Tonkin Affair
Encyclopedia
The Tonkin Affair of March 1885 was a major French political crisis that erupted in the closing weeks of the Sino-French War
. It effectively destroyed the political career of the French prime minister Jules Ferry
, and abruptly ended the string of Republican governments
inaugurated several years earlier by Leon Gambetta
. The suspicion by the French public and political classes that French troops were being sent to their deaths far from home for little measurable gain, both in Tonkin and elsewhere, also discredited for nearly a decade the advocates of French colonial expansion.
The "Affair" (as most French political scandals are still termed), was triggered on 28 March 1885 by the controversial Retreat from Lang Son
. The retreat, which threw away the gains of the February Lang Son Campaign
, was ordered by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Gustave Herbinger, the acting commander of the 2nd Brigade, less than a week after General François de Négrier
's defeat at the Battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885). General Louis Brière de l'Isle
, the commander-in-chief of French forces in Tonkin, was in Hanoi at the time, and was planning to shift his headquarters to Hung Hoa, to supervise a planned offensive against the Yunnan Army around Tuyen Quang. Without waiting to sift the misleading information contained in Herbinger's alarmist cables from Lang Son, Brière de l'Isle concluded that the Red River Delta
was in jeopardy and fired off a pessimistic telegram on the evening of 28 March to the French government, warning that the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
faced disaster unless it was immediately reinforced:
The news contained in the 'Lang Son telegram', as it was immediately dubbed, ignited a political crisis in Paris:
Brière de l’Isle’s cable of 28 March gave the impression that a catastrophe had befallen the Tonkin expeditionary corps, and none of his later reassurances was able to entirely efface this initial impression. Although it knew by the evening of 29 March that Herbinger had halted his retreat at Dong Song and that Brière de l’Isle was stabilising the situation, the army ministry remain stunned by the news that Lang Son had been abandoned, and decided to disclose the contents of both cables to the National Assembly
on 30 March. Ferry attempted to use the occasion to demand an emergency credit to reinforce the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps. The debate that followed was one of the most vitriolic in France's political history.
On the morning of 30 March, a deputation from the Union républicaine and Gauche républicaine, the two groups which accounted for the bulk of Ferry’s support during the undeclared war with China, pleaded with the premier to resign before the debate. Ferry was under little doubt that his administration would fall, but he refused to go without a fight. In the afternoon he entered the chamber amid the disapproving silence of his supporters and a storm of imprecations and insults from his opponents, led by Georges Clemenceau
. He had not slept the night before and walked towards the rostrum slowly and gravely, his face pale and anxious, like a condemned man to the scaffold. From the rostrum he gave the Chamber of Deputies the latest news on the military situation in Tonkin and explained the measures he had taken in response. 'We must avenge the check at Lang Son,' he said. 'We must do this not only to secure our hold on Tonkin, but also to safeguard our honour around the world.' Georges Périn, one of Clemenceau’s supporters, interjected excitedly. 'Our honour, yes! But who was it that compromised it in the first place?' The Chamber broke into a clamour. Eventually, when he could again make himself heard, Ferry demanded an extraordinary credit of 200 million francs, to be split equally between the army and navy ministries. He went on. 'I cannot go into the details of this expenditure in this forum. We will discuss them further with the scrutiny commission.' Clemenceau shouted scornfully, 'Who will ever believe you?' Ferry implored the deputies not to consider the vote on the credits as a vote of confidence. If they wished, they could overturn his cabinet afterwards and choose a new administration. But for the sake of the French troops in Tonkin, they must first vote to send out more ships and more men. He concluded by formally moving that the credits be voted.
His opponents erupted in anger. Périn yelled 'Don't keep on exploiting the honour of our flag! You’ve wrapped yourself in our flag for far too long! Enough is enough!' Clemenceau attacked the premier in savage terms. 'We’re completely finished with you! We’re never going to listen to you again! We’re not going to debate the nation’s affairs with you again!' The Chamber erupted in applause, and Clemenceau went on. 'We no longer recognise you! We don’t want to recognise you!' There was a new burst of applause. 'You’re no longer ministers! You all stand accused' — there was a roar of applause from the deputies of both the left and the right, and Clemenceau paused dramatically — 'of high treason! And if the principles of accountability and justice still exist in France, the law will soon give you what you deserve!'
Ferry’s opponents demanded immediate discussion of Clemenceau’s interpellation. Ferry countered by moving that the vote on the credits should be taken first. Amid scenes of angry turbulence, the deputies voted on Ferry’s priority motion. It was defeated by a handsome margin of 306 votes to 149. This defeat spelled the end for his administration. His opponents greeted the result of the vote with howls of delight.
