Bombardment of Da Nang

Bombardment of Tourane
Date 15 April 1847 Location Off Tourane (Da Nang), South Central Coast of Vietnam Result French naval victory
Belligerents
French Kingdom	Nguyễn dynasty
Commanders and leaders
Augustin de Lapierre Charles Rigault de Genouilly	Nguyễn Tri Phương
Strength
1 frigate 1 corvette	6 corvettes
Casualties and losses
none	1,200 dead 4 corvettes sunk 1 corvette damaged

The Bombardment of Tourane (15 April 1847) was a naval incident that took place during the short reign of the Vietnamese emperor Thiệu Trị (1841–47), which saw a considerable worsening of relations between France and Vietnam. The French warships Gloire and Victorieuse, which had been sent to Tourane (now Da Nang) to negotiate for the release of two French Catholic missionaries, were attacked without warning by several Vietnamese vessels. The two French ships fought back, sinking four Vietnamese corvettes, badly damaging a fifth, and inflicting just under 1,200 casualties. In response to this and other provocations, the French eventually decided to intervene actively in Vietnam, and a decade later launched the Cochinchina Campaign (1858–62), which inaugurated the period of French colonial rule in Vietnam.

French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since the seventeenth century, and by the middle of the nineteenth century there were perhaps 300,000 Catholic converts in Annam and Tonkin. Most of their bishops and priests were either French or Spanish. Most Vietnamese disliked and suspected this sizeable Christian community and its foreign leaders. The French, conversely, began to feel responsible for their safety. During the reigns of the Vietnamese emperors Minh Mạng (1820–41) and Thiệu Trị (1841–47), Catholic missionaries were forbidden to live and work in Vietnam, and several European missionaries who ignored this edict were either banished or, on occasion, executed.

French naval captains in the Far East were given instructions to negotiate with the Vietnamese authorities when such cases occurred. On two occasions they intervened with considerable success. On 25 February 1843, capitaine de frégate Favin-Lévêque, captain of the French warship Héroine, anchored off Da Nang to intercede for the release of five missionaries detained at Huế for two years. After long and frustrating negotiations, the five missionaries were released. In 1845, the French corvette Alcmène (capitaine de frégate Fornier-Duplan) went to Tourane to ask for the release of Dominique Lefèbvre, the French vicar apostolic of Lower Cochinchina, who was being held prisoner at Huế. Again, the Vietnamese acceded to the French request, and Lefèbvre was released.

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