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Lạng Sơn campaign

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156-624: Tay Hoa: 18 dead, 101 wounded Ha Hoa: 4 dead, 18 wounded Dong Song: 3 dead, 41 wounded Pho Vy: 1 dead, 23 wounded Bac Vie: 30 dead, 188 wounded Vietnam Taiwan The Lạng Sơn campaign (3 to 13 February 1885) was a major French offensive in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) during the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885). The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps , under the command of General Louis Brière de l'Isle , defeated

312-520: A brief pause for breath at Đồng Sông, the expeditionary corps pressed on towards Lạng Sơn, fighting further actions at Quao Pass (9 February), and Vy village (11 February). On 12 February, in a costly but successful battle, the Turcos and marine infantry of Colonel Laurent Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade stormed the main Chinese defences at Bắc Việt, several kilometres to the south of Lạng Sơn. On 13 February,

468-409: A certain degree of sympathy. Herbinger at first seemed to realise that he had made an appalling blunder, and spoke about retrieving his honour by falling in battle. Back at Chu, shortly after the end of the retreat, he was heard to say, 'Whoever could have imagined it? Why haven't the Chinese attacked us? Well, I know what I have to do now! In the next battle, I'll have to get myself killed!'. But

624-426: A column of just under 7,200 troops, accompanied by 4,500 coolies. In ten days the column advanced to the outskirts of Lang Son. The troops were burdened with the weight of their provisions and equipment, and had to march through extremely difficult country. They also had to fight fierce actions to overrun stoutly defended Chinese positions, at Tây Hòa (4 February), Hạ Hòa (5 February) and Đồng Sông (6 February). After

780-483: A decisive defeat on either Chinese army separately. Meanwhile, the French government was pressuring Brière de l'Isle to send the 2nd Brigade across the border into Guangxi province, in the hope that a threat to Chinese territory would force China to sue for peace. Brière de l'Isle and de Négrier examined the possibility of a campaign to capture the major Chinese military depot at Longzhou (Lung-chou, 龍州), 60 kilometres beyond

936-830: A dû repasser, entièrement en déroute, la frontière, laissant entre vos mains ses étendards, ses armes et ses munitions. Elle a été réduite à vous abandonner ou à disperser dans les montagnes le matériel européen sur lequel elle avait tant compté pour s’opposer à notre marche. Gloire à vous tous qui successivement vous êtes mesurés avec elle dans les combats du 4 à Thay-Hoa, du 5 à Ha-Hoa, du 6 à Dong-Song, du 9 à Deo-Quao, du 11 à Pho-Vy, du 12 à Bac-Viay, du 13 à Lang-Son, et l'avez chassée, malgré sa vigoureuse résistance, des positions formidables qu’elle occupait! Honneur aussi aux officiers chargés de la conduite des convois de vivres et de munitions! C’est grâce à leur dévouement et à leur infatigable énergie que vous avez pu vivre et que nos progrès n’ont pas été retardés plus longtemps. (You have hoisted

1092-632: A force of 520 French soldiers under his personal command. During his absence at Nam Định, the Black Flags and Vietnamese made an attack on Hanoi, but Chef de Bataillon Berthe de Villers repulsed them in the Battle of Gia Cuc (Gia Quất) on 28 March. Rivière jubilantly reacted: 'This will force them to take forward their Tonkin Question!' Rivière had perfect timing. He had expected to be cashiered for his capture of Nam Định ; instead he found himself

1248-532: A major defeat at the hands of the French navy on 31 March (a development that received little attention in metropolitan France), and was also wary of a possible war with Japan over their competing interests in Korea. The Qing government was thus unusually eager to come to terms. Qing negotiators immediately agreed to implement the Tientsin Accord (implicitly recognising the French protectorate over Tonkin), and

1404-432: A preliminary demonstration of what would follow if the Chinese were recalcitrant, Rear Admiral Sébastien Lespès destroyed three Chinese shore batteries in the port of Keelung in northern Formosa ( Taiwan ) by naval bombardment on 5 August. The French put a landing force ashore to occupy Keelung and the nearby coal mines at Pei-tao (Pa-tou), as a 'pledge' ( gage ) to be bargained against a Chinese withdrawal from Tonkin, but

1560-527: A quick victory in Tonkin would force the Chinese to accept a fait accompli . Command of the Tonkin Campaign was entrusted to Courbet, who attacked Sơn Tây in December 1883. The Sơn Tây 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

1716-453: A second battle for Lạng Sơn (a claim later shown to be untrue) and announcing his decision to retreat. He then had the telegraph cable cut, denying Brière de l'Isle the opportunity to intervene. During the night of 28 March, after winning the most complete victory of the Tonkin campaign , the bewildered soldiers of the 2nd Brigade marched out of Lạng Sơn. The retreat to Thanh Moy and Dong Song

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1872-419: A small column from Hưng Hóa under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel de Maussion, found the route to Tuyên Quang blocked by a strong Chinese defensive position at Hòa Mộc . On 2 March 1885 Giovanninelli attacked the left flank of the Chinese defensive line. The Battle of Hòa Mộc was the most fiercely fought action of the war. Two French assaults were decisively repulsed, and although the French eventually stormed

2028-410: A stream of orders for the retreat to his staff. 'No more hesitations, we're leaving at once!' he cried. During the night of 30 March Herbinger's column left Thanh Moy and marched across Deo Quao to Dong Song, to link up with Schoeffer's men. A half-hearted attack on Schoeffer's positions was made just after midnight by a small force of Chinese skirmishers, and was easily repelled. Shortly before dawn

2184-606: A substantial detachment of the Guangxi Army that had concentrated around the nearby village of Núi Bop to try to disrupt the French preparations. De Nègrier's victory at Núi Bop , won at odds of just under one to ten, was regarded by his fellow-officers as the most spectacular professional triumph of his career. It took the French a month to complete their preparations for the Lạng Sơn Campaign . Finally, on 3 February 1885, Brière de l'Isle began his advance from Chũ with

2340-454: 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. Liu Yongfu felt that he had been deliberately left to bear the brunt of the fighting by his Chinese and Vietnamese allies, and determined never again to expose his troops so openly. In March 1884, the French renewed their offensive under the command of General Charles-Théodore Millot , who took over responsibility for

2496-433: A third of their strength (50 dead and 224 wounded) sustaining a heroic defence against overwhelming odds. By mid-February it was clear that Tuyên Quang would fall unless it was relieved immediately. Leaving de Négrier at Lang Son with the 2nd Brigade, Brière de l'Isle personally led Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade back to Hanoi, and then upriver to the relief of Tuyên Quang. The brigade, reinforced at Phủ Doãn, on 24 February by

2652-651: A threatened attack by the Black Flags on Hanoi was averted, and the military situation was stabilised. On 20 August 1883 Admiral Amédée Courbet , who had recently been appointed to the command of the newly formed Tonkin Coasts Naval Division, stormed the forts which guarded the approaches to the Vietnamese capital Huế in the Battle of Thuận An , and forced the Vietnamese government to sign the Treaty of Huế , placing Tonkin under French protection . At

2808-477: A threatened attempt by part of the Chinese Nanyang Fleet (Southern Seas fleet) to break the French blockade of Formosa. On 11 February Courbet's task force met the cruisers Kaiji , Nanchen and Nanrui , three of the most modern ships in the Chinese fleet, near Shipu Bay, accompanied by the frigate Yuyuan and the composite sloop Chengqing . The Chinese scattered at the French approach, and while

2964-431: A total of 1 dead and 23 wounded. The culminating battle for Lạng Sơn was fought on 12 February at Bac Vie, several kilometres to the south of Lạng Sơn. Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade was leading the French column, and de Négrier's 2nd Brigade took little part in the battle. In a costly but successful assault, Giovanninelli's Turcos and marine infantry stormed the Chinese defences. The battle was fought in thick fog, allowing

