User talk:Djwilms

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Djwilms (talk | contribs) at 01:15, 13 October 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

And the answer is... Bouët, Alexandre-Eugène, 1833-1887 [1]. Congratulations for your great work on the Sino-French war! Cheers PHG (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear [PHG],

Thanks a lot for Bouët. The index to my book can now take one more small step towards completion ...

I see you were the author of that nice little map of the S-F War. I wonder whether you would care to make some minor edits to it? Specifically, I think some dates need changing:

The campaign in Taiwan lasted from August 1884 to April 1885.

The date of the Battle of Shipu was 14 February 1885, and Zhenhai Bay (if we agree to call it a battle, which I'm very doubtful about) 1 March 1885.

The campaign in Tonkin I would date August 1884 to April 1885.

The Sino-French War is conventionally dated from 23 August 1884 to April 1885, though I'm inclined to date it from the battle of Sontay (December 1883). Still, I've kept the conventional dating in my main article, so perhaps your map could also reflect this.

Incidentally, the picture of a French launch attacking a Chinese ship is ascribed in Wright's 'The Chinese Steam Navy' to the battle of Shipu, not Foochow. I think his ascription is correct, and have recaptioned it accordingly, but would welcome any confirmation.

I think I'll do the Battle of Bang-Bo next.

Cheers, David Wilmshurst

New map.
Thanks for the comments Djwilms. Here's an updated map. You might have to hit the refresh buttom on your browser to be able to see it. Cheers. PHG (talk) 04:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear [PHG]

I loved your Japanese print of the Sino-French War! Do you have any others?

You might be amused to note that I have used Bouet's christian names and dates in the article 'Battle of Phu-Hoai' I contributed today.

I've got a few French warship images at home that I need to add to the article 'Far East Squadron'. I've got Parseval for sure, but you've already covered the main ones. I've seen pictures of Lynx and some of the other gunboats in published books, but don't know whether they're available on the internet.

Keep up the good work on illustrating my contributions! I've so far balked at contributing images because of all the form filling you have to do on copyright, etc, so I appreciate contributions by others.

--Djwilms (talk) 02:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Annam

Is there any reason you keep on referring to Vietnam as Annam? Also Vietnamese names are usually written with the syllbales broken like Son Tay. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of good points. As far as Annam is concerned, I'm probably influenced by the nineteenth-century French sources I have been using for my book on the S-F War, which invariably refer to Vietnam as Annam and the Vietnamese as Annamites. Vietnam sounds anachronistic, which is also the reason I am using Wade Giles in my book for Chinese names instead of pinyin (though I have reluctantly used pinyin for Wikipedia contributions). As for the convention on Annamese place names, thanks for enlightening me. Again, the nineteenth-century French sources tended to hyphenate them (e.g. Lang-Son, Tuyen-Quan). My practice is, now I come to think of it, inconsistent. Thus I use Sontay, Bacninh, Langson, but also Tuyen-Quan. I have no objection whatsoever to adopting broken syllables for Vietnamese place names. Does that also apply to personal names? E.g., would it be Prince Hoang Ke Viem or do you need hyphens?

--Djwilms (talk) 08:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the older colonial era books tend to use Annam a lot, although in more recent times, the main books about the colonial era like David Marr's books tend to not use Annam, except when discussing the explicit central third of Vietnam as a French protectorate. For Vietnamese names, they are always in single parts like Gia Long for both places and people - Saigon and Hanoi and Haiphong are basically the only exceptions due to prevalence in English. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, how many more articles have you got lined up on this. I'm afraid to say I don't know much at all about the chaos in northern Vietnam in the 1880s. I have been doing a bit of work on the 1860s in southern Vietnam though. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quite a few. For starters, Bac Ninh Campaign, Hung Hoa Campaign, Thai Nguyen Campaign, Bac Le Ambush, Lang Son Campaign, Jilong Campaign, Battle of Danshui, Blockade of Formosa ... I also intend to seriously edit the existing articles on Siege of Tuyen Quang and Battle of Zhennan. Then there will be articles on the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and the Formosa Expeditionary Corps, not to mention the Cochin China Naval Division. Finally, biographies of Courbet, Millot, Briere de l'Isle (there's one already, I know), de Negrier and Giovanninnelli on the French side, and at least Liu Mingchuan, Sun Kaihua, Zeng Zizhe and Tang Chingsong on the Chinese side, plus elaborations to existing bios of Li Hongzhang and Liu Yongfu (or Liu Yung-fu, as it's presently titled. It's just a question of summarising stuff that's already in my book, so it shouldn't take more than a few weeks ...

