Keelung Campaign - Failed French Landing at Keelung, August 1884

Failed French Landing At Keelung, August 1884

French interest in Keelung dated from February 1884, when Admiral Sébastien Lespès, the commander of France's Far East naval division, had recommended its occupation in the event of a war between France and China on the grounds that it could be easily seized and easily held. When this recommendation was made, Keelung was poorly defended. As tension between France and China grew in July 1884 the garrison of Keelung was substantially increased and the town's defences improved, and in August 1884 it was no longer the easy target it had been six months earlier. Its inner harbour was defended by three shore batteries: the recently completed Ta-sha-wan Battery (大沙灣砲台), boasted by the Chinese to be impregnable; the Ehr-sha-wan battery (二沙灣砲台) on the eastern side of the harbour; and a third battery on the seaward slope of Mount Clement (Huo-hao-shan, 火號山), a prominent hill to the west of the town. By the end of July 1884 there were 5,000 Chinese soldiers stationed in northern Formosa, deployed around the ports of Keelung and Tamsui. The appointment of Liu Ming-ch'uan (劉銘傳) as imperial commissioner for Formosa in July 1884 also underscored the determination of the Ch'ing government to defend Formosa. Liu was a veteran military commander, who had distinguished himself in the Taiping Rebellion.

Liu Ming-ch'uan was aware that Keelung and the nearby port of Tamsui (淡水) were likely targets for a French attack, and made sensible defensive dispositions to oppose a landing at both towns. He stationed 2,500 Chinese troops around Keelung, the likeliest target, under the command of the generals Sun K'ai-hua (孫開華) and Su Te-sheng (蘇得勝), while he himself remained with the other half of his army at Tai-pak-fu (台北府, modern Taipei, 台北), occupying a central position that would allow him to move quickly either to Tamsui or to Keelung once the French threat developed.

Admiral Courbet, then aboard the French cruiser Volta in the Min River, received the French government's order to attack Keelung on the evening of 2 August. He entrusted this mission to Admiral Lespès, his second-in-command, who left the Min River the following morning aboard the gunboat Lutin to meet the ironclads Bayard and La Galissonnière off the island of Matsu. At Matsu Lespès transferred Bayard's landing company to his flagship La Galissonnière, and on the night of 3 August crossed the Formosa Strait with La Galissonnière and Lutin. The two French ships arrived off Keelung on the morning of 4 August, where the cruiser Villars was already waiting for them.

On the morning of 5 August, after the Chinese rejected a French ultimatum to hand over their coastal defences, La Galissonnière, Villars and Lutin engaged and disabled Keelung's three coastal batteries. Admiral Lespès put a landing force ashore in the afternoon to occupy Keelung and the nearby coal mines at Pei-tao (Pa-tou, 八斗), but the arrival of a large body of Chinese troops led by Liu Ming-ch'uan forced the French to make a fighting withdrawal and re-embark on 6 August. French casualties in this unsuccessful operation were 2 dead and 11 wounded. The Chinese suffered markedly heavier casualties.