As Ferry sought to leave the palais Bourbon to return to the Elysée Palace, he had to run the gauntlet of a furious crowd of demonstrators gathered together by Paul de Cassagnac. The demonstrators yelled abuse at the fallen premier, jabbing their fingers towards him violently. 'Down with Ferry! Death to Ferry!' Ferry’s friends hustled him past this baying pack. But there was worse to come. The news of the cabinet’s fall had gone round Paris like wildfire, and in front of the palais Bourbon an excited mob, estimated by journalists at around 20,000 people, thronged the pont de la Concorde. This crowd had been whipped up to a frenzy by agitators from the far-right parties, and at the sight of Ferry it gave tongue. 'Down with Ferry! Throw him in the Seine ! Death to the Tonkinese!' No French premier had ever before faced such an outpouring of hatred.
. The sudden and ignominious end of Jules Ferry’s second administration removed the remaining obstacles to a peace settlement between France and China. Ferry's successor, Charles de Freycinet
, promptly concluded peace with China. The Chinese government agreed to implement the Tientsin Accord
of 11 May 1884, implicitly recognising the French protectorate over Tonkin, and the French government dropped its longstanding demand for an indemnity for the Bac Le ambush
. A peace protocol ending hostilities was signed on 4 April 1885, and a substantive peace treaty
was signed on 9 June by Li Hongzhang
and the French minister Jules Patenôtre
.
The longer-term effect of the Tonkin Affair was to discredit the partisans of colonial expansion in France. In December 1885, in the so-called 'Tonkin Debate', Henri Brisson
's administration was only able to secure fresh credits for the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps by the very narrowest of margins. Jules Ferry would never again serve as premier, and became a figure of popular scorn. The collapse of Ferry's ministry was a major political embarrassment for the proponents of the policy of French colonial expansion first championed in the 1870s by Leon Gambetta
. It was not until the early 1890s that French colonial party regained domestic political support.
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."
That said, the forces which drove French colonial expansion were little slowed by a loss of political popularity. French Indochina
was consolidated under a single administration just two years latter, while in Africa, military commanders like Joseph Gallieni
and Louis Archinard
continually pressured local states, regardless of the political climate in Paris. Large trading houses, such as Maurel and Prom company, continued to expand their overseas operations, and demand military support for this expansion. The formal creation in 1894 of the French Colonial Union
, a political pressure group funded by such interests, marked the end of the post Tonkin climate in Paris, and as such was short lived.
Sino-French War
The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...
. It effectively destroyed the political career of the French prime minister Jules Ferry
Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
, and abruptly ended the string of Republican governments
Opportunist Republicans
The Opportunist Republicans , also known as the Moderates , were a faction of French Republicans who believed, after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870, that the regime could only be consolidated by successive phases...
inaugurated several years earlier by Leon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
. The suspicion by the French public and political classes that French troops were being sent to their deaths far from home for little measurable gain, both in Tonkin and elsewhere, also discredited for nearly a decade the advocates of French colonial expansion.
The 'Lang Son telegram'
Retreat from Lang Son
The Retreat from Lang Son was a controversial, and almost certainly unnecessary, French strategic withdrawal in Tonkin at the end of March 1885 that brought down the government of the French premier Jules Ferry and brought the Sino-French War to an end in circumstances of considerable...
. The retreat, which threw away the gains of the February Lang Son Campaign
Lang Son Campaign
The Lang Son Campaign was a major French offensive in Tonkin during the Sino-French War...
, was ordered by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Gustave Herbinger, the acting commander of the 2nd Brigade, less than a week after General François de Négrier
François de Négrier
General François Oscar de Négrier was one of the most charismatic French generals of the Third Republic, winning fame in Algeria in the Sud-Oranais campaign and in Tonkin during the Sino-French War .- Early career :Born in Belfort, France on October 2, 1839, De Négrier served with Marshal...
's defeat at the Battle of Bang Bo (24 March 1885). General Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Brière de l'Isle
Louis Alexandre Esprit Gaston Brière de l'Isle was a French Army general who achieved distinction firstly as Governor of Senegal , and then as general-in-chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps during the Sino-French War .-Military career to 1871:Louis Briere de l'Isle was born on 4 June 1827 in...
, the commander-in-chief of French forces in Tonkin, was in Hanoi at the time, and was planning to shift his headquarters to Hung Hoa, to supervise a planned offensive against the Yunnan Army around Tuyen Quang. Without waiting to sift the misleading information contained in Herbinger's alarmist cables from Lang Son, Brière de l'Isle concluded that the Red River Delta
Red River Delta
The Red River Delta is the flat plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries joining in the Thai Binh River in northern Vietnam. The delta measuring some 15,000 square km is well protected by a network of dikes. It is an agriculturally rich area and densely populated...
was in jeopardy and fired off a pessimistic telegram on the evening of 28 March to the French government, warning that the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...
faced disaster unless it was immediately reinforced:
I am grieved to tell you that General de Négrier is seriously wounded and Lang Son has been evacuated.
