The ĐịCapture of Nam Định (27 March 1883), a confrontation between the French and the Vietnamese, was one of the early engagements of the Tonkin Campaign (1883–86). In a brief campaign in the last week of March 1883, Commandant Henri Rivière captured the citadel of Nam Định, the second-largest city in Tonkin, with a flotilla of gunboats and a battalion of marine infantry.
Rivière's seizure of Nam Định marked a significant escalation of French ambitions in Tonkin, and had important consequences. China began to covertly support the Vietnamese government in its opposition to French colonization. Chinese involvement in Tonkin ultimately resulted in the nine-month Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).
Background
French intervention in northern Vietnam was precipitated by Commandant Henri Rivière, who was sent with a small French military force to Hanoi at the end of 1881 to investigate Vietnamese complaints against 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 was greeted with alarm in both Vietnam and China.
The Vietnamese government, unable to confront Rivière with its own ramshackle army, enlisted the help of Liu Yongfu, whose well-trained and seasoned Black Flag soldiers were to prove a thorn in the side of the French. The Vietnamese also bid 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 the summer of 1882 troops of the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies 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 1882, he negotiated a deal with the Chinese statesman Li Hongzhang to divide Tonkin into French and Chinese spheres of influence. Both negotiators were criticized for giving too much away, and the deal soon unravelled. It was never ratified in China, and in France Jules Ferry's incoming administration disavowed the agreement in March 1883 and recalled Bourée.
Occupation of Hòn Gai
In late February 1883, the French forces in Hanoi were reinforced by a 500-man battalion of marine infantry from France under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Carreau, which more than doubled the force at Rivière's disposal, was a parting gift from the bellicose Admiral Bernard Jauréguiberry, who had been replaced as navy minister on 29 January. Carreau's men sailed from France aboard the transport Corrèze and reached Hanoi on 24 February. The instructions that accompanied the reinforcements specified that they were not to be used to extend the French occupation of Tonkin.
On 8 March, Rivière learned that the Annamese government was planning to lease the coal mines at Hòn Gai, a coastal town near Haiphong, to a Chinese consortium which was really a front for a British company. If the British were allowed to install themselves at Hòn Gai, France could bid farewell to its dreams of colonial expansion in Tonkin. In defiance of both the letter and the spirit of his instructions, Rivière immediately decided to take the initiative. On his orders, Commandant Berthe de Villers left the following day aboard Parseval, raised the French tricolour in Hòn Gai and established a post of 50 men there. The French met no resistance.
In his report on this action to Charles Thomson, the governor of Cochinchina, Rivière explained that he had occupied Hòn Gai primarily to secure his line of communications with Haiphong. But he did not hide the fact that he was also attempting to extend French control of Tonkin. With his friends, he was even franker. "I have taken possession of the entire mining district," he wrote. "We have always coveted it, but have always hesitated to act. This will force them to take forward their Tonkin Question!"