Chapter 5Inadvertent Expansion in Southeast Asia France
In this Indo-Chinese enterprise . . . events have more often shaped our policy than our policy has directed the course of events.
—Jules Ferry, 1884
This chapter examines inadvertent expansion through two examples from the French Empire in Southeast Asia. The first case study focuses on the French Empire’s nonacquisition of the northern Vietnamese region of Tonkin in 1873–74. The second case examines France’s eventual acquisition of that territory in 1882–83. The primary purpose of this chapter is to present the book’s third pair of comparative theory-testing cases, illustrating how variation in geopolitical risk produced the divergent outcomes observed.
The two Tonkin cases provide a unique inferential opportunity for comparison, in that they are strikingly similar in nearly all respects. History, in these two cases, seems to repeat itself in a way it very rarely does. As the historian of the French Empire Raymond Betts puts it, referring to the two key peripheral actors from the Tonkin cases: “One can find, in the annals of French colonial history, no better examples of this sort of individualized behavior than those afforded by François Garnier and Henri Rivière. As if in tandem, these two men performed similar military actions in the same setting, with the same disregard for orders, with the same disastrous personal results and in the same geographic situation—almost exactly a decade apart.”1 What Betts does not add here is that while Garnier fails to have his fait accompli accepted by the French government in Paris in 1874, Rivière succeeds in his venture just ten years later. This chapter traces the processes of these two cases, showing the crucial role played by varying geopolitical risk.
L’Affaire Garnier: France and Tonkin, 1873–74
France refrained from acquiring the northern Vietnamese region of Tonkin (now northern Vietnam) between October 1873 and March 1874. The ultimately failed conquest of Tonkin was independently planned and executed by a young French naval officer, with the support of the governor of the French colony of Cochinchina. This case supports two of the central arguments of the theory of inadvertent expansion. First, that inadvertent expansion is a manifestation of a principal-agent problem, combining a divergence of preferences between leaders in the capital and their agents on the periphery and information asymmetries favoring the agents. In the case at hand, peripheral actors in Saigon and Tonkin were far more open to conquest than leaders in the capital, and the vast distances separating the two, and the lack of telegraphic communications to Tonkin itself, meant that their behavior was very difficult to monitor and control. And second, that expectations of significant geopolitical risk associated with acquisition will discourage leaders in the capital from retaining the territory, leading to a rejection of the fait accompli. In this first case of France in Tonkin, French military weakness in the wake of its catastrophic loss in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), as well as its fear of sparking a crisis with Germany or Britain in Europe, led leaders in the capital to precipitously withdraw from the newly conquered territory.
Historical Background
On the eve of the French invasion in 1873, Tonkin comprised the northern region of the Vietnamese Empire, ruled by the Nguyen Dynasty emperor Tu Duc, out of Hue, in the central region of Annam. Southern Vietnam, known to the French as “Cochinchina,” had been colonized between 1862 and 1867 after the invasion of the French emperor Napoleon III.2 At over 116,000 km2 and containing a few million people, Tonkin bordered the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi to the north, the Thai vassal state of Louangphrabang to the west, and the Gulf of Tonkin to the east.3 With the French annexation of Cambodia in 1863, Annamese leaders in Hue began to feel the French noose tightening around them.4
In 1871, a French arms dealer based in Hankou, China, Jean Dupuis, began transporting trade cargo up and down the Red River through Tonkin with the knowledge (though not the official backing) of the French Ministry of the Navy and Colonies.5 After having completed several successful missions, in June 1873, Dupuis was detained by authorities in Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin, being told that his trade activities were in violation of a Franco-Annamese treaty. Dupuis had an official arms commission from Chinese authorities in Yunnan and a crew of approximately three hundred and was incensed at being detained. Being at an increasingly tense impasse, both Dupuis and local Vietnamese officials reached out to the governor of French Cochinchina to resolve the conflict.6
The governor of Cochinchina at this time was Admiral Marie Jules Dupré, a naval officer and veteran of the Crimean War (1853–56). To help him deal with the Hanoi conflict, Dupré would call upon fellow French naval officer, Captain Marie Joseph François Garnier. Garnier was young (just thirty-four on the eve of the French conquest), ambitious, and a hot-headed advocate of a more aggressive French colonial policy.7 When Garnier received a note from the admiral, in early August 1873, saying “I have to talk to you about important matters, so please come as soon as you can,” he wasted little time.8 Admiral Dupré and Captain Garnier were the key peripheral actors who would aim to drag their superiors in Paris into the acquisition of Tonkin.
Paris and Tonkin
Leaders in Paris faced severe principal-agent problems with respect to their subordinates in the Southeast Asian periphery. First, there were stark information asymmetries in favor of the peripheral agents. While, by this time, telegraph technology was becoming established globally, and there was a telegraph connection between Paris and Saigon, communication with Tonkin itself remained slow, being carried by boat along the Vietnamese coast and up the Red River. The fastest a letter from Saigon could be delivered to Hanoi was eleven days, and, therefore, it would take, at the very least, three weeks to get a response to a message sent from Paris to Hanoi.9 Under these conditions, monitoring—and thereby controlling—the behavior of any potentially wayward agents was incredibly difficult.
Second, there was a sharp divergence of preferences between the leaders in Paris and their agents in Saigon and Tonkin. Dupré had long pushed for a more aggressive colonial policy in the region.10 Since taking up his position as governor in Saigon in 1871, he had been aiming to get Hue to recognize France’s annexation of Cochinchina, and he thought this could be facilitated by a more coercive approach.11 As he wrote to the naval and colonial minister in Paris in December 1872, “The time for talks and reasoning has passed—it was time for “the occupation of Kécho [Hanoi], the capital of Tonkin, and the mouth of the Song Koi [Red River].”12 Dupré followed these letters with similar appeals to Paris in both March and May 1873, arguing that France’s “establishment in Tonkin is a matter of life and death for the future of our domination in Cochinchina.”13 Dupré’s views are a clear manifestation of what I have referred to as the “view from the frontier”—his responsibilities were narrow, the dangers and opportunities were near, and the felt need to act urgently was great.
