General Voyron—Organisation of the Brigade—Piracy on the Lang-son railway—Politics and pacification—Topography and a tiger hunt—Among the Staff records—Colonel Gallieni—General Pernot—Hano?—General Coronnat—Death of a friend—Adieu to the army.
Time dealt gently with the able officer who was in command of the 2nd Brigade at Bac-Ninh in 1892; for this General, when at the head of the French corps, serving ten years later with the allied army under Marschall Waldersee in China, was still the same thick-set, active soldier, whose rugged features bespoke the energy and determination of the man, and whose eyes held the genial light which did not belie the kindly nature of the soul within. Throughout the whole of his long career this officer was associated with France's colonial army. As a young officer he was severely wounded at the defence of Bazeille in 1870. He served afterwards under Faidherbe[Pg 340] in the Soudan and Senegal, and with Brière de l'Isle in Tonquin.
The man-in-the-ranks of all armies is never at a loss to find an appropriate nickname for a superior who appeals to his regard or dislike, and this General had not been long in command before he became known to the men, in the French and foreign battalions alike, as "Papa Voyron." It would, indeed, have been difficult to find another cognomen conveying with equal truthfulness the just, firm and fatherly manner in which he treated the troops under his orders.
It is a pleasure to do justice to the high military capabilities and admirable characteristics of this popular French officer; but it must nevertheless be stated that the speech made by General Voyron at Marseilles, on his return from Pekin in 1902, containing as it did several adverse and unmerited criticisms on the discipline and courage of our Indian troops, was a source of some surprise to me. However, when one takes into consideration that of late years politics have unfortunately occupied a predominant place in the minds of France's most capable military men, and also that public feeling was unfavour[Pg 341]able to England at the time this speech was made, it may be assumed that these aspersions, which tally badly with the character of the gallant officer, were but the result of a passing wave of popular sentiment, to the effects of which the Gallic temperament is always so susceptible.
The Commandant of the Brigade, like many others of his profession, possessed a hobby, as far removed from le métier des armes as the not infrequent desire fostered by many old merchant skippers for keeping a poultry-farm is from the art of navigation. This hobby was horticulture. It should be mentioned that during the cooler months of each year in Tonquin—October to April—all the edible green stuffs of the temperate zones can be grown with success; though to obtain really good results fresh seed must be procured annually from Europe. General Voyron made it his special care that all the stations in the interior where white troops were garrisoned should possess a kitchen-garden. Thanks to this wise measure the men, to the benefit alike of their health and palate, were, and are still, supplied during six months out of twelve with abundant quantities of fresh[Pg 342] vegetables; and the quality of the crops obtained from the trim, well-kept gardens is a cause of emulation in each of these small garrisons.
Whenever the General inspected the different forts situated in the regions under his care, he never failed to look round these gardens; and, when they showed proof that care had been bestowed upon them, he was lavish in his expressions of satisfaction; but there would be a mauvais moment à passer for the unfortunate officer who had neglected or ignored the Brigadier's circulars containing recommendations concerning the necessity of ensuring a liberal supply of vegetables for the men.
The internal organisation of the Brigade Staff was very simple. There were three departments, the first being the general office, the staff of which was charged with the elucidation of all questions relating to administration, promotion and discipline in the corps belonging to the Brigade, the printing and despatching of general orders and circulars, and the drawing up of the monthly reports concerning the available effectives, the existing stocks of arms and ammunition, and the general health of the troops.
[Pg 343]
The Intelligence Department was the second section, and the duties of its chief were both numerous and delicate, some of the most important being the control of the surveying and topographical bureau, the interrogation of spies or prisoners, and administration of the Secret Service funds, the translation of code telegrams, the classification of the documents relative to the active operations of the Brigade, and the editing of the monthly confidential reports concerning the existing bands of rebels and brigands, which gave detailed information as to their organisation, approximate strength, armament and zones of action.
The third department was the office of the Brigade Major, through which all completed work passed for inspection and annotation before being transmitted to the General for signature, and from which the first two sections received instructions.
