Keelung Campaign - French Defeat at Tamsui, 8 October 1884

French Defeat At Tamsui, 8 October 1884

Meanwhile, after an ineffective naval bombardment on 2 October, Admiral Lespès attacked the Chinese defences at Tamsui with 600 sailors from the French squadron’s landing companies on 8 October. Tamsui had a large foreign population at this period, and many of the town's European residents formed picnic parties and flocked to vantage points on the nearby hills to watch the unfolding battle.

The French attack soon began to falter. The French fusiliers-marins were not trained to fight as line infantry, and were attacking over broken ground. Capitaine de frégate Boulineau of Château-Renaud, who had replaced the officer originally scheduled to command the attack at the last moment, lost control of his men in the thick undergrowth in front of the Chinese forts. The French line gradually lost its cohesion and ammunition began to run short. The Chinese forces at Tamsui, numbering around 1,000 men, were under the command of the generals Sun K'ai-hua and Chang Kao-yuan (章高元). Seeing the French in confusion, Sun K'ai-hua advanced with his own forces and outflanked the French on both wings. The French hastily withdrew to the shore and re-embarked under cover of the squadron's guns. French casualties at Tamsui were 17 dead and 49 wounded. Chinese casualties, according to European employees of the Tamsui customs, were 80 dead and around 200 wounded.

The repulse at Tamsui was one of the rare French defeats in the Sino-French War, and had immediate political significance. China's war party had been placed on the defensive after the loss of China's Fukien fleet in the Battle of Foochow on 23 August 1884, but the unexpected Chinese victory at Tamsui six weeks later bolstered the position of the hardliners in the Ch'ing court. The court thereupon decided to continue the war against France until the French withdrew their demand for the payment of an indemnity for the Bac Le ambush, rejecting an American offer of mediation made shortly after the battle. This decision ensured that the Sino-French War would continue for several more months, with increasing losses and expenditure on both sides.