--Djwilms (talk) 06:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When's teh book being published? Who's publishing it? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping for 23 August 2009 (the 125th anniversary, and all that), but HKU Press (University of Hong Kong) pointed out that anniversaries are only important for wars that people have heard of. So I'm now aiming for 2010. I've got to draw all the maps, for one thing. And there's a lot of Chinese material I haven't yet integrated into the main, very French-centred, text.

--Djwilms (talk) 06:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing if you have a full book then these articles are going to be very detailed correct? How many pages are you intending the book to be? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The book's around 600 pages long at present, and is written for the general reader of military history (I don't know whether you've read The Washing of the Spears about the Zulu War; it'll be a bit like that). I don't intend to give too much away in the Wiki articles, but enough to generate interest in the S-F War. The one I did this morning, The Battle of Hoa Moc, is about my preferred length. The account of the 1st Brigade's march and the battle takes up about 20 pages of my book. I could give detailed orders of battle if you think anybody would want them, but I wouldn't suppose there was that much interest, except perhaps among wargamers.

--Djwilms (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

--Djwilms (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that section headers are not to be capitalised except when it is a proper noun. I have changed some for you. HAppy editing, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A move

Regarding this move (moved Battle of Zhennan Pass to Battle of Bang Bo: the battle is more familiarly known as Bang Bo outside China), are you sure about this? I am no authority but "Battle of Zhennan Pass" gives 10x as many g-hits than "Battle of Bang Bo". Most of them are wikipedia+mirror hits, but of the remaining ones, "Zhennan Pass" still seems to outnumber "Bang Bo". I would say that this battle is NOT familiarly known, anywhere, anyway. --Миборовский (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


You're quite right that the battle is not familiarly known, anywhere, anyway. I keep forgetting that, six years ago, I had never heard of it either. I hope when my book comes out it will be better known. I think it deserves to be, and I also think that de Negrier deserves a decent biography. But on your main point, I've compromised by retitling the article to get both names in. Although I've brought in the Chinese deployments, my description of the battle is mainly from the French point of view, and given the nature of the article I think their name, Bang Bo, should take precedence over Zhennan Pass.

One of my aims in writing a suite of articles on the Sino-French War is to combat the inaccuracies that appear in various Wikipedia articles that deal with it. The Chinese Wikipedia article, for example, claims that the French lost 1,000 men at Zhennan Pass. I think not. I've also seen claims that the Guangxi Army had only 8,000 men, not 32,000. And Ky Lua seems to have got lost entirely in some accounts. The French defeat at Bang Bo elides into the Retreat from Lang Son, with no mention of this major French victory on 28 March ...

--Djwilms (talk) 01:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the Military history WikiProject!

Hi, and welcome to the Military history WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history.

A few features that you might find helpful:

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask one of the project coordinators, or any experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! TomStar81 (Talk) 08:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

Hi Djwilms! I added a barnstar on your user page, for your remarkable work on the little-known subject of the Sino-French war. Congratulations! PHG (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much! How about the legion d'honneur? Djwilms (talk) 06:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That could well be for when you actually publish your book I guess (I am looking forward to buying my own copy!) :) Cheers PHG (talk) 08:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expand

You had great contributions of expanding the article Sino-French War. If you don't mind, I need you to expand article First Indochina War and Cambodian-Vietnamese War, by creating many articles about the battles and campaigns of these wars, thank. 71.107.108.244 (talk) 05:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re Expand

Twentieth-century Vietnamese history is not really my field, I'm afraid. Once I've finished the stuff on the Sino-French War and the four Chinese regional navies, my plan is to go on to the Cochin China campaign (1860s), Francis Garnier's first attempt to conquer Tonkin (1873-74), and the Vietnamese can vuong resistance movement from 1885 to 1896. That lot should keep me busy for a few weeks at least. But I'll have a look at the existing stuff on these two wars, and if I think I can help by reorganising some material I'll have a go.

By the way, all my S-F War articles are default graded as Start Class or Stubs. I've asked for a review of the main article and a couple of other typical 'battle' articles, but my request doesn't seem to have attracted any attention yet. Do you know how to get these things reviewed?

Djwilms (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Commons

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Can Vuong

Hi there. What stuff are you interested in from that era. I have written the articles on Truong Dinh and Pahn Dinh Phung. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Hi,

I'm principally interested in the period from the 'Hue Ambush' of July 1885 up to 1896, when the French could reasonably claim to have 'pacified' Tonkin. I got interested in what happened in Vietnam after the Sino-French War, as it has certain similarities to what has been happening in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. I've got a nice quote from Paul Puginier in April 1882, when he heard that Riviere was about to seize the citadel of Hanoi. He predicted that it would take the French 20 years to conquer Tonkin, and was not far out in his estimate. Needless to say, Riviere's young naval captains did not believe him.

