Cochinchina campaign
Cochinchina campaign | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the French conquest of Vietnam and Western imperialism in Asia | |||||||||
Capture of Saigon, Antoine Léon Morel-Fatio. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Belligerents | |||||||||
| Đại Nam | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Charles Rigault de Genouilly François Page Léonard Charner Louis Bonard Carlos Palanca y Gutiérrez | Nguyễn Tri Phương | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
~3,000 1 frigate 2 corvettes 2 avisos 9 gunboats | 10,000+ | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
1,000 killed and wounded | Heavy |
The Cochinchina campaign[1] was a series of military operations between 1858 and 1862, launched by a joint naval expedition force on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Nguyễn period Vietnamese state. It was the opening conflict of the French conquest of Vietnam.
Initially a limited punitive expedition against the persecution and execution of French (and to a lesser extent Spanish) Catholic missionaries in Đại Nam, the ambitious French emperor Napoleon III however, authorized the deployment of increasingly larger contingents, that subdued Đại Nam territory and established French economic and military dominance. The war concluded with the founding of the French colony of Cochinchina and inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial rule in Vietnam in particular and Indochina in general.[2][3]
Background
During the mid-nineteenth century, European powers quickly overran and annexed large portions of the world to their colonial empires. France was one such nation, and sought opportunities to expand its influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Vietnam was an uncolonised and independent nation which became the main focus of French geopolitical and imperialist aspirations that were part of the broader trend of Western imperialism in Asia. Certain elements of the French establishment argued that the Vietnamese emperor Gia Long owed France greater goodwill for the assistance that the Kingdom of France had provided him with in his struggle against his Tây Sơn dynasty opponents. However, Gia Long felt neither bound to France nor to the Qing Empire, which had also provided help. Gia Long contended that the French government had failed to honor the Treaty of Versailles (1787) and assist him in the civil war since those who had helped him, such as Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, were volunteers and adventurers, not officials.
Advanced fortification methods and technologies had already been adopted and implemented as trained Vietnamese planners had successfully reproduced the elaborate 18th century
French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since the 17th century. Although the ultimate goal of a Catholic Vietnamese emperor had yet to be achieved, by the middle of the 19th century a community of 600,000
In 1857, the Vietnamese emperor
Tourane and Saigon
Events at Tourane
The Franco-Spanish force anticipated an easy victory, but the campaign did not go as planned. The Vietnamese Christian community did not rise in support of France, as Bishop Pellerin had confidently predicted they would, and a well organized Vietnamese military resistance was more formidable than expected. The French and Spanish, who had captured the city in a marine assault found themselves in no position to progress further inland and were pinned down in a long siege by a Vietnamese army under the command of Nguyễn Tri Phương. Allied reinforcements only replaced losses leaving a small force, that occasionally attacked sections of the Vietnamese positions, but were unable to break the siege. The Siege of Tourane lasted for nearly three years and despite relative little combat, casualties among the Franco-Spanish troops were high, as diseases took a heavy toll.[13]
Realising that the French garrison at Tourane was not to achieve a strategic success shortly,
Attack on Saigon
The expedition was approved, and in early February Rigault de Genouilly sailed south for Saigon, leaving command of Tourane to capitaine de vaisseau (captain of the ship) Thoyon with a small French garrison and two gunboats. On 17 February 1859, after breaking the river defences and destroying a series of forts and stockades along the Saigon river, the French and Spanish captured Saigon. French marine infantry stormed the enormous Citadel of Saigon, while Filipino troops under Spanish command repelled a Vietnamese counterattack. The allies lacked the manpower to hold the citadel and on 8 March 1859 demolished it and set fire to the rice granaries. In April, Rigault de Genouilly returned to Tourane with the bulk of his forces to reinforce Thoyon's hard-pressed garrison, leaving capitaine de frégate Bernard Jauréguiberry with a Franco-Spanish garrison of around 1,000 men at Saigon.[14]
The Franco-Spanish division struggled to consolidate its position after the