The Chief of the Staff, who was at the head of this office, was also charged with the transmission of the General's decisions, relative to punishments or censure inflicted on officers under his orders; and to his care were entrusted the confidential notes concerning each of these[Pg 344] subordinates. These notes consisted of information concerning the past services, punishments, special aptitudes or failings, as the case might be, of each officer in the Brigade, and were contained in a little parchment-covered book known as the livret individuel, on the outside of which was written the name of the person it concerned. One such book is made out for every sub-lieutenant as soon as he passes out of St Cyr and obtains his commission, and this little tell-tale record follows him from corps to corps during the whole of his career. It will be easily understood that it is considered a matter of extreme importance that no officer should ever become acquainted with the contents of his livret individuel, and to this effect the only persons who are allowed to handle them are the commandant of his regiment, who notes therein every six months his appreciations of his subordinate's military capabilities and moral conduct, the Chief of the Brigade Staff and the General.
The Secretaries on the Brigade took turns on night duty, for it was necessary that a man should be at the office from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. to receive the telegrams when they arrived, and,[Pg 345] in event of their being of urgent importance, to send them on to the Chief of the Staff. We were so busy in the Intelligence Department that in the first week in September the Major decided to get another man, so as to relieve me and aid in the topographical work. To my delight Lipthay was chosen for the post, so that a few days later I was able to welcome my old chum into his new quarters. This increase in work was due to the state of affairs on the railway then in construction from Phulang-Thuong to Lang-son, for the region was overrun by bands of Chinese brigands, under the orders of the famous Luu-Ky, who attacked the working parties, and carried away into captivity several of the French engineers and contractors. Encouraged by their success, the robbers ambuscaded several of the convoys going by road to Lang-son, and, after slaying the majority of the escort, carried off important quantities of treasure, several cases of Lebel rifles and a good deal of ammunition. In one of these engagements a major of the Infanterie de Marine, Commandant Bonneau, was shot dead. So great was the mobility of these bands,[Pg 346] and such excellent cover was offered by the mountainous country on either side of the road, that all attempts to engage and scatter them, made by the little parties of troops garrisoned in the different forts, proved of no avail; and it soon became evident that it would require a strong and well-organised column to secure any favourable results, to ensure the security of the route, and to allow of the work upon the railway being continued. In August General Reste, the Commander-in-Chief at Hano?, made an urgent appeal to the Governor-General for permission to undertake operations against Luu-Ky, on a scale to ensure success; but M. de Lanessan refused to countenance any such movement, and declared that the military authorities ought to be able to crush the bands with the forces already at their disposal, in garrison along the Lang-son route. There is little doubt that the Governor in making this reply was influenced by political motives. The recent successful operations in the Yen-Thé had been utilised to further his political aspirations in France, and the metropolitan press had repeatedly announced, with a great flourish of[Pg 347] trumpets, that rebellion and brigandage were now dead in Tonquin. Indeed, in one of his reports to the Colonial Minister, M. de Lanessan had declared that, owing to the success of his administration, the pacification of the colony was now an assured fact, and it was possible to wander over the country with no other protection than a stout walking-stick. The absurdity of such statements was clear in Tonquin, but they found favour with the public in France, where people were only too willing to believe that an era of peace and plenty was at last to open in their Far Eastern possessions, with a consequent cessation of the enormous sacrifices of men and money that had accompanied the past ten years. The Governor, because of this advertisement, was declared to be the first of France's Viceroys capable of grappling with the situation; and as it was his firm intention to again contest, in the near future, the seat in the Chamber which he had resigned on accepting the high position he was now filling, he can hardly be blamed, in a country where men take up politics as a business, for fostering interests which would assure him a considerable[Pg 348] number of votes when the time came. That this state of affairs was detrimental to the progress of the colony is certain, but political influence, party hatred and electioneering jobbery have had much to do with retarding the development of Indo-China, since its administration was placed in the hands of a civilian governor and staff in 1886.
