Background
On 11 May 1884 French and Chinese negotiators concluded the Tientsin Accord, an agreement designed to end several months of undeclared hostilities between France and China in Tonkin. On 23 June 1884, French troops advancing to occupy Lang Son, in accordance with the terms of this agreement, clashed near the small town of Bac Le with a detachment of the Chinese Guangxi Army. The Chinese opened fire on the advancing French, precipitating a two-day battle in which the French column was seriously mauled. This incident, the Bac Le Ambush, was the proximate cause of the Sino-French War.
When news of the Bac Le Ambush reached Paris, there was fury at what was perceived as blatant Chinese treachery. Jules Ferry’s government demanded an apology, an indemnity, and the immediate implementation of the terms of the Tianjin Accord. The Chinese government agreed to negotiate, but refused to apologise or pay an indemnity. The mood in France was against compromise, and although negotiations continued throughout July, Admiral Courbet was ordered to take his squadron to Fuzhou (Foochow).
Courbet was instructed to prepare to destroy the Foochow Navy Yard, fifteen kilometres downriver from Fuzhou at Mawei, and to attack the Chinese fleet in Mawei harbour. Ironically, the Foochow Navy Yard represented a substantial French investment in China's future, having been built several years earlier under the direction of the French administrator Prosper Giquel. During the second half of July and the first half of August Courbet gradually concentrated his squadron in Mawei harbour, at the Pagoda Anchorage—named for a conspicuous Chinese pagoda, the Luoxingta (羅星塔), which stood on a hill above the harbour.
Negotiations between France and China broke down in mid-August, and on the evening of 22 August Courbet was authorised by the French government to commence hostilities. He duly notified the foreign consuls, the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, and the commanders of several neutral warships moored at the Pagoda Anchorage (the British gunboats Vigilant, Champion and Sapphire and the American corvette Enterprise).
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Fuzhou
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)