Bac Le Ambush

Bac Le ambush
Part of the Tonkin Campaign
The Bac Le ambush, 23 June 1884
Date 23 and 24 June 1884 Location Bac Le, Northern Vietnam Result Chinese victory, French defeat and withdrawal
Belligerents
France	China
Commanders and leaders
Alphonse Dugenne	Wang Debang Wan Zhongxuan Huang Yuxian Wang Hongshun Pan Dingxin
Strength
450 French troops, 350 Tonkinese auxiliaries	4,600 Chinese regulars
Casualties and losses
22 killed, 70 wounded	around 300 killed and wounded

The Bac Le ambush (French: guet-apens de Bac-Lé, Vietnamese: trận Bắc Lệ or trận cầu Quan Âm) 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. The incident led to the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).

In late 1883 France and China began to fight an undeclared war in Tonkin. In December 1883, in the Son Tay Campaign, the French defeated the Black Flag Army and captured the town of Son Tay. In March 1884, in the Bac Ninh campaign, they defeated China's Guangxi Army and captured the strategically important town of Bac Ninh on the Mandarin Road.

The defeat at Bac Ninh, coming close on the heels of the fall of Son Tay, strengthened the hand of the moderate element in the Chinese government and temporarily discredited the extremist 'Purist' party led by Zhang Zhidong, which was agitating for a full-scale war against France. Further French successes in the spring of 1884, including the capture of Hung Hoa and Thai Nguyen, convinced the Empress Dowager Cixi that China should come to terms, and an accord was reached between France and China in May. The negotiations took place in Tianjin (Tientsin). Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Chinese moderates, represented China; and Captain François-Ernest Fournier, commander of the French cruiser Volta, represented France. The Tientsin Accord, concluded on 11 May 1884, provided for a Chinese troop withdrawal from Tonkin in return for a comprehensive treaty that would settle details of trade and commerce between France and China and provide for the demarcation of its disputed border with Vietnam.

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