p p s me yet again i forgot to mention the photo of the two french marine infantrymen must i think date from or rather than as late as it was taken by edouard hocquard who served with the tonkin expeditionary corps as a doctor in those two years he took part in the bac ninh campaign march and the lang son campaign february i'm pretty sure the picture which is one of a suite of images he took in tonkin that have been published on the internet dates from and have said so when i used it in my tonkin expeditionary corps article click on the image there and it'll link you to the website