It is, however, possible that the Governor made these declarations in good faith, for he had hardly been a year in the country, and was obliged to rely for advice on the Residents and Vice-Residents; and these civilians, hating the military element, were only too eager to throw doubts on the exactitude of the information contained in the reports coming in from the military territories, and they openly declared that the officers of the colonial army were intentionally exaggerating the gravity of the situation in the hope of provoking operations likely to bring them promotion and decorations. The contradictory advice of his civilian staff was possibly one of the causes which led the Governor to pooh-pooh the importance of this new upheaval, declaring[Pg 349] that the Generals were alarmists, and that the well-armed and organised bands of Luu-Ky were "que des voleurs de vaches pour venir au bout desquels il suffirait de quelques gendarmes" ("only cattle-stealers with whom a few policemen could deal"). These declarations provoked the anger and disgust of every officer and man in the colony, and very soon a veritable hatred reigned between the civil and military elements. The different newspapers sided with the parties appealing most to their sentiments or their pockets; for it was an open secret that some of these journals were subventioned by the Government, and a wordy warfare wherein neither insults nor invective were spared, was the order of the day. Doubtless there were faults on both sides; and it is certain that the Commander-in-Chief committed an unpardonable error by issuing general orders to the troops, to be read at parades and posted up in the barracks, in which the civilian authorities were belittled and reproached with having insulted the army. This necessarily added fuel to the fire; and the situation became so strained that officers and civilians came to fisticuffs in the[Pg 350] streets of the capital, and several serious duels took place.
Things were, however, brought to a climax towards the end of August by the abduction of three Frenchmen on the railway-line, one of whom, M. Vezin, was the principal engineer representing the big contracting firm, Fives-Lille & Co. The consternation in high quarters when this news was received was considerable, for there existed no possible chance of keeping such thrilling information out of the newspapers in Paris.
As soon as the coup had been successfully carried through, Luu-Ky retired into the security of his lair in the mountains of the Bao-Day range, and from here he sent out messengers to the nearest military station, announcing that he would release the prisoners on the receipt of a sum of $100,000 in silver; but he also declared that, in event of the troops approaching his encampment he would have the captives executed immediately. The excitement throughout the colony was intense, and party rancour was forgotten in the general anxiety felt for the three unfortunate prisoners,[Pg 351] as the cruelty of the Chinese bandits was well known to all. After three weeks of negotiation a slight reduction in the ransom was obtained, and the three gentlemen were released, after having suffered indignity and torture at the hands of their captors, with the result that their constitutions were wrecked by privation and exposure.
The Governor still refused, however, to authorise effective operations against the robbers; and it was not until several military convoys had been captured, and a good many officers and men slain, that M. de Lanessan finally agreed that the bandits were worthy of more serious attention than they had previously received. When the column actually commenced operations its work was considerably facilitated by the death of the famous chief Luu-Ky, from the effects of a wound received during the attack made on the convoy when Major Bonneau was killed; but, owing to the rugged nature of the country in which the operations took place, it was fully six weeks before the brigands were defeated and scattered. A good many of the bandits escaped into Kwang-si,[Pg 352] and others fled to the mountainous regions in the north.
The telegrams and reports, coming in from the column, were of great interest to me, as my company was taking part in the battue. I happened to be on night duty one evening towards the end of September, when a wire was received stating that a detachment of my comrades had been caught in an ambuscade, among the rocky defiles of the Kai-Kinh, at a point not far from Cho-Trang, my former garrison. This despatch mentioned that Captain Watrin, our commander, was among the slain. Both Lipthay and myself were shocked at this news. We experienced, however, a certain relief on hearing next day that the body of our chief had not fallen into the hands of the enemy, though seven of the men were hit while carrying the corpse out of a narrow defile to a place of safety.
Several months later I met a man who had assisted at this engagement, and he informed me that the Legionaries went raving mad when they learned that this popular officer was killed, and, after rushing the position—to gain which[Pg 353] they had to pass, one at a time, down a sort of narrow funnel, 50 feet long, swept by the enemy's fire—they slew every Chinaman found behind the improvised ramparts. Our losses were very heavy, owing to the strength of the position, but the men would not be denied, and took a terrible revenge for the death of their Captain. In October the rebel chief began to give trouble again. He made overtures for peace, and, profiting by the confidence thus inspired, and the absence of the majority of the troops from the region, he left his retreat in the forest, and captured and occupied a strongly-fortified village called Ban-Cuc, about 10 miles south of Nha-Nam. He established his headquarters there, and ravaged the surrounding district, until, a fortnight later, he was driven from his fastness by a column under Major Barr, and again escaped to the mountains with the majority of his men.
