Bac Le on 23 June 1884 plunged both countries into a fresh crisis. China's refusal to pay an indemnity for the Bac Le ambush
led two months later to the outbreak of the Sino-French war
(August 1884–April 1885).
The outbreak of the Sino-French War
in August 1884 complicated and considerably retarded the French timetable for the conquest of Tonkin, and initially placed the French on the defensive against an invasion of the Delta by the Chinese armies. In September 1884 General Millot resigned as general-in-chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and was replaced by his senior brigade commander, Louis Brière de l'Isle
. Revealingly, Millot's final order of the day to the soldiers of the expeditionary corps contained a warning against growing French arrogance. By now there were more than 20,000 French soldiers serving in Tonkin, and many of them were beginning to treat the local population with contempt. Tonkinese villagers, for example, were expected to kowtow if a French column passed by. Millot saw that this attitude was stirring up trouble for the future, and issued a prescient warning:
Brière de l'Isle was a natural leader of men, and under his command the expeditionary corps achieved a high standard of professional excellence. One of his first acts as general-in-chief, in September 1884, was to seal off Tonkin from Annam by ejecting Vietnamese bandit concentrations from the border towns of My Luong, Ke Son and Phu Ngo and establishing French posts there. This stroke secured the French rear and allowed the expeditionary corps to concentrate substantial forces against the expected Chinese invasion.
In October 1884 General François de Négrier
defeated a major Chinese invasion of the Tonkin Delta in the Kep Campaign
. This campaign brought French troops into the hitherto-unexplored Luc Nam valley, and at the close of the campaign the French occupied the villages of Chu and Kep, which were converted into forward bases for an eventual campaign against Lang Son. In the western Delta, where their advanced post of Tuyen Quang lay under growing threat from the advancing Yunnan Army, the French widened their area of occupation in the autumn of 1884 by establishing posts at Phu Doan and Vie Tri on the Clear River.
In February 1885 Brière de l'Isle defeated China's Guangxi Army in the Lang Son Campaign
. The French occupation of Dong Song on 6 February threatened the line of retreat of the Guangxi Army's right wing, and forced the Chinese to withdraw from their positions in the Song Thuong valley to the west of Lang Son. The occupation of Lang Son on 13 February gave the French control of the Mandarin Road from Lang Son all the way back to Hanoi, and Brière de l'Isle was able to use the road to bring prompt relief to the hard-pressed French garrison of Tuyen Quang. During the second fortnight of February Colonel Laurent Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade marched down the Mandarin Road to Hanoi and was then ferried up the Red and Clear Rivers to Phu Doan aboard a flotilla of gunboats. On 2 March 1885 Giovanninelli defeated Liu Yongfu's Black Flags in the Battle of Hoa Moc
, relieving the Siege of Tuyen Quang
.
In March 1885 the French established posts at Cau Son and Thanh Moy, previously occupied by the Guangxi Army, and began to widen the Mandarin Road so that it could be used by wagon trains to supply de Négrier's 2nd Brigade at Lang Son. Further to the east, French troops extended the zone of French control along the Gulf of Tonkin, establishing a post at Tien Yen.
In the west, Giovanninelli's victory at Hoa Moc on 2 March allowed the French to consider an offensive from their main base at Hung Hoa against the Yunnan and Black Flag Armies. Brière de l'Isle drew up plans for an advance up the Red River by Giovanninelli's brigade against the Yunnan Army's positions around Thanh Quan, but simultaneous reverses on both the eastern and western fronts on 24 March (the Battle of Bang Bo and the Battle of Phu Lam Tao
) and the subsequent Retreat from Lang Son
on 28 March threw out his plans for an early penetration of the upper course of the Red River.
Although the Sino-French War ended in a military stalemate in Tonkin, the resulting peace treaty between France and China, signed at Tientsin on 9 June 1885, forced China to abandon its historic claim to suzerainty over Vietnam and confirmed the French protectorate over both Annam and Tonkin. In theory, the way was now clear for the French to consolidate their claim to Tonkin. In practice, this was not so easy as it might have seemed. As a British statesman remarked at the time: 'France has won her claim to Tonkin; now all she has to do is conquer it.'
Strong reinforcements were sent to Tonkin in the wake of the Retreat from Lang Son
(March 1885), bringing the total number of French soldiers in Tonkin to 35,000 in the summer of 1885. In May and June 1885 thousands of fresh French troops poured into Tonkin, swamping the veterans of the two brigades that had fought the Sino-French War, and the expeditionary corps was reorganised into two two-brigade divisions. Brière de l’Isle was replaced in command of the expeditionary corps on 1 June 1885 by General Philippe-Marie-Henri Roussel de Courcy (1827–1887), but remained in Tonkin for several months as commander of the 1st Division of the expanded expeditionary corps. General François de Négrier
, who had recovered from the wound he sustained at the Battle of Ky Lua (28 March 1885), was given command of the 2nd Division.
