Battle of Nui Bop - Background

Background

In late September 1884 large detachments of the Guangxi Army advanced from Lang Son and probed into the Luc Nam valley, announcing their presence by ambushing the French gunboats Hache and Massue on 2 October. General Louis Brière de l'Isle, the French commander-in-chief, responded immediately, transporting nearly 3,000 French soldiers to the Luc Nam valley aboard a flotilla of gunboats and attacking the Chinese detachments before they could concentrate. In the Kep Campaign (2 to 15 October 1884), three French columns under the overall command of General François de Négrier fell upon the separated detachments of the Guangxi Army and successively defeated them in engagements at Lam (6 October), Kép (8 October) and Chu (10 October).

In the wake of these French victories the Chinese fell back to Bac Le and Dong Song, and de Négrier established important forward positions at Kep and Chu, which threatened the Guangxi Army's base at Lang Son. Chu was only a few miles southwest of the Guangxi Army's advanced posts at Dong Song, and on 16 December 1884 a strong Chinese raiding detachment ambushed two companies of the Foreign Legion just to the east of Chu, at Ha Ho. The legionnaires fought their way out of the Chinese encirclement, but suffered a number of casualties and had to abandon their dead on the battlefield. De Négrier immediately brought up reinforcements and pursued the Chinese, but the raiders made good their retreat to Dong Song.

Although the Guangxi Army had been forced to retreat in the October battles, its commanders had not given up all hope of breaking into the Delta. Driven partly by sheer hunger and partly by the knowledge that the French would sooner or later move against Lang Son, the Chinese renewed their efforts to gain a foothold in the Luc Nam valley in December. The action at Ha Ho was the first indication that a major move was afoot. A week after this engagement a force of 12,000 Chinese troops from the Guangxi Army occupied the distinctive conical hill of Nui Bop, eighteen kilometres to the east of Chu, and began to lay out a large fortified camp. The Chinese force was under the command of Wang Debang, one of the Guangxi Army's more competent generals, who had defeated a French column in June 1884 in the Bac Le ambush.

The famished Chinese soldiers plundered all the villages in the area for food, earning the hatred and resentment of the Tonkinese farmers whose livelihood they were destroying. On 23 December the villagers of Lien Son came to the French headquarters at Chu and alerted Lieutenant-Colonel Donnier to the presence of a large Chinese force around Nui Bop.

The French could not allow a force of 12,000 Chinese to remain at Nui Bop, uncomfortably close to their main base at Chu and threatening the flank of the expeditionary corps when it eventually set off for Lang Son. Brière de l'Isle reinforced the Chu garrison in late December, and in early January 1885 de Négrier was ordered to take the offensive against the Chinese.

De Négrier's column was drawn from both the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps. It included a marine infantry battalion under the command of chef de bataillon Mahias, de Mibielle’s Turco battalion and two companies of Tonkinese riflemen. The column also included the 111th and 143rd Line battalions and Jourdy and de Saxcé’s batteries.