The Chinese forces advanced in three large groups, and fiercely assaulted our positions in front of Ky Lua. Facing greatly superior numbers, short of ammunition, and exhausted from a series of earlier actions, Colonel Herbinger has informed me that the position was untenable and that he has been forced to fall back tonight on Dong Song and Thanh Moy. All my efforts are being applied to concentrate our forces at the passes around Chu and Kep. The enemy continues to grow stronger on the Red River, and it appears that we are facing an entire Chinese army, trained in the European style and ready to pursue a concerted plan. I hope in any event to be able to hold the entire Delta against this invasion, but I consider that the government must send me reinforcements (men, ammunition, and pack animals) as quickly as possible.
The news contained in the 'Lang Son telegram', as it was immediately dubbed, ignited a political crisis in Paris:
There was enormous feeling throughout France. This retreat of 2,500 men, who had returned to their starting positions without even being pursued by the enemy, took on from a distance the proportions of an irretrievable disaster. On the stock exchange on 30 March the 3% fell by three and a half francs; it had only fallen by two and a half francs on the day that war was declared in 1870. All the newspapers were full of accusations against the Cabinet, of false accounts of the 'bitter combats' that the 2nd Brigade, enveloped by the Chinese, must have fought to disengage, of fears for the entire expeditionary corps, whose situation was depicted as tragic. In the House, the deputies who were systematically opposed to our establishment in Tonkin were jubilant, and the proponents of a colonial policy did not dare defend their views of the previous day.
The fall of Ferry's ministry, 30 March 1885
National Assembly
National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known National Assembly, and the first legislature to be known by this title, was that established during the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assemblée nationale...
on 30 March. Ferry attempted to use the occasion to demand an emergency credit to reinforce the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps. The debate that followed was one of the most vitriolic in France's political history.
On the morning of 30 March, a deputation from the Union républicaine and Gauche républicaine, the two groups which accounted for the bulk of Ferry’s support during the undeclared war with China, pleaded with the premier to resign before the debate. Ferry was under little doubt that his administration would fall, but he refused to go without a fight. In the afternoon he entered the chamber amid the disapproving silence of his supporters and a storm of imprecations and insults from his opponents, led by Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
. He had not slept the night before and walked towards the rostrum slowly and gravely, his face pale and anxious, like a condemned man to the scaffold. From the rostrum he gave the Chamber of Deputies the latest news on the military situation in Tonkin and explained the measures he had taken in response. 'We must avenge the check at Lang Son,' he said. 'We must do this not only to secure our hold on Tonkin, but also to safeguard our honour around the world.' Georges Périn, one of Clemenceau’s supporters, interjected excitedly. 'Our honour, yes! But who was it that compromised it in the first place?' The Chamber broke into a clamour. Eventually, when he could again make himself heard, Ferry demanded an extraordinary credit of 200 million francs, to be split equally between the army and navy ministries. He went on. 'I cannot go into the details of this expenditure in this forum. We will discuss them further with the scrutiny commission.' Clemenceau shouted scornfully, 'Who will ever believe you?' Ferry implored the deputies not to consider the vote on the credits as a vote of confidence. If they wished, they could overturn his cabinet afterwards and choose a new administration. But for the sake of the French troops in Tonkin, they must first vote to send out more ships and more men. He concluded by formally moving that the credits be voted.
His opponents erupted in anger. Périn yelled 'Don't keep on exploiting the honour of our flag! You’ve wrapped yourself in our flag for far too long! Enough is enough!' Clemenceau attacked the premier in savage terms. 'We’re completely finished with you! We’re never going to listen to you again! We’re not going to debate the nation’s affairs with you again!' The Chamber erupted in applause, and Clemenceau went on. 'We no longer recognise you! We don’t want to recognise you!' There was a new burst of applause. 'You’re no longer ministers! You all stand accused' — there was a roar of applause from the deputies of both the left and the right, and Clemenceau paused dramatically — 'of high treason! And if the principles of accountability and justice still exist in France, the law will soon give you what you deserve!'
Ferry’s opponents demanded immediate discussion of Clemenceau’s interpellation. Ferry countered by moving that the vote on the credits should be taken first. Amid scenes of angry turbulence, the deputies voted on Ferry’s priority motion. It was defeated by a handsome margin of 306 votes to 149. This defeat spelled the end for his administration. His opponents greeted the result of the vote with howls of delight.
