Bac Ninh campaign

The Bac Ninh Campaign (6 to 24 March 1884) was one of a series of clashes between French and Chinese forces in northern Vietnam during the Tonkin campaign (1883–86). The campaign, fought during the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885), resulted in the French capture of Bac Ninh and the complete defeat of China's Guangxi Army.

Background

In March 1884, following their victory at Son Tay in December 1883, the French renewed their offensive in Tonkin under the command of General Charles-Théodore Millot, who took over responsibility for the land campaign from Admiral Amédée Courbet in February 1884. Reinforcements from France and the African colonies had now raised the strength of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps to over 10,000 men, and Millot organised this force into two brigades. The 1st Brigade was commanded by General Louis Brière de l'Isle, who had earlier made his reputation as governor of Senegal, and the 2nd Brigade was commanded by the charismatic young Foreign Legion general François de Négrier, who had recently quelled a serious Arab rebellion in Algeria. [Grisot and Coulombon, "La légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887", 427–8; "Historique de l’artillerie de la marine", 270–1; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 319–20; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 73 and 76; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 181–2]

The French target was Bac Ninh, which was garrisoned by a strong force of regular Chinese troops of the Guangxi Army. The commander-in-chief of the Chinese forces at Bac Ninh was Xu Yanxu (徐延旭), the governor of Guangxi. Elderly and in poor health, Xu remained at Lang Son and delegated the operational command of the Chinese army to his subordinates Huang Guilan (黃桂蘭) and Zhaowo (趙沃). Huang and Zhao, veterans of the Anhui and Hunan armies respectively, were disinclined to cooperate. The Chinese had about 20,000 troops around Bac Ninh. Half of the Chinese army was deployed astride the Mandarin Road southwest of Bac Ninh, around the villages of Phu Tu Son and Dinh Bang. The other half was deployed east of Bac Ninh on the Trung Son and Dap Cau heights, protecting the southern approaches to Bac Ninh and covering the vital river crossings to Thai Nguyen and Lang Son at Phu Cam and Dap Cau. [Lung Chang, "Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng", 207–8]

French order of battle

The French expeditionary column that marched on Bac Ninh was the largest French military concentration of the Tonkin campaign. After making troop deductions for garrison duty, Millot was able to give each of his brigade commanders two marching regiments ("régiments de marche"), each containing the equivalent of three infantry battalions. Professional protocol prevented him from mixing the battalions of the marine infantry, the "armée d’Afrique" and the metropolitan army ("armée de terre"), and he was obliged to create one regiment of marine infantry, two 'Algerian' regiments of troops from the "armée d’Afrique", and one French regiment. One of the 'Algerian' regiments contained the three Turco battalions then in Tonkin, the other the white formations of the Foreign Legion and African Light Infantry. These four marching regiments were commanded respectively by Lieutenant-Colonels Bertaux-Levillain, Belin, Duchesne and Defoy.

*1st Brigade ("général de brigade" Louis Brière de l'Isle)
**1st Marching Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Bertaux-Levillain)
***marine infantry battalion ("chef de bataillon" Reygasse)
***marine infantry battalion ("chef de bataillon" Coronnat)
**2nd Marching Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Belin)
***Algerian Rifle Battalion ("chef de bataillon" de Mibielle)
***Algerian Rifle Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Hessling)
***Algerian Rifle Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Godon)
**"fusilier-marin" battalion ("capitaine de frégate" Laguerre)
**Brigade artillery ("chef d'escadron" de Douvres)
***1st, 2nd and 6th Marine Artillery Batteries "bis" (Captains Régis, Vintemberger and Dudraille)
***11th Battery, 12th Army Artillery Regiment (Captain Jourdy)
***naval artillery battery, "corps de débarquement".