De Courcy's command was marked by growing resistance to French rule in Tonkin and by outright insurrection in Annam. It was also memorable for a cholera epidemic which swept through the expeditionary corps in the summer and autumn of 1885, exacerbated by de Courcy's neglect of quarantine precautions, in which more French soldiers died than in the entire nine months of the Sino-French War. Elements of the Tonkin expeditionary corps were attacked at Hue on 2 July 1885 in the so-called 'Hue Ambush', which initiated the Vietnamese insurrection. Forbidden by the French government to launch a full-scale invasion of Annam, de Courcy landed troops along the vulnerable coastline of central Vietnam to seize a number of strategic points and to protect Vietnamese Catholic communities in the wake of massacres of Christians by the Vietnamese insurgents at Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh.
Meanwhile, Tonkin was in a state of near-anarchy. The Chinese armies that had fought the Sino-French War
dutifully withdrew from Tonkin in May and June 1885, but their ranks were by then full of Vietnamese volunteers or conscripts, and these men, unpaid for months, were simply disbanded on Tonkinese soil and left to fend for themselves. They kept their weapons and supported themselves by brigandage, in many cases sheltering behind the patriotic rhetoric of the Can Vuong
insurgency against the French. For most of the summer of 1885, when European troops normally kept to their barracks anyway, French control of Tonkin was limited to a small radius around the perimeter of their military posts.
No attempt was made by de Courcy to move forward to reoccupy Lang Son, evacuated by the Chinese in May, nor to secure the forts built by the Yunnan Army along the Red River to protect its supply line during the Siege of Tuyen Quang
. Bands of brigands took over these forts as soon as the Chinese evacuated them. The bandits struck far and wide beyond the limits of French control. Wherever they could, Tonkinese villagers left their homes and took shelter beneath the walls of the French forts.
Only one important French sweep was made during the summer of 1885 in Tonkin, and its effects were transitory. In July 1885 a mixed column of Algerian and Tonkinese riflemen under the command of Colonel Mourlan drove a band of insurgents from the Tam Dao massif and established a French post at Lien Son. The insurgents fled without accepting battle and regrouped in Thai Nguyen province.
The blundering response of de Courcy and his staff officers to the twin challenges in Annam and Tonkin has been memorably characterised in a recent French study of the period:
De Courcy bestirred himself with the arrival of the autumn campaigning season. The main French effort was made in the west, along the Red River. The Tonkin expeditionary corps undertook a large-scale campaign in October 1885 to capture the Yunnan Army's old base at Thanh May, which had been occupied by Vietnamese insurgents some months earlier. De Courcy concentrated 7,000 troops for the attack on Thanh May, almost as many men as Brière de l'Isle had commanded during the Lang Son Campaign
in February 1885. An elaborate encircling movement was mishandled, and though the French duly occupied Thanh May, avenging their defeat in the Battle of Phu Lam Tao
seven months earlier, most of the brigands escaped the closing pincers and regrouped further up the Red River around Thanh Quan.
In the first week of February 1886 two columns commanded by General Jamais and Lieutenant-Colonel de Maussion, under the overall direction of General Jamont, advanced up both banks of the Red River as far as Thanh Quan. The bands that had been driven from Thanh May did not stay to fight, but melted into the forests before the French advance. On 17 February the French occupied Van Ban Chau. After a pause of several weeks while the French government notified the Chinese that French troops would shortly be closing up to the Chinese frontier, de Maussion was authorised to advance to the Tonkin
-Yunnan
border. The French occupied Lao Cai on 29 March, and went on to establish a chain of military posts along the Red River between Lao Cai and Thanh Quan. De Maussion was appointed commandant supérieur of the Haute Fleuve Rouge region.
The French also raised their flags along the Tonkin-Guangxi border. The terms of the June 1885 peace treaty between France and China required both parties to demarcate the border between China and Tonkin. As it would have been embarrassing for the French to admit that this could not be done because the Lang Son region had been overrun by brigands since the departure of the Guangxi Army in May 1885, de Courcy was forced to send an expedition to regain control of the border region. In November 1885 chef de bataillon Servière led a column north from Chu to reoccupy Lang Son and Dong Dang. He went on install French posts at That Ke and Cao Bang. This acte de présence established the conditions necessary for an orderly demarcation of the Sino-Vietnamese border in 1887, in which a few minor revisions were made in China's favour.
Although the tricolour now flew above French customs posts along the Chinese border, there remained widespread unrest inside Tonkin itself. Significantly, General François de Négrier
was forced to make a major sweep of the Bai Sai region near Hanoi in December 1885, an operation in which hundreds of French troops died of cholera and other diseases.
In April 1886 General Warnet, who had replaced de Courcy as commander of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps a few months earlier, declared that he considered Tonkin to be pacified, and proposed to the French government that the expeditionary corps should be reduced in size to a division of occupation. Conventionally, April 1886 marks the end of the Tonkin campaign. The belief that Tonkin was pacified, however, was ludicrously premature. The Pacification of Tonkin
, sometimes involving fighting on a large scale, would require a further ten years.