3120-426: A two-battalion regiment of Algerian riflemen (Turcos), a battalion of Tonkinese riflemen and three artillery batteries. De Négrier's 2nd Brigade consisted of a 'French' regiment of three line infantry battalions from the metropolitan army, an 'Algerian' regiment of two Foreign Legion battalions and one battalion of African Light Infantry, a battalion of Tonkinese riflemen and three artillery batteries: The strengths of

3276-408: A western offensive, he ordered de Négrier to hold his positions at Lang Son. On 23 and 24 March the 2nd Brigade, only 1,500 men strong, fought a fierce action with over 25,000 troops of the Guangxi Army entrenched near Zhennanguan on the Chinese border. The Battle of Bang Bo (named by the French from the Vietnamese pronunciation of Hengpo, a village in the centre of the Chinese position where

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3432-613: The Battle of Yu-Oc , a column making for Tuyên Quang under the command of Duchesne was ambushed in the Yu-Oc gorge by the Black Flags but was able to fight its way through to the beleaguered post. The French also sealed off the eastern Delta from raids by Chinese guerillas based in Guangdong by occupying Tiên Yên, Đông Triều and other strategic points, and by blockading the Cantonese port of Beihai (Pak-Hoi). They also conducted sweeps along

3588-468: The Battle of Đồng Đăng on 23 February 1885 and cleared it from Tonkinese territory. For good measure, the French crossed briefly into Guangxi province and blew up the 'Gate of China', an elaborate Chinese customs building on the Tonkin-Guangxi border. They were not strong enough to exploit this victory, however, and the 2nd Brigade returned to Lạng Sơn at the end of February. By early March, in

3744-508: The Guangxi Army 's left wing from the hills to the northeast of Ky Lua. By 5:00 pm the Guangxi Army was in full retreat, leaving only a rearguard to discourage pursuit. French casualties at Ky Lua were 7 men killed and 38 wounded. Towards the end of the battle de Négrier was seriously wounded in the chest while scouting the Chinese positions. He was forced to hand over command to Herbinger, his senior regimental commander. Herbinger

3900-510: The Kép Campaign , (2 to 15 October 1884), three French columns under the overall command of General de Négrier fell upon the separated detachments of the Guangxi Army and successively defeated them in engagements at Lam Cốt (6 October), Kép (8 October) and Chũ (10 October). The second of these battles was marked by bitter close-quarter fighting between French and Chinese troops, and de Négrier's soldiers suffered heavy casualties storming

4056-450: The Siege of Tuyên Quang . Before his departure he ordered General de Négrier, who would remain at Lạng Sơn with the 2nd Brigade, to press on towards the Chinese border and expel the battered remnants of the Guangxi Army from Tonkinese soil. After resupplying the 2nd Brigade with food and ammunition, De Négrier advanced to attack the Guangxi Army at Dong Dang. On 23 February de Négrier stormed

4212-573: The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps , returned to Hanoi with Lieutenant-Colonel Laurent Giovaninelli's 1st Brigade to relieve the Siege of Tuyên Quang , leaving General François de Négrier at Lạng Sơn with the 2nd Brigade. Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade faced Tang Jingsong's Yunnan Army around Hưng Hóa and Tuyên Quang, while de Négrier's 2nd Brigade at Lạng Sơn faced Pan Dingxin's Guangxi Army. Neither Chinese army had any realistic prospect of launching an offensive for several weeks, while

4368-595: The Tonkin War , was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and Qing China for influence in Vietnam . There was no declaration of war . The Chinese armies performed better than in their other nineteenth-century wars . Although French forces emerged victorious from most engagements, the Chinese scored noteworthy successes on land, notably forcing

4524-525: The conquest of Madagascar , were deferred for several years. While the retreat from Lạng Sơn was in progress, there were wild rumours in France that the 2nd Brigade had been routed and had suffered appalling casualties. These rumours stubbornly refused to go away, and in time a legend was born, of 'the Lạng Sơn disaster', which would persist for decades. As late as 1937, one French historian wrote: 'Even today,

4680-464: The protectorates of Tonkin and Annam . Both sides ratified the Treaty of Tientsin and no diplomatic gain was reaped by either nation. On another note, the war strengthened the dominance of Empress Dowager Cixi over the Chinese government but France securing its strategic objective did not prevent the collapse of French Prime Minister Jules Ferry 's government for whom the Tonkin Affair

4836-404: The 2nd Brigade's corps of Vietnamese porters had scattered during the retreat, temporarily immobilising the brigade. Brière de l'Isle was still considering how to get at the Chinese when news of the conclusion of preliminaries of peace reached him on 14 April. In Paris, the political impact of Brière de l'Isle's pessimistic 'Lạng Sơn telegram' of 28 March was momentous. Ferry's immediate reaction

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4992-404: The 2nd Brigade, at the head of the French column, contacted advance elements of the Guangxi Army at Pho Vy. The Chinese were ejected from the village of Pho Vy by Herbinger's three French battalions with little difficulty, but they brought up their reserves and mounted a counterattack against Herbinger's regiment which forced de Negrier to commit Diguet's Legion battalion to drive them off. Towards

5148-623: The Black Flags in the Battle of Paper Bridge , and the French suffered a disastrous defeat. Rivière's small force (around 450 men) attacked a strong Black Flag defensive position near the village of Cầu Giấy, a few miles to the west of Hanoi, known to the French as Paper Bridge (Pont de Papier). After initial successes the French were eventually enveloped on both wings; only with difficulty could they regroup and fall back to Hanoi. Rivière, Berthe de Villers and several other senior officers were killed in this action. Rivière's death produced an angry reaction in France. Reinforcements were rushed to Tonkin,

5304-540: The British authorities to protect the dock workers against harassment resulted in serious rioting on 3 October, during which at least one rioter was shot dead and several Sikh constables were injured. The British suspected, with good reason, that the disturbances had been fomented by the Chinese authorities in Guangdong province. Meanwhile, the French decided to put pressure on China by landing an expeditionary corps in northern Formosa to seize Keelung and Tamsui , redeeming

5460-536: The British colony of Hong Kong . In September 1884 dock workers in Hong Kong refused to repair the French ironclad La Galissonnière , which had suffered shell damage in the August naval engagements. The strike collapsed at the end of September, but the dock workers were prevented from resuming their business by other groups of Chinese workers, including longshoremen, sedan chair carriers and rickshawmen. An attempt by

5616-622: The Bắc Lệ Ambush. In a two-hour engagement watched with professional interest by neutral British and American vessels (the battle was one of the first occasions on which the spar torpedo was successfully deployed), Courbet's Far East Squadron annihilated China's outclassed Fujian fleet and severely damaged the Foochow Navy Yard (which, ironically, had been built under the direction of the French administrator Prosper Giquel ). Nine Chinese ships were sunk in less than an hour, including

5772-624: The Chinese Guangxi Army and captured the strategically important town of Lạng Sơn in a ten-day campaign mounted under formidable logistical constraints. French strategy in Tonkin was the subject of a bitter debate in the Chamber of Deputies in late December 1884. The army minister General Jean-Baptiste-Marie Campenon argued that the French should consolidate their hold on the Delta . His opponents urged an all-out offensive to throw

5928-465: The Chinese defences at Dong Dang, forcing the Chinese to retreat towards the Chinese border town of Longzhou (Lung-chou, 龍州). After clearing the Chinese from Tonkinese territory the French crossed briefly into Guangxi province and on 25 February blew up the 'Gate of China', an elaborate Chinese customs building on the border at Zhennan Pass (Zhennanguan). They were not strong enough to exploit this victory, however, and de Négrier returned to Lạng Sơn with