Notwithstanding the hard work we were having on the Brigade, time passed agreeably at Bac-Ninh, for there was plenty to see in the town when we were off duty—that is, for any one interested in studying the native[Pg 354] industries and customs. Besides, to relieve the monotony of garrison life, the General had encouraged the French troops to organise a theatrical troupe, which gave some very amusing concerts and dramatic performances in a temporary theatre in the barracks, the Commandant of the Brigade and his staff never failing to attend. In October General Reste was recalled to France, and General Duchemin took over the supreme command of the troops in the colony, after which the animosity between the civilians and military subsided.
At this time I was often left in charge of the Intelligence Department, for Lieutenant Cassier and Lipthay were away three days in each week, making a new survey of the surrounding country. During one of these outings they were approached by the headman of a village, who begged them to come and slay a man-eating tiger that had established his headquarters in a cluster of trees inside the hamlet itself. The beast had been there three days already, and each morning had seized upon and devoured one of the unfortunate inhabitants, so that the remainder[Pg 355] were afraid to leave their houses. The natives declared that they had employed every available means of driving the fierce brute away, but the beating of drums and gongs, the throwing of lances and lighted torches into the scrub, had only served to enrage their uninvited guest, and that very morning one of the villagers who had approached too near to the thicket, had been slain before the eyes of his comrades. The officer and my friend, taking with them their escort, consisting of ten native soldiers and a corporal, proceeded at once to the scene of the tragedy. The tirailleurs, instructed to shout and keep on firing off their rifles in the air from time to time, were told to advance upon the little clump of trees from three sides at once, while the lieutenant and Lipthay waited on the other. By these means they succeeded in driving the tiger out into the open, and he was despatched with a couple of well-aimed shots. I saw the beast when brought into Bac-Ninh; he was a fine specimen of his kind, measuring 9 feet 7 inches from the tip of the tail to the muzzle.
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At this period of my service I was promoted to the post of archiviste, and thus was placed in charge of all the records of the Brigade. I should mention that at this time they were in a serious state of disorder, owing to the negligence of the secretary who had preceded me in this work; so that I was obliged to set to and sort the whole of them. It was somewhat weary work at first, wading through this mass of paper: the greater part consisting of musty, dust-covered dossiers, dating back, some of them, to the conquest of the country by the French. But there were documents of immense interest among this medley of yellow, evil-smelling and worm-eaten despatches; and the reconstruction, with the aid of all the original reports of the famous march of General de Négrier to Lang-son and the frontier of China, the subsequent retreat to Kep, and the enquiry prior to the court-martial held on the unfortunate Colonel Herbinger, who took over the command of the troops after the General was wounded at Ky-Lua, was a source of pure joy to me for several days.
In December General Voyron left Tonquin[Pg 357] for France, and Colonel Gallieni, later a General and Governor of Madagascar, came down from Lang-son, where he was in command of the 1st Military Territory, and took over the service par interim. The Governor-General, who had already done away with the brigade at Son-Tay, thinking, no doubt, that this was a magnificent occasion to weaken still further the hand of the military party in the colony, decided to dispense with another brigadier, so he issued a decree abolishing the command at Bac-Ninh. Probably the fact that the announcement of this step would be hailed in France as another proof of the supposed pacification of the country was an inducement to the taking of this measure.
It is doubtful, from a military standpoint, if the change was a wise one; for, though it saved the colony about ￡4,800 a year—the salary of two generals—it was hardly possible for the Commander-in-Chief in Hano? to deal directly with the commandants of the different regiments, military territories and garrisons in the Delta, who were scattered all over so vast a country. Indeed, the insufficiency of the new system was so evident that the authorities[Pg 358] eventually returned to the original arrangement; and to-day, though the country is almost completely pacified, there exist two brigades in Tonquin and one in Cochin-China.
However, though M. de Lanessan planned this important change in the colony, the Colonial Ministry in Paris did not look at affairs in the same light. As soon as they learned that General Voyron was leaving, they sent out General Pernot to replace him, and the latter arrived in Indo-China to f............