Thái Nguyên uprising

The Thái Nguyên uprising (Vietnamese: Khởi nghĩa Thái Nguyên) in 1917 was the most serious anti-French outbreak during World War I. It has been described as the "largest and most destructive" anti-colonial rebellion in French Indochina between the Pacification of Tonkin in the 1880s and the Nghe-Tinh Revolt of 1930–31. On 30 August 1917, an eclectic band of political prisoners, common criminals and insubordinate prison guards mutinied at the Thai Nguyen Penitentiary, the largest one in the region. The rebels came from over thirty provinces and according to estimates, involved at some point roughly 300 civilians, 200 ex-prisoners and 130 prison guards.

The initial success of the rebels was short-lived. They managed to control the prison and the town’s administrative buildings for six days, but were all expelled on the seventh day by French government reinforcements. According to French reports 107 were killed on the colonial side and fifty-six on the anti-colonial, including Quyen. French forces were not able to pacify the surrounding countryside until six months later. Can reportedly committed suicide in January 1918 to avoid capture. Both Quyen and Can have since been accorded legendary status as nationalist heroes.

The Thai Nguyen area had already seen resistance from men such as De Tham (1858-1913). David Marr characterises earlier traditional anti-colonial rebellions before the Thai Nguyen uprising such as the Can Vuong movement (Save the King) as being led by scholar-gentry whose followings were limited to members of their own lineages and villages. Leaders of these movements were ineffective in mobilising the general population beyond the scope of their influence, and in liaison and coordinating military or strategic activities on a wider scale in other provinces and regions. Marr argues that the generation of anti-colonial Vietnamese leaders Phan Bội Châu and Phan Châu Trinh after 1900 succeeded in raising questions of long-term modernization and Westernization when they were disillusioned with the mandarin class whose collaboration with the French perpetuated its rule. This generation then looked towards outward influences such as the Đông Du Movement (where Luong Ngoc Quyen, a protagonist of the Thai Nguyen uprising, was a participant) for alternatives. As the Thai Nguyen uprising occurred in the same period of analysis, the goals of the uprising could be situated amidst this desire for change, whilst still searching for a 'modern' Vietnamese national-consciousness and identity. According to Zinoman, the Thai Nguyen Rebellion was especially noteworthy due to the role which prisons, a product of the colonial era, played in bringing together men from different walks of life to unite for a common purpose.

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