Siege of Tourane

Siege of Tourane
Part of Cochinchina Campaign
French warships off Tourane, September 1858
Date 1 September 1858 - 22 March 1860 Location Tourane (Da Nang), South Central Coast of Viet Nam Result Vietnamese victory
Belligerents
Second French Empire Spain	Viet Nam (Nguyễn Dynasty)
Commanders and leaders
Charles Rigault de Genouilly François Page	Le Dinh Ly Nguyen Tri Phuong
Strength
1 50-gun frigate 2 12-gun corvettes 5 steam-gunboats 5 steam transports 1 despatch vessel 1,000 French marine infantry 550 Spanish infantry 450 Filipino chasseurs Tagals	2,000 men, rising to 10,000 men
Casualties and losses
128 killed and wounded, several hundred deaths from cholera	unknown

The Siege of Tourane (September 1858–March 1860) was a Vietnamese victory during the Cochinchina Campaign, a punitive campaign against the Vietnamese launched by France and Spain in 1858. A joint Franco-Spanish expedition under the command of Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly captured Tourane (modern Da Nang) in September 1858, but was then besieged in the city by the Vietnamese and forced eventually to evacuate it in March 1860.

In 1857 the Vietnamese emperor Tự Đức executed two Spanish Catholic missionaries. This was neither the first nor the last such incident, and on previous occasions the French government had overlooked such provocations. On this occasion Tự Đức's timing was terrible. France and Britain had just despatched a joint military expedition to the Far East to chastise China, and the French had troops to hand with which to intervene in Vietnam. In November 1857 the French emperor Napoleon III authorised Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly to launch a punitive expedition to teach the Vietnamese a long-overdue lesson. In the following September, a joint French and Spanish expedition landed at Tourane, whose fine, sheltered harbour would make it a good base of operations for a campaign against Annam.

Rigault de Genouilly's flagship was the screw-powered 50-gun frigate Némésis. He was accompanied by the screw-powered 12-gun corvettes Primauguet and Phlégéton, the steam-gunboats Alarme, Avalanche, Dragonne, Fusée and Mitraille, and the steam transports Durance, Saône, Gironde, Dordogne and Meurthe. The Spanish navy was represented by the armed despatch vessel El Caño. The transports carried a landing force of two overstrength battalions of French marine infantry (1,000 men), a marine artillery battery and 1,000 troops drawn from the Spanish garrison of the Philippines (550 Spanish troops and 450 Filipino light infantry, mostly Tagalogs and Visayans, known to the French as chasseurs Tagals).

Tourane lay on the southern shore of the Bay of Tourane. Its main defences were sited on the Tien Cha peninsula, on the eastern side of the bay. The Vietnamese had built five major forts along the sheltered western side of the peninsula, covering the approaches to the town (see map). These forts were known respectively to the French as Fort de l'Aiguade, Fort de l'Observatoire (Observatory Fort), Fort du Nord (Northern Fort), Fort de l'Est (Eastern Fort) and Fort de l'Ouest (Western Fort). Several shore batteries were deployed between these forts.

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Wikipedia