Capture of My Tho

Date	12 April 1861
Location	My Tho, South Central Coast of Vietnam
Result	French and Spanish victory

Belligerents

French Empire

Kingdom of Spain

Nguyễn dynasty

Commanders and leaders

François Page

Unknown

The Capture of My Tho (Vietnamese: Mỹ Tho) on 12 April 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.

After early French and Spanish victories at Tourane (Da Nang) and Saigon, the Cochinchina campaign reached a point of equilibrium in 1860. In March 1860 the allies were forced to evacuate Tourane. At the same time they were besieged in Saigon, which had been captured by a Franco-Spanish expedition under the command of Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly on 17 February 1859. The arrival of massive reinforcements from the French expeditionary corps in China in 1860 allowed the French to regain the initiative. In early 1861 Admiral Léonard Charner broke the Siege of Saigon by defeating the Vietnamese besieging army at the Battle of Ky Hoa (25 February 1861). This victory gave Charner the opportunity to take the offensive against the Vietnamese, and he decided to strike first at My Tho and next at Bien Hoa.

The expedition against My Tho was initially led by capitaine de frégate Bourdais, captain of the aviso Monge. Besides Monge, the other warships at his disposal were the first-class gunboats Alarme and Mitraille and the small gunboats Nos. 18 and 31, commanded respectively by lieutenants de vaisseau Sauze, Duval, Peyron and de Mauduit. The flotilla carried a landing force of 200 French sailors, 30 Spanish soldiers and one mountain mortar.

Bourdais was ordered to advance on My Tho from the north, along a creek known to the French as the Arroyo de la Poste. On 1 and 2 April he bombarded and captured two forts at the entrance to the creek, and went on to destroy a series of stockades erected by the Vietnamese to bar access.

On 4 April the expedition received important reinforcements from Saigon: 200 chasseurs, 100 sailors, two companies of marine infantry, two 40-millimetre mountain guns and two mortars. These reinforcements arrived aboard the aviso Echo. Command of the expedition was now given to Charner's aide de camp capitaine de vaisseau Le Couriault du Quilio, assisted by capitaine de frégate Allizé de Montignicourt as chief of staff. A further reinforcement of 100 sailors arrived on 6 April, under the command of capitaine de frégate Desvaux.

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