However, winning over the cabinet in Paris would be no small feat. In the wake of France’s loss in the Franco-Prussian War, and the civil war with the Paris Commune (1871), there was little appetite in the capital for imperial adventures. The naval and colonial minister at the time, Louis Pothuau, responded to Dupré’s appeal of December 1872 by pointing out that the foreign minister “does not think (and I share this view) that the present circumstances allow us to resort to violent means against Emperor Tu Duc.”14 Upon reading another of Dupré’s letters of March 1873, a cabinet minister penciled in the margin: “He absolutely insists on waging war and we will have great difficulty in preventing him from moving forward. However, it is important to do so and in the most formal way.”15 These views were shared by the French prime minister Jacques-Victor Albert, the fourth duke of Broglie. As he plainly put it in a dispatch to Dupré in July 1873, “Under no circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, should you engage France in Tonkin.”16 Most leaders in Paris embodied what I have referred to as the “view from the capital”—their responsibilities were weighty, the dangers of the frontier were distant, and the perceived urgency to act was very low.
Despite this resounding message coming out of Paris, the conflict between the French arms trader Dupuis and the local officials in Hanoi seemed too good an opportunity for Governor Dupré to pass up. A few days after he had summoned Captain Garnier to Saigon, Dupré sent yet another appeal to the new naval and colonial minister, Admiral Charles de Dompierre d’Hornoy on July 28, 1873. Dupré reported that the Tonkin “question has just taken a new and decisive step” and argued that, under the circumstances, he deemed “it necessary to occupy the citadel of Kécho or Hanoi (the capital of Tonkin) and points along the coast.”17 The governor added that he was ready “to assume all the responsibility of the consequences of the expedition,” which he knew would expose him “to disavowal, recall, or the loss of rank.” Dupré added that he was not “asking for approval or reinforcements”; he was simply asking Paris to be allowed to proceed.18
On September 8, 1873, Dupré received a brief telegraphic reply, stating only that he should “do nothing that could expose France to dangerous complications”—not a flat veto, but certainly not a ringing endorsement either.19 However, a few days later, Naval and Colonial Minister d’Hornoy followed up with a longer response to the governor’s plea. He began by pointing out that he was put “on guard” by the “bold” and “adventurous” nature of Dupré’s proposal. He further noted that “at any other time than the sad time we are in, I would have admired and perhaps even pushed for these grand ideas of conquest.”20 However, these were not normal times, d’Hornoy pointed out, and the circumstances “prevent the government from agreeing to any aggressive measures” in Tonkin. “It is necessary to wait,” the minister continued, “prepare for more prosperous times, leave France to regain its strength, [and to] reconstitute itself militarily, fundamentally and politically.”21 Thus, while Governor Dupré would receive authorization to negotiate with Hue in October, any sort of armed conquest was definitively off the table.22
But mere orders would not suffice to deter the governor. Captain Garnier arrived in Saigon in late August 1873, and Dupré and Garnier immediately set about planning the expedition. What was discussed between Dupré and Garnier in these weeks is not entirely known, and the evidence is somewhat contra-dictory.23 On the one hand, the official instructions Dupré gave to Garnier on October 10 were surprisingly cautious in tone.24 Garnier was ordered not only to investigate the conflict between Dupuis and local authorities, to insist on the merchant’s prompt departure, and to negotiate the opening of the Red River to trade but also to “abstain from any intervention.”25 On the other hand, Garnier may have received private verbal instructions, for he later claimed to have complete freedom of action, writing to his brother: “As for instructions, carte blanche! The Admiral is relying on me! Forward then for our beloved France!”26 And Dupré also wrote, just nine days after issuing his instructions for Garnier, that the “occupation of a military position in the heart of Tonkin will very probably be a necessary step toward the conclusion of the treaty, which must be equivalent to the protectorate of France over the entire kingdom.”27 Thus, principal-agent problems between Paris and the French Indochinese frontier helped set the stage for the unauthorized conquest that followed.
Tonkin
Garnier set off from Saigon on the evening of October 11, 1873, with a force of about eighty personnel and two small gunboats. A second, slightly larger, reinforcement force, which would meet them in Hanoi, was set to depart two weeks later. Garnier ominously signaled his intentions when he wrote to a friend en route, on October 20, that things “must be in a very bad state in Tonkin for the Annamese to so kindly welcome the wolf into the sheepfold.”28
He arrived in Hanoi on November 5. It was evident from the beginning that Garnier had little interest in fairly adjudicating the dispute between the arms trader Dupuis and the authorities in Tonkin.29 Garnier quickly established friendly relations with Dupuis and his associates while throwing his weight around in his dealings with Hanoi officials. Within just five days of arrival, Garnier wrote to his brother he had made up his mind: “On November 15, I will attack the citadel with my eighty men: I will arrest the Marshal and send him to Saigon,” and “I will officially declare . . . the country open to trade.”30
By this point, Garnier’s reinforcement force of 88 troops had arrived with two more gunboats from Saigon.31 Combined with Dupuis’s accompanying guard, with whom Garnier was now openly collaborating, their total force was approximately 450 personnel.32 On November 16, Garnier decided to try to force the issue, putting forth a decree that declared the Red River open to trade and referring to himself as the “Great Mandarin Garnier.”33 A few days later, on November 19, Garnier sent Marshal Nguyen an ultimatum: disarm the citadel and comply with his decree or face attack. The marshal had until 6:00 p.m. to decide.34 At 10:00 p.m., having heard nothing from the marshal, Garnier again wrote to his brother: “‘The die is cast’ . . . I attack tomorrow, at dawn.”35
The attack on the Hanoi Citadel—a Vauban-style fortress complex and the center of Annam’s military power in the area—opened at 6:00 a.m. on November 20, 1873. The citadel was shelled by French gunboats from the Red River while Garnier’s forces streamed to a number of the complex’s weakly fortified gates, managing to shell and batter them open with relative ease. The Vietnamese forces were soon in disarray, for while the garrison was numerous, they were abysmally armed—carrying only swords, spears, even stones—and the attack caught them largely by surprise. One by one, each of the citadel’s five fortified gates was taken by Garnier’s forces in rapid succession. By 8:00 a.m., the French tricolor was flying over the complex.36 Two thousand Vietnamese forces were taken prisoner and thousands of others fled. Marshal Nguyen was gravely wounded by the shelling and would later succumb to his injuries. The French had no wounded and only a single soldier killed, likely the result of friendly fire.37 The capture of the heart of Hanoi’s military power had been executed in less than two hours.
