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French conquest of Vietnam

The French conquest of Vietnam1 (1858–1885) was a series of military expeditions that pitted the Second French Empire, later the French Third Republic, against the Vietnamese empire of Đại Nam in the mid-late 19th century. Its end and results were victories for the French as they defeated the Vietnamese and their Chinese allies in 1885, the incorporation of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and finally established French rules over constituent territories of French Indochina over Mainland Southeast Asia in 1887.

A joint Franco-Spanish expedition was initiated in 1858 by invading Tourane (modern day Da Nang) in September 1858 and Saigon five months later. This four-year campaign resulted in King Tu Duc signing a treaty in June 1862, granting the French sovereignty over three provinces in the South. The French annexed the three southwestern provinces in 1867 to form Cochinchina. Having consolidated their power in Cochinchina, they conquered the rest of Vietnam through a series of campaigns in Tonkin between 1873 and 1886. French ambitions to subjugate Tonkin were opposed by the Qing dynasty, the region being part of the Chinese sphere of influence.


The French eventually drove most of the Chinese troops out of Vietnam, but remaining groups in some Vietnamese provinces continued to resist France's control over Tonkin. The French government sent Fournier to Tianjin to negotiate the Tianjin Accord, according to which China recognized the French authority over Annam and Tonkin, abandoning its claims to suzerainty over Vietnam. On June 6, 1884, Treaty of Huế was signed, dividing Vietnam into three regions: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, each under three different separate regimes. Cochinchina was a French colony, while Tonkin and Annam were protectorates, and the Nguyễn court was put under French supervision.

Lithograph engraving Franco-Spanish celebration in Saigon, 1863.

Lithograph engraving Franco-Spanish celebration in Saigon, 1863.

1885 chromolithograph of French victory at Hue

1885 chromolithograph of French victory at Hue

French soldier during Tonkin Campaign

French soldier during Tonkin Campaign

Vietnamese soldier

Vietnamese soldier

Chinese Yellow Flags soldiers

Chinese Yellow Flags soldiers

Chinese troops laid siege of Tuyen Quang in 1884

Chinese troops laid siege of Tuyen Quang in 1884

Anglo-Burmese Wars

1893 Franco-Siamese crisis

Amirell, Stefan E. (2019), Pirates of Empire Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia, Cambridge University Press

Bradley, Camp Davis (2016). Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press.  978-0-295-74205-2.

ISBN

Chapuis, Oscar (2000). The Last Emperors of Vietnam: from Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Greenwood Press.  0-313-31170-6.

ISBN

(2016). Vietnam: A New History. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-46509-436-3.

Goscha, Christopher

Ivarsson, Søren (2008). Creating Laos: The Making of a Lao Space Between Indochina and Siam, 1860-1945. NIAS Press.  978-8-77694-023-2.

ISBN

Keith, Charlers (2012). Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation. University of California Press.  978-0-52027-247-7.

ISBN

McAlevy, Mark (1968). Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of A Chinese Intervention. Liverpool, London & Prescot: George Allen & Unwin LTD.  0-04951-014-2.

ISBN

McLeod, Mark W. (1991). The Vietnamese response to French intervention, 1862–1874. New York: Praeger.  0-275-93562-0.

ISBN

Staunton, Sidney A. (1884). The War in Tong-king:Why the French are in Tong-king, and what they are doing there. Cupples, Upham.

Caruana, J.; Koehler, R. B. & Millar, Steve (2001). "Question 20/00: Operations of the French Navy in the East 1858–1885". Warship International. XXXVIII (3). International Naval Research Organization: 238–239.  0043-0374.

ISSN

Taboulet, G., La geste française en Indochine (Paris, 1956)

Thomazi, A., La conquête de l'Indochine (Paris, 1934)

Thomazi, A., Histoire militaire de l'Indochine français (Hanoi, 1931)

Milestones 1800s

Vietnam under French Rule

Vietnam - Chronology of Important Events

Chronology - The Third Republic (1870-1914)