Siege of Tuyen Quang

Siege of Tuyen Quang
Part of the Sino-French War, Tonkin Campaign
Date 24 November 1884 – 3 March 1885 Location Tuyen Quang, Northern Vietnam Result French victory
Belligerents
France	China Black Flag Army
Commanders and leaders
Marc-Edmond Dominé	Tang Jingsong Liu Yongfu
Strength
630	12,000
Casualties and losses
50 dead 224 wounded	1,000 dead 2,000 wounded

The Siege of Tuyen Quang was an important confrontation between the French and the Chinese armies in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) during the Sino-French War (August 1884 – April 1885). A French garrison of 630 men, including two companies of the French Foreign Legion, successfully defended the French post of Tuyen Quang against vastly outnumbering Chinese forces in a four-month siege from 24 November 1884 to 3 March 1885. 'Tuyen Quang 1885' remains one of the Legion's proudest battle honours.

The French installed a post at Tuyen Quang in June 1884, in the wake of their capture of Hung Hoa and Thai Nguyen. Tuyen Quang, an isolated settlement on the Clear River, was the most westerly French outpost in Tonkin, and was 80 kilometres from the nearest French post at Phu Doan. During the summer and autumn of 1884 it 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 Jingsong's Yunnan Army and Liu Yongfu’s Black Flags. Supply difficulties delayed the Chinese concentration around Tuyen Quang, but advance elements of the Yunnan Army began to harass the post in October 1884, and Frauger's garrison had to fight off a number of nuisance attacks by the Chinese. 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.

In November 1884 General Louis Brière de l'Isle, the commander of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps, took steps to resupply and reinforce Hung Hoa, Thai Nguyen and Tuyen Quang. On 19 November a column making for Tuyen Quang under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Duchesne was ambushed in the Yu Oc gorge by the Black Flags but was able to fight its way through to the beleaguered post. Frauger and his men were relieved, and replaced by a fresh garrison of 400 legionnaires and 160 Tonkinese riflemen under the command of chef de bataillon Marc-Edmond Dominé of the 2nd African Light Infantry Battalion. Duchesne left Tuyen Quang on 23 November, and on the following day Dominé formally declared Tuyen Quang to be in a state of siege. The siege of Tuyen Quang would last for just over four months.

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