6084-507: The Chinese defences at Tamsui with 600 sailors from his squadron's landing companies on 8 October, but was decisively repulsed by forces under the command of the Fujianese general Sun Kaihua (孫開華). As a result, French control over Formosa was limited to the town of Keelung, far short of what had been hoped for. Towards the end of 1884 the French were able to enforce a limited blockade of the northern Formosan ports of Keelung and Tamsui and

6240-592: The Chinese encirclement, but suffered a number of casualties and had to abandon their dead on the battlefield. De Négrier immediately brought up reinforcements and pursued the Chinese, but the raiders made good their retreat to Đồng Sông. Shortly after the October engagements against the Guangxi Army, Brière de l'Isle took steps to resupply the western outposts of Hưng Hóa , Thái Nguyên and Tuyên Quang , which were coming under increasing threat from Liu Yongfu's Black Flags and Tang Jingsong's Yunnan Army. On 19 November, in

6396-499: The Chinese fell back to Bắc Lệ and Đồng Sông, and de Négrier established important forward positions at Kép and Chũ, which threatened the Guangxi Army's base at Lạng Sơn. Chũ was only a few miles southwest of the Guangxi Army's advanced posts at Đồng Sông, and on 16 December a strong Chinese raiding detachment ambushed two companies of the Foreign Legion just to the east of Chũ, at Hà Hồ . The legionnaires fought their way out of

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6552-440: The Chinese from piercing their line, casualties in the 2nd Brigade were relatively heavy (70 dead and 188 wounded) and there were ominous scenes of disorder as the defeated French regrouped after the battle. As the brigade's morale was precarious and ammunition was running short, de Négrier decided to fall back to Lạng Sơn. Following their victory at the Battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885), the Chinese advanced slowly in pursuit of

6708-686: 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 Hưng Hóa and Thái Nguyên , convinced the Empress Dowager Cixi that China should come to terms, and an accord was reached between France and China in May. The negotiations took place in Tianjin (Tientsin). Li Hongzhang,

6864-465: The Chinese out of northern Tonkin. The debate culminated in Campenon's resignation and his replacement as army minister by the hawkish General Jules Lewal . On 5 January 1885 Lewal ordered Brière de l'Isle to 'capture Lạng Sơn as soon as possible'. Long-range planning for a campaign against Lạng Sơn had been underway for several months, and Brière de l'Isle had already assembled large French forces at

7020-416: The Chinese positions, they suffered very high casualties (76 dead and 408 wounded). Nevertheless, their costly victory cleared the way to Tuyên 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

7176-519: The Chinese to mount a dangerous counterattack at one point that nearly swept away part of Giovanninelli's brigade. Eventually the French broke through the Chinese centre, and the isolated Chinese wings retreated in disorder back to Lạng Sơn. French casualties at Bac Vie were 30 dead and 188 wounded, the highest casualties of the campaign. Most of these casualties were sustained by the two Turco battalions in Giovanninelli's brigade, which had borne

7332-483: The Chinese troops in Tonkin to hold their positions. Li Hongzhang hinted to the French that there might be difficulties in enforcing the accord, but nothing specific was said. The French assumed that the Chinese troops would leave Tonkin as agreed, and made preparations for occupying the border towns of Lạng Sơn , Cao Bằng and Thất Khê. In early June 1884 a French column under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Alphonse Dugenne advanced to occupy Lạng Sơn. On 23 June, near

7488-476: The Chinese, but Herbinger set an unnecessarily punishing pace and abandoned considerable quantities of food, ammunition and equipment. When the 2nd Brigade eventually rallied at Chũ, its soldiers were exhausted and demoralised. Meanwhile, the Chinese general Pan Dingxin (潘鼎新), informed by sympathisers in Lạng Sơn that the French were in full retreat, promptly turned his battered army around and reoccupied Lạng Sơn on 30 March. The Chinese were in no condition to pursue

7644-496: The Chinese. The French torpedo launches escaped almost without loss. Courbet followed up this success on 1 March by locating Kaiji , Nanchen and Nanrui , which had taken refuge with four other Chinese warships in Zhenhai Bay, near the port of Ningbo . Courbet considered forcing the Chinese defences, but after testing its defenses finally decided to guard the entrance to the bay to keep the enemy vessels bottled up there for

7800-613: The Far East to French warships. The French government retaliated by ordering Courbet to implement a 'rice blockade' of the Yangzi River, hoping to bring the Qing court to terms by provoking serious rice shortages in northern China. The rice blockade severely disrupted the transport of rice by sea from Shanghai and forced the Chinese to carry it overland, but the war ended before the blockade seriously affected China's economy. Meanwhile,

7956-572: The French Army; you have added a fine page to our national history. Honour to your officers and to yourselves! You are approaching the end of your task. Battles, privations and fatigues still await you. But your military virtues, of which you have already given such sterling proofs, guarantee your future success.) The second order of the day, issued on 14 February, marked the capture of Lạng Sơn: Vous avez arboré le drapeau français sur Lang-Son. Une armée chinoise dix fois plus nombreuse que vous

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8112-400: The French army in Tonkin was also putting severe pressure on the Chinese forces and their Black Flag allies. General Millot, whose health was failing, resigned as general-in-chief of the Tonkin expeditionary corps in early September 1884 and was replaced by General Brière de l'Isle, the senior of his two brigade commanders. Brière de l'Isle's first task was to beat off a major Chinese invasion of

8268-560: The French captured a number of minor Chinese positions to the southeast of Keelung at the end of January 1885, but were forced to halt offensive operations in February due to incessant rain. The blockade succeeded in part because the northern Beiyang Fleet, commanded by Li Hongzhang, denied help to the southern Nanyang Fleet . No Beiyang ships were sent to battle the French. This led the Navy to fail. The most advanced ships were reserved for

8424-549: The French column entered Lạng Sơn which the Chinese abandoned after fighting a token rearguard action at the nearby village of Kỳ Lừa. The capture of Lang Son allowed substantial French forces to be diverted further west to relieve the small and isolated French garrison in Tuyên Quang, which had been placed under siege in November 1884 by Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army and Tang Jingsong's Yunnan Army. The Siege of Tuyên Quang

8580-465: The French flag above Lạng Sơn. A Chinese army ten times your numbers has had to recross the frontier in complete rout, leaving in your hands its standards, its arms and its ammunition. It has been forced to abandon to you or to disperse in the mountains the European equipment on which it had so heavily relied to block our march. Glory to all of you who successfully measured yourselves with this army in

8736-467: The French foreign minister Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour met a number of times in the summer and autumn of 1883 with Marquis Zeng in Paris, but these parallel diplomatic discussions also proved abortive. The Chinese stood firm, and refused to withdraw substantial garrisons of Chinese regular troops from Sơn Tây, Bắc Ninh and Lạng Sơn, despite the likelihood that they would be shortly engaged in battle against

8892-629: The French forward base of Chu (now in Bắc Giang Province ) on the Luc Nam River, which had been occupied by the French in the wake of the Kep campaign (October 1884). On 3 and 4 January 1885, General de Négrier attacked and defeated a substantial detachment of the Guangxi Army that had concentrated around the nearby village of Núi Bop to try to disrupt the French preparations. De Nègrier's victory at Núi Bop, won at odds of just under one to ten,

9048-520: The French from the Vietnamese pronunciation of Hengpo, a village in the centre of the Chinese position where the fighting was fiercest), is normally known as the Battle of Zhennan Pass in China. The French took a number of outworks on 23 March, but failed to take the main Chinese positions on 24 March and were fiercely counterattacked in their turn. Although the French made a fighting withdrawal and prevented

