Siege of Saigon, March 1860 To February 1861
The capture of Saigon proved to be as hollow a victory for the French and Spanish as their earlier capture of Da Nang. Jauréguiberry's force at Saigon was too small to venture out of its defences, while Captain Thoyon's small French garrison in Da Nang had been placed under siege by the Vietnamese. Meanwhile, the French government was distracted from its Far Eastern ambitions by the outbreak of the Austro-Sardinian War, which tied down large numbers of French troops in Italy. In November 1859 Rigault de Genouilly, whose actions in Cochinchina had come under severe criticism in France, was replaced by Admiral François Page, who was instructed to obtain a treaty protecting the Catholic faith in Vietnam but not to seek any territorial gains.
The Vietnamese, aware of France's distraction in Italy, refused these moderate terms and spun out the negotiations in the hope that the allies would cut their losses and abandon the campaign altogether. Meanwhile, the French were unable to reinforce the garrisons of Da Nang and Saigon. Although the Austro-Sardinian War soon ended, by early 1860 the French were again at war with China, and Page had to divert most of his forces to support Admiral Léonard Charner's China expedition.
In April 1860 Page left Cochinchina to join Charner at Canton, and the defence of Saigon and the neighbouring Chinese town of Cholon, an important commercial centre, was entrusted to capitaine de vaisseau d'Ariès. To garrison these two towns d'Ariès had a mere 600 marine infantrymen and 200 Spanish troops under the command of Colonel Palanca y Guttierez, supported by the corvettes Primauguet, Norzagaray and Laplace. To augment this modest force the French armed a number of junks to patrol the rivers, and also recruited Annamese and Chinese auxiliaries to take part in the patrols and man the advanced posts.
In March 1860 the Franco-Spanish force in Saigon, only 1,000 men strong, was placed under siege by a Vietnamese army of about 10,000 men, and had to support an eleven-month siege by greatly superior numbers. At the same time, French strength was also being drained by the Siege of Đà Nẵng (September 1858 to March 1860), and in March 1860 the French evacuated Da Nang.
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