The very next day, on November 21, Garnier and his small army began the systematic conquest of the entire Tonkin region. They took Hung Yen and Phu Ly on November 23 and 26, respectively.38 Then Hai Duong and Nam Dinh on December 4 and 11, respectively.39 Finally, Nin Binh was seized on December 17 by a force of fewer than a dozen personnel.40 With each acquisition, Garnier’s forces installed pro-French authorities and a small French garrison and then moved onto the next. On December 13, when the conquest was nearly complete, Garnier wrote to Governor Dupré from Nam Dinh, putting forth his view “that a General Protectorate of the entire Empire of Annam would be the best result to draw from the current situation.”41
On December 18, 1873, however, Garnier was forced to rush back to Hanoi. Chinese river pirates known as the “Black Flags,” who operated and controlled territory in the upper reaches of the Red River, were massing alongside Vietnamese provincial forces at the town of Son Tay, some 40 km upriver of Hanoi.42 Annamese authorities in Hue had simultaneously sent envoys to the Hanoi Citadel to negotiate an end to the conflict with Garnier.43 On December 21, the day peace negotiations were set to commence, approximately six hundred Black Flags and two thousand Vietnamese provincial forces began to move toward the citadel. After a very brief attack by the Black Flags, they withdrew upon contact with French artillery.44 Garnier then decided to give chase, leading a small column of just eighteen personnel up the road in the direction the Black Flags had withdrawn. Just over a kilometer from the citadel, Garnier was ambushed and overwhelmed by Black Flags forces, who hacked and stabbed him to death. In a grisly denouement, Garnier’s head was taken as a trophy by the Black Flags.45 The following day, on December 22, Jean Dupuis, the French arms merchant whose expedition had initiated the whole conflict, went in to view Garnier’s body after it had been recovered and returned to the citadel. “Nothing is quite as horrible as these headless corpses,” Dupuis noted, “Garnier’s clothing is in tatters, his body is covered in wounds made by sabers and spears, he is savagely mutilated. . . . I strongly squeeze his cold right hand for the last time.”46
Paris Reacts
News of Garnier’s initial conquest of the Hanoi Citadel on November 20 did not reach Saigon until the end of that month. Initially, Governor Dupré tried to use the conquest to bend Hue to his will, writing to the court on December 1 that “if you do not hurry to make the treaty, our stay in Tonkin will be extended; we will be forced to complete the occupation to directly administer the country.”47 However, as more news filtered back to the governor, he became increasingly uneasy about what was transpiring in Tonkin. Then, on January 3, 1874, the news of Garnier’s death reached the governor, and he cabled Paris the very next day, reporting “the most painful news. On December 21, Mr. Garnier, who had attacked the citadel of Hanoi, was struck dead.” Dupré tried to distance himself from the operation, referring to the “excess of confidence” and “imprudence” with which Garnier had acted and emphasizing that the situation in Tonkin was “imperfectly known” to him.48 But the ball was now in the Paris cabinet’s court—what was to be done with their newly conquered territory?
The truth was that there were very few incentives to retain Tonkin from Paris’s perspective. While Garnier’s successful conquest had sunk the costs of acquiring Tonkin, there was very little domestic political support for its retention, and news of the death of Garnier did little to ignite concerns over French honor and prestige.49 France had lost the war with Prussia and put down the revolt of the Paris Commune only two-and-a-half years earlier and had just finished paying reparations to its newly unified German neighbor.50 A bitter political contest between republican and monarchical factions would consume much of France’s energy for the first decade of the Third Republic, leaving little room to consider imperial activity abroad.51
However, a more specific reason for Paris’s reticence was the perceived geopolitical risk associated with retaining Tonkin. While some scholars have pointed to French concerns over conflict with China or Vietnam to explain this reticence, the evidence suggests that French concerns lay much closer to home.52 The risk of igniting geopolitical competition with Britain and Germany in this time of vulnerability is what seems to have primarily stayed the hands of French leaders.53 The preeminence of the European threat in French leaders’ minds can be seen in many of the communications within and between both Saigon and Paris in the run-up to the conquest of Tonkin. For instance, in his September 11, 1873, reply to Paris, Governor Dupré assured Naval and Colonial Minister d’Hornoy that he would “not lose sight of all the precautions imposed on us by the present situation in Europe.”54 On September 22, in a letter to a colleague in the navy, the French prime minister Broglie pointed out that “what concerns me in particular with the occupation of the capital of Tonkin and the taking possession of the mouth of the river . . . [is that it] would excite the discontent of foreign powers, notably, England. There is no doubt that the London cabinet . . . would not care to see us become masters of Tonkin.”55 The prime minister similarly wrote to d’Hornoy on November 6 that “prudence advised us not to resort to arms” in Tonkin, since the “strengthening of our influence” would be “against the desires of the other powers.”56 Even Garnier himself seems to have known of this potential source of opposition. In his letter of November 10 to his brother Léon, announcing his plans for conquest, he wrote that he hoped “that soon after, despite the fear we have of England, it will be recognized that I have rendered service to my country!”57
However, the most detailed piece of evidence supporting the idea that France’s concerns were geopolitical and lay in Europe is Naval and Colonial Minister d’Hornoy’s September 12 letter to Dupré, forbidding him from engaging in conquest in Tonkin. In it, d’Hornoy points out to the governor that, in terms of foreign policy, “this is where we are. Not a single ally! Our immediate neighbor, from whom we are no longer separated except by a frontier which no longer offers us any means of defense, is a powerful enemy.”58 d’Hornoy worried aloud that Bismarck was seeking some motive to, again, declare war on France and that France’s relatively rapid recovery alone was making the Iron Chancellor wary. He pointed out that the conquest would be costly in terms of money and personnel. But “the most serious obstacle, in my opinion,” the minister emphasized, the “most dangerous would be the jealousy of England and Germany to see our power extend thus in the East, and I fear that the difficulties that would emerge would be the repercussions felt in Europe.”59 Given their relatively weak position in Europe, it was the reactions of the European great powers that French leaders most feared.