9204-578: The French government dropped its demand for an indemnity for the Bắc Lệ ambush . A peace protocol ending hostilities was signed on 4 April, and a substantive peace treaty was signed on 9 June by Li Hongzhang and the French minister Jules Patenôtre . Brière de l'Isle was understandably furious at Herbinger's conduct, and a commission of enquiry was held in Hanoi during the autumn of 1885 to determine whether his decision to abandon Lạng Sơn had been justified. Most of

9360-457: The French outposts on the mountain of Deo Quao on 9 February. The French units on Deo Quao easily repelled this attack, but the diversion allowed the Guangxi Army to regroup and make a final stand in front of Lạng Sơn. After a pause for breath at Dong Song to resupply with food and ammunition and to establish a shorter supply line back to Chu across the mountain of Deo Quan, the Tonkin expeditionary corps pressed on towards Lạng Sơn. On 11 February

9516-468: The French outposts, who thought they had seen movement around their positions. It turned out to be a false alarm, and an officer woke Herbinger up to report what had happened. Herbinger's reply was illuminating: 'I'm sick, and the column is just as sick as me! Leave me alone!' An hour later, salvation arrived. At 10:00 pm on the evening of 30 March, having receiving a stream of anguished cables from Herbinger and with no means of independently controlling

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9672-442: The French retreat, and it was these units which had made contact with the French on 30 March at Dong Song and on 31 March at Pho Cam. The main body of the Guangxi Army was in no condition to pursue the French to Chu, and Pan contented himself with a limited advance to Dong Song and Bắc Lệ. This advance brought the Chinese back to the positions they were occupying before the Lạng Sơn campaign. Herbinger's decision to retreat threw away

9828-520: The French should consolidate their hold on the Delta. His opponents urged an all-out offensive to throw the Chinese out of northern Tonkin. The debate culminated in Campenon's resignation and his replacement as army minister by the hawkish General Jules Louis Lewal , who immediately ordered Brière de l'Isle to capture Lạng Sơn. The campaign would be launched from the French forward base at Chũ, and on 3 and 4 January 1885 General de Négrier attacked and defeated

9984-515: The French successfully held their positions and inflicted crippling casualties on the Guangxi Army. French casualties at Kỳ Lừa were 7 men killed and 38 wounded. The Chinese left 1,200 corpses on the battlefield, and a further 6,000 Chinese soldiers may have been wounded. Towards the end of the battle de Négrier was seriously wounded in the chest while scouting the Chinese positions. He was forced to hand over command to his senior regimental commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Gustave Herbinger. Herbinger

10140-541: The French threw up field defences at Thanh Moy and Dong Song and prepared to meet the advancing Chinese, while Herbinger sent out cavalry patrols to determine the exact positions of the Guangxi Army. The patrols observed small Chinese scouting parties near Cut on the Mandarin Road and at Pho Bu, just to the south of Lạng Sơn, and duly reported their presence. Herbinger wildly exaggerated the significance of these reports, and warned Brière de l'Isle that, in his opinion,

10296-447: The French to Chũ, and contented themselves with a limited advance to Đồng Sông. The retreat was seen as a Chinese victory. There was also bad news for the French from the western front. On 23 March, in the Battle of Phu Lam Tao , a force of Chinese regulars and Black Flags surprised and routed a French zouave battalion that had been ordered to scout positions around Hưng Hóa in preparation for Giovanninelli's projected offensive against

10452-405: The French to hastily withdraw from occupied Lạng Sơn in the late stages of the war, thus regaining control of the town and its surroundings. However, a lack of foreign support, French naval supremacy, and northern threats posed by Russia and Japan forced China to enter negotiations. China ceded to France its sphere of influence over Northern and Central Vietnam , which respectively became

10608-540: The French. As war with China seemed increasingly likely, the French persuaded the German government to delay the release of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan , two modern battleships then being constructed in German shipyards for China's Beiyang Fleet . Meanwhile, the French consolidated their hold on the Delta by establishing posts at Quảng Yên , Hưng Yên and Ninh Bình . The growing tension between France and China gave rise to anti-foreign demonstrations inside China during

10764-606: The Red River Delta. In late September 1884, large detachments of the Guangxi Army advanced from Langson and probed into the Lục Nam valley, announcing their presence by ambushing the French gunboats Hache and Massue on 2 October. Brière de l'Isle responded immediately, transporting nearly 3,000 French soldiers to the Lục Nam valley aboard a flotilla of gunboats and attacking the Chinese detachments before they could concentrate. In

10920-521: The Song Thuong valley, away from Lạng Sơn, but most of the Chinese troops fell back up the Dong Song valley to Pho Bu, where they could make a further stand for Lạng Sơn. The capture of Dong Song threatened the supply line of the Guangxi Army's right wing at Bắc Lệ, and the Chinese hastily pulled back from Bắc Lệ and retreated up the Mandarin Road to Thanh Moy. To cover their retreat they attacked

11076-409: The Tonkin expeditionary corps. There was little substance in any of this, but it rang warning bells back in Paris. The army ministry, alarmed at the prospect of seeing so much dirty linen washed in public, brought the enquiry to an early end. Herbinger escaped without a formal censure, but the commission of enquiry recommended that he should not be given any further field commands. He died in 1886, at

11232-556: The Vietnamese lacked the means of resisting the French effectively, the Chinese civil Mandarin Tang Jingsong (唐景崧) persuaded Liu Yongfu to take the field against Rivière with the Black Flag Army. This resulted in a year of Liu Yongfu's forces fighting an unconventional war. On 10 May 1883 Liu Yongfu challenged the French to battle in a taunting message widely placarded on the walls of Hanoi. On 19 May Rivière confronted

11388-546: The Yunnan Army. Retreat from L%E1%BA%A1ng S%C6%A1n [REDACTED]   France Vietnam Taiwan The Retreat from Lạng Sơn ( French : retraite de Lang-Son ) was a controversial French strategic withdrawal in Tonkin at the end of March 1885 during the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). It represented the last major event of the conflict and was deemed a considerable embarrassment in France , further cementing negative public opinion about

11544-536: The Yunnan border. In 1873, a small French force commanded by Lieutenant de Vaisseau Francis Garnier , exceeding his instructions, attacked northern Vietnam. Following a series of French victories against the Vietnamese, the Vietnamese government called on Liu Yongfu's Black Flags, who defeated Garnier's force beneath the walls of Hanoi . Garnier was killed in this battle, and the French government later disavowed his expedition. In 1881, French Commandant Henri Rivière

11700-431: The acting brigade commander's assessment of the situation, Brière de l'Isle reluctantly gave Herbinger permission to fall back to Chu 'if the situation demanded'. Herbinger clutched at this straw and issued orders for an immediate retreat by both halves of the column to Chu. 'I will take advantage of the night and the moon to retire, in conformity with your instructions,' he replied. His lassitude vanished, and he fired off

11856-574: The actions of the 4th at Tay Hoa, the 5th at Ha Hoa, the 6th at Dong Song, the 9th at Deo Quao, the 11th at Pho Vy, the 12th at Bac Vie and the 13th at Lạng Sơn, and chased it, despite its vigorous resistance, from the formidable positions which it occupied! Honour also to the officers charged with bringing up the food and ammunition trains. It is thanks to their devotion and indefatigable energy that you have been able to eat, and that our advances were not longer delayed.) On 16 February Brière de l'Isle left Lạng Sơn with Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade to relieve

12012-411: The admiration of the men who have relieved you at such heavy cost. Tomorrow, all France will applaud you!' Before his departure for Tuyên Quang, Brière de l'Isle ordered de Négrier to press on from Lạng Sơn towards the Chinese border and expel the battered remnants of the Guangxi Army from Tonkinese soil. After resupplying the 2nd Brigade with food and ammunition, de Négrier defeated the Guangxi Army at

