page_title: Tonkin Expeditionary Corps
section_title: General Louis-Alexandre-Esprit-Gaston Brière de l'Isle (1827–96)
hierarchical_section_title: Tonkin Expeditionary Corps / Commanders and campaigns / General Louis-Alexandre-Esprit-Gaston Brière de l'Isle (1827–96)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Lieutenant-Colonel Ange-Laurent Giovanninelli (1839-1903)
context_page_description: The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin Campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the Sino-French War and the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded it, and in important operations against Vietnamese guerrilla bands during the subsequent 'Pacification of Tonkin'.
context_section_description: Millot was replaced as general-in-chief by his senior brigade commander, Louis Brière de l'Isle.  Brière de l'Isle appointed Colonel Dujardin to the interim command of the 1st Brigade during the autumn and winter of 1884.  In January 1885, on the eve of the Lạng Sơn Campaign, Colonel Ange-Laurent Giovanninelli (1839–1903) arrived in Tonkin and assumed command of the 1st Brigade. General de Négrier remained in command of the 2nd Brigade.
  Brière de l'Isle was a natural leader of men, and under his command the expeditionary corps achieved a high standard of professional excellence.  In October 1884, in the Kep Campaign, Brière de l'Isle defeated a major Chinese invasion of the Tonkin Delta, skilfully exploiting the mobility of the French gunboats to concentrate his forces successively against both wings of the Guangxi Army.  In the first fortnight of February 1885, in the Lạng Sơn Campaign, he took the expeditionary corps in triumph to Lạng Sơn.  The success of the campaign owed as much to Brière de l'Isle's meticulous planning and organisation as it did to the courage and professionalism of the troops he led.  In mid-February, pausing only a few days at Lạng Sơn to resupply his troops, Brière de l'Isle marched personally with Giovanninelli's 1st Brigade from Lạng Sơn back to Hanoi, and then up the Red and Clear Rivers to relieve the Siege of Tuyên Quang.  Although the French suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Hòa Mộc (2 March 1885), they captured Liu Yongfu's blocking position and broke through to Tuyên Quang.  The relief of Tuyên Quang, on 3 March 1885, was the high point of Brière de l'Isle's career.
  Brière de l'Isle's record of solid professional achievement was marred in the second fortnight of March 1885, with simultaneous French defeats on 24 March at the Battle of Phu Lam Tao and (far more serious) the Battle of Bang Bo.  Although de Négrier retrieved his defeat at Bang Bo by inflicting crippling casualties on the Guangxi Army at the Battle of Ky Lua on 28 March, the disastrous decision by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Gustave Herbinger to retreat from Lạng Sơn transformed a French tactical victory into a strategic defeat.  Although Brière de l'Isle soon stabilised the situation, the French had lost the hard-won gains of the February campaign.  Meanwhile, Brière de l'Isle knew that he would now go down in history not as the victor of Lạng Sơn and Tuyên Quang but as the general who had sent the notorious 'Lạng Sơn telegram' that brought down the government of Jules Ferry.  In later years, whenever asked about his experiences during the Sino-French War, he would reply 'Let's talk about something else.  That campaign left a bitter taste in everybody's mouth!'
  Strong reinforcements were sent to Tonkin in the wake of the Retreat from Lạng Sơn (March 1885), bringing the total number of French soldiers in Tonkin to 35,000 in the summer of 1885.  In May and June 1885 thousands of fresh French troops poured into Tonkin, swamping the veterans of the two brigades that had fought the Sino-French War, and the expeditionary corps was reorganised into two two-brigade divisions.  Brière de l'Isle was replaced in command of the expeditionary corps on 1 June 1885 by General Philippe-Marie-Henri Roussel de Courcy (1827–1887), but remained in Tonkin for several months as commander of the 1st Division of the expanded expeditionary corps.  De Négrier, who had recovered from the wound he sustained at the Battle of Ky Lua (28 March 1885), was given command of the 2nd Division.
caption: Colonel Ange-Laurent Giovanninelli (1839–1903)
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