Keelung Campaign - French Evacuation of Keelung, June 1885

French Evacuation of Keelung, June 1885

The Formosa expeditionary corps continued to occupy Keelung and Makung for several months after the end of the Sino-French War as a surety for the withdrawal of Chinese forces from Tonkin. During this period a battalion of marine infantry and a newly arrived marine artillery battery were withdrawn from the Keelung garrison to take part in a French punitive campaign in Madagascar.

Keelung was finally evacuated on 22 June 1885. Under arrangements agreed between Liu Ming-ch'uan and Admiral Lespès on 17 June, the French withdrew from their forts on Hung-tan-shan and Yueh-mei-shan in stages, over a three-day period, and their positions were reoccupied by the Chinese only after a prudent delay. The Chinese officers kept their men well in hand, and the occupation of the French forts was conducted with dignity and restraint. 'There was not the slightest demonstration of triumph, nothing that could hurt our feelings, nothing that could wound our legitimate pride,' wrote one French officer. The French flag that had flown above Keelung for eight months was lowered to a 21-gun salute from the ironclad La Galissonnière. Colonel Duchesne, the commander of the Formosa expeditionary corps, was the last French soldier to embark aboard the waiting transports. The men of the Formosa expeditionary corps were ferried either to Makung in the Pescadores, which would remain in French hands for another month, or to Along Bay in Tonkin, to rejoin the Tonkin expeditionary corps.

By June 1885 Keelung was virtually unrecognisable as a Chinese town. Although its temples had been respected by the occupiers, many of its houses had been demolished to provide fields of fire for the French garrison, and the remaining buildings had been whitewashed and decorated in the French mode. The French had also built a network of broad avenues and boulevards through the town, and turned the waterfront into an esplanade, complete with bandstand. The Canadian missionary George MacKay mentioned that Keelung was reoccupied by its former inhabitants as soon as the French warships steamed out of the harbour, but he did not comment on their reaction to the transformation that had taken place in their absence. Before long, however, Keelung was once again its former self.