12168-421: The advancing French, precipitating a two-day battle in which Dugenne's column was encircled and seriously mauled. Dugenne eventually fought his way out of the Chinese encirclement and extricated his small force. When news of the Bắc Lệ ambush reached Paris, there was fury at what was perceived as blatant Chinese treachery. Ferry's government demanded an apology, an indemnity, and the immediate implementation of

12324-557: The age of 46. The longer-term domestic political repercussions of the retreat from Lạng Sơn were considerable. The ignominious end to the Sino-French War temporarily checked French domestic fervor for colonial expansion and culminated in the 'Tonkin Debate' of December 1885, in which the Chamber of Deputies voted to sustain the French commitment in Tonkin by the very narrowest of margins. Other French colonial projects, including

12480-475: The arrival of a large Chinese army under the command of the imperial commissioner Liu Mingchuan forced it to re-embark on 6 August. Negotiations between France and China broke down in mid-August, and on 22 August Courbet was ordered to attack the Chinese fleet at Fuzhou. In the Battle of Fuzhou (also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage) on 23 August 1884, the French took their revenge for

12636-522: 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 marine fusiliers captured the western gate of Sơn Tây and fought their way into the town. Liu Yongfu's garrison withdrew to the citadel, and evacuated Sơn Tây under cover of darkness several hours later. Courbet had achieved his objective, but at considerable cost. French casualties at Sơn Tây were 83 dead and 320 wounded. The fighting at Sơn Tây also took

12792-553: The autumn of 1883. The most serious incidents took place in Guangdong province, where Europeans were most prominent. Attacks were made on the property of European merchants in Guangzhou and on Shamian island . Several European powers, including France, sent gunboats to Guangzhou to protect their nationals. The French accepted that an attack on Liu Yongfu would probably result in an undeclared war with China, but calculated that

12948-424: The battle, and French casualties were relatively low: 4 dead and 18 wounded. On 6 February the French fought a morning action to clear the Chinese from their last defences before Dong Song, and took possession of the entrenched camp of Dong Song in the afternoon. French casualties in this action were 3 dead and 41 wounded. Brière de l'Isle had been hoping to push the Chinese back across the mountain of Deo Quao into

13104-465: The border, but on 17 March Brière de l'Isle advised the army ministry in Paris that such an operation was beyond his strength. Substantial French reinforcements reached Tonkin in the middle of March, giving Brière de l'Isle a brief opportunity to break the stalemate. He moved the bulk of the reinforcements to Hưng Hóa to reinforce the 1st Brigade, intending to attack the Yunnan Army and drive it back beyond Yen Bay. While he and Giovanninelli drew up plans for

13260-411: The brigade faced catastrophic encirclement. While waiting for Brière's response, he ordered his men to prepare for a last-ditch defence with the bayonet. As the evening wore on Herbinger became increasingly hysterical. He went to bed at 8:00 pm, convinced that he and his men would be surrounded and massacred on the following morning. At around 9:00 pm there was an outburst of firing from the sentries in

13416-406: The brigade, Herbinger panicked. He convinced himself that the Chinese were preparing to encircle Lạng Sơn and cut his supply line. Disregarding the appalled protests of some of his officers, he ordered the 2nd Brigade to abandon Lạng Sơn on the evening of 28 March and retreat to Chu. The retreat was initially conducted in two columns. Herbinger led the line battalions to Thanh Moy, while Schoeffer led

13572-421: The brigade. I have arrived with fresh troops and ammunition. I have been told by the general-in-chief that there is to be no further retreat. We are to remain here at all costs. And that is precisely what we shall do.) On 5 April Brière de l'Isle arrived at Chu. He immediately ordered Borgnis-Desbordes to reoccupy the mountains of Deo Van and Deo Quan. He also considered attacking the Chinese at Dong Song, but

13728-537: The brunt of the battle. Chef d'escadron Levrard, the 1st Brigade's artillery commander, was shot dead during the battle, and Brière de l'Isle's officier d'ordonnance 2nd Lieutenant Bossant, the son of a senior French general, was killed at Brière de l'Isle's side. On 13 February the French column entered Lạng Sơn, which the Chinese abandoned after fighting a token rearguard action at the nearby village of Ky Lua. In compliment to their performance at Bac Vie, Brière de l'Isle gave Giovanninelli's Turcos and marine infantry

13884-522: The bulk of the 2nd Brigade at the end of February. A small French garrison under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Herbinger was left at Dong Dang to watch the movements of the Guangxi Army. Three weeks later the Chinese attacked the Dong Dang garrison, precipitating a series of events that led to a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885). Sino-French War Vietnam Taiwan The Sino-French War , also known as

14040-501: The charismatic young Foreign Legion general François de Négrier , who had recently quelled a serious Arab rebellion in Algeria . The French target was Bắc Ninh , garrisoned by a strong force of regular Chinese troops of the Guangxi Army. The Bắc Ninh 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. Millot bypassed Chinese defences to

14196-462: The city. On 14 December the French assaulted the outer defences of Sơn Tây at Phù 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 Sơn Tây on the afternoon of 16 December. This time

14352-414: The colonial conflict which led to the collapse of French Prime Minister Jules Ferry 's government. By the middle of March 1885 the military situation in Tonkin had reached a temporary stalemate. In February 1885, in the Lạng Sơn Campaign , the French had captured Lạng Sơn and driven China's Guangxi Army out of Tonkin. In the second half of February General Louis Brière de l'Isle , the general-in-chief of

14508-644: The colony of Cochinchina . French explorers followed the course of the Red River through northern Vietnam to its source in Yunnan , arousing hopes for a profitable trade route with China that could bypass the treaty ports of the Chinese coastal provinces. The main obstacle to this idea, the Black Flag Army – a well-organized private army led by the formidable Liu Yongfu – was levying exorbitant "taxes" on Red River trade between Sơn Tây and Lào Cai on

14664-446: The column with food and ammunition would tax the ingenuity of the marine infantry officers responsible for the mule trains and the coolies. It took the French a month to complete their preparations for the campaign, but by the end of January 1885, Brière de l'Isle had assembled an expeditionary column of just under 7,200 troops, accompanied by 4,500 coolies, at Chu. The Lạng Sơn expeditionary column ( colonne expéditionnaire de Lang-Son )

14820-485: The column. Shortly after dawn on 31 March Chinese skirmishers caught up with the French column near the small village of Pho Cam. Herbinger had by now been reinforced by Brière de l'Isle with a squadron of Spahi cavalry, and the French infantry waited eagerly for him to order the Spahis to charge and scatter the Chinese skirmishers. Instead, Herbinger ordered the retreat to continue, by echelons of infantry battalions. It

14976-628: The corvette Yangwu , the flagship of the Fujian fleet. Chinese losses may have amounted to 3,000 dead, while French losses were minimal. Courbet then successfully withdrew down the Min River to the open sea, destroying several Chinese shore batteries from behind as he took the French squadron through the Min'an and Jinpai passes. The French attack at Fuzhou effectively ended diplomatic contacts between France and China. Although neither country declared war,

15132-413: The defeated French regrouped after the battle. As the brigade's morale was precarious and ammunition was running short, de Négrier decided to fall back to Lạng Sơn. The coolies abandoned the French who were already suffering supply issues. The Chinese advanced slowly in pursuit, and on 28 March de Négrier fought a battle at Kỳ Lừa in defence of Lạng Sơn. Rested, recovered and fighting behind breastworks,

15288-467: The demarcation of its disputed border with Vietnam. On 6 June the French followed up their accord with China by concluding a fresh Treaty of Huế with the Vietnamese, which established a French protectorate over both Annam and Tonkin and allowed the French to station troops at strategic points in Vietnamese territory and to install residents in the main towns. The signature of the treaty was accompanied by an important symbolic gesture. The seal presented by

