finally capitulated in March 1885. Soon afterwards, Courbet occupied the Pescadores.35 Sensing the futility of further fighting, Peking recognized the French claims. Laos, the last Chinese tributary in Indochina, also was destined to become a protectorate, since France claimed that it had "inherited" Vietnamese suzerainty over the territory. This claim resulted in a short conflict with Siam which then relinquished its claim to Laos. The issue was settled when China concluded a convention with France in 1895 recognizing French hegemony in Laos.36 Although all of Indochina was now part of the French empire overseas, the arduous task of persuading the people to accept French rule still lay ahead. French forces in Indochina spent the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century attempting to establish order and introducing French institutions. Resistance and rebellion continued even after the French were firmly entrenched. Most of the fighting took place in the mountains or deltas and was led by the mandarins or by local chieftains.3 37 For French troops to reach various points in the delta regions, it was necessary to travel via the inland waterways in naval river gunboats. Predecessors of the "brown water" navies of the next century, these canonnieres gave mobility to the French forces, lent authority to their presence, and assured essential logistic support to field units. The river gunboats were indeed a key element in maintaining the French presence in Indochina. Another visible element of France's status as a great colonial power was its Far Eastern Fleet which by 1900 numbered six cruisers and eleven sloops and gunboats. The shallow-draft, armed sloops were well suited for detached duty on foreign stations.38 Against the backdrop of the preceding 2,000 years, the history of Vietnam to 1900 revealed that the maritime element had been decisive. Chinese seapower, particularly during the Ming era, provided one means of gaining and maintaining suzerainty over kingdoms to the south. Later, technical advances in shipbuilding and navigation, coupled with European acquisitiveness and zeal for evangelism, brought Western vessels carrying traders and 36 Ibid, pp. 174-76; Hall, History of South-East Asia, p. 626. Buttinger, Smaller Dragon. pp. 380-81, 421. Frank N. Trager, Why Viet Nam? (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 33. 38 John Leyland, ed., The Naval Annual, 1900 (Portsmouth, England: J. Griffin and Co., 1900), p. 66. missionaries to Indochina. A small navy, created with the help of French seamen, provided Annam with the means of completing the conquest of Cochin China and the establishment of rule, for a brief period, over all of Vietnam. Sent to protect their nationals, the French Navy played crucial roles in the forcible breaching of the wall of isolation erected by the Vietnamese leaders to defend against expansionist foreign governments. Naval actions gained the acquiescence of China to the establishment of French control over what became known as Indochina. Finally, consolidation of French rule in Indochina flowed from a maritime strategy supported by a combat-ready naval force capable of conducting operations promptly, moving troops swiftly to trouble spots, controlling the sea lanes and trade routes adjacent to Indochina, and operating on inland waters. As long as this seapower remained strong in the Far East, French interests in Indochina flourished. Impact Of The Shifting Balance Of Seapower, 1940-1945 Events over the first four and a half decades of the twentieth century, including two World Wars, would pave the way for the Vietnam conflict. The watershed that was the First World War added stimulus to colonial aspirations for independence and led to the establishment of an Indochinese Communist Party linked to an international movement. Between the wars, the shifting balance of seapower in the Far East would be exploited by Japan to project power by sea onto the continent of Asia and into Southeast Asia. As in earlier history, Vietnam's strategic importance would again be revealed. This time it would be used as a stepping stone in the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia and play a key role in the events leading to the Pearl Harbor attack. American and Allied victory in the basically maritime war in the Pacific Ocean and in particular in the South China Sea would lead to the elimination of the remnants of French control in Vietnam and then the Japanese surrender, thus providing revolutionary forces with a favorable opportunity to seize power at the end of World War II. The turn of the century had witnessed the growth of a modern Japanese Navy. By soundly defeating the Chinese Navy in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Japan cleared the way for the acquisition of Korea, Formosa, and the Pescadore Islands. Ten years later, the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 dramatically demonstrated that Japan was now a first-rate naval power. As a result of the extraordinary difficulties encountered in the deployment of Vice Admiral Zinovi P. Rozhdestvenski's squadron from the Baltic to the Far East, future Soviet leaders learned the importance of strategically located bases.1 The last stop of the squadron was made, quite logically, on 1 Sergei G. Gorshkov, Red Star Rising at Sea (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1974), pp. 33-37. |