The Tonkin campaign was commemorated in France with the issue of a Tonkin commemorative medal
. French soldiers who had taken part in the campaign had hoped that the medal would be inscribed with the names of all their Tonkin victories, but there were some puzzling absences, notably the Lang Son Campaign
, from the feats of arms commemorated. This decision angered many veterans, who felt that it did not adequately recognise their deeds.
The veterans were further offended by the arrangements made for the Bastille Day parade of 14 July 1886, an imposing annual march through the streets of Paris by the men of France’s armed and disciplined services. A special effort was made on this occasion to honour the men who had fought the war with China. Contingents from the battalions and batteries that had served in Tonkin and Formosa marched in the parade, wearing battlefield uniforms instead of full dress. Other arrangements, however, were not so welcome. Although Lieutenant-Colonel Marc-Edmond Dominé, the hero of the Siege of Tuyen Quang
, rode in the procession, General Louis Brière de l'Isle
and General François de Négrier
did not. Both men were heroes to the soldiers of the expeditionary corps, and the veterans greatly resented their absence from the parade. Instead, the man who rode at the head of the march past was the controversial and ambitious new army minister General Georges Boulanger
, who only three years later would be suspected of plotting a coup against the Third Republic. Boulanger had not served in Tonkin, but he was determined to take any credit going for its conquest.
Black Flag Army
The Black Flag Army was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border from Guangxi province of China into Upper Tonkin, in the Empire of Annam in 1865. They became known mainly for their fights against French forces in...
and the Chinese Guangxi
Guangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
and Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
armies to occupy Tonkin
Tonkin
Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...
(northern Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
) and entrench a French protectorate there. The campaign, complicated in August 1884 by the outbreak of the Sino-French War
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...
and in July 1885 by the Can Vuong
Can Vuong
The Cần Vương movement was a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule. Its objective was to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam...
nationalist uprising in Annam, which required the diversion of large numbers of French troops, was conducted by the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...
, supported by the gunboats of the Tonkin Flotilla
Tonkin Flotilla
The Tonkin Flotilla , a force of despatch vessels and gunboats used for policing the rivers and waterways of the Tonkin Delta, was created in the summer of 1883, during the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the Sino-French War .-Background:In March 1882, on the eve of Commandant Henri...
. The campaign officially ended in April 1886, when the expeditionary corps was reduced in size to a division of occupation, but Tonkin was not effectively pacified until 1896.
Hanoi and Nam Dinh (June–July 1883)
Francis Garnier
Marie Joseph François Garnier was a French officer and explorer known for his exploration of the Mekong River in Southeast Asia.- Early career :...
's failed attempt to conquer Tonkin, French and Vietnamese troops clashed in Tonkin on 25 April 1882, when Commandant Henri Rivière seized the citadel of Hanoi with a small force of marine infantry.
After a lull of several months, the arrival of reinforcements from France in February 1883 allowed Rivière to mount a campaign to capture the citadel of Nam Dinh (27 March 1883). The Capture of Nam Dinh
Capture of Nam Dinh
The Capture of Nam Dinh , a confrontation between the French and the Vietnamese, was one of the early engagements of the Tonkin campaign...
was strategically necessary for the French, to secure their communications with the sea.
During Rivière's absence at Nam Dinh with the bulk of his forces, chef de bataillon Berthe de Villers defeated a Vietnamese attack on the French positions at Hanoi by Prince Hoang Ke Viem at the Battle of Gia Cuc
Battle of Gia Cuc
The Battle of Gia Cuc, fought on 27 and 28 March 1883, was a battle in the Tonkin Campaign between the French and Vietnamese, during the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the Sino-French War .- Background :...
(27 and 28 March 1883).
Although these early actions deserve to be considered part of the Tonkin campaign, the campaign is conventionally considered to have begun in June 1883, in the wake of the decision by the French government to despatch reinforcements to Tonkin to avenge Rivière's defeat and death at the hands of Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army at the Battle of Paper Bridge
Battle of Paper Bridge
The Battle of Cầu Giấy or Paper Bridge, fought on 19 May 1883, was one of the numerous clashes during the Tonkin campaign between the French and the Black Flags...
on 19 May 1883. These reinforcements were organised into a Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...
, which was placed under the command of général de brigade Alexandre-Eugène Bouët (1833–87), the highest-ranking marine infantry officer available in the French colony of Cochinchina.
The French position in Tonkin on Bouët's arrival in early June 1883 was extremely precarious. The French had only small garrisons in Hanoi, Haiphong and Nam Dinh, isolated posts at Hon Gai and at Qui Nhon in Annam, and little immediate prospect of taking the offensive against Liu Yongfu's Black Flags and Prince Hoang Ke Viem's Vietnamese. Bouët's first step was to withdraw the isolated French garrisons of Qui Nhon and Hon Gai. He had also been authorised to abandon Nam Dinh at need, but he decided to try to defend all three major French posts. During June, the French dug in behind their defences and beat off half-hearted Vietnamese demonstrations against Hanoi and Nam Dinh.