15444-464: The dispute would now be settled on the battlefield. The news of the destruction of the Fujian fleet was greeted by an outbreak of patriotic fervour in China, marred by attacks on foreigners and foreign property. There was considerable sympathy for China in Europe, and the Chinese were able to hire a number of British, German and American army and navy officers as advisers. Patriotic indignation spread to

15600-461: The duration of hostilities. A brief and inconclusive skirmish between the French cruiser Nielly and the Chinese shore batteries on 1 March enabled the Chinese general Ouyang Lijian (歐陽利見), charged with the defence of Ningbo, to claim the so-called ' Battle of Zhenhai ' as a defensive victory. In February 1885, under diplomatic pressure from China, Britain invoked the provisions of the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act and closed Hong Kong and other ports in

15756-459: The emperor of China several decades earlier to the Vietnamese emperor Gia Long was melted down in the presence of the French and Vietnamese plenipotentiaries, betokening the renunciation by Vietnam of its traditional links with China. Fournier was not a professional diplomat, and the Tientsin Accord contained several loose ends. Crucially, it failed to explicitly state a deadline for the Chinese troop withdrawal from Tonkin. The French asserted that

15912-408: The end of the battle the 111th Battalion stormed a Chinese hill position under the eyes of the rest of the brigade. 2nd Lieutenant Rene Normand, who fell a month later in the Battle of Bang Bo and whose letters from Tonkin were published after his death, distinguished himself in this action. Towards evening the Chinese fell back on their main body at Bac Vie. French casualties at Pho Vy were slight:

16068-459: The evidence that the Chinese had been decisively defeated and were streaming back in disarray towards the Chinese frontier, he convinced himself that they were preparing to encircle Lạng Sơn and cut his supply line. Disregarding the appalled protests of some of his officers, he ordered the 2nd Brigade to abandon Lạng Sơn on the evening of 28 March and retreat to Chũ. The retreat from Lạng Sơn was conducted without loss and with little interference from

16224-535: The failure of 6 August and finally winning the 'pledge' they sought. On 1 October Lieutenant-Colonel Bertaux-Levillain landed at Keelung with a force of 1,800 marine infantry, forcing the Chinese to withdraw to strong defensive positions which had been prepared in the surrounding hills. The French force was too small to advance beyond Keelung, and the Pei-tao coal mines remained in Chinese hands. Meanwhile, after an ineffective naval bombardment on 2 October, Lespès attacked

16380-464: The fighting was fiercest), is normally known as the Battle of Zhennan Pass in China. The French took a number of outworks on 23 March, but failed to take the main Chinese positions on 24 March and were fiercely counterattacked in their turn. Although the French made a fighting withdrawal and prevented the Chinese from piercing their line, casualties in the 2nd Brigade were relatively heavy (70 dead and 188 wounded) and there were ominous scenes of disorder as

16536-413: The following day he had recovered his usual sang froid . He spent most of the day establishing what had happened, and on the evening of 29 March sent a furious cable to Herbinger at Thanh Moy, ordering the 2nd Brigade to hold its positions at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Herbinger was aghast at this order, believing that it played straight into the enemy's hands, but had no choice but to obey it. On 30 March

16692-460: The fort instead. The legionnaires scrambled rapidly up the mountain paths towards the Chinese position and captured it under Herbinger's nose. Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Captain Gravereau's company of Diguet's 2nd Legion Battalion was isolated and surrounded by the Chinese. The company was eventually disengaged by its comrades, but suffered heavy losses. Although the battle

16848-420: The fortified village of Kép. The exasperated victors shot or bayoneted scores of wounded Chinese soldiers after the battle, and reports of French atrocities at Kép shocked public opinion in Europe. In fact, prisoners were rarely taken by either side during the Sino-French War, and the French were equally shocked by the Chinese habit of paying a bounty for severed French heads. In the wake of these French victories

17004-417: The hard-won French gains of the February campaign. When the 2nd Brigade eventually rallied at Chu, on 1 April, its soldiers were exhausted and demoralised. Brière de l'Isle, who had responded to Herbinger's cable of 28 March by transferring the bulk of Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade from Hưng Hóa to Chu, appointed Colonel Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes to the command of the 2nd Brigade. Borgnis-Desbordes soon effaced

17160-450: The help of Liu Yongfu, whose well-trained and seasoned Black Flag soldiers would prove a thorn in the side of the French. The Vietnamese also sought for Chinese support. Vietnam had long been a tributary state of China, and China agreed to arm and support the Black Flags, and to covertly oppose French operations in Tonkin. The Qing court also sent a strong signal to the French that China would not allow Tonkin to fall under French control. In

17316-481: The hero of the hour. There had recently been a change of government in France, and the new administration of Jules Ferry strongly favoured colonial expansion. It therefore decided to back Rivière. Ferry and Foreign Minister Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour denounced Bourée's agreement with Li Hongzhang and recalled the hapless French minister. They also made it clear to the Chinese that they were determined to place Tonkin under French protection. In April 1883, realising that

17472-1440: The honour of leading the French entry into Lạng Sơn. The Guangxi Army fell back towards the Chinese border and occupied a strong defensive position at Dong Dang, a small town just in Tonkinese territory. Brière de l'Isle issued two orders of the day during the Lạng Sơn campaign. The first, issued on 7 February, marked the capture of the Chinese entrenched camp of Dong Song: Les formidables camps retranchés de Ha-Hoa et de Dong-Song sont entre vos mains avec d'immenses approvisionnements d'armes, de munitions et de vivres que votre élan n’a pas permis à l'ennemi d'emporter. Pendant les combats des 4, 5 et 6 février, qui vous ont rendus maîtres de ces admirables positions sur lesquelles l'armée chinoise avait compté pour nous barrer les débouchés du Deo-Van et du Deo-Quan et nous interdire les routes du Than-Moï et de Lang-Son, vous avez égalé les troupes les plus citées dans les annales de l'armée française. Vous avez ajouté une belle page à notre histoire nationale. Honneur à vos chefs et à vous! Vous approchez du terme de votre mission. Des combats, des privations et des fatigues vous attendent encore. Les vertus militaires, dont vous avez déjà donné tant de preuves, garantissent le succès de l'avenir. (The formidable entrenched camps of Ha Hoa and Dong Song are in your hands, with their huge supplies of weapons, ammunition and provisions, which

17628-417: The infantry battalions varied considerably, depending on how long they had been in Tonkin. The battalions which had served longest in the Tonkin campaign could only with difficulty field as many as 500 men, while Schoeffer and Comoy's recently arrived battalions could put 800 rifles into line. Shortly after midnight on 2 February the expeditionary corps set off from Chu, with de Négrier's 2nd Brigade leading

17784-465: The land campaign from Courbet after the fall of Sơn Tây. 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

17940-588: The leader of the Chinese moderates, represented China; and Captain François-Ernest Fournier , commander of the French cruiser Volta , represented France. The Tientsin Accord , concluded on 11 May 1884, provided for Chinese recognition of the French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin and withdrawal of Chinese troops from Tonkin, in return for a comprehensive treaty that would settle details of trade and commerce between France and China and provide for

18096-411: The left, overran a number of Chinese forts before their defenders could escape, and wiped out the garrisons by blowing in the roofs with dynamite. The 2nd Brigade, on the right, captured the principal Chinese work of Pins Parasols, so named because it had been built around a conspicuous clump of umbrella pines. The speed of the French attacks, prepared by artillery, kept the Chinese off balance throughout

18252-526: The lower course of the Red River to dislodge Annamese guerilla bands from bases close to Hanoi. These operations enabled Brière de l'Isle to concentrate the bulk of the Tonkin expeditionary corps around Chũ and Kép at the end of 1884, to advance on Lạng Sơn as soon as the word was given. French strategy in Tonkin was the subject of a bitter debate in the Chamber of Deputies in late December 1884. The army minister General Jean-Baptiste-Marie Campenon argued that