Paris Decides
Given these perceptions of geopolitical risk, and the lack of constraints placed on French leaders by the conquest, the decision for the leaders in Paris was relatively easy. The cabinet quickly ordered the immediate withdrawal from Tonkin and the return of conquered territories to local authorities.60 In an almost-lecturing tone, Naval and Colonial Minister d’Hornoy replied to Dupré’s report on the death of Garnier on January 7, noting that the “sad event you are announcing justifies the thoughts I expressed to you about the mission to Tonkin and whose departure I couldn’t prevent.” The minister ordered Dupré to hasten the evacuation of Tonkin, for, as he put it, “the government demands in the most absolute way that there is no question of a prolonged, let alone a permanent, occupation of any part of Tonkin.”61
This time Dupré did as he was told. He ordered the immediate evacuation of French forces from Tonkin, and, by February 1874, they had been withdrawn.62 On March 15, 1874, France and Annam signed the Treaty of Saigon, settling the conflict in Tonkin.63 Hue’s most important concession was the recognition of French Cochinchina whereas France’s was the recognition of the independence of Annam and its authority over Tonkin. Hue additionally pledged to protect the rights of Catholics; to open ports in Hue, Hai Phong, and Qui Nhon for commerce; to open the Red River for trade; and to not allow any other power, including China, to intervene in its territory. But none of these would be adhered to in practice.64 Ultimately, little changed as a result of the French intervention in Tonkin. However, Garnier’s unauthorized conquest and the resulting 1874 treaty would itself set the stage for yet another French naval officer to follow in his footsteps just a few years later.
L’Affaire Rivière: France in Tonkin, 1882–83
France acquired the northern Vietnamese region of Tonkin between April 1882 and August 1883. The conquest of this region was independently carried out by a French naval officer, exceeding the limits of his orders and defying his superiors in Paris and French-held Saigon. The theory of inadvertent expansion makes three key arguments that are supported by this case. First, that unauthorized peripheral expansion is the result of a principal-agent problem, combining diverse preferences between capital and frontier and information asymmetries favoring the latter. In the case of France in Tonkin in 1882–83, a lack of telegraphic communication with Tonkin itself hampered control over actors operating there, and leaders in Paris were far less aggressive than their peripheral agents would ultimately prove to be. Second, that the acquisition of territory often places constraints on leaders that make it difficult to simply withdraw and return the territory to local governing authorities. In the case at hand, the territorial acquisitions ignited concerns of French national honor and prestige that made backing down seem unthinkable to many, if not most, in the capital. Third, that a lack of geopolitical risk associated with acquisition will encourage leaders in the capital to accept the fait accompli, resulting in territorial expansion. In this Tonkin case, while there were no rival great power interests at stake, there was the risk of conflict with a regional power, China, which had a tributary relationship with Tonkin. However, French officials from Tonkin to Paris did not see it that way, consistently ignoring and downplaying the risks of impinging upon China’s interests, and it is their estimations, perceptions, and risk tolerances that guided their behavior. French leaders would be proven wrong in this regard, as the French conquest would ultimately spark the Sino-French War in December 1883. But not before leaders in Paris authorized the acquisition of Tonkin, which was successfully carried out in August of that year.
Historical Background
With France’s withdrawal from Tonkin in February 1874, French expansion in the region was put on hold. The domestic political battle between monarchists and republicans raged on, and the economic effects of France’s war indemnity to Germany, though by this point fully paid off, continued to be felt.65 Furthermore, in their relatively weakened state, French leaders remained wary of antagonizing the other great powers of Europe.66 Under these conditions, the state of play in Vietnam returned to much as it was before the abortive French conquest of 1873. French missionaries, traders, and consuls were harassed and hindered in their duties.67 Hue continued its subordinate relationship with the Qing Empire, sending tribute missions and requesting their assistance in putting down a domestic rebellion.68 And the Black Flags continued to operate in the upper reaches of the Red River, collecting customs and hindering the free passage of French exploration and trade.69 However, despite all of these challenges, France took little action. As the French foreign minister Louis Decazes said of Tonkin, in September 1877, “We have renounced openly establishing a protectorate. . . . [We are] not in a position to undertake aggrandizement.”70 It was almost as if Garnier’s intervention had never happened, and the treaty of 1874 had never been signed.
The new French governor in Cochinchina was Charles-Marie Le Myre de Vilers, the first civilian to hold that position. The new commander of Saigon’s naval station was Henri Laurent Rivière. Despite being a veteran of the Crimean War, the Mexican Expedition (1861–67), and the Franco-Prussian War, Rivière had a rather undistinguished naval career, which, at age fifty-four, he seemed unlikely to improve on.71 Personally, Rivière had little interest in colonialism or empire and was instead an esteemed writer of novels and plays who frequented Paris’s most exclusive salons.72 Henri Rivière was the key actor on France’s Southeast Asian frontier who would drag his superiors into the conquest of Tonkin.
The key leaders in Paris who were responsible for French imperial policy were the prime minister, the foreign minister, and the naval and colonial minister. There was a great deal of turmoil in French domestic politics in these years, and, over the course of the Tonkin expedition, the French prime ministership was held by five individuals (Léon Gambetta, Charles de Freycinet, Charles Duclerc, Armand Fallières, and Jules Ferry), the position of foreign minister was occupied by six (Gambetta, Freycinet, Duclerc, Fallières, Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour, and Ferry), and the naval and colonial ministry changed hands four times (Bernard Jauréguiberry, François de Mahy, Charles Brun, and Alexandre Peyron). While some had much greater influence on the process than others, the individuals in these positions were the leaders in the capital who Henri Rivière would drag unwittingly into conquering Tonkin.
Paris and Tonkin
Leaders in Paris would face significant principal-agent problems in dealing with Rivière and other agents on the ground in Tonkin. First, there were important information asymmetries favoring their peripheral agents. While, as noted earlier, there was a telegraph connection between Paris and Saigon, Tonkin itself still lacked a telegraph station, with communications from Saigon continuing to be carried upriver by boat. The fastest a message from Saigon could be delivered to Hanoi in these years was approximately six days, and, therefore, it would take, at the very least, twelve days to get a response to a message sent from Paris to Hanoi.73 These communication delays made monitoring—and thereby potentially controlling—the behavior of peripheral agents like Henri Rivière incredibly difficult for leaders in Paris.
Second, there was a divergence of preferences between many leaders in the capital and their agents in Saigon and Tonkin. While there were advocates in Paris of a more aggressive approach to Tonkin—most notably, Naval and Colonial Minister Jean Bernard Jauréguiberry—the general posture of most leaders in the capital was one of aversion to intervention.74 And while there was one French prime minister that hoped, and even planned, to possibly acquire Tonkin by force—Charles de Freycinet—his cabinet did not last long enough to put its plans into action.75 In general, leaders in Paris wanted to avoid an entangling engagement in Tonkin, embodying the “view from the capital.”
