Auguste Chapdelaine - The Opium War

The Opium War

The French empire had many times suffered the death of missionaries for which no military vengeance occurred. The political situation wherein Britain's victory was seen as inevitable and the French desire to make its own imperial gains in China, alongside the fact that the French did not have a policy elsewhere of punitive military expeditions to avenge the death of missionaries, has led many historians to conclude that the death of Father Chapdelaine was merely an excuse used in order to declare war so that France could build its empire

Lord Elgin, the British High Commissioner for China commented on the French ultimatum given prior to France's entry to the war:

Gros showed me a projet de note when I called on him some days ago. It is very long and very well written. The fact is, that he has had a much better case of quarrel than we; at least one that lends itself much better to rhetoric.

The Chinese version of article 6 in the Sino-French Peking Convention, signed at the end of the war, gave Christians the right to spread their faith in China and to French missionaries to hold property.