Tonkinese Rifles

The Tonkinese Rifles (tirailleurs tonkinois) were a corps of Tonkinese light infantrymen raised in 1884 to support the operations of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps. Led by French officers seconded from the marine infantry, Tonkinese riflemen fought in several engagements against the Chinese during the Sino-French War and took part in expeditions against Vietnamese insurgents during the subsequent French Pacification of Tonkin. The French also organized similar units of indigenous riflemen from Annam and Cambodia. All three categories of indigenous soldiers were known in Vietnam as Lính tập,

During the campaigns of Francis Garnier in Tonkin in 1873 the French raised irregular units of Tonkinese militiamen, many of them Christians who felt little loyalty to the brutal regime of Tự Đức. These units existed for only a few weeks, and were disbanded when the French withdrew from Tonkin in the spring of 1874, but the experiment demonstrated the potential for the recruitment of auxiliary soldiers in Tonkin.

The employment of Vietnamese auxiliaries on a regular basis was pioneered in Cochinchina, where the French formed a regiment of Annamese riflemen in 1879 (variously referred to as tirailleurs annamites, tirailleurs saigonais or tirailleurs cochinchinois).

Between 1883 and 1885 the French were heavily engaged in Tonkin against the Black Flag Army and Vietnamese and Chinese forces. The successive commanders of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps all made use of Tonkinese auxiliaries in one form or another. The establishment of regular regiments of tirailleurs tonkinois in 1884 was preceded by experiments with native auxiliaries in Tonkin by General Bouët and Admiral Courbet in the second half of 1883. The French employed several hundred Yellow Flags as auxiliaries against the Black Flag Army in the battles of August 1883. The Yellow Flags, under the command of a Greek adventurer named Georges Vlavianos who had taken part in Francis Garnier's Tonkin campaign in 1873, fought competently enough in a skirmishing role in the Battle of Phủ Hoài (15 August 1883) and the Battle of Palan (1 September 1883), but were paid off shortly after the latter engagement because of their undisciplined behaviour.

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