18408-548: The memory of Herbinger's dismal leadership and imposed his own strong personality upon the brigade, issuing the following order of the day on 2 April: Appelé, en raison de la grave blessure du général de Négrier, à prendre le commandement provisoire de la brigade, J'arrive ici avec des troupes nouvelles et des munitions. J'ai reçu du général l'ordre d'arrêter avec vous, et coûte que coûte, tout mouvement rétrograde. C'est ce que nous ferons. (In view of General de Négrier's serious wound, I have been asked to take provisional command of

18564-428: The northern Chinese fleet by Li Hongzhang, he did not even "consider" using this well equipped fleet to attack the French, since he wanted to make sure it was always under his command. China's north and south had rivalries and the government was split into different parties. China did not have a single admiralty in command of the navy and the northern and southern fleets refused to cooperate, guaranteeing French control of

18720-450: The officers of the Tonkin expeditionary corps believed that Herbinger had made a ghastly mistake, and would have been happy to see him broken and dismissed from the service. But Brière de l'Isle and Borgnis-Desbordes, who drew up much of the evidence against Herbinger, overplayed their hand, insinuating that Herbinger had been drunk when he took the decision to retreat from Lạng Sơn. This shabby charge dismayed many officers, and won Herbinger

18876-400: The parties to these negotiations consulted the Vietnamese. Rivière, disgusted at the deal cut by Bourée, decided early in 1883 to force the issue. He had recently been sent a battalion of marine infantry from France, giving him just enough men to venture beyond Hanoi. On 27 March 1883, to secure his line of communications from Hanoi to the coast, Rivière captured the citadel of Nam Định with

19032-410: The possibility of a campaign to capture the major Chinese military depot at Longzhou, 60 kilometres (37 mi) beyond the border, but on 17 March Brière de l'Isle advised the army ministry in Paris that such an operation was beyond his strength. Substantial French reinforcements reached Tonkin in the middle of March, giving Brière de l'Isle a brief opportunity to break the stalemate. He moved the bulk of

19188-589: The prefectural capital Taiwan (now Tainan ) and the southern port Takow ( Kaohsiung ). In early January 1885 the Formosa expeditionary corps, now under the command of Colonel Jacques Duchesne , was substantially reinforced with two battalions of infantry, bringing its total strength to around 4,000 men. Meanwhile, drafts from the Hunan Army and Anhui Army had brought the strength of Liu Mingchuan's defending army to around 25,000 men. Although severely outnumbered,

19344-423: The reinforcements to Hưng Hóa to reinforce the 1st Brigade, intending to attack the Yunnan Army and drive it back beyond Yen Bay. While he and Giovanninelli drew up plans for a western offensive, he ordered de Négrier to hold his positions at Lạng Sơn. On 23 and 24 March the 2nd Brigade, 1,500 men strong, battled Guangxi Army troops entrenched near Zhennanguan on the Chinese border. The Battle of Bang Bo (named by

19500-461: The retreating French, and on 28 March de Négrier fought a battle at Ky Lua in defence of Lạng Sơn. Shortly before noon the Chinese launched a frontal attack on the French positions, advancing in dense, ponderous columns. De Négrier ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Gustave Herbinger to counterattack the Chinese left wing with Diguet and Farret's battalions. The attack, supported by artillery, was completely successful, and by 4:00 pm Herbinger had driven

19656-413: The reunited 2nd Brigade marched out of Dong Song and headed south for Chu. Determined to jettison anything that might slow down the next stage of the retreat, Herbinger decided to sacrifice another artillery battery, and gave orders for the guns of Roussel's battery to be spiked and abandoned. On this occasion he was disobeyed by his officers, and Roussel's battery arrived safely at Chu without slowing down

19812-459: The same time the new commander of the Tonkin expeditionary corps, General Bouët, attacked the Black Flag positions on the Day River. Although the French mauled the Black Flag Army in the Battle of Phủ Hoài (15 August) and the Battle of Palan (1 September), they were unable to capture all of Liu Yongfu's positions, and in the eyes of the world the battles were tantamount to French defeats. Bouët

19968-584: The seas during the war. Tianjin 's northern naval academy also drained southern China of potential sailors, since they enlisted in northern China instead. Although the Formosa expeditionary corps remained confined in Keelung, the French scored important successes elsewhere in the spring of 1885. Courbet's squadron had been reinforced substantially since the start of the war, and he now had considerably more ships at his disposal than in October 1884. In early February 1885 part of his squadron left Keelung to head off

20124-428: The shelter of their entrenched camps at Bang Bo and Yen Cua Ai. Vietnamese sympathisers caught up with the Chinese near Cua Ai on the evening of 29 March, bringing the astonishing news that the French had abandoned Lạng Sơn and were in full retreat. The Chinese general Pan Dingxin promptly turned his battered army around and reoccupied Lạng Sơn on 30 March. Pan sent small forces of skirmishers on from Lạng Sơn to observe

20280-436: The small town of Bắc Lệ , the French encountered a strong detachment of the Guangxi Army ensconced in a defensive position behind Thương River. In view of the diplomatic significance of this discovery, Dugenne should have reported the presence of the Chinese force to Hanoi and waited for further instructions. Instead, he gave the Chinese an ultimatum, and on their refusal to withdraw resumed his advance. The Chinese opened fire on

20436-399: The southwest of Bắc Ninh, and assaulted the city on 12 March from the southeast, with complete success. The Guangxi Army put up a feeble resistance, and the French took the city with ease, capturing large quantities of ammunition and a number of brand new Krupp cannon. The defeat at Bắc Ninh, coming close on the heels of the fall of Sơn Tây, strengthened the hand of the moderate element in

20592-399: The speed of your attack prevented the enemy from carrying off. During the actions of 4, 5 and 6 February, which have made us masters of these admirable positions which the Chinese army had counted on to bar us from the passes of Deo Van and Deo Quan and to prevent us from reaching the routes to Thanh Moy and Lạng Sơn, you have matched the exploits of the troops most often cited in the annals of

20748-497: The summer of 1882, troops of the Chinese Yunnan Army and Guangxi Army crossed the border into Tonkin, occupying Lạng Sơn, Bắc Ninh, Hưng Hóa and other towns. The French minister to China, Frédéric Bourée, was so alarmed by the prospect of war with China that in November and December he negotiated a deal with the Chinese statesman Li Hongzhang to divide Tonkin into French and Chinese spheres of influence. Neither of

20904-517: The support of the other European powers for the projected offensive. However, negotiations in Shanghai in July 1883 between the French minister Arthur Tricou and Li Hongzhang were terminated by the Qing government on receipt of a naively optimistic assessment by Marquis Zeng Jize , the Chinese minister to Paris, that the French government had no stomach for a full-scale war with China. Jules Ferry and

21060-553: The terms of the Tianjin Accord. The Chinese government agreed to negotiate, but refused to apologise or pay any indemnity. The mood in France was against compromise, and although negotiations continued throughout July, Courbet was ordered to take his squadron to Fuzhou (Foochow). He was instructed to prepare to attack the Chinese Fujian Fleet in the harbour and to destroy the Foochow Navy Yard . Meanwhile, as

21216-472: The three cruisers successfully made their escape, the French succeeded in trapping Yuyuan and Chengqing in Shipu Bay. On the night of 14 February, in the Battle of Shipu , the French attacked the Chinese vessels with two torpedo launches. During a brief engagement inside the bay, Yuyuan was seriously damaged by torpedoes and Chengqing was hit by Yuyuan' s fire. Both ships were subsequently scuttled by

