Battle of Hoa Moc

Battle of Hoa Moc
Part of the Sino-French War
Date 2 March 1885 Location near Tuyen Quang, northern Vietnam Result French victory
Belligerents
France	China Black Flag Army
Commanders and leaders
Laurent Giovanninelli	Liu Yongfu
Strength
3,400 men	6,000 men
Casualties and losses
76 dead 408 wounded	1,000 dead 2,000 wounded

The Battle of Hoa Moc (2 March 1885) was the most fiercely fought action of the Sino-French War (August 1884 – April 1885). At heavy cost, Colonel Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps defeated forces of the Black Flag and Yunnan Armies blocking the way to the besieged French post of Tuyen Quang.

The French capture of Lang Son in February 1885 in the Lang Son Campaign allowed substantial French forces to be diverted further west to relieve the small and isolated French garrison in Tuyen Quang, which had been placed under siege in November 1884 by Liu Yongfu(劉永福)’s Black Flag Army and Tang Jingsong(唐景崧)’s Yunnan Army. The Siege of Tuyen Quang was the most evocative confrontation of the Sino-French War. The Chinese and Black Flags sapped methodically up to the French positions, and in January and February 1885 breached the outer defences with mines and delivered seven separate assaults on the breach. The Tuyen Quang garrison, 400 legionnaires and 200 Tonkinese auxiliaries under the command of chef de bataillon Marc-Edmond Dominé, beat off all attempts to storm their positions, but lost over a third of their strength (50 dead and 224 wounded) sustaining a heroic defence against overwhelming odds. By mid-February it was clear that Tuyen Quang would fall unless it was relieved immediately.

The Battle of Hoa Moc was fought to relieve the Siege of Tuyen Quang. Following his capture of Lang Son on 13 February 1885, General Louis Brière de l'Isle personally led Colonel Giovanninelli’s 1st Brigade to the relief of Tuyen Quang. The brigade left Lang Son on 17 February, after replenishing its food and ammunition, and made a forced march back to Hanoi along the Mandarin Road, via Cut, Thanh Moy, Cau Son and Bac Le. After briefly pausing at Bac Le to pay homage to the French soldiers killed in June 1884 in the Bac Le Ambush, Giovanninelli's men pressed on to Hanoi via the French posts at Kep, Phu Lang Thuong and Dap Cau. The brigade reached Hanoi on the evening of 22 February. It had left Lang Son 3,000 strong, but straggling had reduced its numbers by a sixth, and it set off to relieve Tuyen Quang with only a little over 2,400 men. Five gunboats of the Tonkin Flotilla (Éclair, Henri Rivière, Berthe de Villers, Moulun and Trombe) carried Giovanninelli's men from Hanoi up the Red and Clear Rivers and put the brigade ashore near the French post of Phu Doan on the Clear River, fifty kilometres southwest of Tuyen Quang.

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