Battle of Yu Oc

Battle of Yu Oc
Part of the Sino-French War, Tonkin Campaign
Date 19 November 1884 Location south of Tuyên Quang, northern Vietnam Result French victory
Belligerents
France	Black Flag Army
Commanders and leaders
Jacques Duchesne	Liu Yongfu
Strength
700 men	around 2,000 men
Casualties and losses
10 dead 37 wounded	Heavy

The Battle of Yu Oc (19 November 1884) was a French victory during the Sino-French War. The battle was fought to relieve the French garrison of Tuyên Quang, under siege by the T'ang Ching-sung's Yunnan Army and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army. The French commander at Yu Oc, Colonel Jacques Duchesne, would later distinguish himself as the conqueror of Madagascar (1895).

The French installed a post at Tuyên Quang in June 1884, in the wake of their capture of Hưng Hóa and Thái Nguyên. Tuyên Quang, an isolated settlement on the Clear River, was the most westerly French outpost in Tonkin, and was more than 100 kilometres away from the French garrisons in Hưng Hóa and Thái Nguyên. During the summer and autumn of 1884 the post was garrisoned by two companies of the 1st Battalion, 1st Foreign Legion Regiment (Captains Chmitelin and Broussier), under the command of chef de bataillon Frauger.

The outbreak of the Sino-French War on 23 August 1884 exposed the post to attack by Tang Ching-sung's Yunnan Army and Liu Yongfu’s Black Flag Army. Supply difficulties delayed the Chinese concentration around Tuyen Quang, but advance elements of the Yunnan Army began to harass the post on 12 October 1884, and Frauger's garrison had to fight off a number of nuisance attacks by the Chinese between 13 and 19 October. Malaria had also taken a heavy toll of Frauger's men, and by the end of October 170 men out of the garrison's total strength of 550 men were unfit for duty.

During October and November 1884 the Farcy gunboats Revolver and Mitrailleuse, based at Tuyen Quang, and the gunboats Bourrasque, Éclair, Mutine and Trombe, operating out of Hưng Hóa, mounted a number of dangerous supply runs along the Clear River between Hung Hoa and Tuyen Quang in support of the small French garrison at Tuyen Quang. The first supply run, made by Revolver and Mitrailleuse on 15 October 1884, was successful, but at the end of October the Black Flags occupied Yu Oc, cutting off Tuyên Quang by land from the nearest French post at Hung Hoa and also commanding the river route to Tuyên Quang. A few days earlier the gunboat Mutine had been ordered to reinforce Revolver and Mitrailleuse at Tuyên Quang, but she ran aground during her voyage up the Clear River and Éclair had to be sent to pull her off and tow her back to Hung Hoa.

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