Amédée Courbet Anatole - Amédée - Prosper Courbet ( 26 June 1827 – 11 June 1885 ) was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign ( 1883 – 86 ) and the Sino - French War ( August 1884 – April 1885 ) . Early years . Courbet was born in Abbeville in 1828 as the youngest of three children . His father died when he was nine years old . He was a Polytechnician . From 1849 to 1853 Courbet served as a midshipman ( " aspirant " ) on the corvette " Capricieuse " ( " capitaine de vaisseau " Roquemaurel ) . " Capricieuse " circumnavigated the globe during this period and cruised for several months along the China Coast , giving Courbet his first experience of the seas in which , thirty years later , he would win fame . After his return to France he was posted to the brick " Olivier " , attached to the Levant naval division . In December 1855 , at Smyrna , he intervened to quell a mutiny aboard the " Messageries impériales " packet " Tancrède " , and was subsequently commended for his conduct by the navy ministry . He was promoted to the rank of " lieutenant de vaisseau " in November 1856 . From 1864 to 1866 Courbet served on the two - deck broadside ironclad battleship " Solferino " as aide de camp and secretary to Admiral Bouët - Willaumez , commander of the " escadre d ’ évolutions " . He was promoted " capitaine de frégate " in August 1866 and posted to the ironclad frigate " Savoie " as chief of staff to Admiral de Dompierre d ’ Hornoy , commander of the North Sea and English Channel naval division . In March 1870 he was posted to the Antilles naval division as captain of the despatch vessel " Talisman " . This posting , which gave him no opportunity for action during the Franco - Prussian War , was his first independent command . He returned to France in May 1872 . In early 1873 Courbet returned to the Antilles as second officer on the frigate " Minerve " . He was promoted " capitaine de vaisseau " in August 1873 . Between December 1874 and January 1877 he commanded the School of Underwater Defences ( " école des défenses sous - marines " ) at Boyardville ( Ile d ’ Oléron ) . From 1877 to 1879 he was posted to the ironclad " Richelieu " , where he again served as chief of staff to Admiral de Dompierre d ’ Hornoy , now commander - in - chief of the " escadre d ’ évolutions " . In May 1880 Courbet succeeded Admiral Olry as governor of New Caledonia . He returned to France in the autumn of 1882 , where he was promised command of the Levant naval division by Admiral Bernard Jauréguiberry , the navy minister . Jauréguiberry was replaced as navy minister in January 1883 when Charles Duclerc ' s cabinet was replaced by the brief administration of Armand Fallières , and Courbet was instead appointed commander of the " division navale d ’ essais " in the Mediterranean . In April 1883 he hoisted his flag aboard the ironclad " Bayard " at Cherbourg . Command of Tonkin Coasts Naval Division . In June 1883 Courbet was transferred from the " division navale d ’ essais " and given command of a new Tonkin Coasts naval division ( " division navale des côtes du Tonkin " ) . The French government was attempting to impose a protectorate in Tonkin ( northern Vietnam ) at this period , in the face of bitter opposition from Liu Yongfu ' s Black Flag Army . The Black Flag Army was covertly armed and supplied by China , and the role of the new naval division was to cut the flow of weapons and ammunition to the Black Flags by blockading the Gulf of Tonkin . The Tonkin Coasts naval division included the ironclads " Bayard " and " Atalante " from Courbet ' s Mediterranean command and the cruiser " Châteaurenault " from Algiers . Courbet was also given two torpedo boats , Nos . 45 and 46 , and was ordered to take over the seagoing vessels of the Cochinchina naval division on his arrival in Tonkin . Courbet arrived at Along Bay in July 1883 . In August in response to the death of the Vietnamese emperor Tự Đức and a consequent succession crisis , the French government approved an operation to coerce the Vietnamese court at Huế . On 18 August Courbet ' s naval division bombarded the Thuan An forts at the entrance to the River of Perfumes , and on 20 August , in the Battle of Thuan An , a landing force of sailors and marine infantry overran the Vietnamese defences and captured the forts . Courbet ' s victory , which enabled the French to occupy Huế whenever they wanted , compelled the Vietnamese court to submit to French authority and sign the Treaty of Huế , which recognised the French protectorate in Tonkin . Command of Tonkin Expeditionary Corps . In October 1883 Courbet was placed in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps . In December 1883 he struck at Son Tay . The Son Tay Campaign was the fiercest campaign the French had yet fought in Tonkin . Although the Chinese and Vietnamese contingents at Son Tay played little part in the defence , Liu Yongfu ' s Black Flags fought ferociously to hold the city . On 14 December the