Retreat from Lạng Sơn
The Retreat from Lạng Sơn (French: retraite de Lang-Son) was a controversial French strategic withdrawal in Tonkin at the end of March 1885 during the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). It represented the last major event of the conflict and was deemed a considerable embarrassment in France, further cementing negative public opinion about the colonial conflict which led to the collapse of French Prime Minister Jules Ferry's government.
The 'Herbinger affair'[edit]
Brière de l'Isle was understandably furious at Herbinger's conduct, and a commission of enquiry was held in Hanoi during the autumn of 1885 to determine whether his decision to abandon Lạng Sơn had been justified. Most of the officers of the Tonkin expeditionary corps believed that Herbinger had made a ghastly mistake, and would have been happy to see him broken and dismissed from the service. But Brière de l'Isle and Borgnis-Desbordes, who drew up much of the evidence against Herbinger, overplayed their hand, insinuating that Herbinger had been drunk when he took the decision to retreat from Lạng Sơn. This shabby charge dismayed many officers, and won Herbinger a certain degree of sympathy.
Herbinger at first seemed to realise that he had made an appalling blunder, and spoke about retrieving his honour by falling in battle. Back at Chu, shortly after the end of the retreat, he was heard to say, 'Whoever could have imagined it? Why haven't the Chinese attacked us? Well, I know what I have to do now! In the next battle, I'll have to get myself killed!'.[15] But the war ended before Herbinger had the chance to risk his life in battle, and he soon had a change of heart. He decided to defend his conduct by attacking de Négrier's decision to attack the Chinese at Bang Bo, claiming that the 2nd Brigade's morale was shaky, and alleging that, as an officer of the metropolitan army, he had been the victim of a plot by the Legion and marine infantry officers who ran the Tonkin expeditionary corps. There was little substance in any of this, but it rang warning bells back in Paris. The army ministry, alarmed at the prospect of seeing so much dirty linen washed in public, brought the enquiry to an early end. Herbinger escaped without a formal censure, but the commission of enquiry recommended that he should not be given any further field commands. He died in 1886, at the age of 46.[16]
Significance[edit]
The longer-term domestic political repercussions of the retreat from Lạng Sơn were considerable. The ignominious end to the Sino-French War temporarily checked French domestic fervor for colonial expansion and culminated in the 'Tonkin Debate' of December 1885, in which the Chamber of Deputies voted to sustain the French commitment in Tonkin by the very narrowest of margins. Other French colonial projects, including the conquest of Madagascar, were deferred for several years.[17]
While the retreat from Lạng Sơn was in progress, there were wild rumours in France that the 2nd Brigade had been routed and had suffered appalling casualties. These rumours stubbornly refused to go away, and in time a legend was born, of 'the Lạng Sơn disaster', which would persist for decades. As late as 1937, one French historian wrote: 'Even today, a half-century after these events, the name of this small and unremarkable town evokes in French ears the memory of a great battle lost.'[18]