Those on the periphery, by contrast, often took the “view from the frontier” and were typically more aggressive in their orientation. The Cochinchina governor Le Myre de Vilers, for instance, was a proponent of an aggressive regional posture. In the summer of 1881, he personally advocated for a small armed expedition to the region, to clear the Red River of the Black Flags and to strengthen the existing French garrisons there. The governor’s plan was agreed to by the cabinet and approved by the Chamber of Deputies in July 1881, yet the government in Paris made the limitations on this mission unmistakably clear. In the cabinet’s instructions for Le Myre de Vilers in September, he was told to “raise the prestige of French authority” in the region and to “protect the interests and rights of Europeans in these parts,” but, “above all, [to] refrain from embarking on adventures of military conquest.” This was to be, in their words, “a material demonstration which in no way has the character of a military operation.”76
By late December, Governor Le Myre de Vilers saw the opportune moment approaching.77 On January 16, 1882, he notified Paris that, while he planned to double the garrison in Hanoi, he was quick to emphasize that there “will be no military operation; I will only take preventive measures.”78 The following day, the governor issued his orders for Commander Rivière, instructing him to double the Hanoi garrison, from one hundred to two hundred personnel, and to clear the Red River of the Black Flags.79 And the very same constraints that Paris had placed upon Le Myre de Vilers were, in turn, placed upon Rivière. As the governor put it:
You know the views of the government of the Republic. It does not want at any cost to wage, four thousand leagues from France, a war of conquest that would drag the country into serious complications. It is POLITICALLY, PEACEFULLY, ADMINISTRATIVELY that we must extend and strengthen our influence in Tonkin and Annam . . . the measures we take today are essentially preventive. So, you will use force only in case of absolute necessity and I am counting on your caution to avoid this eventuality.80
To hammer the point home, Le Myre de Vilers closed his orders by pointing out to Commander Rivière that the government’s wishes could “be summed up in this sentence: Avoid gunfire; it would serve no other purpose than to embarrass us.”81 The governor seems to have had confidence that his subordinate had gotten the message. In a note to the commerce and colonial minister in Paris the following day, he pointed out that Rivière had promised to strictly comply with his instructions and that they could “count on his prudence and moderation.”82
However, there were obvious limits to Le Myre de Vilers’s ability to control Rivière once he had left Saigon, and the governor was sensitive to this. As he wrote in his January 17 orders for Rivière: “I don’t think I can give you more detailed instructions . . . most likely, things will happen and necessities will arise that I cannot foresee; but I count on your patriotism and your wisdom not to lead the government of the Republic in a way that it does not want to follow.”83 And while Rivière was not known to have an aggressive streak, things often appeared different once one was on the frontier. And without telegraphic communications as a means of monitoring him, there was no telling what might unfold.
Before Rivière had a chance to depart, the ruling ministry of Léon Gambetta fell on January 30, delaying the expedition’s departure by a few weeks.84 On March 4, the returning naval and colonial minister Admiral Jauréguiberry approved Rivière’s instructions, telling Le Myre de Vilers that by ordering the commander “not to use force except in the case of absolute necessity, you have followed exactly the intentions of my Department.”85 On March 16, the returning prime minister Charles Freycinet also approved of the instructions, similarly reiterating that the mission “cannot include . . . the occupation of any neighboring territory.”86 With his orders approved in Paris, Rivière was ready to depart.
Tonkin
Henri Rivière left Saigon for Hanoi with a force of 233 personnel aboard two naval vessels on March 26, 1882.87 After a brief stop at Hai Phong, on the Tonkin coast, the expedition made its way up Tonkin’s river system, arriving at Hanoi in the late afternoon of April 2.88 For the commander’s first few days in Hanoi, everything seemed to be going relatively smoothly. He met with local officials, exchanged gifts, was transparent about his plans and intentions, and, in contrast with François Garnier a decade earlier, was sensitive to, and accommodating of, their concerns regarding the expedition’s sudden appearance.89 However, during the second week of their stay, concerns among the Tonkinese began to creep in. Knowing from experience that the sudden appearance of a French expedition often spelled trouble, local Tonkin officials continued to reinforce their forces at the Hanoi Citadel, which Rivière watched with increasing alarm.90 As the commander wrote to Governor Le Myre de Vilers on April 18, “The citadel continues to fill with soldiers and to strengthen itself” and that this “state of affairs can only continue at the expense of our influence” in the region.91 When Rivière received a force of 250 reinforcements from Saigon on April 24, bringing his total to just shy of 600, he decided that it was time to take action.
At 5:00 a.m. on April 25, Commander Rivière—like Garnier before him—sent the governor of Hanoi an ultimatum.92 He gave the governor until 8:00 a.m. to hand over the citadel or face attack.93 At 7:30 a.m., the governor asked for a twenty-four-hour delay, but Rivière simply ignored it, taking the request as a sign of hostility.94 At 8:15 a.m., Rivière’s gunboats on the Red River initiated a two-and-a-half-hour preparatory bombardment on the citadel’s north face.95 Meanwhile, the assault force divided into two columns and got in position to move on the fortress. When the guns went silent at 10:45 a.m., one force feigned an attack on the citadel’s east gate, while the main assault force attacked where the barrage had taken place, the north gate. By 11:15 a.m., both forces were inside the citadel, finding that most of its defenders had fled. Before noon, the citadel was secured, and the French tricolor was flying at its highest point. The conquest cost the French just four wounded, while at least forty Annamese defenders were killed, and an unknown but significant number of Annam’s soldiers were wounded. The citadel’s governor perished as well, having hung himself during the attack.96
Rivière wrote to Le Myre de Vilers that very day, informing him of the conquest. However, without a telegraph connection in Hanoi, it would take nearly a week for his letter to arrive on the governor’s desk. “I had to take the Hanoi citadel,” Rivière wrote, “It couldn’t go on.” He promised his superior that the new acquisition would be “all profit for us and no pain” and begged the governor “to believe that I had to act as I did. The citadel openly fortified near us; it was a danger which we had to cut short.”97 On April 27, Commander Rivière sent a similar letter of notification to Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry in Paris, pointing out that, given the “preparations of defense” he observed at the citadel, he simply “had to prepare to act.”98 The day after the conquest of the citadel, Commander Rivière issued a proclamation to the people of Hanoi, claiming that his intention was not to take over the country and blaming the conquest on the “reprehensible conduct” of the citadel’s governor.99 In an attempt to signal his good faith, the commander lowered the French tricolor on April 27 and replaced it with the Annamese flag. In the days that followed, he also returned much of the citadel to local authorities, only retaining the Royal Pavilion, the military heart of the fortress.100 Even Rivière himself was stunned by the sudden turn of events and his place in them. “It is quite astonishing,” he wrote to a friend on May 2, “I have thus become a man of war.”101