The early arrival of reinforcements from France and New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
and the recruitment of Cochinchinese and Tonkinese auxiliary formations allowed Bouët to hit back at his tormentors. On 19 July chef de bataillon Pierre de Badens, the French commandant supérieur at Nam Dinh, attacked and defeated Prince Hoang Ke Viem's besieging Vietnamese army, effectively relieving Vietnamese pressure on Nam Dinh.
Establishment of the French protectorate (August 1883)
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:...
in Along Bay in July 1883 with substantial naval reinforcements further strengthened the French position in Tonkin. Although the French were now in a position to consider taking the offensive against Liu Yongfu, they realised that military action against the Black Flag Army had to be accompanied by a political settlement with the Vietnamese court at Hue, if necessary by coercion, that recognised a French protectorate in Tonkin.
On 30 July 1883 Admiral Courbet, General Bouët and François-Jules Harmand, the recently-appointed French civil commissioner-general for Tonkin, held a council of war at Haiphong. The three men agreed that Bouët should launch an offensive against the Black Flag Army in its positions around Phu Hoai on the Day River as soon as possible. They also noted that the Court of Hue was covertly aiding and abetting Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army, and that Prince Hoang was still in arms against the French at Nam Dinh. They therefore decided, largely on Harmand's urging, to recommend to the French government a strike against the Vietnamese defences of Hue, followed by an ultimatum requiring the Vietnamese to accept a French protectorate over Tonkin or face immediate attack.
The proposal was approved by the navy ministry on 11 August, and on 18 August several warships of Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division bombarded the Thuan An forts at the entrance to the Hue River. On 20 August, in the Battle of Thuan An
Battle of Thuan An
The Battle of Thuan An was a clash between the French and the Vietnamese during the period of early hostilities of the Tonkin Campaign...
, two companies of French marine infantry and the landing companies of three French warships went ashore and stormed the forts under heavy fire. During the afternoon the gunboats Lynx and Vipère forced a barrage at the entrance to the River of Perfumes, enabling the French to attack Hue directly if they chose.
Treaty of Hué (1883)
The Treaty of Huế, concluded on 25 August 1883 between France and Vietnam, recognised a French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin. Dictated to the Vietnamese by the French administrator François-Jules Harmand in the wake of the French military seizure of the Thuan An forts, the treaty is often...
to the cowed Vietnamese court. The Vietnamese recognised the legitimacy of the French occupation of Cochinchina, accepted a French protectorate both for Annam and Tonkin and promised to withdraw their troops from Tonkin. Vietnam, its royal house and its court survived, but under French direction. France was granted the privilege of stationing a resident-general at Hue, who would work to the civil commissioner-general in Tonkin and could require a personal audience with the Vietnamese emperor. To ensure there were no second thoughts, a permanent French garrison would occupy the Thuan An forts. Large swathes of territory were also transferred from Annam to Tonkin and the French colony of Cochinchina. The French cancelled the country’s debts, but required in return the cession of the southern province of Binh Thuan, which was annexed to Cochinchina. At the same time the northern provinces of Nghe An, Thanh Hoa
Thanh Hóa
Thanh Hóa is the capital city of Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province. The population is nearly 200,000 with an area of only 57.9 square kilometers....
and Ha Tinh
Ha Tinh
Hà Tĩnh is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of the Ha Tinh province, in Vietnam's north central coast....
were transferred to Tonkin, where they would come under direct French oversight. In return the French undertook to drive out the Black Flags from Tonkin and to guarantee freedom of commerce on the Red River.
Phu Hoai, Palan and Haiduong (August–November 1883)
Black Flag Army
The Black Flag Army was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border from Guangxi province of China into Upper Tonkin, in the Empire of Annam in 1865. They became known mainly for their fights against French forces in...
. Bouët twice attacked the Black Flags in their defences along the Day River, in the Battle of Phu Hoai
Battle of Phu Hoai
The Battle of Phu Hoai was an indecisive engagement between the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army during the early months of the Tonkin campaign...
(15 August 1883) and the Battle of Palan
Battle of Palan
The Battle of Palan was one of several clashes between the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army during the Tonkin campaign...
(1 September 1883). These offensives met with only limited success, and in the eyes of the world were tantamount to French defeats.
More encouragingly for the French, a column of marine infantry and Cochinchinese riflemen under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Brionval stormed the Vietnamese defences of Hai Duong on 13 August. The capture of Haiduong was notable for atrocities committed by both the French and the Vietnamese. The French discovered, hung up by hooks from the city walls, the mutilated bodies of several missing French and Vietnamese soldiers of the expeditionary corps. The dead soldiers had clearly been tortured to death, and the French took their revenge by bayoneting the Vietnamese wounded. The capture of Hai Duong secured the French line of communication by river between Hanoi and Haiphong. The French occupied the citadel of Hai Duong and also established a post a few kilometres to the north of the town, at Elephant Mountain.
The Treaty of Hue remained a dead letter in Tonkin. Vietnamese mandarins sent to Tonkin to support French administration there were sullen and uncooperative, and Prince Hoang declined to withdraw Vietnamese forces from Tonkin. Meanwhile the Black Flags, with Prince Hoang's active encouragement, stepped up their attacks on French posts during the autumn of 1883. The small French garrisons in Palan and Batang were harassed, and on 17 November the French post at Hai Duong was attacked and nearly overwhelmed by a force of 2,000 Vietnamese insurgents. Only the timely arrival of the gunboat Lynx enabled the defenders to hold their positions.
