Tonkin Flotilla

The Tonkin Flotilla (French: flottille de Tonkin), a force of despatch vessels and gunboats used for policing the rivers and waterways of the Tonkin Delta, was created in the summer of 1883, during the period of hostilities of the Tonkin campaign (1883–1886).

Background[edit]

In March 1882, on the eve of Commandant Henri Rivière's seizure of the citadel of Hanoi, France had two naval divisions in the Far East. The seas to the east of the Hainan Strait were the responsibility of Rear Admiral Charles Meyer's Far East naval division (division navale de l'Extrême-Orient). France's interests in Indochina were protected by Rivière's Cochinchina naval division (division navale de Cochinchine), responsible for monitoring coastal navigation between Singapore and the Hainan Strait and along the rivers of Cochinchina and Cambodia.^[1]

Several vessels under Rivière's command were normally stationed in Cochinchina or Cambodia, including the troopship Drac, the light frigate Alouette and the small gunboats Framée and Javeline. Tilsitt, the flagship of the Cochinchina naval division, was disarmed and in permanent dock at Saigon, and served as the division's storehouse and administrative centre. Most of the division's vessels, however, were stationed in Tonkin, where they were enforcing the right of free navigation on the Red River conceded to France by the Vietnamese government in 1874. Rivière's command in Tonkin consisted of the light frigates Hamelin, Parseval and Antilope (the latter due to be replaced shortly by Pluvier), the heavy gunboats Lynx and Vipère, the seagoing gunboats Fanfare, Léopard and Surprise, and the smaller river gunboats Carabine, Éclair, Hache, Massue, Trombe and Yatagan. The heavy gunboats had crews of 77 men and mounted four cannon, while the smaller gunboats had two cannon each. They all carried a Hotchkiss canon-revolver in their tops.^[2]

Following Rivière's defeat and death at the Battle of Paper Bridge (19 June 1883), the navy ministry created a new Tonkin Coasts naval division (division navale des côtes du Tonkin) under the command of Admiral Amédée Courbet, whose mission was to cut off the flow of weapons and ammunition from China to the Black Flag Army by blockading the Gulf of Tonkin. The larger seagoing vessels already on station in Tonkin were transferred to Courbet's new naval division, while the remainder (mostly gunboats) were organised into the 'Tonkin Flotilla'. The flotilla was initially placed under the command of général de brigade Alexandre-Eugène Bouët (1833–87), the French commandant supérieur in Tonkin. Operational command was given to capitaine de vaisseau Morel-Beaulieu.^[3]

Composition[edit]

The Tonkin Flotilla consisted initially of the light frigates (avisos à roues) Pluvier and Alouette, the seagoing gunboats Fanfare, Léopard and Surprise, the large river gunboats (avisos de flotille à roues) Éclair and Trombe, and the smaller river gunboats (chaloupes-cannonières démontables) Carabine, Hache, Massue and Yatagan. Alouette was normally stationed in Cochinchina, and does not seem to have seen service in Tonkin.^[4]

The stationary pontoon Tilsitt at Saigon and the small river gunboats Framée, Javeline and Mousqueton, normally stationed in Cochinchina, were also placed under the orders of the commander of the Tonkin Flotilla.^[5]

In April 1884 the Farcy gunboats Revolver and Mitrailleuse, both of which had seen service on the Seine during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1), arrived in Tonkin. The two gunboats were transported to Tonkin lashed to the bridge of the troopship Bien Hoa, and re-floating them on their arrival at Haiphong was a technical task of considerable complexity.^[6]

In October 1883 Admiral Courbet asked the navy ministry to design a new class of shallow-draft gunboats which could penetrate the maze of shallow tributary streams and arroyos of the Delta, so that the Black Flags and pirates could be hunted down far more effectively. The ministry accepted his recommendations, and laid down two new classes of gunboats. Eight gunboats of the Henri Rivière class were designed and built specifically for service in Tonkin, while more than a dozen gunboats of the Arquebuse class were produced for use in both Tonkin and Madagascar.

The gunboats of the former class were named after the French officers who had been killed or mortally wounded in action in Tonkin in Francis Garnier and Henri Rivière's campaigns: Francis Garnier, Colonel Carreau, Henri Rivière, Berthe de Villers, Jacquin and Moulun. The gunboats, built at the Claparède works in Lorient, reached Haiphong in the autumn of 1884.

The Arquebuse class of gunboats was designed for more general service, in Madagascar as well as Tonkin. Six vessels in this class (Arquebuse, Alerte, Avalanche, Bourrasque, Mutine and Rafale) were deployed in Tonkin in the summer of 1884. These 70 horsepower (52 kW) gunboats were 30 metres long and 5 metres wide, cruised at 8 knots (15 km/h), and drew less than one-and-a-half metres of water. Although they could carry only 60 men, they were armed with two 90-millimetre cannon and three Hotchkiss canons-revolvers, so that they packed a powerful punch. Two other gunboats of the Arquebuse class, Casse-tête and Estoc, joined the Tonkin flotilla in early 1885. They differed from the earlier models in having two masts, each with a Hotchkiss station.

In February 1885, on the eve of the Lang Son Campaign, the Flotilla also included the gunboats Hyène, Jaguar, Nagotna and Petit Haiphong. The Flotilla also deployed a number of steam launches and tugs that were used to tow strings of junks loaded with men, ammunition or food. Contemporary French sources mention the vessels Haiphong, Pélican, Kowloon, Whampoo, Ruri Maru, Cua Cam, Cua Lac, Cua Dai, Phu Ly and Tra Ly. Just as French transports were often named after French rivers, these small river craft for use in Tonkin tended to be named after the watercourses of the Tonkin Delta.

By 1886 the Flotilla included the gunboats Levrard, Bossant and Cuvellier, named after three French officers killed in action in Tonkin during the Sino-French War.^[7]