The Native Army in Indo-China: Conquering Force or Bone of Contention?

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the severe conflicts within the French administration in Indo-China in the mid-1880s – notably between the military and the civil administration – over the recruitment of indigenous soldiers into the colonial armed forces. To a considerable degree, those conflicts reflected deep divisions in metropolitan France, which had their origins in the French Revolution. The conflicts had serious implications for the colonial project in Indo-China, as this was a period in which the French were engaged in pacifying a rebellious Tonkin. For several years, the conflicts produced an absurd system of native recruitment. Between 1886 and 1890 France recruited armed natives for a single, identical purpose in Annam and Tonkin, but under four different names or statutes. There were militiamen, paid for by the French protectorate; Tonkinois infantrymen in the first three regiments, paid by the navy, while infantrymen of the fourth regiment were paid by the Ministry of War; and the Chasseurs Annamites, paid out of the royal treasury. After the appointment of Jean-Louis de Lanessan as Governor General in June 1891, the number of categories was reduced to two, each with its own clearly separate field of opera-tions, and the armed native at the service of France was no longer a source of conflict among Frenchmen.