Siege of Tuyên Quang

Important battle of the Sino French War (Nov 1884 March 1885)

The siege of Tuyên Quang was an important confrontation between the French and the Chinese armies in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) during the Sino French War (August 1884 – April 1885). A French garrison of 619 men, including two companies of the French Foreign Legion, successfully defended the French post of Tuyên Quang against vastly outnumbering Chinese forces in a four month siege from 24 November 1884 to 3 March 1885. 'Tuyên Quang 1885' remains one of the Legion's proudest battle honours.

The French installed a post at Tuyên Quang in June 1884, in the wake of their capture of Hung Hoa and Thai Nguyen. Tuyên Quang, an isolated settlement on the Clear River, was the most westerly French outpost in Tonkin, and was from the nearest French post at Phu Doan. During the summer and autumn of 1884 it was garrisoned by two companies of the 1st Battalion, 1st Foreign Legion Regiment (Captains Chmitelin and Broussier), under the command of chef de bataillon Frauger. The outbreak of the Sino French War on 23 August 1884 exposed the post to attack by Tang Jingsong's Yunnan Army and Liu Yongfu’s Black Flags. Supply difficulties delayed the Chinese concentration around Tuyên Quang, but advance elements of the Yunnan Army began to harass the post in October 1884, and Frauger's garrison had to fight off a number of nuisance attacks by the Chinese. Malaria had also taken a heavy toll of Frauger's men, and by the end of October 170 men out of the garrison's total strength of 550 men were unfit for duty. In November 1884 General Louis Brière de l'Isle, the commander of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps, took steps to resupply and reinforce Hung Hoa, Thai Nguyen and Tuyên Quang. On 19 November a column making for Tuyên Quang under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Duchesne was ambushed in the Yu Oc gorge by the Black Flags but was able to fight its way through to the beleaguered post. Frauger and his men were relieved, and replaced by a fresh garrison of 400 legionnaires and 160 Tonkinese riflemen under the command of chef de bataillon Marc Edmond Dominé of the 2nd African Light Infantry Battalion. Duchesne left Tuyên Quang on 23 November, and on the following day Dominé formally declared Tuyên Quang to be in a state of siege. The siege of Tuyên Quang would last for just over four months.

The new garrison of Tuyên Quang, just under 630 men strong, consisted of two companies of the 1st Battalion, 1st Foreign Legion Regiment (Captains de Borelli and Moulinay) under the overall command of Captain Cattelin, a company of Tonkinese riflemen under the command of the French marine infantry officer Captain Dia, a scratch battery of six light cannon (Lieutenant Derappe) and small engineering and field hospital detachments. The garrison was supported by the Farcy gunboat Mitrailleuse (enseigne de vaisseau Senes), at anchor in the Clear River close to the French post. The Chinese army besieging Tuyên Quang was under the overall command of Tang Jingsong (唐景崧). The Chinese forces consisted of 9,000 men of the Yunnan Army and 3,000 men of Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army. The Yunnan Army forces were divided into two divisions, commanded by Tang's lieutenants Ding Huai (Ting Huai, 丁槐) and He Xiulin (Ho Hsiu lin, 何秀林).

The French fortress at Tuyên Quang was typical of the small, remote outposts of France’s colonial empire. Lying on the western bank of the Clear River next to the Tonkinese village of Tuyên Quang, it consisted of a square masonry citadel, each of whose walls was 300 yards long. Inside the citadel’s perimeter were several barrack buildings, a lake and a large earthen mound in the shape of a sugar loaf. This hill, which looked just like a natural formation, took the place at Tuyên Quang of the tower traditionally found in Tonkinese citadels. The citadel was overlooked by a number of wooded hills, which the Chinese were bound to occupy. There was little Dominé could do to stop Chinese snipers from using these hills to fire down into the citadel, but he could at least delay the main enemy assault by building outworks to keep the Chinese at a respectable distance from the main perimeter. Accordingly, he had a blockhouse built on a hill to the south of the citadel, which was occupied by a strong force of legionnaires. He also built a separate defensive perimeter to the southeast of Tuyên Quang which was occupied by Captain Dia and his company of Tonkinese riflemen. This position, centred on a fortified pagoda on the river bank, was christened 'Little Gibraltar'. These positions could be evacuated if necessary, and as long as they held they would severely limit the pressure the Chinese could exert on the fortress itself.