Djwilms (talk) 09:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image without license

Image:French Cemetery Keelung.jpg

Hello. I came across Image:French Cemetery Keelung.jpg. I don't understand why the license is shown as it is. Can you explain why it's public domain. I don't see anything to that effect on Find-a-Grave. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Angus,

You're right, it shouldn't have that licence. I think that was one of several images I uploaded that day, and it may have got tagged with that license through a process of copy-and-paste. I will ask the Find-a-Grave people if they don't mind releasing it into the public domain. If they do, I will delete it and replace it with one of my own photos of the Keelung cemetery (not as good as theirs, though, sadly).

Djwilms (talk) 06:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Milhist

Hi, and welcome to the Military history WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history.

A few features that you might find helpful:

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask one of the project coordinators, or any experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to WikiProject Ships

Hello Djwilms, and welcome to WikiProject Ships!

Please see the navigation sidebar on our main project page for information about our project guidelines, resources, and pending tasks. You can post any questions at the project talk page. Thank you for joining - we look forward to working with you! Maralia (talk) 14:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tonkin campaign

Hi Djwilms! Congratulations for all your work on the Sino-French war. I think it is truely amazing. On my part I have been beefing up the background in France-Vietnam relations. I also just created the Tonkin campaign article to refer to the 1883-1885 events preceding the Sino-French war per se. I also made a template for the battles of the Tonkin campaign. I hope this will be a satisfactory way of classifying the pre-Sino-French war events of the period. I also made a template to offer a better coverage of French Indochina: Template:French Indochina. Cheers PHG (talk) 09:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, PHG

Thanks for the compliment. You've got some nice stuff too in the F-V relations article. I particularly liked Courbet at Hue.

Yes, it's difficult to categorise things like the Son Tay and Bac Ninh campaigns. France was not yet at war with China (indeed, she never was officially, as neither side declared war in August 1884), yet French and Chinese troops were fighting each other. Some people talk about the Sino-French War starting in 1883, with the Son Tay campaign, but clearly August 1884 was felt to be the real start of the war at the time. I've tended to use the phrase 'the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the S-F War' in my articles.

I've been thinking about how best to disentangle Tonkin from the Sino-French War. One possibility might be for the article 'Tonkin campaign' to cover the period April 1882 (Riviere's seizure of the citadel of Hanoi) to February 1886 (de Maussion's occupation of Lao Cai). 1886 is also a good end point because it saw the official, ludicrously premature, declaration by the French that Tonkin had been 'pacified' and the downgrading of the Tonkin expeditionary corps to a division of occupation. There would then be room for another article from 1886 to 1896, Pacification of Tonkin, covering the insurgency in Tonkin and the real work of pacification. At the end of the Sino-French War the French only held the Delta securely, and large parts of western Tonkin were only brought under French rule in the late 1880s. I've spent several months going over Thomazi's blow-by-blow account of every skirmish during those ten years, and I am thinking of writing an article on the pacification, or at least one on the siege of Ba Dinh in 1886, a sort of Dien Bien Phu in reverse, with the French on the outside. The future Marshal of France Joseph Joffre, then a mere captain, had a starring role there, so that would also make it of interest.

Djwilms (talk) 01:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Are you going to add Battle of Paper Bridge (May 1883) and Battle of Gia Cuc (March 1883) to the template, or do you consider the campaign as starting with Bouet's arrival in June 1883?

Djwilms (talk) 01:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Djwilms, were you thinking of seeking WP:FA or WP:GA status for any of your articles in the long run? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I wouldn't mind, if readers thought they were worth it. Some of the articles need a bit more work but a few are just about finished. The ones I am proudest of at present are the main article Sino-French War, Bac Le ambush and Keelung Campaign.

Djwilms (talk) 04:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Djwilms! Thank you for your comments. Just one point about the start of the Sino-French war, but my main source on the subject (Jean Randier, La Royale) states that there was indeed a declaration of war on 22 August 1884, which I guess would clarify where exactly the war starts: p.384 "Un dernier ultimatum avait été adressé à Pékin le 19 Aout. Il resta bien entendu sans réponse et le 22, Courbet apprenait que la guerre avait été declarée." also "Informé de la déclaration de guerre, le 22 Aout 1884, Courbet fait prévenir le Vice-Roi du Fou-Kien de son intention de combattre, par notre Vice-Consul, de Bezaure". Would you have any other information on the subject? In any case, I guess we could have "Tonkin campaign" from 1883 until 22 August 1884 (the beginning of the war), then the Sino-French war (22 August 1884-April 1885) which of course includes the Tonkin war theater during that period, and, to your point, Tonkin pacification after April 1885. What do you think? Cheers PHG (talk) 20:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PHG,

Randier is wrong about the declaration of war. On 22 August 1884 the French cabinet sanctioned an attack on the Foochow Navy Yard and the Fujian Fleet, but this was not a declaration of war. Technically, the attack was an action by France to assert her rights under an 'etat de represailles' (I can't be bothered with the accents) for the Bac Le ambush. Ferry couldn't declare war because the Chamber of Deputies would not have supported it, with the result that he fought the Sino-French War on a shoestring, conjuring up troops from wherever he could, mostly from the army in Africa. He was sustained by the French parliament so long as things went well, but with the Retreat from Lang Son in March 1885 the vultures gathered. I'm going to beef up the article 'Tonkin affair' to deal with the French politics of the Sino-French War. It's good back-stabbing stuff.

