Battle
1884 battle
The Battle of Tamsui, Danshui, or Hobe (2–8 October 1884) was a significant battle where French military forces were defeated by Qing forces at Tamsui on Taiwan during the Keelung Campaign of the Sino-French War.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Battle of Tamsui”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Battle of Tamsui, Danshui, or Hobe (2–8 October 1884) was a significant battle where French military forces were defeated by Qing forces at Tamsui on Taiwan during the Keelung Campaign of the Sino-French War.
The battle of Tamsui was part of the Keelung Campaign (August 1884–April 1885). Following the outbreak of the Sino-French War on 23 August 1884, the French decided to put pressure on China by landing an expeditionary corps in northern Formosa to seize Keelung and Tamsui. On 1 October Lieutenant-Colonel Bertaux-Levillain landed at Keelung with a force of 1,800 marine infantry, forcing the Chinese to withdraw to strong defensive positions which had been prepared in the surrounding hills. Meanwhile, a second French force under the command of Rear Admiral Sébastien Lespès prepared to attack Tamsui.
Liu Mingchuan took measures to reinforce Tamsui, in the river nine torpedo mines were planted and the entrance was blocked with ballast boats filled with stone which were sunk on September 3, matchlock armed "Hakka hill people" were used to reinforce the mainland Chinese battalion, and around the British Consulate and Customs House at the Red Fort hilltop, Shanghai Arsenal manufactured Krupp guns were used to form an additional battery.
On 1 October 1884, while the Formosa expeditionary corps went ashore at Keelung, Lespès lay off Tamsui with the ironclads La Galissonnière and Triomphante, the cruiser D'Estaing and the gunboat Vipère. His orders from Courbet were to bombard the Chinese forts at Tamsui, destroy the barrage across the Tamsui River and seize Tamsui itself.
The town of Tamsui or Hobe had a population of around 6,000 at this period, including a small European colony. Tamsui was defended by two major forts, both to the west of the town. The 'White Fort', so called by the French to distinguish it from Fort Santo Domingo, the seventeenth-century Spanish 'Red Fort' that had become the premises of the British consulate in Tamsui, was a shore battery that commanded the entrance to the Tamsui River. To the northeast, defending the town against a landing, was a fort still under construction, the 'New Fort' (Fort Neuf). Although the New Fort was only partly armed, it had an excellent all-round field of fire. Other important fortification works had been built on all the neighbouring ridges.
The arrival of the French flotilla was the signal for feverish activity ashore, as the Chinese worked throughout the afternoon and evening to arm the New Fort and deployed their troops to repel any attempt to land by the French. The European residents of Tamsui, many of whom were British, hastily hung out Union Jacks from their houses to signal their neutrality to the French ships.
As the French warships were unable to enter the Tamsui River, Lespès decided to bombard the White Fort and the New Fort on the morning of 2 October. In fact hostilities were begun by the Chinese, who began firing at sunrise on 2 October with three cannon which they had placed in the barbette of the New Fort the previous evening. The French flotilla immediately replied, delivering a heavy bombardment which lasted for several hours, eventually destroying the three Chinese guns and putting both the New Fort and the White Fort out of action.
More than 2,000 shells were fired against the two forts. Many failed to explode on impact, and remained dangerous for days afterwards. Others missed their targets, because the bombardment was delivered from long range, and damaged many buildings in Tamsui itself, including all the European residences. The Canadian Presbyterian missionary George Mackay remained in his house in Tamsui during the French bombardment, refusing to take shelter aboard the British gunboat HMS Cockchafer anchored off Tamsui, because he could not take his Formosan converts with him. He left a vivid description of the attack:
When the bombarding began we put our little children under the floor of the house, that they might not be alarmed. My wife went out and in during these trying hours. I paced the front of the house with A Hoa, while shot and shell whizzed and burst all around us. One shell struck a part of Oxford College, another a corner of the Girls’ School, and still another a stone in front of us, and sent it into mid-air in a thousand atoms. A little to the west of us another went into the ground, gouging a great hole and sending up a cloud of dust and stones. The suction of one, as it passed, was like a sudden gust of wind. Amid the smoke from forts and ships, and the roar and thunder of shot and shell, we walked to and fro, feeling that our God was round about us.
— George Mackay, From Far Formosa
Mackay said later, in a conversation recorded by the Anglican missionary William Campbell, that the French marksmanship had been very inaccurate and had recklessly endangered the lives of innocent civilians.
Realising that his naval bombardment had failed to achieve its objective and as he had only a small landing force at his disposal, Admiral Lespès sent D'Estaing back to Keelung on the evening of 2 October to request reinforcements of a battalion of marine infantry to enable him to make a landing to the north of the river, seize the forts, then destroy the command post from which the mines could be detonated. The French could then clear the pass by exploding a large powder charge, and the ships could enter the river. Meanwhile, he attempted to neutralise the mines himself. On the evening of 2 October the gunboat Vipère scouted the pass and located the buoys of the mines. On the following night the launches tried to drag the electric wires. They failed, and one of them was almost destroyed when the Chinese exploded one of the mines at a distance.