French assaulted the outer defences of Son Tay at Phu Sa , but were thrown back with heavy casualties . Hoping to exploit this reverse , Liu Yongfu attacked the French lines the same night , but the Black Flag attack also failed disastrously . After resting his troops on 15 December , Courbet again assaulted the defences of Son Tay on the afternoon of 16 December . This time the attack was thoroughly prepared by artillery , and delivered only after the defenders had been worn down . At 5 p . m . a Foreign Legion battalion and a battalion of marine fusiliers captured the western gate of Son Tay and fought their way into the town . Liu Yongfu ' s garrison withdrew to the citadel , and evacuated Son Tay under cover of darkness several hours later . Courbet had achieved his objective , but at considerable cost . French casualties at Son Tay were 83 dead and 320 wounded . The fighting at Son Tay also took a terrible toll of the Black Flags , and in the opinion of some observers broke them once and for all as a serious fighting force . Command of Far East Squadron . The 1883 campaigns in Tonkin had been conducted , like most French colonial enterprises , by the " troupes de marine " , and had been overseen by the navy ministry . In December 1883 , however , in view of the increasing commitment of troops from Algeria to Tonkin , the army ministry insisted on appointing a general from the regular army to command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps , which would be henceforth be constituted as a two - brigade infantry division with the normal complement of artillery and other supporting arms . Jules Ferry ' s cabinet approved this recommendation , and Courbet was replaced in command of the expeditionary corps on 16 December 1883 by General Charles - Théodore Millot — ironically , on the very day on which he captured Son Tay . He resumed command of the Tonkin Coasts naval division , and for the next six months played a most unwelcome subordinate role , hunting down bands of Vietnamese pirates in the Gulf of Tonkin while Millot was winning glory in the Bac Ninh campaign . Courbet ' s luck changed in June 1884 . On 27 June , in response to the news of the Bac Le ambush , the Tonkin Coasts naval division and the Far East naval division were amalgamated into a Far East Squadron . The new squadron , which would remain in existence throughout the Sino - French War , was placed under Courbet ' s command , with Admiral Sébastien Lespès ( the commander of the Far East naval division ) second in command . Courbet ' s squadron initially included the ironclads " Bayard " ( the flagship ) , " Atalante " , " La Galissonnière " and " Triomphante " , the cruisers " Châteaurenault " , " d ' Estaing " , " Duguay - Trouin " and " Volta " , the light frigates " Hamelin " and " Parseval " , the gunboats " Lynx " , " Vipère " , " Lutin " and " Aspic " , the troopships " Drac " and " Saône " and Torpedo Boats Nos . 45 and 46 . In July 1884 Courbet was ordered to concentrate part of the squadron at Fuzhou , to threaten the Fujian fleet ( one of China ' s four regional fleets ) and the Foochow Navy Yard . Min River operations , August 1884 . Negotiations between France and China to resolve the crisis over the Bac Le ambush broke down in mid - August and on 22 August Courbet was ordered to attack the Chinese fleet at Fuzhou . In the Battle of Fuzhou ( also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage ) on 23 August 1884 , Courbet ' s Far East Squadron annihilated China ' s outclassed Fujian fleet and severely damaged the Foochow Navy Yard . Nine Chinese ships were sunk in less than an hour , including the corvette " Yangwu " , the flagship of the Fujian fleet . Chinese losses may have amounted to 3 , 000 dead , while French losses were minimal . Courbet then successfully withdrew down the Min River to the open sea , destroying several Chinese shore batteries from behind as he took the French squadron through the Min ' an and Jinpai passes . Operations in Formosa , October 1884 . In late September 1884 , much to his distaste , Courbet was ordered to use the Far East Squadron to support the landing of a French expeditionary corps at Keelung and Tamsui in northern Formosa ( Taiwan ) . Courbet argued vigorously against a campaign in Formosa and submitted alternative proposals to the navy ministry for a campaign in northern Chinese waters to seize Port Arthur or Weihaiwei . He was supported by Jules Patenôtre , the French minister to China , but both men were overruled . On 1 October Lieutenant - Colonel Bertaux - Levillain landed at Keelung with a force of 1 , 800 marine infantry , forcing the Chinese to withdraw to strong defensive positions which had been prepared in the surrounding hills . The French force was too small to advance beyond Keelung . Meanwhile , after an ineffective naval bombardment on 2 October , Admiral Lespès attacked the Chinese defences at Tamsui with 600 sailors from his squadron ' s landing companies