Saigon and Paris React
It took until May 1 for news of the citadel’s seizure to reach Saigon. It clearly came as a surprise to Governor Le Myre de Vilers, for just days earlier he had been assuring Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry that Commander Rivière was “too careful and too sensible a man to engage lightly on a path contrary to the spirit of your instructions.”102 The governor was clearly irritated with his subordinate and even considered recalling him.103 In his reply to Rivière on May 2, the governor pointedly asked, “Was this measure essential?” noting that “fortresses that are taken without firing a shot are rarely to be feared.” However, from Le Myre de Vilers’s perspective, what was done was done, and he was willing to accept his share of the responsibility, though he reiterated his orders “not to use force against the regular authorities except when absolutely necessary.”104 In a series of cables and letters sent back to Paris, Governor Le Myre de Vilers stood behind Rivière, pointing to the “threatening attitude” of the Hanoi authorities, noting that there was “nothing to fear” in response, and assuring his metropolitan bosses that they were “not on a war footing.”105 In the meantime, the governor continued to urge Rivière to expand no further and to await instructions from Paris.106
For their part, leaders in Paris took the news in relative stride. On June 20, Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry gave his approval for the steps taken thus far, though he agreed that there was a “need to make our success effective by limiting our occupation.”107 France, in these months, was swept up in a crisis over Egypt that would precipitate a British invasion, in July 1882, and had little time or attention to devote to Southeast Asia.108 In fact, the decision in Paris, for the time being, was to not make a decision. Rivière was to maintain his position, expand no further, and do nothing that would cause complications for France in the region. In Le Myre de Vilers’s view, they could reopen diplomatic negotiations with Hue over the future of Tonkin from this new position of relative strength, possibly gaining a protectorate once they had come to an agreement.109 As he saw it, time was on their side.110 For the time being, he wrote to Rivière on July 27, they had to “be patient” and “await the auspicious hour.”111 Rivière, for his part, was unsure what the future held but seemed to have few regrets. As he wrote to a friend that same month, “I do not know whether it will be approved or not; but it does not matter; I did what I had to.”112
Back in Tonkin
After many months of inactivity, Rivière received a reinforcement force of seven hundred that had been organized by Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry in late February 1883.113 Their timing was impeccable, as the commander would soon receive intelligence from a reliable source that a Chinese company was in the process of gaining mining concessions near the port of Hon Gai on the Tonkin coast; alarmingly, with the apparent backing of mining interests in the United Kingdom. Rivière was also disturbed by a proposal recently put forward by the French minister to China, Frédéric Bourée, to cede the port area to China in a broader division of spheres of influence in Tonkin.114 Thus, on March 12, Rivière decided once again to take matters into his own hands, ordering the occupation of the port, which was carried out by one of his field commanders two days later.
Rivière then set his sights on the citadel of Nam Dinh, about 100 km downriver from Hanoi. According to Rivière, the citadel’s governor and his army were displaying “the most hostile attitude” toward the French and were apparently preparing to create barriers along their stretch of the Red River, potentially cutting off French access to the sea.115 This posed, according to Rivière, an intolerable risk. On March 19, he wrote to Le Myre de Vilers’s replacement as governor of Cochinchina, Charles Thomson, announcing that the “situation is serious enough in Nam-Dinh for me to decide to attack the Citadel.”116
On March 26, Rivière arrived at Nam Dinh at the head of a force of eight hundred and sent the governor an ultimatum: hand over the citadel or be removed by force. When no surrender was forthcoming, the French forces initiated their attack at 7:00 a.m. the following morning. While the Annamese defenders put up a spirited resistance, they were, ultimately, no match for French firepower and tactics, and, by nightfall, the French tricolor was flying over the citadel. The attack cost the French just one dead and two wounded, while they inflicted as many as one thousand casualties on their Annamese opponents.117 The following day, on March 27, Rivière wrote to Governor Thomson, proudly informing him that he had taken the Nam Dinh citadel and that, between Hanoi and Nam Dinh, France was now in control of the Red River Delta.118 It is clear that Rivière had broader motivations for these conquests, beyond the case-specific factors he cited for each. Reflecting on events a few weeks later, Rivière wrote to a friend, “I decided myself to do what [the Government] couldn’t make up their minds to make me do.” With these acquisitions, he continued, the government “will be forced to move on the Tonkin question. . . . I do not yet know if they will be happy in France with what I did. [But] I have done what had to be done.”119 Rivière was clearly frustrated by his government’s inaction and was aiming to force its hand.
While Rivière was carrying out the conquest of Nam Dinh, Black Flags and Vietnamese armed forces carried out a large-scale counterattack on the Hanoi Citadel.120 They were repelled by the French garrison defending the fortress, but news of the attack alarmed Rivière, leading him to rush back upriver to Hanoi where he arrived on April 2.121 In the weeks that followed, Commander Rivière became increasingly concerned about reports of large concentrations of Black Flags and Vietnamese troops gathered in the villages of Bac Ninh and Son Tay, each within 35 km of Hanoi. Contributing to the tension, a series of provocative placards were posted at the gates of the Hanoi Citadel, purportedly by the Black Flags, taunting and threatening the French occupiers.122 In what, it turned out, would be his final letter to Governor Thomson, on May 16, Rivière pointed out that the “situation is not without a certain gravity” and argued that it was “necessary[,] to get out of the difficulties we are in, to capture Bac-Ninh and Son-Tay.”123
At 4:00 a.m. on May 19, 1883, Rivière and a force of approximately five hundred headed out from Hanoi toward Son Tay.124 Little did they know but a staff member of a local Hanoi hostel where some of the French soldiers were staying had caught wind of the planned attack and informed the Black Flags in advance.125 Just 4 km from Hanoi, the French force was ambushed and surrounded on three sides by a Black Flags army, forcing them into a disorganized fighting retreat.126 In the course of the retreat, the commander was shot in the shoulder, where he collapsed—not far from where François Garnier himself was killed nearly ten years earlier. He was then dragged off alive by the Black Flags to a military base nearby, where he soon thereafter perished. And, like Garnier before him, Rivière too had his head removed after his death.127 (See figure 5.1.)