D'Estaing reached Keelung on the afternoon of 3 October. By then the French had already secured the hills to the west of the town and the Chinese had retreated, but Courbet was reluctant to release one of his three battalions of marine infantry. It was probably the correct decision, though it would later be criticised. Although the Chinese had momentarily fallen back, they might launch a counterattack at any moment and, if they did, the French would need every man to hold the extensive defence perimeter they had just established at Keelung.
Courbet nevertheless did what he could to give Lespès a respectable landing force. He sent him three more ships (Tarn, Châteaurenault and Duguay-Trouin), which arrived off Tamsui on the evening of 5 October. They carried their own landing companies and also the landing company from Bayard, giving Lespès a total of 600 men available for shore operations. Lespès thereupon began making preparations for a landing to assault the defences of Tamsui and clear the mines from the mouth of the Tamsui River.
He organised the 600 sailors available for a landing into a battalion of five companies under the command of capitaine de frégate Martin of La Galissonnière, who had commanded the landing force at Keelung on 5 August with distinction. The ironclads Bayard, La Galissonnière and Triomphante each supplied one company. The cruiser D'Estaing and Châteaurenault provided a fourth company, and Tarn and Duguay-Trouin a fifth.
The Chinese defence was commanded by General Sun Kaihua, who had been responsible for building the New Fort in 1876. He was assisted by General Zhang Gaoyuan and Brigadier-General Liu Chaoyou, Liu Mingchuan's great-nephew. According to Liu Mingchuan's official report of the battle, the Chinese force included the Cho-Sheng Regiment, whose commanders included Gong Zhan'ao (right wing), Li Dingming (centre division) and Fan Huiyi (rear division). Two other regular battalions from different regiments were also present, under the direct command of Zhang Gaoyuan and Liu Chaoyou. A battalion of Formosan hillmen, recently enrolled by Li Tong'en, also fought in a skirmishing role, under the command of Tio Li-xieng. The Chinese force seems to have numbered around 1,000 infantry in total.
General Sun deployed the Cho-Sheng Regiment in the front line. He entrenched one line of infantry in front of Fort Santo Domingo facing northwest, the direction from which a French assault was expected, and placed a second line of infantry in wooded terrain on the right flank, almost at a right angle to the main Chinese trenches, where it could enfilade the French advance before it reached the main defences. According to Liu Mingchuan's report, Gong's division was posted at a spot known as 'the false creek' (Chia-chiang), and Li's division lay in ambush at Yu-ch'e-k'ou. Neither locality can now be identified. Sun commanded the regiment's defence in person.
Behind Fort Santo Domingo, General Zhang and Brigadier-General Liu lay in reserve with two battalions of regulars, each from a different regiment, ready to counterattack when the moment was ripe. Tio Li-xieng's hillmen were posted close to the shore in the hills to the north of the main Chinese positions, enabling them to skirmish against the left flank of the advancing French. These were intelligent dispositions, well-chosen to repulse a frontal attack.
Rough seas on 6 October and 7 October prevented a landing, but on 8 October the sea was finally calm enough for a landing to take place, and Admiral Lespès landed his 600 fusiliers-marins opposite the New Fort early in the morning. Captain Martin of La Galissonnière, the officer originally scheduled to command the attack, was ill, and command of the attack was transferred at the last moment to capitaine de frégate Boulineau of Châteaurenault. The squadron was deployed in line ahead off the harbour entrance to support the attack, facing north. The line was headed by Châteaurenault, followed by d'Estaing, Tarn, Triomphante, Duguay-Trouin and La Galissonnière, with Vipère bringing up the rear.
Many of the town's European residents, excited by the prospect of a battle, formed picnic parties and flocked to vantage points on the nearby hills to obtain a good view of events. They were confident that the French would win, and expected Tamsui to be in French hands by nightfall.
Boulineau deployed his five companies into two lines, with a strong guard out to the left where the danger of a flanking attack by the Chinese was strongest. His first line consisted of the landing companies of La Galissonnière and Triomphante, each of 120 men, under the respective command of lieutenants de vaisseau Fontaine and Dehorter. Dehorter's company held the right of the line. The second line, 200 metres (660 ft) behind the first, consisted of the two mixed companies from the smaller ships, each of 130 men. The company from Tarn and Duguay-Trouin, under the command of enseigne de vaisseau Deman, was on the right, behind Dehorter's company. Bayard's landing company, 100 men strong, was posted on the left flank of the main body. The deployment, which was completed by 10:00 am was protected by naval gunfire from the French flotilla, which swept the ground between the beach and the forts.
At 10 am, Boulineau led his small force forward at a smart pace over the sand dunes. Things immediately began to go wrong. The dunes had hidden the ground beyond from the sight of the French squadron. The French had been expecting to find an open terrain of rice paddies and small clumps of trees. Instead, they discovered that the approaches to the forts were thickly wooded. The battlefield was dotted with small cultivated fields surrounded by tall hedges and spiny plants. The ground was also broken by ditches, and covered with tall bushy trees. This broken terrain provided perfect cover for the Chinese, and made control by the French commanders almost impossible.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Battle of Tamsui”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.