Henri Rivière (naval officer)

Henri Laurent Rivière (1827 – 1883) was a French naval officer and a writer, chiefly remembered today for his role in advancing the French conquest of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) in the 1880s. Rivière's seizure of the citadel of Hanoi in April 1882 inaugurated a period of undeclared hostilities between France and China that culminated two years later in the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).

Born in Paris on 12 July 1827, Rivière entered the École Navale in October 1842. Passing out as a midshipman (second class) in August 1845, he saw his first naval service in the Pacific Ocean on Brillante. In February 1847 he was posted to the South Seas naval division, to Virginie. He was promoted to midshipman (first class) in September 1847 and to enseigne de vaisseau in September 1849. During the next five years he served in the Mediterranean squadron aboard Iéna (1850), Labrador (1851) and Jupiter (1852–54). Significantly, his confidential reports from this period mentioned that he seemed to be unduly interested in poetry and literature.

Rivière took part in the Crimean campaign (1854–56), serving on the vessels Uranie, Suffren, Bourrasque and Montebello. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant de vaisseau in November 1856, he served aboard Reine Hortense during the Franco-Austrian War (1859). In 1866 he took part in the Mexican campaign aboard Rhône and Brandon. He was promoted to the rank of capitaine de frégate in June 1870 and served as second officer on the ironclad corvette Thétis with the French Baltic Squadron during the Franco-Prussian War. He saw no active service in any of these campaigns.

Rivière's role in the suppression of a revolt in the French colony of New Caledonia in the late 1870s won him promotion to the coveted rank of capitaine de vaisseau in January 1880. In November 1881 Rivière was posted to Saigon, as commander of the Cochin China naval division. The posting was generally regarded as a backwater that offered few opportunities for distinction. Rivière himself saw it as an opportunity to write a literary masterpiece that would procure him membership of the Académie française. Although Rivière spent most of his adult life as a naval officer, he was also ambitious for literary distinction. He was a journalist for La Liberté, and also had articles published in the Revue des deux mondes.

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