As Ferry sought to leave the palais Bourbon to return to the Elysée Palace, he had to run the gauntlet of a furious crowd of demonstrators gathered together by Paul de Cassagnac. The demonstrators yelled abuse at the fallen premier, jabbing their fingers towards him violently. 'Down with Ferry! Death to Ferry!' Ferry’s friends hustled him past this baying pack. But there was worse to come. The news of the cabinet’s fall had gone round Paris like wildfire, and in front of the palais Bourbon an excited mob, estimated by journalists at around 20,000 people, thronged the pont de la Concorde. This crowd had been whipped up to a frenzy by agitators from the far-right parties, and at the sight of Ferry it gave tongue. 'Down with Ferry! Throw him in the Seine ! Death to the Tonkinese!' No French premier had ever before faced such an outpouring of hatred.
Aftermath
The immediate consequence of the Tonkin Affair was to bring about a rapid end to the Sino-French WarSino-French War
The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...
. The sudden and ignominious end of Jules Ferry’s second administration removed the remaining obstacles to a peace settlement between France and China. Ferry's successor, Charles de Freycinet
Charles de Freycinet
Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet was a French statesman and Prime Minister during the Third Republic; he belonged to the Opportunist Republicans faction. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1890, the fourteen member to occupy seat the Académie française.-Early years:He...
, promptly concluded peace with China. The Chinese government agreed to implement the Tientsin Accord
Tientsin Accord
The Tientsin Accord or Li-Fournier Convention, concluded on 11 May 1884, was intended to settle an undeclared war between France and China over the sovereignty of Tonkin...
of 11 May 1884, implicitly recognising the French protectorate over Tonkin, and the French government dropped its longstanding demand for an indemnity for the Bac Le ambush
Bac Le ambush
The Bac Le ambush was a clash during the Tonkin campaign in June 1884 between Chinese troops of the Guangxi Army and a French column sent to occupy Lang Son and other towns near the Chinese border. The French claimed that their troops had been ambushed by the Chinese...
. A peace protocol ending hostilities was signed on 4 April 1885, and a substantive peace treaty
Treaty of Tientsin (1885)
The Treaty of Tientsin, signed on 9 June 1885, officially ended the Sino-French War. The treaty, in ten articles, restated in greater detail the main provisions of the Tientsin Accord, signed between France and China on 11 May 1884...
was signed on 9 June by Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang or Li Hung-chang , Marquis Suyi of the First Class , GCVO, was a leading statesman of the late Qing Empire...
and the French minister Jules Patenôtre
Jules Patenotre des Noyers
Jules Patenôtre des Noyers , French diplomat, was born at Baye .Educated at the École Normale Supérieure, he taught for some years in the Algiers lycée before he joined the diplomatic service in 1871. He took service from 1873 to 1876 in the North of Persia...
.
The longer-term effect of the Tonkin Affair was to discredit the partisans of colonial expansion in France. In December 1885, in the so-called 'Tonkin Debate', Henri Brisson
Henri Brisson
Eugène Henri Brisson was a French statesman, Prime Minister of France for a period in 1885-1886 and again in 1898.-Biography:He was born at Bourges , and followed his father’s profession of advocate. Having made his mark in opposition during the last days of the empire, he was appointed...
's administration was only able to secure fresh credits for the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps by the very narrowest of margins. Jules Ferry would never again serve as premier, and became a figure of popular scorn. The collapse of Ferry's ministry was a major political embarrassment for the proponents of the policy of French colonial expansion first championed in the 1870s by Leon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
. It was not until the early 1890s that French colonial party regained domestic political support.
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."
That said, the forces which drove French colonial expansion were little slowed by a loss of political popularity. French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
was consolidated under a single administration just two years latter, while in Africa, military commanders like Joseph Gallieni
Joseph Gallieni
Joseph Simon Gallieni was a French soldier, most active as a military commander and administrator in the French colonies and finished his career during the First World War. He was made Marshal of France posthumously in 1921...
and Louis Archinard
Louis Archinard
Louis Archinard was a French Army general at the time of the Third Republic, who contributed to the colonial conquest of French West Africa. He was traditionally presented in French histories as the conqueror and "Pacifier" of French Soudan . Archinard's campaigns brought about the end of the...
continually pressured local states, regardless of the political climate in Paris. Large trading houses, such as Maurel and Prom company, continued to expand their overseas operations, and demand military support for this expansion. The formal creation in 1894 of the French Colonial Union
French Colonial Union
The French Colonial Union was an influential group of French merchants established for the purpose of ensuring continued French colonialism, as well as solidifying their own commercial interests. It was founded in 1893 and published The Colonial Fortnightly...
, a political pressure group funded by such interests, marked the end of the post Tonkin climate in Paris, and as such was short lived.
See also
- Imperialism in AsiaImperialism in AsiaImperialism in Asia traces its roots back to the late 15th century with a series of voyages that sought a sea passage to India in the hope of establishing direct trade between Europe and Asia in spices. Before 1500 European economies were largely self-sufficient, only supplemented by minor trade...
- French colonial empiresFrench colonial empiresThe French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
- Jules FerryJules FerryJules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...