*2nd Brigade ("général de brigade" François de Négrier)
**3rd Marching Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Defoy)
***23rd Line Infantry Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Godart)
***111th Line Infantry Battalion (Lieutenant-Colonel Chapuis)
***143rd Line Infantry Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Farret)
**4th Marching Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Duchesne)
***1st Foreign Legion Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Donnier)
***2nd Foreign Legion Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Hutin)
***2nd African Light Infantry Battalion ("chef de bataillon" Servière)
**"fusilier-marin" battalion ("capitaine de frégate" de Beaumont)
**Brigade artillery ("chef d'escadron" Chapotin)
***3rd and 4th Marine Artillery Batteries "bis" (Captains Roussel and Roperh)
***12th Battery, 12th Army Artillery Regiment (Captain de Saxcé)
***naval artillery half-battery, "corps de débarquement".

The campaign

The campaign was a walkover for the French. Morale in the Chinese army was low, and Liu Yongfu was careful to keep his experienced Black Flags out of danger. The French assaulted Bac Ninh on 12 March from the southeast, with complete success.

In the first week of March, Millot concentrated Brière de l'Isle's 1st Brigade at Hanoi and de Négrier's 2nd Brigade at Hai Duong. The two brigades would both make independent approach marches to Bacninh, and would meet up only on the battlefield. Millot was hoping not only to capture Bac Ninh but also to annihilate the Guangxi Army. His plan was to bypass the Chinese defences along the Mandarin Road and assault the Chinese left wing southeast of Bac Ninh. A crucial element in this plan was the seizure of the river crossings to the north of Bac Ninh at Dap Cau and Phu Cam by a flotilla of gunboats under the command of "capitaine de vaisseau" de Beaumont, to cut the Guangxi Army's line of retreat to Lang Son and Thai Nguyen.

On 6 March the 1st Brigade assembled north of Hanoi on the western bank of the Red River, and on 7 March its 5,000 combatants and 4,500 Vietnamese porters were ferried across the Red River. Marching along the southern bank of the 80-metre-wide Canal des Rapides, where the Chinese could not attack it, the brigade outflanked the Chinese defences along the Mandarin Road. On 9 March it reached the village of Xam. On the same day it was joined by the gunboats "Éclair" and "Trombe", which had sailed up from Hai Duong with the materials needed to construct a bridge of boats across the canal. On 10 March the brigade bridged the Canal des Rapides and on 11 March crossed to its northern bank, bivouacking 20 kilometres to the southeast of Bac Ninh in the village of Chi.

While the 1st Brigade was outflanking the Chinese defences to the southwest of Bac Ninh, de Négrier's 2nd Brigade advanced from Hai Duong to Sept Pagodes, at the junction of the Thai Bin and Song Cau rivers. On 8 March the brigade advanced along the southern bank of the Song Cau river and attacked the Chinese advanced positions at Ne Ou and Do Son. Part of the brigade pinned the Chinese frontally, while a strong force was put ashore by the gunboats behind the Chinese positions at Phu Lang. Seeing their line of retreat threatened, the Chinese abandoned the Ne Ou and Do Son forts and fell back to Bac Ninh. The 2nd Brigade occupied the Chinese forts and extended its line to the southwest to join hands with the 1st Brigade at Chi.

The battle for Bac Ninh

The united French column attacked the Guangxi Army's positions to the southeast of Bac Ninh on 12 March. On the left, Godon's Turcos and Coronnat's marine infantry of Brière de l'Isle's 1st Brigade drove the Chinese from the Trung Son heights. On the right, the legionnaires and line infantry of de Négrier's 2nd Brigade captured the Chinese positions around the Christian village of Keroi, also known as Xuan Hoa. The Chinese on the Trung Son heights made little attempt to stand up to the French, abandoning their positions before Brière de l'Isle's troops could reach them. The Chinese facing the 2nd Brigade put up a stiffer fight, forcing the French to storm Keroi with the bayonet. De Négrier attacked Keroi with the 143rd Line Battalion and the 2nd Legion Battalion. The French troops had been ordered not to fire until they approached within 250 metres of the enemy positions, and the two attacking battalions waded through the waist-high water of the paddy fields in front of the village under Chinese fire until they reached the prescribed distance. They then delivered several disciplined volleys which beat down the enemy fire. Colonel Jacques Duchesne, the future conqueror of Madagascar, then led them in a charge against the Chinese positions. The French broke into the village after a short hand-to-hand struggle, and the Chinese fell back in disorder.

