Battle of Phu Hoai

Battle of Phu Hoai
Part of the Tonkin Campaign
Date 15 August 1883 Location near Hanoi, Northern Vietnam Result French victory
Belligerents
France	Black Flag Army
Commanders and leaders
Alexandre-Eugène Bouët	Liu Yongfu
Strength
2,500 French marine infantry and Cochinchinese riflemen 450 Yellow Flag auxiliaries 3 artillery batteries 6 gunboats	Around 3,000 Black Flag soldiers
Casualties and losses
17 dead 62 wounded	Around 300 dead 800 wounded

The Battle of Phu Hoai (15 August 1883) was an indecisive engagement between the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army during the early months of the Tonkin campaign (1883–1886). The battle took place during the period of increasing tension between France and China that eventually culminated in the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).

The Tonkin campaign is conventionally considered to have begun in June 1883, with the decision by the French government to despatch reinforcements to Tonkin to avenge the defeat and death of Henri Rivière at the hands of Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army at the Battle of Paper Bridge on 19 May 1883. These reinforcements were organised into a Tonkin Expeditionary Corps, which was placed under the command of général de brigade Alexandre-Eugène Bouët (1833–87), the highest-ranking marine infantry officer available in the French colony of Cochinchina.

The French position in Tonkin on Bouët's arrival in early June 1883 was extremely precarious. The French had only small garrisons in Hanoi, Haiphong and Nam Dinh, isolated posts at Hon Gai and at Qui Nhon in Annam, and little immediate prospect of taking the offensive against Liu Yongfu's Black Flags and Prince Hoang Ke Viem's Vietnamese. During June the French dug in behind their defences and beat off half-hearted Vietnamese demonstrations against Hanoi and Nam Dinh. The early arrival of reinforcements from France and New Caledonia and the recruitment of Cochinchinese and Tonkinese auxiliary formations allowed Bouët to hit back at his tormentors. On 19 July chef de bataillon Pierre de Badens, the French commandant supérieur at Nam Dinh, attacked and defeated Prince Hoang Ke Viem's besieging Vietnamese army, effectively relieving Vietnamese pressure on Nam Dinh.

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