Battle of Hoa Moc

The Battle of Hoa Moc (2 March 1885) was the most fiercely-fought action of the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885). At heavy cost, Lieutenant-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.

The context

The Battle of Hoa Moc was fought to relieve the Siege of Tuyen Quang. Following his capture of Lang Son on 13 February 1885, General Louis Brière de l'Isle personally led Lieutenant-Colonel Giovanninelli’s 1st Brigade to the relief of Tuyen Quang. The brigade left Lang Son on 17 February, after replenishing its food and ammunition, and made a forced march back to Hanoi along the Mandarin Road, via Cut, Thanh Moy, Cau Son and Bac Le. After briefly pausing at Bac Le to pay homage to the French soldiers killed in June 1884 in the Bac Le Ambush, Giovanninelli's men pressed on to Hanoi via the French posts at Kep, Phu Lang Thuong and Dap Cau. The brigade reached Hanoi on the evening of 22 February. It had left Lang Son 3,000 strong, but straggling had reduced its numbers by a sixth, and it set off to relieve Tuyen Quang with only a little over 2,400 men. Five gunboats of the Tonkin Flotilla ("Éclair", "Henri Rivière", "Berthe de Villers", "Moulun" and "Trombe") carried Giovanninelli's men from Hanoi up the Red and Clear Rivers and put the brigade ashore near the French post of Phu Doan on the Clear River, fifty kilometres southwest of Tuyen Quang.

The brigade was reinforced at Phu Doan on 24 February by two ad hoc infantry battalions (1,000 men) drawn from the garrisons of Son Tay and Hung Hoa. This mixed force of Turcos, marine infantry and legionnaires, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel de Maussion, had set out from Hung Hoa on 21 February. The relief force now numbered 3,400 men. On 27 February Giovanninelli's men set out from Phu Doan towards the Yu Oc gorge, the most direct route to Tuyen Quang. On 28 February the brigade crossed the Song Chay river and camped five kilometres below the village of Hoa Moc, at the entrance to the Yu Oc gorge. There they found the route to Tuyen Quang blocked by a strong Chinese defensive position. [Bonifacy, "A propos d’une collection des peintures chinoises", 18; de Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 449–56 and 461; "Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 300–3; Huguet, "En colonne", 83–9; Lecomte, "La vie militaire au Tonkin", 161–77, 195–206 and 207–13; Lecomte, "Lang-Son", 318–24; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 400–2]

The battle

Giovanninelli's reinforced 1st Brigade consisted of seven infantry battalions (Mahias and Lambinet's marine infantry battalions, de Mibielle and Comoy's Turco battalions, Tonnot's battalion of Tonkinese riflemen and de Maussion's two mixed battalions) and two marine artillery batteries (Captains Roperh and Péricaud). The French gunboat flotilla, whose support would have been invaluable, was unable to ascend the Clear River as far as Hoa Moc, despite the utmost efforts of the gunboat crews, who hauled their vessels along the shallow river bed. The Chinese and Black Flag forces blocking the way to Tuyen Quang were under the personal command of Liu Yongfu (Luu Vinh Phuc, as he was known to the French from the Vietnamese pronunciation of his name), and seem to have numbered around 6,000 men. They held three lines of trenches, one behind the other, and their flanks rested on the Clear River to the east and on impassible mountain terrain to the west. The position was well chosen, and the French had no option except to attack it frontally. Their single advantage was their artillery, which was stationed by Giovanninelli on hilltop positions from which the guns could fire down into the enemy trenches.

The French approached the Chinese and Black Flag positions late in the morning of 2 March 1885. The enemy flags were down, and the Chinese trenches appeared to be deserted. The French shelled the trenches but there was no sign of life, so Giovanninelli sent forward a platoon of Tonkinese riflemen to draw any enemy fire. The Tonkinese were met with a murderous volley at point-blank range that killed or wounded 20 out of 30 men. Having established that the Hoa Moc position was occupied, Giovanninelli attacked the left flank of the Chinese defensive line early in the afternoon. The first assault was made by "chef de bataillon" Comoy's Turco battalion. The Chinese exploded a mine in front of their trenches as the Algerians advanced, killing and wounding scores of the attackers, and the assault failed. A second French assault, in mid-afternoon, was made by "chef de bataillon" Mahias's marine infantry battalion. The attack was met by accurate close range rifle fire, and also failed with heavy casualties. Giovanninelli reinforced the attackers with Lambinet's marine infantry battalion, and a third and final assault was made. This time the French broke through, capturing a large section of the enemy's forward trenches. To distract their attention, Liu Yongfu launched a counterattack against the French left flank, but it was driven off with heavy losses by the French reserves. During the night of 2 March the Chinese and Black Flags made a second counterattack to recover the trenches they had lost, but were met with the bayonet by Comoy's Turcos and driven off after vicious hand-to-hand fighting.

