- Haw wars
The Haw Wars ( _th. ปราบกบฏฮ่อ "ปราบกะบตฮ่า"), so called in Thai, were fought against Chinese quasi-military forces invading parts of
Tonkin and Thailand between the years1865 and1890 .The invasion of the flags
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, bands of Chinese warriors known as 'Flag Gangs', (from tribes then called 'Haw' in Thai) of southern
Yunnan , ravaged large areas of northern Laos. Basicallyoutlaw s and freebooters, the Flag Gangs were fleeing the suppression of theTaiping rebellion inChina .Tonkin (now northernVietnam ) was invaded first, when units of the 'Black Flags' and the rival 'Yellow Flags' crossed theChina -Vietnam frontier in 1865 and set up bases in the upper reaches of the Red River Valley.The Vietnamese and Qing forces fight back
The black and yellow flags
Over the next twenty years the Black Flags and their leader,
Liu Yung-fu , were to acquire a certain legitimacy and fame in the service both of the Vietnamese king,Tự Đức , and of theQing monarch for their struggle against French imperialism in Tonkin. In contrast the Yellow Flags, under the leadership of Huang Chung-ying failed to acquire any legitimacy and, pursued by a combination of Vietnamese, Black Flag and Qing forces, were broken up and defeated. In 1875–76, following the capture and execution of Huang Chung-ying by the Qing-Vietnamese forces, the surviving Yellow Flag remnants fled westwards into the upper part of the Black River Valley, whence they harassed the townships of the semi-independent Tai-speaking federation of Sipsongchuthai (today part of north-western Vietnam) and north-eastern Laos.Red and Striped Flags
Further to the west, starting about
1872 bands of defeated rebels fleeing the Qing reconquest ofYunnan also began drifting across the frontier into Laos, then a tributary state of Thailand. These new bands, distinguished by 'Red Flag' and 'Striped Flag' banners, moved south to occupy nearly all of northern Laos. The Red Flags sackedDien Bien Phu in1873 , and the Striped Flags seized control ofPhuan and the Plain of Jars that same year.Responding to this serious challenge, in
1874 Chao Unkham, ruling prince ofLuang Prabang , and theNguyen monarch Tự Đức, sent a joint army to expel the invaders. However, the force was routed, and Chao Ung, prince of Phuan, was killed. The victorious Haw moved south to sackVientiane , while Chao Unkham sent urgent appeals for assistance to the Thai monarch, KingChulalongkorn (Rama V).Arrival of the Thai
In the spring of
1875 ,Siamese forces crossed the RiverMekong atNong Khai . In the first Thai military expedition of the Haw Wars, they advanced to capture the main Haw base at Chiangkham. The expedition failed to achieve its primary objective, since the Haw refused to give battle and withdrew into the mountains of Phuan and Huaphan. When the Siamese left later that year, armed Haw bands emerged to loot and plunder more or less at will.econd Thai expedition and James McCarthy
Eight years later, in
1883 , faced with a renewed Haw threat to his capital at Luang Prabang, Chao Unkham again appealed toBangkok for assistance. King Chulalongkorn dispatched a Siamese army composed largely ofIsaan and Northern Thai levies. The resulting expedition, in which the British surveyor James McCarthy participated, 'was ill-conceived, inadequately planned, and ultimately unsuccessful'. Thanks to McCarthy's presence, the1884 -1885 expedition is unusually well-documented. McCarthy's personal accounts provide descriptions of the effort, suffering and incompetence of the Haw Wars which are more evocative than those in official Siamese accounts.McCarthy had begun his acquaintance with the Laos-Tonkin borderlands in the 1884, when he led a Thai surveying expedition to
Phuan and the southern frontiers of Huaphan as part of his task of mapping the Thai kingdom. During this journey he travelled widely through territories subject to regular attack by the Flag Gangs. He noted that 'as we went on, tales of the Haw were brought in, agonizing accounts of their raiding on villages, whose inhabitants they had slaughtered, mutilated or carried into captivity'.McCarthy was greatly impressed by the beauty and natural wealth of the regions, but found the inhabitants living a 'wretched existence... harried, mutilated and slaughtered by robbers'. As in
Vientiane ten years before, theBuddhist temples had been plundered and desecrated in a search for loot. McCarthy wrote that 'the wats had been wantonly destroyed, and piles of palm-leaf records lay heaped together, which, unless soon looked at, would be lost forever'.Subsequently, McCarthy travelled to
Luang Prabang to consult with the Siamese military commanders and Chao Unkham. Here he learned the Haw had advanced to Muang You, which should have been defended by troops under Phraya Sukhothai. However, this Thai nobleman, being ill with malaria, had withdrawn to Luang Prabang. As a result, the Haw were able to seize the outpost and burn the Siamese stockade. With the onset of therainy season in June and July,malaria was to prove a more potent foe than the much-feared Haw. In McCarthy's words "the rain poured down steadily, and sickness prevailed." Accordingly, the Siamese troops stationed in the Laos region remained at Luang Prabang or withdrew across the Mekong to Nong Khai. McCarthy travelled to Bangkok to advise King Chulalongkorn of the situation and await the return of the dry winter months.The Battle of February 1885
McCarthy was ordered to return to Laos at the end of the rainy season. He set out from Bangkok in November 1884, travelling by way of
Uttaradit and Nan. He arrived at Luang Prabang on January 14,1885 , in time to witness the outbreak of hostilities that were to last three months before ending in failure.The Haw were armed with modern
repeating rifle s and Birmingham-manufactured ammunition, while many were skilled inguerrilla warfare . They used demoralising tactics such as mutilating captives, employedpunji stake s, and made surprise night attacks. Magic was still believed in and was resorted to by both sides.Theoracles accompanying the Siamese troops determined that 10 o'clock on the morning of February 22, 1885, was the most auspicious time to begin the assault. At the pre-determined time, a gun was fired and the attacking forces began their advance against the Haw stronghold, a well-defended stockade 400 metres long by 200 wide, surrounded by bamboo and watched over by seven towers each about 12 metres high. The Thai and Laotian troops advanced in companies of 50 men, each under the White Elephant flag of Siam, and established themselves behind a temporary palisade 100 metres from the Haw fort. The attacking forces were armed with Armstrong six-pounder mountainhowitzers , but these apparently lacked ammunition. McCarthy noted that most of the firing seemed to come from the Haw watchtowers, and despite the Thais' and Laotians' courage and almost reckless indifference to injury, "considerable execution" was caused to them. The Haw, on the other hand, remained relatively unscathed. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Thais suffered a further setback when their commander-in-chief, Phraya Raj, was injured by a shot "weighing about two pounds, which glanced off the post of a Chinese joss-house where he was standing and struck him in the leg." The attack on the Haw stockade eventually had to be given up.The end of the Haw wars
Subsequently, McCarthy made enquiries into the origins and purpose of the Haw invaders. He concluded that the Governor of
Yunnan had sent them into the region to harass the French. This may have been true of the Black Flags in Tonkin, but there is no direct indication of official Chinese involvement in Laos. The Haw continued their depredations until the mid-1890s, when a combination of Siamese and ultimately French pressure forced them to retreat to China. . Nearby, the city maintains the lovely little Garden of Sorrows ( _th. สวนโศกเศร้า), with signs signifying this is where widows came to grieve.References
*James McCarthy, "Report of a Survey in Siam". (1895).
*James McCarthy, "Surveying and Exploring in Siam by James McCarthy with Descriptions of Lao Dependencies and of Battles against the Chinese Haws". (1900).External links
* [http://www.dcothai.com/product_info.php?products_id=122 McCarthy's journal (available from White Lotus Press)]
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