on 8 October , and was decisively repulsed by forces under the command of the Fujianese general Sun Kaihua ( 孫開華 ) . The French were now committed to a prolonged Keelung Campaign , and Courbet ' s squadron was tied down in a largely ineffective blockade of Formosa . Battle of Shipu Bay , February 1885 . After several months of inactivity , Courbet won a series of victories in the spring of 1885 . Courbet ' s squadron had been reinforced substantially since the start of the war , and he now had considerably more ships at his disposal than in October 1884 . In early February 1885 part of his squadron left Keelung to head off a threatened attempt by part of the Chinese Southern Seas fleet to break the French blockade of Formosa . On 11 February Courbet ' s task force met the cruisers " Kaiji " , " Nanchen " and " Nanrui " , three of the most modern ships in the Chinese fleet , near Shipu Bay , accompanied by the frigate " Yuyuan " and the composite sloop " Chengqing " . The Chinese scattered at the French approach , and while the three cruisers successfully made their escape , the French succeeded in trapping " Yuyuan " and " Chengqing " in Shipu Bay . On the night of 14 February , in the Battle of Shipu , both ships were crippled during a daring French torpedo attack , " Yuyuan " by a French spar torpedo and " Chengqing " by " Yuyuan " ' s fire . Both ships were subsequently scuttled by the Chinese . Blockade of Ningbo , March 1885 . Courbet followed up this success on 1 March by locating " Kaiji " , " Nanchen " and " Nanrui " , which had taken refuge with four other Chinese warships in Zhenhai Bay , near the port of Ningbo . Courbet considered forcing the Chinese defences , but finally decided to guard the entrance to the bay to keep the enemy vessels bottled up there for the duration of hostilities . A brief and inconclusive skirmish between the French cruiser " Nielly " and the Chinese shore batteries on 1 March enabled the Chinese general Ouyang Lijian , charged with the defence of Ningbo , to claim the so - called Battle of Zhenhai as a defensive victory . Rice blockade , March – June 1885 . In February 1885 , under diplomatic pressure from China , Britain invoked the provisions of the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act and closed Hong Kong and other ports in the Far East to French warships . The French government retaliated by ordering Courbet to implement a ' rice blockade ' of the Yangzi River , hoping to bring the Qing court to terms by provoking serious rice shortages in northern China . The rice blockade severely disrupted the transport of rice by sea from Shanghai and forced the Chinese to carry it overland , but the war ended before the blockade seriously affected China ' s economy . Pescadores campaign , March 1885 . A major French victory at Keelung in early March 1885 enabled Courbet to detach a marine infantry battalion and a marine artillery section from the Keelung garrison to capture the Pescadores Islands in late March . Courbet directed operations in person , and this brief colonial campaign was fought in the traditional style , by ships of the French navy and by the " troupes de marine " . Strategically , the Pescadores Campaign was an important victory , which would have prevented the Chinese from further reinforcing their army in Formosa , but it came too late to affect the outcome of the war . A proposal to use the Far East squadron to make a landing in the Gulf of Petchili was cancelled on the news of the French defeat in the Battle of Bang Bo ( 24 March 1885 ) and the subsequent retreat from Lang Son , and Courbet was on the point of evacuating Keelung to reinforce the Tonkin expeditionary corps , leaving only a minimum garrison at Makung in the Pescadores , when hostilities came to an end in April 1885 . Courbet ' s death and state funeral , June – September 1885 . The French occupied the Pescadores until July 1885 . Courbet and several dozen other French soldiers and sailors died of cholera during the brief French occupation . He had already suffered a severe bout of dysentery in April 1885 , and his health declined rapidly during the next two months . On 8 June he walked with his head bared under the hot sun of the Pescadores in the funeral procession of " sous - commissaire " Dert , a marine infantry officer who had just died of cholera , and this duty critically weakened him . He died aboard his flagship " Bayard " in Makung harbour on the night of 11 June 1885 . Admiral Sébastien Lespès assumed command of the Far East Squadron , and presided at a memorial service for Courbet at Makung on 13 June . On 23 June " Bayard " left Makung , to a 19 - gun salute from more than thirty French warships , to take Courbet ' s body back to France for a state funeral in Paris . After a two - month voyage back to France that included stops at Singapore , Mahé ( in the Seychelles ) , Aden , Suez , Alexandria and Bône , " Bayard " reached the coast of Provence on 24 August and joined