Son Tay (December 1883)
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:...
, who had replaced Bouët in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...
two months earlier, assembled a column of 9,000 men and marched on Son Tay for a showdown with Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army
Black Flag Army
The Black Flag Army was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border from Guangxi province of China into Upper Tonkin, in the Empire of Annam in 1865. They became known mainly for their fights against French forces in...
. The decision was of considerable political significance, as an attack on Son Tay would bring the French into direct conflict with Chinese troops for the first time in the campaign. China, the traditional overlord of Vietnam, had for months been covertly supporting the Black Flags, and had stationed Chinese troops in Son Tay, Lang Son, Bac Ninh and other Tonkinese towns to limit French freedom of movement. The French government appreciated that an attack on Son Tay would probably result in an undeclared war with China, but calculated that a quick victory in Tonkin would force the Chinese to accept a fait accompli. On 10 December 1883, after the failure of diplomatic efforts to persuade the Chinese to withdraw their troops, the French government authorised Courbet to attack Son Tay.
The Son Tay Campaign
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...
was the fiercest campaign the French had yet fought in Tonkin. Although the Chinese and Vietnamese contingents at Son Tay played little part in the defence, Liu Yongfu's Black Flags fought ferociously to hold the city. On 14 December the French assaulted the outer defences of Son Tay at Phu Sa, but were thrown back with heavy casualties. Hoping to exploit Courbet's defeat, Liu Yongfu attacked the French lines the same night, but the Black Flag attack also failed disastrously. After resting his troops on 15 December, Courbet again assaulted the defences of Son Tay on the afternoon of 16 December. This time the attack was thoroughly prepared by artillery, and delivered only after the defenders had been worn down. At 5 p.m. a Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
battalion and a battalion of marines captured the western gate of Son Tay and fought their way into the town. Liu Yongfu's garrison withdrew to the citadel, and evacuated Son Tay under cover of darkness several hours later. Courbet had achieved his objective, but at considerable cost. French casualties at Sontay were 83 dead and 320 wounded. The fighting at Son Tay also took a terrible toll of the Black Flags, and in the opinion of some observers broke them once and for all as a serious fighting force.
Bac Ninh and Hung Hoa (January–July 1884)
Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...
by général de division Charles-Théodore Millot
Charles-Théodore Millot
Charles-Théodore Millot was a French general who distinguished himself in the Franco-Prussian War and the Tonkin campaign...
, as a result of the despatch of strong reinforcements to Tonkin in November 1883 and the consequent expansion of the expeditionary corps into a two-brigade army division. Although the capture of Son Tay paved the way for the eventual French conquest of Tonkin, the French now had to deal with opposition from China as well as the Black Flag Army. Having exhausted diplomatic efforts to persuade the Chinese to withdraw their armies from Tonkin, the French government sanctioned an attack by Millot on the fortress of Bac Ninh, occupied since the autumn of 1882 by China's Guangxi Army. In March 1884, in the Bac Ninh campaign
Bac Ninh campaign
The Bac Ninh Campaign was one of a series of clashes between French and Chinese forces in northern Vietnam during the Tonkin campaign...
, Millot routed the Guangxi Army and captured Bac Ninh. Millot put just over 11,000 French, Algerian and Vietnamese soldiers into the field at Bac Ninh, the largest concentration of French troops ever assembled in the Tonkin campaign.
The Black Flag Army retreated westwards up the Red River to Thanh Quan, while Prince Hoang Ke Viem's Vietnamese forces fell back southwards from Dong Yan towards the Annam-Tonkin border, making for the sanctuary of the province of Thanh Hoa, where the French had not yet installed any garrisons. Millot despatched Lieutenant-Colonel Letellier with two Turco
Tirailleur
Tirailleur literally means a shooting skirmisher in French from tir—shot. The term dates back to the Napoleonic period where it was used to designate light infantry trained to skirmish ahead of the main columns...
battalions and supporting cavalry to harry Liu Yongfu's retreat, and sent General Brière de l'Isle with the rest of the 1st Brigade in pursuit of Prince Hoang. In early May Brière de l'Isle cornered Prince Hoang in Phu Ngo, several kilometres to the northwest of Ninh Binh, but the French government forbade him to attack the Vietnamese defences, having just received news that China was ready to treat with France over the future of Tonkin.
Elsewhere, though, the French kept up the pressure. On 11 May chef de bataillon Reygasse attacked the Chinese garrison of Thai Nguyen and drove it out. In the same week the landing companies of Admiral Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division exterminated nests of Vietnamese pirates along the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin around Dam Ha and Ha Coi.
Tientsin Accord
The Tientsin Accord or Li-Fournier Convention, concluded on 11 May 1884, was intended to settle an undeclared war between France and China over the sovereignty of Tonkin...
