Black Flag Army
The harassment of European vessels trading on the Red River triggered the dispatch of the French expeditionary force to Tonkin under Commandant Henri Rivière in 1882. The resulting clashes between the French and the Black Flag Army (the latter abetted by the regular Vietnamese and Chinese forces) escalated, resulting eventually in the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885). The Black Flags assisted the Chinese forces during this war, best known for the fierce Siege of Tuyên Quang when the joint Black Flags-Chinese armies holed up a battalion of the French Foreign Legion defending the citadel. The Black Flag Army formally disbanded at the end of the Sino-French War, though many of its members continued to harass the French for years afterwards as freelance bandits.