Battle of Bang Bo (Zhennan Pass) - The Battle of Bang Bo, 23 and 24 March 1885

The Battle of Bang Bo, 23 and 24 March 1885

On 22 March, Chinese forces under the command of Feng Jicai raided the French forward post at Dong Dang, a few kilometres north of Lang Son. The French post, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Gustave Herbinger, was held by chef de battalion Diguet's 2nd Foreign Legion Battalion, and the legionnaires repelled the Chinese assault without difficulty. De Négrier, who had been forced to bring the bulk of the 2nd Brigade up from Lang Son to support Herbinger, decided to hit back immediately. Hoping to take the Chinese by surprise, he decided to cross the frontier and attack the Guangxi Army in its entrenchments at Bang Bo, near the frontier pass of Zhennanguan. He had no intention of launching a major offensive into Guangxi. His aim, in the military phrase of the day, was simply to 'take some air' (se donner de l'air) around Dong Dang. After giving the Chinese a bloody nose at Bang Bo and clearing them away from the approaches to Dong Dang, he would return to Lang Son with the 2nd Brigade.

Leaving chef de bataillon Servière to hold Lang Son with a single company of the 2nd African Battalion and Martin and Roussel's batteries, and stationing the 23rd Line Battalion at Dong Dang to protect his supply line, he advanced to the Chinese frontier at Zhennanguan on the morning of 23 March with a force of only 1,600 men and 10 guns (the 111th and 143rd Line Battalions, the 2nd and 3rd Legion Battalions and Roperh and de Saxcé's batteries). Substantial reinforcements for the 2nd Brigade were already on their way up to Lang Son, but de Négrier decided not to wait for them. He judged it more important to attack the Chinese while they were still discouraged by Feng Zicai's repulse on 22 March.

On 23 and 24 March the 2nd Brigade fought a fierce action with the Guangxi Army near Zhennanguan. This engagement, known as the Battle of Zhennan Pass in China, is normally called Bang Bo in European sources, after the name of a village in the centre of the Chinese position where the fighting was fiercest. The French took a number of outworks on 23 March, and defeated a hesitant Chinese counterattack against their right flank launched by Wang Debang from Cua Ai.

On 24 March de Négrier attacked the Guangxi Army's main positions around Bang Bo. His plan called for a simultaneous frontal and rear attack on Feng Zicai's troops, who were holding a line of trenches in front of Bang Bo known to the French as the 'Long Trench'. The frontal attack would be delivered by Faure's 111th Battalion and the rear attack by Diguet's 2nd Legion Battalion and Farret's 143rd Battalion. Herbinger, who was instructed to guide Diguet and Farret to their attack positions, led the two battalions in a wide outflanking march in thick fog, and lost his way. De Négrier, unaware that Herbinger had failed to reach his positions, and mistaking a column of Chinese troops moving up to the Long Trench for Herbinger's two battalions, ordered chef de bataillon Faure's 111th Battalion to deliver its planned frontal attack.

The men of the 111th laid down their haversacks, formed up, and charged. The battalion came under heavy frontal fire from Feng Zicai's infantry and flanking fire from Chinese units on the nearby hills, and lost several company officers within seconds. Two of the four companies of the 111th Battalion reached the trench, but after a short spell of hand-to-hand fighting were thrown back by a Chinese counterattack led personally by Feng Zicai.

The senior surviving French company officer, Captain Verdier (who later wrote a detailed account of the campaign, La vérité sur la retraite de Lang-Son, under the pseudonym Jacques Harmant), was able to disengage and rally the battalion. The Chinese, intent on beheading the French wounded and plundering the abandoned French haversacks, did not seriously pursue the 111th Battalion, and Verdier was able to withdraw its shredded companies to safety.

Among the officers who fell during the 111th Battalion's attack on the Long Trench was 2nd Lieutenant Rene Normand, shot in the throat and mortally wounded. Normand had only recently arrived in Tonkin, and had distinguished himself on 10 February 1885 at the engagement at Pho Vy during the Lang Son Campaign. A collection of his letters from Tonkin, including a number of vivid descriptions of the February campaign to capture Lang Son, would be published posthumously in France in 1886.

On the right of the battlefield, the 143rd Battalion and 2nd Legion Battalion went into action several hours later than expected, and captured a Chinese fort. It was the only French success of the day. At 3 p.m. Pan Dingxin, seeing the 111th Battalion in full retreat and Herbinger's men exhausted from their exertions, counterattacked along the entire front. Herbinger's command was nearly cut off. Captain Gayon's company of the 143rd Battalion was surrounded by the Chinese. Captain Patrick Cotter, an Irish officer in Diguet's Legion battalion, ignored an order from Herbinger to leave Gayon to his fate and led his Legion company to the rescue. The legionnaires charged and successfully disengaged Gayon's men, but Cotter was killed in the attack. Diguet and Farret's battalions fell back by echelons, constantly turning and firing to keep the Chinese in respect.

Meanwhile, Schoeffer's 3rd Legion Battalion, which had been ordered to remain on Tonkinese soil around Dong Dang to protect the flanks of the French column, fought desperately to keep open a line of retreat for the 2nd Brigade. Schoeffer's men beat off strong Chinese attacks on both French flanks, enabling the other three infantry battalions and the two artillery batteries to make good their retreat. General de Négrier fought with the French rearguard, setting an example of personal courage, and the Chinese were unable to convert the French retreat into a rout. In the final flurry of action, just before nightfall, Captain Brunet of Schoeffer's battalion was shot dead.

There were ominous scenes of disorder as the defeated French regrouped after the battle, and de Négrier had to intervene sharply to quell them. As the brigade's morale was precarious and ammunition was running short, de Négrier decided to fall back to Lang Son. On the evening of 24 March the brigade marched back to Dong Dang, where it camped for the night. Hungry, exhausted, and shocked by their defeat, many French troops found it difficult to credit what had happened. Sergeant Maury of Diguet's 2nd Legion Battalion was overcome by a nervous reaction:

The night was very dark. The soldiers marched in complete silence. We felt cheated, ashamed, and angry. We were leaving behind us both victory and many of our friends. From time to time, in low murmurs, we established who was missing. Then we relapsed into the silence of mourning and the bitterness of loss. And so we reached Dong Dang, without being disturbed. We slept in the field hospital huts, after drinking some soup. We were harassed and hungry. We had not eaten all day, and had drunk nothing since morning except a single cup of coffee. In spite of my weariness, I spent a troubled night. My spirits were haunted by the day's memories, by images of the fighting and phantasms of our misfortunes. I was shaken with spasms. I trembled as I have never done on the battlefield. I lay down, but was unable to sleep.