21372-518: The troop withdrawal was to take place immediately, while the Chinese argued that the withdrawal was contingent upon the conclusion of the comprehensive treaty. In fact, the Chinese stance was an ex post facto rationalisation, designed to justify their unwillingness or inability to put the terms of the accord into effect. The accord was extremely unpopular in China, and provoked an immediate backlash. The war party called for Li Hongzhang's impeachment, and his political opponents intrigued to have orders sent to

21528-414: The two French brigades that had jointly captured Lạng Sơn in February were not strong enough to inflict a decisive defeat on either Chinese army separately. Meanwhile, the French government was pressuring Brière de l'Isle to send the 2nd Brigade across the border into Guangxi province, in the hope that a threat to Chinese territory would force China to sue for peace. Brière de l'Isle and de Négrier examined

21684-498: The two Legion battalions to Dong Song. Fearing that Martin's towed artillery battery would slow down the retreat, Herbinger ordered Martin to dump his guns and limbers in the Song Ki Cong river, where they were later recovered by the Chinese. The brigade's treasure chest was also thrown into the river. Before the retreat commenced Herbinger cabled Brière de l'Isle in Hanoi, claiming that he did not have enough ammunition to fight

21840-563: The unfitness for field command of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Gustave Herbinger, the French commander who would in late March 1885 give the controversial order for the Retreat from Lạng Sơn . Ordered to capture the 'Great Fort', the key to the Chinese position, with his three French line battalions, Herbinger made an elaborate flank march which exhausted his troops and wasted valuable time. At length, seeing his operational timetable threatened, de Négrier ordered Schoeffer's 3rd Legion Battalion to take

21996-502: The wake of the French victories at Hoà Mộc and Đồng Đăng, the military situation in Tonkin had reached a temporary stalemate. Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade faced Tang Qingsong's Yunnan Army around Hưng Hóa and Tuyên Quang, while de Négrier's 2nd Brigade at Lạng Sơn faced Pan Dingxin's Guangxi Army. Neither Chinese army had any realistic prospect of launching an offensive for several weeks, while the two French brigades that had jointly captured Lạng Sơn in February were not strong enough to inflict

22152-457: The war ended before Herbinger had the chance to risk his life in battle, and he soon had a change of heart. He decided to defend his conduct by attacking de Négrier's decision to attack the Chinese at Bang Bo, claiming that the 2nd Brigade's morale was shaky, and alleging that, as an officer of the metropolitan army, he had been the victim of a plot by the Legion and marine infantry officers who ran

22308-407: The way, and advanced over the mountain of Deo Van to Cao Nhiat without meeting any enemy resistance. At Cao Nhiat the French captured an important Chinese rice dump, easing their supply difficulties. On 4 February the expeditionary corps fought its first action with the Chinese, at Tay Hoa. The battle was fought almost wholly by de Négrier's 2nd Brigade, which was leading the march, and demonstrated

22464-502: Was a noted military theoretician who had won a respectable battlefield reputation during the Franco-Prussian War , but was quite out of his depth as a field commander in Tonkin. Several French officers had already commented scathingly on his performance during the Lạng Sơn campaign and at Bang Bo, where he had badly bungled an attack on the Chinese positions. Upon assuming command of the brigade, Herbinger panicked. Despite

22620-560: Was a noted military theoretician who had won a respectable battlefield reputation during the Franco-Prussian War, but was quite out of his depth as a field commander in Tonkin. Several French officers had already commented scathingly on his performance during the Lạng Sơn campaign and at Bang Bo, where he had badly bungled an attack on the Chinese positions. He was also suffering from malaria, and his physical debility may well have impaired his judgement. Upon assuming command of

22776-480: Was conducted without loss and without interference from the Chinese, but both Herbinger and Schoeffer set an unnecessarily punishing pace, and both halves of the brigade were exhausted by the time they reached their destinations. Brière de l'Isle was stunned at Herbinger's decision to abandon Lạng Sơn. His immediate reaction, on the evening of 28 March, was to despatch a pessimistic cable back to Paris which would have momentous political consequences two days later. By

22932-534: Was ignominious. French interest in northern Vietnam dated from the late 18th century, when the political Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine recruited French volunteers to fight for Nguyễn Ánh and help begin the Nguyễn dynasty , in an attempt to gain privileges for France and for the Roman Catholic Church . France began its colonial campaign in 1858, annexing several southern provinces in 1862 to form

23088-538: Was indisputably a French victory, French casualties were disconcertingly heavy: 18 dead and 101 wounded, most of them in Diguet and Schoeffer's Legion battalions. These were the heaviest casualties the French had suffered in a single engagement since the start of the Sino-French War. On 5 February the French assaulted the main complex of forts defending the Chinese entrenched camp at Dong Song, around Ha Hoa. The two French brigades attacked side by side. The 1st Brigade, on

23244-461: Was organised around the two brigades originally established by General Millot in January 1885. Each brigade contained two marching regiments ( régiments de marche ), each of two or three battalions, with supporting artillery and Tonkinese skirmishers , and was accompanied by field hospital and engineering detachments. Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade consisted of a two-battalion marine infantry regiment,

23400-463: Was regarded by his fellow-officers as the most spectacular professional triumph of his career. Logistical arrangements for the Lạng Sơn campaign were formidable. It would take the column around ten days to advance to the outskirts of Lạng Sơn. The troops would be burdened with the weight of their provisions and equipment, and would have to march through an extremely difficult country. The nights, in Tonkin in February, would be bitterly cold. Supplying

23556-535: Was sent with a small military force to Hanoi to investigate Vietnamese complaints about the activities of French merchants. In defiance of the instructions of his superiors, Rivière stormed the citadel of Hanoi on 25 April 1882. Although Rivière subsequently returned the citadel to Vietnamese control, his recourse to force provoked alarm both in Vietnam and in China. The Vietnamese government, unable to confront Rivière with its own ramshackle army, once again enlisted

23712-584: Was tabled, and Ferry's government fell on 30 March amid almost unprecedented scenes of uproar. 'Throw Ferry in the Seine! Kill the Tonkinese!' the crowds shouted. Ferry never recovered from the Tonkin Affair. He never again became premier, and his political influence during the rest of his career was severely limited. His successor, Charles de Freycinet, moved quickly to negotiate a ceasefire and provisional peace agreement. China, for its part, had suffered

23868-458: Was the most evocative confrontation of the Sino-French War . The Chinese and Black Flags sapped methodically up to the French positions, and in January and February 1885 breached the outer defences with mines and delivered seven separate assaults on the breach. The Tuyên Quang garrison, 400 legionnaires and 200 Tonkinese auxiliaries under the command of chef de bataillon Marc-Edmond Dominé, beat off all attempts to storm their positions, but lost over

24024-469: Was the most shameful moment of the entire retreat. 'We retired in echelons like this for ten kilometres,' Captain Lecomte later wrote, '3,000 Frenchmen running away from 40 Chinese!' Had Herbinger but known it, his decision to abandon Lạng Sơn had been entirely unnecessary. On 29 March, while the French were retreating southwards, the demoralised Chinese were streaming back towards Zhennanguan, heading for

24180-424: Was to reinforce the army in Tonkin, and indeed Brière de l'Isle quickly revised his estimate of the situation and advised the government that the front could soon be stabilised. However, his second thoughts came too late. When his first telegram was made public in Paris, there was an uproar in the Chamber of Deputies. The government's opponents, led by Georges Clemenceau , went on the attack. A motion of no confidence

24336-497: Was widely held to have failed in his mission, and resigned in September 1883. In the event, severe flooding eventually forced Liu Yongfu to abandon the line of the Day River and fall back to the fortified city of Sơn Tây, several miles to the west. The French prepared for a major offensive at the end of the year to annihilate the Black Flags, and tried to persuade China to withdraw its support for Liu Yongfu, while attempting to win

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