The Vietnamese, aware of France's distraction in Italy, refused these moderate terms and spun out the negotiations in the hope that the allies would cut their losses and abandon the campaign altogether. On 18 November 1859 Page bombarded and captured the Kien Chan forts at Tourane, but this allied tactical victory failed to change the stance of the Vietnamese negotiators. The war continued into 1860.[15]
The siege
During the second half of 1859 and throughout 1860, the French had failed to bring about a decisive breakout or made any territorial gains at Tourane and Saigon. Although the
Ky Hoa and Mỹ Tho
In early 1861, the war with China ended as the admirals Charner and Page were now free to return to Cochinchina and resume the campaign around Saigon. A naval contingent of 70 ships under Charner (who was now in charge of all land and sea forces) and 3,500 soldiers under the command of General de Vassoigne were transferred from northern China to Saigon. Charner's squadron was the most powerful French naval force in Vietnamese waters prior to the creation of the French Far East Squadron on the eve of the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). It included the steam frigates Impératrice Eugénie and Renommée (Charner and Page's respective flagships), the corvettes Primauguet, Laplace and Du Chayla, eleven screw-driven despatch vessels, five first-class gunboats, seventeen transports and a hospital ship. The squadron was accompanied by half a dozen armed lorchas purchased in Macao.[19]
These reinforcements eventually provided the allies with troops for tactical maneuvers at Saigon. On 24 and 25 February 1861, the French and Spanish successfully assaulted the Vietnamese siege lines, defeating marshal Nguyễn Tri Phương in the battle of Ky Hoa. Nonetheless, the Vietnamese forces vehemently and skillfully defended their positions, which resulted in considerable allied casualties.[20] The victory at Ky Hoa allowed the French and Spanish to regain the operational initiative. In April 1861, the city of Mỹ Tho southwest of Saigon fell to the French. An assault force under capitaine de vaisseau Antoine Louis Le Couriault du Quilio, supported by a small flotilla of gunboats, advanced on Mỹ Tho from the north along the Bao Dinh Ha creek, and between 1 and 11 April destroyed several Vietnamese forts and fought its way along the creek to the vicinity of Mỹ Tho. Le Couriault de Quilio gave orders for an assault on the town on 12 April. However, a flotilla of warships under the command of Admiral Page, sent by Charner to approach up the Mekong river to attack Mỹ Tho by sea, appeared off the town on the same day. Mỹ Tho was occupied by the French on 12 April 1861 without a shot being fired.[21]
In March 1861, shortly before the capture of Mỹ Tho, the French again offered peace terms to Tự Đức, which were considerably harsher than those offered by Page in November 1859. The French demanded the free exercise of Christianity in Vietnam, the cession of Saigon province, an indemnity of 4 million piastres, freedom of commerce and movement inside Vietnam and the establishment of French consulates. Tự Đức was only prepared to concede on the free exercise of religion and rejected all others. The war continued and after the fall of Mỹ Tho the French added Mỹ Tho province to the list of territorial demands.[22]
Increasingly less able to confront the French and Spanish forces in open combat, Tự Đức was forced to shift to guerrilla warfare and sent his agents into the conquered Vietnamese provinces to organise resistance. Charner responded on 19 May by officially declaring a state of siege in the Saigon and Mỹ Tho provinces. French units roved through the Cochinchinese countryside, fanning popular resistance by the brutality with which they treated suspected insurgents. Although Charner had ordered his forces to restrain from violence against peaceful villagers, his orders were not always obeyed. Occasionally the Vietnamese guerrillas threatened the French troops as on 22 June 1861 the outpost at Gò Công was, although unsuccessfully, attacked by 600 Vietnamese insurgents.[23]
The Qui Nhơn incident
On 31 July 1861 the Vietnamese
The ship encountered cannon fire from the fort's garrison upon entering and anchoring at Qui Nhơn harbour. The Saginaw flew a white flag of neutrality, signalling no hostile intentions, but the fire continued. Eventually Schenck gave orders to withdraw to a secure position and responded with an hour long bombardment. Fire from the fort ceased after forty minutes and its walls collapsed shortly after. US forces reported no damage or casualties. As communication with the Vietnamese fort's garrison could at no time be established and the missing American sailors could not be found, the USS Saginaw retreated towards Hong Kong on the same day.[24][25][26]
Biên Hòa and Vĩnh Long
The
Admiral Bonard's forces proceeded by
