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Vietnam UNDER FRENCH RULE
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Figure 6. French Acquisitions in Indochina in the Nineteenth Century
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Figure 7. Viet Bac, Viet Minh Base Area, 1941-45
By 1857 Louis-Napoleon had been persuaded that invasion was
the best course of action, and French warships were instructed to
take Tourane without any further efforts to negotiate with the
Vietnamese. Tourane was captured in late 1858 and Gia Dinh
(Saigon and later Ho Chi Minh City) in early 1859. In both cases
Vietnamese Christian support for the French, predicted by the
missionaries, failed to materialize. Vietnamese resistance and
outbreaks of cholera and typhoid forced the French to abandon
Tourane in early 1860. Meanwhile, fear was growing in Paris that
if France withdrew the British would move in. Also current in
Paris at that time was the rationalization that France had a
civilizing mission--a duty to bring the benefits of its superior
culture to the less fortunate lands of Asia and Africa. (This was
a common justification for the colonial policies of most of the
Western countries.) Meanwhile, French business and military
interests increased their pressure on the government for decisive
action. Thus in early 1861, a French fleet of 70 ships and 3,500
men reinforced Gia Dinh and, in a series of bloody battles,
gained control of the surrounding provinces. In June 1862,
Emperor Tu Duc, signed the Treaty of Saigon agreeing to French
demands for the cession of three provinces around Gia Dinh (which
the French had renamed Saigon) and Poulo Condore, as well as for
the opening of three ports to trade, free passage of French
warships up the Mekong to Cambodia, freedom of action for the
missionaries, and payment of a large indemnity to France for its
losses in attacking Vietnam.
Even the French were surprised by the ease with which the
Vietnamese agreed to the humiliating treaty. Why, after
successfully resisting invasions by the Chinese for the previous
900 years, did the monarchy give in so readily to French demands?
Aside from the seriousness of the loss of Saigon and the possible
overestimation of French strength, it appears that the isolation
of the monarchy from the people created by decades of repression
prevented Tu Duc and his court from attempting to rally the
necessary popular support to drive out the French. In fact, by
placating the French in the south, Tu Duc hoped to free his
forces to put down a widespread Christian-supported rebellion in
Bac Bo, which he indeed crushed by 1865. French missionaries, who
had urged their government to support this rebellion, were
disillusioned when it did not, especially after thousands of
Christians were slaughtered by Tu Duc's forces following the
rebellion. The missionaries, however, had served only as an
initial excuse for French intervention in Vietnam; military and
economic interests soon became the primary reasons for remaining
there.
The French navy was in the forefront of the conquest of
Indochina. In 1863 Admiral de la Grandiere, the governor of
Cochinchina (as the French renamed Nam Bo), forced the Cambodian
king to accept a French protectorate over that country, claiming
that the Treaty of Saigon had made France heir to Vietnamese
claims in Cambodia. In June 1867, the admiral completed the
annexation of Cochinchina by seizing the remaining three western
provinces. The following month, the Siamese government agreed to
recognize a French protectorate over Cambodia in return for the
cession of two Cambodian provinces, Angkor and Battambang, to
Siam. With Cochinchina secured, French naval and mercantile
interests turned to Tonkin (as the French referred to Bac Bo).
The 1873 storming of the citadel of Hanoi, led by French naval
officer Francis Garnier, had the desired effect of forcing Tu Duc
to sign a treaty with France in March 1874 that recognized
France's "full and entire sovereignty" over Cochinchina, and
opened the Red River to commerce. In an attempt to secure Tonkin,
Garnier was killed and his forces defeated in a battle with
Vietnamese regulars and
Black Flag forces (see Glossary). The
latter were Chinese soldiers, who had fled south following the
Taiping Rebellion in that country and had been hired by the Hue
court to keep order in Tonkin.
In April 1882, a French force again stormed the citadel of
Hanoi, under the leadership of naval officer Henri Riviere.
Riviere and part of his forces were wiped out in a battle with a
Vietnamese-Black Flag army, a reminder of Garnier's fate a decade
earlier. While Garnier's defeat had led to a partial French
withdrawal from Tonkin, Riviere's loss strengthened the resolve
of the French government to establish a protectorate by military
force. Accordingly, additional funds were appropriated by the
French Parliament to support further military operations, and Hue
fell to the French in August 1883, following the death of Tu Duc
the previous month. A Treaty of Protectorate, signed at the
August 1883 Harmand Convention, established a French protectorate
over North and Central Vietnam and formally ended Vietnam's
independence. In June 1884, Vietnamese scholar-officials were
forced to sign the Treaty of Hue, which confirmed the Harmand
Convention agreement. By the end of 1884, there were 16,500
French troops in Vietnam. Resistance to French control, however,
continued. A rebellion known as the Can Vuong (Loyalty to the
King) movement formed in 1885 around the deposed Emperor Ham Nghi
and attracted support from both scholars and peasants. The
rebellion was essentially subdued with the capture and exile of
Ham Nghi in 1888. Scholar and patriot Phan Dinh Phung continued
to lead the resistance until his death in 1895. Although
unsuccessful in driving out the French, the Can Vuong movement,
with its heroes and patriots, laid important groundwork for
future Vietnamese independence movements
(see
fig. 6).
Data as of December 1987
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