History
Due to its geography as Vietnam's gateway to China, Lạng Sơn and its ancient citadel have been in the path of many invasions, and were the site of three French defeats during the colonial era. Occupied by Qing forces during the military buildup that preceded the Sino-French War, the city was occupied by France after a two-week campaign in February 1885. However, the brigade there conducted a hasty retreat after a failed attack through Bang Bo into China; the "retreat from Lạng Sơn" became the most controversial aspect of the war and led to the fall of Jules Ferry's ministry. French colonial forces clashed with the Japanese 5th Division in the Battle of Lạng Sơn during the Japanese Vietnam Expedition in 22 September 1940. The French were again compelled to retreat hastily.
After the end of the Pacific War, the French colonial army established a permanent garrison there, which served as the logistics hub for the French border fortresses. It was captured in 1950 during Võ Nguyên Giáp's offensive against the French border forts, considered a turning point in the Indochina War. The city was the center of fighting during the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, and sustained extensive damage.
Read more about this topic: Lang Son
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)