Ten days later, Bonard anchored off Vĩnh Long with a flotilla of gunboats and eleven transport vessels and disembarked a Franco-Spanish landing force of 1,000 troops. In the afternoon and evening of 22 March, the French and Spanish assaulted the Vietnamese batteries entrenched before Vĩnh Long and captured them. On 23 March they entered the citadel of Vĩnh Long. Its defenders retreated to a fortified earthwork at My Cui 20 km (12 mi) to the west of Mỹ Tho, but were soon overrun and forced to flee. Vietnamese casualties at Vĩnh Long and My Cui were heavy.[29]
The loss of Mỹ Tho and Biên Hòa and the fall of Vĩnh Long seriously worsened the strategic situation for the Court at Huế and in April 1862 Tự Đức announced that he wished to make peace.[30] In May 1862, following preliminary discussions at Huế, the French corvette Forbin anchored off Tourane where a Vietnamese delegation was to arrive in order to conclude peace. The Vietnamese were given three days to produce their ambassadors. The sequel was described by Colonel Thomazi, the historian of the French conquest of Indochina:
On the third day, an old paddlewheel corvette, the Aigle des Mers, was seen slowly leaving the
Tourane River. Her beflagged keel was in a state of dilapidation that excited the laughter of our sailors. It was obvious that she had not gone to sea for many years. Her cannons were rusty, her crew in rags, and she was towed by forty oared junks and escorted by a crowd of light barges. She carried the plenipotentiaries of Tự Đức. Forbin took her under tow and brought her to Saigon, where the negotiations were briskly concluded. On 5 June a treaty was signed aboard the vessel Duperré, moored before Saigon.[31]
Peace
The expedition had turned out to be longer and costlier than initially thought and from a position of strength the French intended to fully enforce their conditions of military and colonial dominance.
Aftermath
In 1864 the three southern provinces ceded to France were formally constituted as the
See also
References
- ^ (French: Campagne de Cochinchine; Spanish: Expedición franco-española a Cochinchina; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Nam Kỳ)
- ^ "The Conquest and Settlement of Cochinchina in "Les Colonies Francaises," 1889". Historicvietnam. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
- .
- ^ Julia Alayne Grenier Burlette. "French influence overseas: the rise and fall of colonial Indochina". Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- S2CID 145650836.
- ISBN 978-0-253-21360-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-31170-3.
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 25–29
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 29–33
- ^ "The conquest of Vietnam by France". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
- ^ a b Steven M. Johnson (8 December 2018). "France's Nightmare in Indochina". Warfare History Network. Archived from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ISBN 978-1-57607-770-2.
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 38–41
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 33–37
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 40; Histoire militaire, 27
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 37–43
- ^ Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson (28 June 2012). "The Conquest and Colonization of Vietnam". Alpha History. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "The French in Cochin-China". The Sydney Morning Herald. 19 September 1859. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 45
- ^ Thomazi, Histoire militaire, 29–31
- ^ Thomazi, Histoire militaire, 32–33
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 60–61
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 61
- ISBN 978-1-59884-338-5.
- ^ Michael Schroeder (13 October 2011). "Apocalypse 1861". Geni.com. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
- ISBN 978-1-59884-530-3.
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 63–65
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 67–68; Histoire militaire, 35
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 68–69; Histoire militaire, 35–36
- ^ a b Thomazi, Conquête, 69–71
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 70
- ^ "The Nationalist Movement in Indo-China" (PDF). National Council of Educational Research and Training – India. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
- ^ Brecher, 179
- ^ Thomazi, Conquête, 46–47
- ^ McAleavy, 76–77; Thomazi, Histoire militaire, 36, 37
Bibliography
- Bernard, H., Amiral Henri Rieunier, ministre de la marine – La vie extraordinaire d'un grand marin, 1833–1918 (Biarritz, 2005)
- Brecher, M., A Study of Crisis (University of Michigan, 1997)
- McAleavy, H., Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention (New York, 1968)
- Taboulet, G., La geste française en Indochine (Paris, 1956)
- Thomazi, A., Histoire militaire de l'Indochine français (Hanoi, 1931)
- Thomazi, A., La conquête de l'Indochine (Paris, 1934)