the French Mediterranean fleet in the harbour of Les Salins d ' Hyères . Courbet ' s coffin was ceremoniously landed on 26 August , and taken in state to Paris aboard a special train . At Avignon and other stations on the route to Paris patriotic crowds lined the route , eager to pay their last respects to France ' s most famous admiral . A state funeral for Courbet was held at Les Invalides on 27 August . The funeral oration was pronounced by Charles Émile Freppel , bishop of Angers , one of the most fervent supporters of Jules Ferry ' s policy of colonial conquest in Tonkin . Courbet ' s body was then taken by train to his home town of Abbeville in Picardy , where a burial service was held on 1 September . Following a further oration by bishop Freppel , the final eulogy to Courbet was delivered in Abbeville ' s collegiate church of Saint Vulfran by the recently appointed navy minister , Admiral Charles - Eugène Galiber . Courbet ' s leadership . Courbet was a cautious , methodical commander , who calculated the odds carefully before committing his men to battle . Wherever possible he sought to minimise French casualties , and on several occasions he cancelled an attack which he had previously ordered . He was a deeply private individual , who discouraged familiarity from his subordinates , both officers and men . At the same time , he was deeply respected and loved . One of the sailors of the Far East Squadron summed up the reason why he was so popular : ' Admiral Courbet is a great man . He doesn ' t get his men killed for nothing ! ' Colonel Thomazi , commenting on the French government ' s choice of Courbet to command the Tonkin Seas naval division in 1883 , gave a perceptive analysis of Courbet ' s approach to leadership : Rear Admiral Courbet , then aged 56 , had enjoyed rapid promotion , although by a remarkable chance he had never taken part in any military operation . He had been in the Levant during the Crimean War , and had taken part neither in the Italian War nor the China and Mexico expeditions . In 1870 and 1871 he had been in the Antilles . But his naval career had been extremely active . He had sailed all of the world ' s oceans , had exercised numerous commands , and had won the reputation of a first - class tactician . He had not wished to specialise in one particular branch of naval science , but had studied them all deeply , from astronomy and gunnery to engines and torpedoes . He was the model of a well - rounded officer , familiar with everything which concerned his profession . He was as judicious as wise , as helpful as intelligent . He studied with minute care the problems to be resolved , weighed his decision carefully , and when he had made it carried it out with inflexible energy . His orders were short and lucid , and he never shrank from accepting responsibility . While chary in his praises , he was a fair man , and recognised good service in others . As a result he was able to get the best out of his subordinates , and they in turn had complete confidence in him . He was one of those rare men who were born to command others . It is certain that in any other career he would have displayed the same superiority and authority as in the navy . Circumstances would highlight his magnificent leadership qualities . " Enseigne de vaisseau " Louis - Marie - Julien Viaud ( 1850 – 1923 ) , who served under Courbet ' s command in Tonkin and described his experiences in a number of popular articles published under the pen name Pierre Loti , discerned Courbet ' s more human side : He set a very high price on the lives of the sailors and soldiers , which after two years seemed not to be rated at their true value in far - off France , and begrudged spilling a drop of French blood . His battles were concerted and worked out in advance with such minute precision that the results , often devastating , were always obtained with very small losses on our side . In battle he was stern and unbending , but when the fighting was over he became a different man , a very gentle man , who made his rounds of the hospitals with a fine , sad smile . He wanted to see the wounded , even the most humble of them , and to shake their hands ; and they died the happier , comforted by his visit . Courbet ' s memory . The old Haymarket Square ( Place du Marché - au - Blé ) in Courbet ' s home town of Abbeville was renamed Place de l ' Amiral Courbet by the city authorities in July 1885 , shortly after the news of Courbet ' s death reached France . An extravagant baroque statue of Courbet was erected in the middle of the square at the end of the nineteenth century . The statue was damaged in a devastating German bombing raid during the Second World War . Three ships of the French Navy have been named after Admiral Courbet : an ironclad ( " Courbet " , in service from 1882 to 1909 ) , a battleship ( " Courbet " , in service from 1913 to 1944 ) , and a modern stealth frigate , " Courbet ( F 712 ) " , presently in active service .