Battle of Zhennan Pass
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| Battle of Zhennan Pass | |||||||
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| Part of the Sino-French War | |||||||
 The capture of Lang Son in February 1885. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 France |
 ChinaBlack Flag Army |
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| Commanders | |||||||
 Francois Oscar de Negrier |
 Feng Zicai |
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The Battle of Zhennan Pass was a significant battle of the Sino-French War which occurred on March 23, 1885 and was referred to at the time, in Western media, as the Battle of Bang Bo.
In France the defeat and, more particularly, its political repercussions, is called the Tonkin Affair and the scandal surrounding it had the effect of checking French domestic fervor for colonial expansion.
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[edit] The situation in 1885
Isolated at the citadel of Lang Son in northern Tonkin, a French brigade under the command of Francois Oscar de Negrier attempted to relieve pressure on it by Chinese forces under the command of Feng Zicai by attacking Bang Bo, a fortified camp across the border in Guangxi province. About 2000 French soldiers faced between 5,000 and 10,000 Chinese soldiers from the regional "Army of the Two Guangs." Despite this numerical discrepancy, it is important to note that the Chinese troops had less than a thousand rifles and that they were hastily drafted from the local peasantry and from retired imperial Green Banner troops.
[edit] Zhennan Pass and Ky Lua
A French expeditionary force comprising two brigades marched into Upper Tonkin and captured Lang Son in February 1885. One brigade then departed to relieve Tuyen Quang, leaving the other isolated at Lang Son. Its commander, seeking to roll back the build-up of offensive power by the Chinese, attacked across the Chinese border and was defeated at the Battle of Zhennan Pass.
After a two-day battle, the French withdrew in the face of logistical shortages, miscommunications, and numerical handicaps. Realizing the French troops' superior firepower, Feng Zicai also extensively engaged French troops in melee combat which reduced the advantage of the French guns. The French brigade retreated back in Tonkin with over a hundred casualties, leading to a Chinese counterattack at Ky Lua outside the citadel of Lang Son. Although the counterattack was defeated, de Negrier was wounded in the chest and evacuated from the battlefield. The acting brigade commander, possibly in a state of panic, ordered a hasty withdrawal, leading to the notorious abandonment of Lang Son on March 28, 1885.
[edit] Lang Son: l'Affaire Tonkin
The brigade fell back in disarray towards the Red River Delta, abandoning nearly all French gains made during the 1885 campaign and leading the commander of the expeditionary corps, Louis Briere de l'Isle, to believe that the Delta was in jeopardy. His dispatches to Paris caused a political panic. Ferry was attacked in the streets, and his political opponents called assembly meetings to denounce both Ferry and the entire colonial project.[1]
While Ferry tried to begin secret negotiaions with the Chinese, he presented an emergency draft of some 200 million francs for a rescue force to be sent to Tonkin. With Georges Clemenceau leading the parliamentary opposition, the National Assembly balked, bringing down the Ferry government on 28 March 1885.
Within a few days, Briere de l'Isle realized the situation was less grave than it had initially appeared, but it was several weeks before the situation was clear to Paris. The new French government, still fearing their forces would be overrun, gave orders for an evacuation of French troops from the Tonkin region. although this was never carried out.
The consequences to colonial policy stretched beyond Tonkin, or even Paris. Writes one historian of French colonialism in Madagascar, "There was a general desire to have done with other colonial expeditions still in progress." [2]
[edit] Aftermath
[edit] Indochina
Despite the retreat from Lang Son, France's overall success on the ground, and above all its naval victories, led the Chinese mandarin Li Hongzhang to sign a treaty ending the war on June 9, 1885, with China acknowledging the Treaty of Hué and relinquishing its suzerainty over the Empire of Annam. Annam and Tonkin were incorporated into French Indochina as protectorates soon thereafter. The controversial treaty caused heavy criticism to be levelled on Li Hongzhang and the Qing government, and created nationalistic sentiment throughout China. The war was a significant step in the decline of the Qing empire, due both to the humiliation of the loss and the destruction of the Southern fleet. It also demonstrated the flaws in the late-Qing national defense system of independent regional armies, as northern Chinese forces, both ground and naval, declined to participate in the campaign.
[edit] French reaction
The battle's principal effect in France, aside from the significant gain in imperial territory, was to bring down the long-running Ferry ministry. Within a year the government of his successor, Brisson, also fell over the Tonkin budget of November 1885. Ferry would never again serve as premier, and became a figure of popular scorn. The defeat, which the French called the "Tonkin affair", was a major political scandal for the proponents for French colonial expansion that had begun with the ascencion of Leon Gambetta. It was not until the early 1890s that French colonial party regained domestic political support. [3]
[edit] References
- ^ Herbert Ingram Priestley. France Overseas: Study of Modern Imperialism. Routlege (1967) pp220-224.
- ^ Deschamps, Hubert. Madagascar and France, in Desmond J. Clark, Roland Anthony Oliver, A. D. Roberts, John Donnelly Fage eds, The Cambridge History of Africa, The Cambridge History of Africa (1975) p.525
- ^ See: Ageron, C.R., France colonial ou parti colonial. Paris, (1978)
[edit] See also
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