In November 1884 the Yunnan Army gradually advanced down the Red River from Lao Cai towards Tuyên Quang, building a chain of entrenched camps at Pho En, Man Lanh, Ao Loc, Van Kieng and Son Long. In December the Chinese built three enormous fortified camps as bases for the siege of Tuyên Quang, at Thanh Quan, Ca Lanh and Phu An Binh. For much of this period the only enemy troops around Tuyên Quang were Liu Yongfu's Black Flags (3,000 men) and an advance guard of the Yunnan Army under Tang Jingsong's personal command (2,000 men). The Chinese investment of the French post only began to bite in the second half of December. By the beginning of January 1885 the Chinese had 4,000 men facing the French at Tuyên Quang, 5,000 men protecting their long and vulnerable supply line back to Lao Cai, and 3,000 men deployed between Tuyên Quang and Phu Doan, who were busy fortifying a strong blocking position at Hoa Moc. The besiegers gradually drew their lines closely around the French post at Tuyên Quang, occupying the villages of Phu An Binh, Dong Yen and Ya Ho to the west of the fortress and Yla, Ung Di and Truong Mu to the northwest. The Chinese converted the abandoned French blockhouse into a fortified position for a battery of four cannon and drew their encirclement of the French post closer. From then on, attacks were made on the French positions almost daily and the defenders were subjected to an almost continual barrage of cannon, mortar and rifle fire from all sides. The French did what they could to respond. Dominé posted 25 crack Legion marksmen on the citadel's watchtowers with orders to fire at Chinese soldiers working as labourers on the approach saps in order to disrupt the progress of the Chinese siege works. The Legion snipers normally took nine or ten victims a day, and by the end of the siege estimated that they had accounted for over 700 enemy soldiers. Dominé occasionally brought his own artillery into play, and the gunboat Mitrailleuse harassed the Chinese positions on the Clear River with Hotchkiss fire. The Chinese responded by deploying their own snipers on hill positions around the French post. They rarely hit their targets, but the weight of plunging fire they were able to bring to bear severely restricted movement inside the fortress. Having successfully forced the French from the outlying blockhouse by siege tactics, the Chinese sapped relentlessly towards the French perimeter wall. If they could mine the walls and collapse sections of the defence perimeter, they could bring their superior numbers to bear by assaulting the French through open breaches. The Chinese intentions were obvious, and the French engineering sergeant Jules Bobillot did his best to frustrate them. Both the French and the Chinese feverishly dug galleries and counter galleries. On 11 February a pick axe blow severed the membrane which separated a French from a Chinese miner, and an underground revolver fight took place. The French tried vainly to flood the Chinese saps, which were lower than theirs. On the evening of 12 February the first Chinese mine was exploded beneath the perimeter wall, but its effect was weakened by the counter galleries and a subsequent Chinese assault was repelled with heavy losses.

The casualties of the Tuyên Quang garrison during the siege were 50 dead and 224 wounded. The dead included the engineering sergeant Jules Bobillot, whose energetic countermeasures had delayed the progress of the Chinese siege works. Bobillot became a national hero in France after his death, and streets in many French towns and villages still bear his name. Casualties in Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade at the Battle of Hoa Moc were 76 dead and 408 wounded.

In France, the defence of Tuyên Quang became the defining image of the Sino French War. Dominé's day by day diary of the siege was published in full in the Journal officiel, and an order of the day issued by Brière de l'Isle to the men of the Tuyên Quang garrison on 4 March 1885 enjoyed instant celebrity:

Sous le commandement d'un chef héroïque, le chef de bataillon Dominé, vous avez tenu tête pendant trente six jours, au nombre de six cents, à une armée, dans une bicoque dominée de toutes parts. Vous avez repoussé victorieusement sept assauts. Un tiers de votre effectif et presque tous vos officiers ont été brûlés par les mines ou frappés par les balles et les obus chinois, mais les cadavres de l'ennemi jonchent encore les trois brêches qu'il a vainement faites au corps de place. Aujourd'hui, vous faites l'admiration des braves troupes qui vous ont dégagés au prix de tant de fatigues et de sang versé. Demain, vous serez acclamés par la France entière. Vous tous aussi, vous pourrez dire avec orgueil : "J'étais de la garnison de Tuyen Quan; j'étais sur la canonnière la Mitrailleuse."