. This treaty provided for the immediate evacuation of Tonkin by the Chinese armies, and the implicit recognition by China of the French protectorate over Tonkin (the Chinese agreed to recognise all treaties concluded between France and Annam, including the 1883 Treaty of Hue which formalised the French protectorate in Tonkin).
The conclusion of the Tientsin Accord allowed the French to consolidate their hold on the Delta in May and June 1884. By the end of June the French had established forward bases at Hung Hoa, Tuyen Quang, Phu Lang Thuong and Thai Nguyen. These posts, together with the bases established further to the east at Hai Duong and Quang Yen the previous autumn, formed a cordon that enclosed most of the Delta. Behind this chain of frontline posts the French were strongly entrenched in Son Tay, Hanoi, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Bac Ninh and Sept Pagodes. It only remained for them to occupy Lang Son and the other fortresses of northern Tonkin once they were evacuated by the Chinese under the terms of the Tientsin Accord.
In theory, the Tientsin Accord should have resolved the confrontation between France and China in Tonkin, but a clash between French and Chinese troops at Bac Le on 23 June 1884 plunged both countries into a fresh crisis. China's refusal to pay an indemnity for the Bac Le ambush
Bac Le ambush
The Bac Le ambush was a clash during the Tonkin campaign in June 1884 between Chinese troops of the Guangxi Army and a French column sent to occupy Lang Son and other towns near the Chinese border. The French claimed that their troops had been ambushed by the Chinese...
led two months later to the outbreak of the Sino-French war
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).
The Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885)
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...
in August 1884 complicated and considerably retarded the French timetable for the conquest of Tonkin, and initially placed the French on the defensive against an invasion of the Delta by the Chinese armies. In September 1884 General Millot resigned as general-in-chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and was replaced by his senior brigade commander, Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Alexandre Esprit Gaston Brière de l'Isle was a French Army general who achieved distinction firstly as Governor of Senegal , and then as general-in-chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps during the Sino-French War .-Military career to 1871:Louis Briere de l'Isle was born on 4 June 1827 in...
. Revealingly, Millot's final order of the day to the soldiers of the expeditionary corps contained a warning against growing French arrogance. By now there were more than 20,000 French soldiers serving in Tonkin, and many of them were beginning to treat the local population with contempt. Tonkinese villagers, for example, were expected to kowtow if a French column passed by. Millot saw that this attitude was stirring up trouble for the future, and issued a prescient warning:
Je n'ai plus qu'un conseil à vous donner : soyez pour mon successeur, le général Brière de l'Isle, ce que vous avez été pour moi, et n'oubliez pas surtout que votre présence dans le pays sera d'autant plus facilement acceptée que vous perdrez moins de vue les tendances et les aspirations des laborieuses populations qui l'habitent.
(I have only one word of advice to give you. Be to my successor, General Brière de l’Isle, what you have been to me. Above all, never forget that your presence in this country will be all the more easily accepted the more you bear in mind the customs and aspirations of the hard-working peoples that inhabit it.)
Brière de l'Isle was a natural leader of men, and under his command the expeditionary corps achieved a high standard of professional excellence. One of his first acts as general-in-chief, in September 1884, was to seal off Tonkin from Annam by ejecting Vietnamese bandit concentrations from the border towns of My Luong, Ke Son and Phu Ngo and establishing French posts there. This stroke secured the French rear and allowed the expeditionary corps to concentrate substantial forces against the expected Chinese invasion.
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...
defeated a major Chinese invasion of the Tonkin Delta in the Kep Campaign
Kep Campaign
The Kep Campaign was an important campaign in northern Vietnam during the opening months of the Sino-French War...
. This campaign brought French troops into the hitherto-unexplored Luc Nam valley, and at the close of the campaign the French occupied the villages of Chu and Kep, which were converted into forward bases for an eventual campaign against Lang Son. In the western Delta, where their advanced post of Tuyen Quang lay under growing threat from the advancing Yunnan Army, the French widened their area of occupation in the autumn of 1884 by establishing posts at Phu Doan and Vie Tri on the Clear River.
In February 1885 Brière de l'Isle defeated China's Guangxi Army in the Lang Son Campaign
Lang Son Campaign
The Lang Son Campaign was a major French offensive in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
. The French occupation of Dong Song on 6 February threatened the line of retreat of the Guangxi Army's right wing, and forced the Chinese to withdraw from their positions in the Song Thuong valley to the west of Lang Son. The occupation of Lang Son on 13 February gave the French control of the Mandarin Road from Lang Son all the way back to Hanoi, and Brière de l'Isle was able to use the road to bring prompt relief to the hard-pressed French garrison of Tuyen Quang. During the second fortnight of February Colonel Laurent Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade marched down the Mandarin Road to Hanoi and was then ferried up the Red and Clear Rivers to Phu Doan aboard a flotilla of gunboats. On 2 March 1885 Giovanninelli defeated Liu Yongfu's Black Flags in the Battle of Hoa Moc
Battle of Hoa Moc
The Battle of Hoa Moc was the most fiercely-fought action of the Sino-French War . At heavy cost, Colonel Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps defeated forces of the Black Flag and Yunnan Armies blocking the way to the besieged French post of Tuyen Quang.- Background :The...