While de Négrier's infantry were engaged around Keroi, de Beaumont's gunboats forced the Lag Buoi barrage on the Song Cau river and sailed upriver towards Dap Cau and Phu Cam. Just before 4 p.m. the infantry of the 2nd Brigade and the "fusiliers-marins" of the flotilla arrived almost simultaneously at Dap Cau, just to the east of Bac Ninh. De Négrier ordered the 2nd Legion Battalion and the 23rd Line Battalion to storm an important Chinese fort on the Dap Cau heights, but de Beaumont's "fusiliers-marins" got there first and captured the fort under the eyes of the French infantry. The appearance of the French on the Dap Cau heights demoralised the Guangxi Army's left wing. Its line of retreat to Lang Son was threatened, its positions at Keroi, Lag Buoi and Dap Cau had been taken with ease, and it was under accurate artillery fire. The only concern now for most of the Chinese troops facing the 2nd Brigade was to escape along the road to Lang Son before the French cut it off. Chinese resistance on this part of the battlefield collapsed completely. Meanwhile, the disorderly retreat of the Guangxi Army's left wing placed the army's right wing to the south of Bac Ninh, already demoralised by the drubbing it had received from Brière de l'Isle, in extreme jeopardy. The generals commanding the right wing saw the Chinese front break on their left and realised that they would be surrounded if they stayed any longer in their present positions. They immediately decamped and headed for Bac Ninh and the road north to safety. At 5 p.m., a remarkable sight greeted the French troops on the Dap Cau heights. The Chinese flag was still flying from an octagonal tower inside the citadel of Bac Ninh, but between the city and the Dap Cau and Trung Son heights the Bac Ninh plain was black with fleeing Chinese. Thousands of tiny figures were milling in panic towards Bac Ninh, desperate to escape before their line of retreat was cut off completely.

De Négrier's troops took Bac Ninh in the early evening, capturing large quantities of ammunition and a number of brand new Krupp cannon that had not fired a shot during the battle. Without waiting for Millot to come up from the Trung Son heights with Brière de l'Isle's 1st Brigade, de Négrier entered Bac Ninh and secured the town. However, Millot's hopes for a complete encirclement of the Chinese army were not realised. A Chinese rearguard at Dap Cau fought de Négrier's infantry just long enough to allow the bulk of the Chinese army to stream northwards through Bac Ninh and escape to the northern bank of the Song Cau river. Meanwhile, although de Beaumont's flotilla had forced the Lag Buoi barrage and ascended the Song Cau as far as Dap Cau, other Chinese barrages slowed its progress upriver to Phu Cam. As a result, the French were unable to cut the routes to Thai Nguyen and Lang Son and prevent the escape of the Chinese army. [Bourde, "De Paris au Tonkin", 179–244; Challan de Belval, "Au Tonkin", 80–101; Hocquard, "Une campagne au Tonkin", 71–98; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 252–76; Lecomte, "La vie militaire au Tonkin", 35–46; Maury, "Mes campagnes au Tong-King", 75–96; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 321–8; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 75–80]

The pursuit

Nevertheless, Millot had won a remarkable victory, and the Tonkin expeditionary corps pursued the Chinese vigorously. Brière de l'Isle advanced as far as Thai Nguyen, where he defeated a mixed force of Chinese, Vietnamese and Black Flags on 19 March. On 15 March de Négrier defeated Huang Guilan's rearguard at Phu Lang Thuong and chased his wing of the Guangxi Army up to Kep. In accordance with Millot's orders, both brigade commanders returned to Bac Ninh shortly afterwards, de Négrier on 20 March and Brière de l'Isle on 24 March.

