Tonkin campaign

The Tonkin campaign (French: "campagne du Tonkin") was a campaign 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.

Hanoi and Nam Dinh (June–July 1883)

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). During his absence at Nam Dinh with the bulk of his forces, "chef de bataillon" Berthe de Villers beat off 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, with 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. [De Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 57–61; Duboc, "Trente cinq mois de campagne", 139–51; "Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 87–8; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 83–4; ; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 59–60] 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. ["Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 88; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 84–8] 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. [De Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 61–3; Duboc, "Trente cinq mois de campagne", 156–7; "Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 88–90; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 88–92; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 262–4]

Establishment of the French protectorate (August 1883)

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 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 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. [De Lonlay, Au Tonkin, 19–44; Ganneron, "L’amiral Courbet", 203–10; Gervais, "L’amiral Courbet", 25–34; "Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 95–6; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 103–22; Loir, "L’escadre de l’amiral Courbet", 13–22; Loti, "Figures et choses qui passaient", 175–239; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 280–5; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 62–4; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 165–6]

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 Cochin China, 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. [Gervais, "L’amiral Courbet", 34–9; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 122–30; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 166]

Phu Hoai, Palan and Son Tay (August–December 1883)

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 sucess, 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 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. [De Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 70–3; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 98–9; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 277–80; Sarrat, "Journal d’un marsouin", 74–5]

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. [De Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 129–32; "Histoire illustrée de l'expédition du Tonkin", 104–6; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 171–9; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l'infanterie de la marine", 295–9; Sarrat, "Journal d'un marsouin", 102–4 and 106–8; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l'Indochine française", 66–8]

In December 1883 Admiral Amédée Courbet, who had replaced Bouet in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps two months earlier, took his revenge. Courbet assembled a column of 9,000 men and marched on Son Tay, where he inflicted a major defeat on the Black Flag Army and its Vietnamese and Chinese allies. French casualties in the Son Tay Campaign were heavy (83 dead and 320 wounded), but the Black Flags suffered even more heavily, and in the opinion of some observers were severely weakened thereafter as a fighting force. [Bastard, "Bazeilles", 211–28; Cahu, "L’amiral Courbet en Extrême-Orient", 40–64; "Challan de Belval", Au Tonkin, 139–41; de Lonlay, "Au Tonkin", 133–80; Grisot and Coulombon, "La légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887", 417–28; "Histoire illustrée de l’expédition du Tonkin", 107–19; Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 180–7 and 202–31; Nicolas, "Livre d’or de l’infanterie de la marine", 300–19; Sarrat, "Journal d’un marsouin", 110–17; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 68–72; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 171–7]

Bac Ninh and Hung Hoa (January–July 1884)

Although the capture of Son Tay paved the way for the eventual French conquest of Tonkin, the French had also to deal with opposition from China as well as the Black Flag Army. China, the traditional overlord of Vietnam, had for months been covertly supporting the Black Flags, and had also stationed Chinese troops in Lang Son, Bac Ninh and other Tonkinese towns to limit French freedom of movement.

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. 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. [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]

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. [Loir, "L’escadre de l’amiral Courbet", 29–35; Rollet de l’Isle, "Au Tonkin et dans les mers de Chine", 75–147]

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), which ultimately forced China to totally disengage from Vietnam and confirmed the French possessions.

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 intially 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. 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. [Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 94–6 ]

Brière de l'Isle defeated a major Chinese invasion of the Tonkin Delta in October 1884 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 towns 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 the Chinese Guangxi Army in the Lang Son Campaign. The capture of Lang Son allowed the French to establish posts at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Further to the east, French troops extended the zone of French control along the Gulf of Tonkin, establishing a post at Tien Yen. The relief of the Siege of Tuyen Quang in March 1885 allowed the French to think of advancing up the Red River to Yen Bay, but their defeat at the Battle of Bang Bo on 24 March and the subsequent Retreat from Lang Son threw out their plans for an early penetration of the upper Red River districts.

The 'pacification' of Tonkin (April 1885–April 1886)

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, exacerabated 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 Annamese 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 Annamese insurgents at Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh. [Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 1,017–19, 1,020–3 and 1,096–1,107; Huguet, "En colonne", 133–223; Sarrat, "Journal d’un marsouin", 271–3; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 124–5; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 272–5]

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, hardly surprisingly, took to brigandage to support themselves, 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.

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. [Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 1,072–8; Sainmont, "Algérie, Tonkin,Cambodge", 178; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 125]

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. [Lecomte, "La vie militaire au Tonkin", 297–301; Sainmont, "Algérie, Tonkin, Cambodge", 178–8 and 183–6; Huguet, "En colonne", 118–22; Thomazi, "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française", 125; Thomazi, "La conquête de l’Indochine", 275–7]

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. [Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin", 1,094–6]

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. Fighting, sometimes on a large scale, would continue in Tonkin for a further ten years.

Notes

References

* Grisot and Coulombon, "La légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887" (Paris, 1888)
* Harmant, J., "La verité sur la retraite de Lang-Son" (Paris, 1892)
* Hocquard, C., "Une campagne au Tonkin" (Paris, 1892)
* Huard, "La guerre du Tonkin" (Paris, 1887)
* Lecomte, J., "Lang-Son: combats, retraite et négociations" (Paris, 1895)
* Lecomte, J., "La vie militaire au Tonkin" (Paris, 1893)
* Lecomte, J., "Le guet-apens de Bac-Lé" (Paris, 1890)
* Nicolas, V., "Livre d'or de l'infanterie de la marine" (Paris, 1891)
* Randier, Jean 2006 "La Royale" Editions Babouji ISBN 2352610222
* Thomazi, A., "Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française" (Hanoi, 1931)
* Thomazi, A., "La conquête de l'Indochine" (Paris, 1934)