, relieving the Siege of Tuyen Quang
Siege of Tuyen Quang
The Siege of Tuyen Quang was an important confrontation between the French and the Chinese armies in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
.
In March 1885 the French established posts at Cau Son and Thanh Moy, previously occupied by the Guangxi Army, and began to widen the Mandarin Road so that it could be used by wagon trains to supply de Négrier's 2nd Brigade at Lang Son. Further to the east, French troops extended the zone of French control along the Gulf of Tonkin, establishing a post at Tien Yen.
In the west, Giovanninelli's victory at Hoa Moc on 2 March allowed the French to consider an offensive from their main base at Hung Hoa against the Yunnan and Black Flag Armies. Brière de l'Isle drew up plans for an advance up the Red River by Giovanninelli's brigade against the Yunnan Army's positions around Thanh Quan, but simultaneous reverses on both the eastern and western fronts on 24 March (the Battle of Bang Bo and the Battle of Phu Lam Tao
Battle of Phu Lam Tao
The Battle of Phu Lam Tao was a politically-significant engagement during the Sino-French War , in which a French Zouave battalion was defeated by a mixed force of Chinese soldiers and Black Flags.- Background :...
) and the subsequent 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...
on 28 March threw out his plans for an early penetration of the upper course of the Red River.
The 'pacification' of Tonkin (April 1885–April 1886)
Strong reinforcements were sent to Tonkin 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...
(March 1885), bringing the total number of French soldiers in Tonkin to 35,000 in the summer of 1885. In May and June 1885 thousands of fresh French troops poured into Tonkin, swamping the veterans of the two brigades that had fought the Sino-French War, and the expeditionary corps was reorganised into two two-brigade divisions. Brière de l’Isle was replaced in command of the expeditionary corps on 1 June 1885 by General Philippe-Marie-Henri Roussel de Courcy (1827–1887), but remained in Tonkin for several months as commander of the 1st Division of the expanded expeditionary corps. 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...
, who had recovered from the wound he sustained at the Battle of Ky Lua (28 March 1885), was given command of the 2nd Division.
De Courcy's command was marked by growing resistance to French rule in Tonkin and by outright insurrection in Annam. It was also memorable for a cholera epidemic which swept through the expeditionary corps in the summer and autumn of 1885, exacerbated by de Courcy's neglect of quarantine precautions, in which more French soldiers died than in the entire nine months of the Sino-French War. Elements of the Tonkin expeditionary corps were attacked at Hue on 2 July 1885 in the so-called 'Hue Ambush', which initiated the Vietnamese insurrection. Forbidden by the French government to launch a full-scale invasion of Annam, de Courcy landed troops along the vulnerable coastline of central Vietnam to seize a number of strategic points and to protect Vietnamese Catholic communities in the wake of massacres of Christians by the Vietnamese insurgents at Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh.
Meanwhile, Tonkin was in a state of near-anarchy. The Chinese armies that had fought the Sino-French War
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...
dutifully withdrew from Tonkin in May and June 1885, but their ranks were by then full of Vietnamese volunteers or conscripts, and these men, unpaid for months, were simply disbanded on Tonkinese soil and left to fend for themselves. They kept their weapons and supported themselves by brigandage, in many cases sheltering behind the patriotic rhetoric of the Can Vuong
Can Vuong
The Cần Vương movement was a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule. Its objective was to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam...
insurgency against the French. For most of the summer of 1885, when European troops normally kept to their barracks anyway, French control of Tonkin was limited to a small radius around the perimeter of their military posts.
No attempt was made by de Courcy to move forward to reoccupy Lang Son, evacuated by the Chinese in May, nor to secure the forts built by the Yunnan Army along the Red River to protect its supply line during the Siege of Tuyen Quang
Siege of Tuyen Quang
The Siege of Tuyen Quang was an important confrontation between the French and the Chinese armies in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
. Bands of brigands took over these forts as soon as the Chinese evacuated them. The bandits struck far and wide beyond the limits of French control. Wherever they could, Tonkinese villagers left their homes and took shelter beneath the walls of the French forts.
Only one important French sweep was made during the summer of 1885 in Tonkin, and its effects were transitory. In July 1885 a mixed column of Algerian and Tonkinese riflemen under the command of Colonel Mourlan drove a band of insurgents from the Tam Dao massif and established a French post at Lien Son. The insurgents fled without accepting battle and regrouped in Thai Nguyen province.
The blundering response of de Courcy and his staff officers to the twin challenges in Annam and Tonkin has been memorably characterised in a recent French study of the period:
Comme dans un drame shakespearien, des grotesques s’agitent sur le devant de la scène pendant que la tragédie se poursuit dans le sang, sur toute l’étendue du Tonkin ravagé et de l’Annam qui bascule dans la guerre au cours de l’été.
(As in a Shakesperian drama, clowns gambolled at the front of the stage while the tragedy was played out in blood, not only across ravaged Tonkin but in Annam too, which during the summer slid into war.)