Back in Paris
While Rivière had been engaging in the conquests of Hon Gai and Bac Ninh, political winds were shifting back in the capital. After the three-week tenure of a brief caretaker ministry in early February 1883, Jules Ferry formed his second ministry on February 22, approximately three months before Rivière was killed in Tonkin. He named Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour as his foreign minister and Charles Brun as his naval and colonial minister. From the second day of his appointment, Challemel-Lacour got to work on the Tonkin crisis, finding it both more serious and more urgent than he had supposed from the outside.128 Challemel-Lacour conferred with Naval and Colonial Minister Brun and Prime Minister Ferry, and they decided to hold a cabinet meeting on March 5 to decide the fate of the Tonkin question.129
Figure 5.1. Henri Rivière Tonkin campaign, April 1882–May 1883. Created by Beehive Mapping.
Effecting a prompt withdrawal would have been no small feat. It turned out that Rivière’s actions had placed constraints on French leaders that made pulling out of Tonkin and relinquishing the captured territory exceedingly difficult. For one, Rivière had independently conquered much of the Tonkin Delta and, in doing so, had substantially sunk the costs of acquiring this territory. However, a second and more important reason it would have been difficult to retrench was the engagement of French national honor and prestige.130 French leaders both in Saigon and in Paris clearly saw France’s honor as being at stake once Tonkin had been partially acquired. For instance, on June 11, 1882, just six weeks after Rivière’s seizure of the Hanoi Citadel, Governor Le Myre de Vilers wrote in a letter to Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry that, if France did not take further action in the region, “we will lose our influence, because our abstention will be considered an act of weakness and cowardice.”131 In another report from the governor, sent a week later, Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry penciled on the margin: “We cannot go back now!”132 The naval and colonial minister had made similar arguments when he requested additional troops to establish a protectorate in the fall and winter of 1882. In his letter of October 15 to Prime Minister Duclerc, he wrote that France in Tonkin was in “a state of affairs which, if continued, could compromise our honor.” He claimed it was “too late to abandon a country where our flag has been flying for eight years” and added that “what was possible without dishonor to the Republic at the beginning of 1880 is no longer [possible].”133 The interim naval and colonial minister François de Mahy agreed, writing in February 1883 to incoming Prime Minister Jules Ferry that the abandonment of Tonkin “may have, for our influence in the Far East . . . consequences such as I cannot call enough to your utmost attention.”134 In short, concerns about French national honor and prestige made backing down in Tonkin appear very difficult to leaders in Paris.135
Furthermore, the geopolitical risk associated with retaining the territories, and even pushing further into Tonkin, appeared to be manageable to most leaders in Paris. There were few great power interests at stake in Tonkin, and the threat of China—which had tributary interests in Tonkin—forcibly resisting a French advance was consistently downplayed or ignored.136 In the view of many French leaders, China had acquiesced to the annexations of Cochinchina in the 1860s without protest and similarly accepted the 1874 treaty with Hue, which stated that it was to be “independent of all foreign powers,” including China.137 As a contemporary chronicler of events in Tonkin put it, to most French leaders, “China was considered une qualité négligeable” (a negligible quality).138
These views were present in the years and months preceding Rivière’s conquest of Hanoi as well. For instance, in July 1880, when Prime Minister Freycinet agreed to the plan to occupy Tonkin just before his ministry fell, he wrote to the naval and colonial minister that there “would be no complications to fear on the side of China, which perhaps would even gladly see that it is relieved of the intermittent policing that it is currently conducting” on the Red River.139 The Cochinchina governor Le Myre de Vilers similarly argued in a letter to Paris in December 1881 that, if they occupied Tonkin, the “Chinese government will abstain; we won’t provide it with a basis for intervention because we will make no declaration of war.”140 This argument was passed on almost verbatim from Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry to Prime Minister Freycinet during his second ministry in March 1882.141
This downplaying of the China threat persisted in the aftermath of Rivière’s April 1882 conquest of the Hanoi Citadel.142 For instance, in a letter from Governor Le Myre de Vilers to Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry on May 22, the governor wrote, referring to the possibility of Hue seeking the aid of Beijing, that it “is possible even probable; but it is not dangerous, for the moment at least.”143 In another letter on July 19, reporting on Chinese troop increases on the Tonkin border, Le Myre de Vilers wrote, “I don’t think that . . . the Chinese demonstration is of serious importance,”144 and this message was passed on to Prime Minister Duclerc in September.145 In response, the prime minister wrote on September 26 that France had “every reason to hope that our good relations with China will not be seriously disturbed by our expedition on the Song-koi [Red River]” and added that the reported troop increase on the border was likely “a measure taken by the Government of Beijing to inspire the confidence in the Court of Hué, and to maintain in it the illusion of an intervention.”146
This is not to say that there were no concerns in the French government. Frédéric Bourée, the French minister to China, sent a series of letters and cables to Paris through the fall and winter of 1882, reporting on Chinese troop increases and infiltration into Tonkin.147 At one point, he even claimed he saw war as essentially “inevitable.”148 However, even Bourée had played a part in minimizing the China threat, claiming in an October 1882 letter to the prime minister that he was “almost certain that the Chinese Government will not care to expose its soldiers to compete with ours and that the imperial forces will retreat everywhere at our approach.”149 This downplaying of the geopolitical risk posed by China led to some wildly optimistic views among leaders in Paris. For instance, Naval and Colonial Minister Jauréguiberry wrote to Prime Minister Duclerc in October 1882 that the Chinese “would have nothing to lose, but everything to gain, on the contrary, from recognizing our Protectorate.”150 In sum, while there were pockets and periods of concern, the general trend among government officials in Paris and Saigon was to perceive relatively little geopolitical risk posed by China’s interests in Tonkin.