As far as the soldiers of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps were concerned, de Négrier was the hero of the Bac Ninh campaign. They were amused that he had entered Bac Ninh on the evening of 12 March without waiting for General Millot's permission to do so, and Millot was rumoured to have been jealous that the laurels of the campaign had fallen to his talented young subordinate. After the Bac Ninh campaign the soldiers devised sardonic Vietnamese nicknames for Millot and his two brigade commanders. De Négrier, admired for his driving energy, became "Maolen" ('Quick!'). Brière de l'Isle, whose troops had been beaten to the punch at Bac Ninh by de Négrier's , was "Mann Mann" ('Slow!'). Millot, who had halted de Négrier's pursuit of the beaten Chinese army at Kep and, in the eyes of the soldiers, prevented him from going all the way to Lang Son, became "Toi Toi" ('Stop!'). [Ardent de Picq, "Bac-ninh", 377–9; Challan de Belval, "Au Tonkin", 101–13; de Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 211–24; Grisot and Coulombon, "La légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887", 435–6; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 276–9; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 328–32; Sarrat, "Journal d’un marsouin", 126–7; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 80–4]

Casualties

French casualties in the Bac Ninh campaign were 9 dead and 39 wounded. Chinese casualties may have amounted to around 100 dead and 400 wounded.

Significance

The defeat of the Guangxi Army at Bac Ninh was a considerable embarrassment to the Empress Dowager Cixi and a severe shock to the war party in China. Three months earlier, at Son Tay, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army had fought bitterly and inflicted heavy casualties on the French. At Bac Ninh, most of the Chinese troops fled like sheep. The empress dowager, furious at the miserable performance of her generals, punished several senior Chinese officials. Xu Yanxu and Tang Qiong (唐炯), the governors of Guangxi and Yunnan, were dismissed from their posts, Xu for losing the battle at Bac Ninh and Tang for not coming to his aid with the Yunnan Army, then occupying Hung Hoa. The field commanders Huang Guilan and Zhao Wo were also disgraced. Huang, anticipating his disgrace, committed suicide at Lang Son on 14 March. Two more junior commanders, Chen Degui (陳得貴) and Dang Minxuan (黨敏宣), were beheaded in front of their troops at Lang Son on 26 May. [Lung Chang, "Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng", 208–9]

The defeat at Bac Ninh, coming close on the heels of the fall of Son Tay, strengthened the hand of the moderate element in the Chinese government and temporarily discredited the extremist 'Purist' party led by Zhang Zhidong, which was agitating for a full-scale war against France. Further French successes in the spring of 1884, including the capture of Hung Hoa and Thai Nguyen, convinced the empress dowager that China should come to terms, and an accord was reached between France and China in May. The negotiations took place in Tientsin. Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Chinese moderates, represented China; and Captain François-Ernest Fournier, commander of the French warship "Volta", represented France. The Tientsin Accord, concluded on 11 May 1884, provided for a Chinese troop withdrawal from Tonkin in return for a comprehensive treaty that would settle details of trade and commerce between France and China and provide for the demarcation of its disputed border with Vietnam. [Lung Chang, "Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng", 219–22; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 85–7; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 189–93]

Notes

References

* Ardent de Picq, General, "Histoire d'une citadelle annamite: Bac-ninh" ("Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué", 1935)
* Bourde, P., "De Paris au Tonkin" (Paris, 1885)
* Challan de Belval, "Au Tonkin" (Paris, 1904)
* Grisot and Coulombon, "La légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887" (Paris, 1888)
* "Historique de l’artillerie de la marine, 1692–1889" (Paris, 1889)
* Hocquard, C., "Une campagne au Tonkin" (Paris, 1892)
* Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin" (Paris, 1887)
* Lecomte, J., "La vie militaire au Tonkin" (Paris, 1893)
* Lonlay, Dick de, "Au Tonkin, 1883–1885: récits anecdotiques" (Paris, 1886)
* 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)
* Maury, A., "Mes campagnes au Tong-King" (Lyons, undated)
* Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine" (Paris, 1891)
* Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française" (Hanoi, 1931)
* Thomazi, A., "La conquête de l'Indochine" (Paris, 1934)