Lang Son Campaign
The Lang Son Campaign was a major French offensive in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
in February 1885. An elaborate encircling movement was mishandled, and though the French duly occupied Thanh May, avenging their defeat in the Battle of Phu Lam Tao
Battle of Phu Lam Tao
The Battle of Phu Lam Tao was a politically-significant engagement during the Sino-French War , in which a French Zouave battalion was defeated by a mixed force of Chinese soldiers and Black Flags.- Background :...
seven months earlier, most of the brigands escaped the closing pincers and regrouped further up the Red River around Thanh Quan.
In the first week of February 1886 two columns commanded by General Jamais and Lieutenant-Colonel de Maussion, under the overall direction of General Jamont, advanced up both banks of the Red River as far as Thanh Quan. The bands that had been driven from Thanh May did not stay to fight, but melted into the forests before the French advance. On 17 February the French occupied Van Ban Chau. After a pause of several weeks while the French government notified the Chinese that French troops would shortly be closing up to the Chinese frontier, de Maussion was authorised to advance to the Tonkin
Tonkin
Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...
-Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
border. The French occupied Lao Cai on 29 March, and went on to establish a chain of military posts along the Red River between Lao Cai and Thanh Quan. De Maussion was appointed commandant supérieur of the Haute Fleuve Rouge region.
The French also raised their flags along the Tonkin-Guangxi border. The terms of the June 1885 peace treaty between France and China required both parties to demarcate the border between China and Tonkin. As it would have been embarrassing for the French to admit that this could not be done because the Lang Son region had been overrun by brigands since the departure of the Guangxi Army in May 1885, de Courcy was forced to send an expedition to regain control of the border region. In November 1885 chef de bataillon Servière led a column north from Chu to reoccupy Lang Son and Dong Dang. He went on install French posts at That Ke and Cao Bang. This acte de présence established the conditions necessary for an orderly demarcation of the Sino-Vietnamese border in 1887, in which a few minor revisions were made in China's favour.
Although the tricolour now flew above French customs posts along the Chinese border, there remained widespread unrest inside Tonkin itself. Significantly, 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...
was forced to make a major sweep of the Bai Sai region near Hanoi in December 1885, an operation in which hundreds of French troops died of cholera and other diseases.
In April 1886 General Warnet, who had replaced de Courcy as commander of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps a few months earlier, declared that he considered Tonkin to be pacified, and proposed to the French government that the expeditionary corps should be reduced in size to a division of occupation. Conventionally, April 1886 marks the end of the Tonkin campaign. The belief that Tonkin was pacified, however, was ludicrously premature. The Pacification of Tonkin
Pacification of Tonkin
The Pacification of Tonkin was a slow, frustrating but ultimately successful military and political campaign undertaken by the French Empire in the northern portion of Tonkin to re-establish order in the wake of the Sino-French War , to entrench a French protectorate in Tonkin, and to suppress...
, sometimes involving fighting on a large scale, would require a further ten years.
Commemoration
Tonkin commemorative medal
The Tonkin commemorative medal was awarded to all the French soldiers and sailors who took part in the battles of the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War between 1883 and 1885. The medal, decreed by a law of 6 September 1885, was minted at the Monnaie de Paris and distributed shortly before...
. French soldiers who had taken part in the campaign had hoped that the medal would be inscribed with the names of all their Tonkin victories, but there were some puzzling absences, notably the Lang Son Campaign
Lang Son Campaign
The Lang Son Campaign was a major French offensive in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
, from the feats of arms commemorated. This decision angered many veterans, who felt that it did not adequately recognise their deeds.
The veterans were further offended by the arrangements made for the Bastille Day parade of 14 July 1886, an imposing annual march through the streets of Paris by the men of France’s armed and disciplined services. A special effort was made on this occasion to honour the men who had fought the war with China. Contingents from the battalions and batteries that had served in Tonkin and Formosa marched in the parade, wearing battlefield uniforms instead of full dress. Other arrangements, however, were not so welcome. Although Lieutenant-Colonel Marc-Edmond Dominé, the hero of the Siege of Tuyen Quang
Siege of Tuyen Quang
The Siege of Tuyen Quang was an important confrontation between the French and the Chinese armies in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
, rode in the procession, General Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Alexandre Esprit Gaston Brière de l'Isle was a French Army general who achieved distinction firstly as Governor of Senegal , and then as general-in-chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps during the Sino-French War .-Military career to 1871:Louis Briere de l'Isle was born on 4 June 1827 in...
and 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...
did not. Both men were heroes to the soldiers of the expeditionary corps, and the veterans greatly resented their absence from the parade. Instead, the man who rode at the head of the march past was the controversial and ambitious new army minister General Georges Boulanger
Georges Boulanger
Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger was a French general and reactionary politician. At the apogee of his popularity in January 1889 many republicans including Georges Clemenceau feared the threat of a coup d'état by Boulanger and the establishment of a dictatorship.- Early life and career :Born...
, who only three years later would be suspected of plotting a coup against the Third Republic. Boulanger had not served in Tonkin, but he was determined to take any credit going for its conquest.