On the morning of 3 March Giovanninelli brought up his reserves and ordered the entire brigade to assault the stretch of trench line still in enemy hands. The French infantry moved forward at the trot, then accelerated into a charge, expecting to be met by a volley at point-blank range. Instead, they found the enemy trenches deserted. The Chinese and Black Flags had evacuated their positions before dawn, leaving the way to Tuyen Quang clear.

French casualties at Hoa Moc were 76 dead and 408 wounded. This was the highest casualty rate and the heaviest loss in a single day's fighting sustained by the French during the Sino-French War. The French wounded were evacuated back to Hanoi aboard the gunboats, but many of them later died of their wounds in the overcrowded military hospitals of Dap Cau and Thi Cau. Chinese and Black Flag casualties at Hoa Moc were almost certainly far higher, if only because of the sustained pounding they received from the French artillery throughout the battle, but cannot now be recovered. The Chinese and Black Flags removed their dead and wounded from their positions when they withdrew, and the French made no attempt to estimate enemy casualties. [Hubert, "Le colonel Dominé", 109–16; Huguet, "En colonne", 89–93; Lecomte, "La vie militaire au Tonkin", 215–31; Lecomte, "Lang-Son", 324–9; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 402–9; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 107–8; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 247–8]

Significance

Costly though it had been, Giovanninelli's victory cleared the way to Tuyen Quang. The Yunnan Army and the Black Flags raised the siege and drew off to the west, and the relieving force entered the beleaguered post on 3 March. Brière de l’Isle praised the courage of the hard-pressed garrison in a widely-quoted order of the day. ‘Today, you enjoy the admiration of the men who have relieved you at such heavy cost. Tomorrow, all France will applaud you!’

The French public did indeed applaud "chef de bataillon" Marc-Edmond Dominé's defence of Tuyen Quang, and it eventually became the defining image of the Sino-French War in France. The battle of Hoa Moc, fought to relieve the besieged garrison, is far less well known, and some of its participants were aggrieved at how quickly their achievements faded from the public's memory. They took what comfort they could from the order of day issued by Brière de l’Isle to the 1st Brigade on 5 March 1885:

On 2 March you met the Chinese army that had come down from Yunnan, entrenched within a series of formidable defences, on ground of the most appalling difficulty.

The enemy, reinforced by all Luu Vinh Phuc's bandits, had boasted that he would block your way to Tuyen Quang, which he was furiously besieging.

Taking no heed of the number of your adversaries, you stormed and captured the positions of Hoa Moc after a struggle lasting nearly twenty-four hours. The outcome justified your sacrifices, and on 3 March you shook hands with the brave men of the heroic garrison whose courage you had just matched.

Honour to you all!

Notes

References

* Hubert, C., "Le colonel Dominé - Algérie, Armée de la Loire, Tonkin, Défense de Tuyen-Quan 1885" (Paris, 1938)
* Huguet, E, "En colonne: souvenirs d'Extrême-Orient" (Paris, 1888)
* Lecomte, J., "La vie militaire au Tonkin" (Paris, 1893)
* Lecomte, J., "Lang-Son: combats, retraite et négociations" (Paris, 1895)
* Lung Chang [龍章] , "Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng" [越南與中法戰爭, Vietnam and the Sino-French War] (Taipei, 1993)
* Nicolas, V., "Livre d'or de l'infanterie de la marine" (Paris, 1891)
* Thomazi, A., "Histoire militaire de l'Indochine français" (Hanoi, 1931)
* Thomazi, A., "La conquête de l'Indochine" (Paris, 1934)