Paris Decides
The cabinet of Prime Minister Jules Ferry decided in their March 5 meeting that France would establish a full protectorate over Tonkin, by military force if necessary. Minister Bourée in Beijing was recalled and Foreign Minister Challemel-Lacour was tasked with explaining the cabinet’s decision to the French legislature, which he did on March 13. In his remarks, the foreign minister leaned heavily on themes of French national honor, claiming that “France had obligations that it could not shirk” and that prolonging the situation in the region would only cause “a deep attack on our authority in Annam, in Tonkin, and in Cochinchina.” He further argued that a “retreat” from Tonkin would result in “the certain ruin of our influence, and the loss of our prestige throughout the Orient.”151 And the government’s optimism with respect to the China threat continued apace. On March 14, Challemel-Lacour wrote to the recently recalled Minister Bourée (who would not leave Beijing until his replacement arrived a few months later) that the establishment of a French protectorate in Tonkin “can only be profitable to China itself, by ensuring order on its borders.”152
The decision on Tonkin having been made, all that was left for the Ferry cabinet was to put forward a specific plan and to request the necessary funds from the Chamber of Deputies, which it did on April 26. Along with the request, Foreign Minister Challemel-Lacour included an explanatory statement for French legislators, where the government, again, heavily emphasized the importance of protecting French honor and prestige. France’s inaction, he noted, “could be considered as marks of indecision or weakness and have not been without damaging the reputation of France in Asia.” “A new abandonment of Tonkin,” the foreign minister continued, “would be considered an abdication in these regions of the Far East, where our flag appears with honor among those of the main trading powers.” Thus, Challemel-Lacour noted in closing, the government’s policy was to “establish ourselves firmly in Tonkin, and to affirm in the eyes of all our resolution to stay there.”153
The Chamber of Deputies voted on a request of 5.5 million francs to cover three thousand French soldiers, one thousand locals, and nine additional gun boats for Tonkin on May 15, 1883. The measure passed by the wide margin of 351–48.154 The bill was amended in the days that followed and was returned to the chamber for a second vote on May 26—the very day that news of Rivière’s killing and beheading at the hands of the Black Flags had reached Paris.155 This time it passed unanimously, with Naval and Colonial Minister Brun writing to the Cochinchina governor Thomson that the legislature had “voted unanimously on credit for Tonkin. France will avenge its glorious children!”156
The French minister Bourée finally left Beijing in mid-May 1883. This put an end to any consistent warnings of the risks of war with China for good. In his instructions to Bourée’s successor, Foreign Minister Challemel-Lacour casually noted that recent events had “cooled our relations with China” and asked the new minister to “facilitate a rapprochement between our two countries.”157 In a separate set of instructions, the foreign minister pointed out that China had “no valid motive to take umbrage with a project which it will naturally be called upon to take advantage [of]” and argued that China’s “military preparations . . . should only be considered as attempts at intimidation.”158 The new minister in Beijing, for his part, took an entirely more laid back approach than his predecessor had. He reported on June 18 that China’s military preparations “have been exaggerated,” and he argued a few days later that a “powerful maritime diversion made on the coasts of the Celestial Empire would suffice” to keep it from intervening.159 In early July, the French minister similarly argued in a letter to Foreign Minister Challemel-Lacour that the Chinese “will be careful not to declare war, because peace is too advantageous to them.” And, even if it came to conflict, he continued, “China’s forces on land and sea are singularly overrated . . . poorly armed, most of them undisciplined, they would certainly not hold in front of six battalions supported by a strong artillery.”160 Prime Minister Ferry had a similar impression. In a June 21 conversation with the Chinese minister in Paris, Ferry was told that “China has no thoughts of aggression; it knows that France is strong enough to do what it wants in the Kingdom of Annam” and that China “will not consider [French] actions in Tonkin as a cause of war or rupture.”161 This conversation, along with the messages he was getting from other members of his ministry, gave Prime Minister Ferry the impression that France’s “firm attitude and known resolve” was working. He saw China as backing down.162
Conquest and War
The initial French force of three thousand, along with its native recruits, reached the Tonkin shores in early July 1883.163 With the force having taken a few coastal territories and worked its way through the Tonkin Delta, the determination was made in Paris in late July to bring the invasion to the heart of Annamese power, in Hue.164 On August 16, French naval forces assembled in the harbor of Danang and two days later initiated a bombardment of the Thuan-An fortresses, which protected the imperial palace at the entrance to the Hue River.165 On August 20, an armistice was agreed to and, on August 25 1883, France and Annam signed the Treaty of Hue, establishing a French protectorate over both Annam and Tonkin.166 The entirety of what is now Vietnam was in French hands, where it would remain until after France’s catastrophic loss at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
France’s conquest of Tonkin and Annam would, indeed, spark the war with China that French leaders had seen as so unlikely. Beijing’s refusal to withdraw its forces from northern Tonkin, as well as its continued support for the Black Flags, led French forces to attack the Black Flags’ stronghold at Son Tay in December 1883, sparking the Sino-French War. At its peak, France had some 35,000 forces engaged in the war, which would last until June 1885, when China recognized France’s protectorate over Tonkin and Annam with the Treaty of Tientsin.167 Between the French conquest of Tonkin and Annam and the Sino-French War that followed, France lost 4,222 killed and wounded in combat as well as an additional 5,223 French and colonial soldiers lost to disease. Chinese and Vietnamese deaths are estimated to have exceeded 10,000.168
This chapter has presented comparative case studies of failed and successful inadvertent expansion by France in Tonkin in 1873–74 and 1882–83. Both cases strongly support the theory of inadvertent expansion presented in chapter 1. First, both cases show how inadvertent expansion is a manifestation of a principal-agent problem—that divergent preferences and information asymmetries favoring the periphery enabled agents to engage in unauthorized conquests. Second, the 1882–83 case supports the argument that even a partial conquest of territory can place constraints—in this case, concerns over French national honor and prestige—on leaders that make withdrawal exceedingly difficult. And third, in both cases, the decision in the capital of whether to accept or reject the fait accompli was crucially determined by the geopolitical risk associated with doing so. In the 1873–74 case, French leaders were so concerned with how Britain and Germany would react to the acquisition of Tonkin that, given their weak position in Europe, they opted for an expeditious withdrawal. In contrast, in the 1882–83 case, there were no other great power interests at stake, and French leaders consistently downplayed the risk of China intervening, leading them to accept the fait accompli and establish a protectorate over Tonkin and Annam. It turned out, in this case, that they were wrong—China would indeed fight over Tonkin and the war was ultimately quite costly for France. But the expectations, perceptions, and risk tolerances that informed the decision to accept the fait accompli are in line with the theory’s expectations.
Much of the power of this chapter’s evidence is in the striking similarity between the two cases. Each one presents the same great power, in the same region, dealing with the very same territory, and both involve an insubordinate French naval officer, who engaged in the same process of acquisition, and in which the officer was killed by the same enemy in largely the same manner on almost the very same spot, separated by fewer than ten years. While there is no such thing as a perfect comparative case—and, in reality, all else is never held equal—the similarities across these two cases should give us confidence that the important variation observed in perceived geopolitical risk played an important role in the variation observed in the outcomes: failed inadvertent expansion in 1874 and successful inadvertent expansion in 1883.