On your other point, although there would be a degree of overlap with the Sino-French War, I would date 'Tonkin campaign' from 1883 (let's start with Bouet and the creation of the Tonkin expeditionary corps) to April 1886 (the official date for the end of the campaign, Tonkin being deemed to be pacified), so that it runs for the life of the expeditionary corps. Although my focus has been on the battles with China so far, there was an awful lot going on behind the front lines to entrench the French positions in Tonkin, and I could easily expand what you have done already to mention the expeditions directed against the Vietnamese rather than the Chinese. It would also have the advantage that I could move a lot of stuff from Tonkin Expeditionary Corps to Tonkin campaign and keep the focus of the former article on orders of battle and officers. Then, as you say, a separate article on the real, as opposed to the official, pacification of Tonkin.

Djwilms (talk) 01:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me! Cheers PHG (talk) 04:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

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{{Sino-French war}}

Here's also a {{Sino-French war}} template that should help keep tidy related information. Cheers PHG (talk) 21:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks PHG. I shall gradually paste it in to all my SF War articles.

Djwilms (talk) 07:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Siege of Đà Nẵng

See this. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 08:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Award

The Epic Barnstar
Awarded to Djwilms for his work on Vietnamese history. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the encouragement, Bananabucket. I'll get through the entire French colonial period by hook or by crook, you see if I don't!

Djwilms (talk) 07:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use of Cochinchina

Cochinchina look more common than Cochin China. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 07:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. I'll emend it whenever I come across it in my articles. I've already been using the adjective 'Cochinchinese' when referring to the tirailleurs cochinchinois (Cochinchinese Riflemen). Djwilms (talk) 01:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, because the original name is in French as Cochinchine, it's one word, no separate. So we will write the same thing in English as Cochinchina. Cheer. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 01:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New ideas

1) When you create articles about battles or any other campaigns, I would like you to add the "Infobox Military Conflict box", just like what I did.

2) For all articles that their titles had Vietnamese name, you should put (or redirect) them in origin Vietnamese words, which support Vietnamese tone marks. (e.g.: Lang Son Campaign to Lạng Sơn Campaign).

3) I think you had looked at article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng. There's something strange. You read the entire article, you realize that it mostly talked about the background, causes, materials, loses, and results. But for the bombardment itself, it had only but a few words about it. So if you more informations, please expand and write more about the attack, thank. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, 96.229.193.68,

I've rewritten the article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng to remove a certain amount of repetition and to go further into the background and significance of the incident. I'm trying to find out more about why the negotiations failed and the circumstances in which the battle started. The suggestion that the French opened fire first is also intriguing, and I'm certainly open-minded about this. For the time being, though I prefer to rely on Thomazi, old though he is, than the history of Vietnam by Chapuis quoted in a previous revision, which seems unreasonably biased against the French. For the time being, I'd prefer not to use this source until I've looked further into the incident. If necessary, I will reinstate it.

Djwilms (talk) 09:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cochinchina campaign

Hi there 96.229.193.68,

Thanks for your comments. I should be able to tidy up the article Bombardment of Đà Nẵng as you suggest. I do have more information on the attack itself, and I'll put it in in the next couple of days.

Turning to the articles dealing with the battles of 1858 to 1862, my article Siege of Đà Nẵng is still a work in progress, and I intend to add a lot more detail on the siege itself in the near future. The article presently contains a lot of extraneous material better suited to an article on the campaign as a whole, and I intend to create an article Cochinchina campaign (1858-1862) (I can't think of a better title at present, but any suggestions will be welcome) and shift a lot of stuff from both Siege of Đà Nẵng and the related article Capture of Saigon to it. I am presently translating Thomazi's account of the capture of Saigon into English, and will shortly be in a position to add a lot of detail to that article.

I have no problem in principle with adding military conflict boxes to my articles, though they can often be rather simplistic, particularly in terms of counting casualties. And what constitutes victory and defeat? To take just one example, check out my article Keelung Campaign, which is one of my better ones. Then try to decide who won the campaign, and why. You could argue that it was a victory for the French, who won most of the battles, or a victory for the Chinese, who tied down substantial French forces in an inconclusive struggle around Keelung. Trying to resolve these problems has been one of the reasons why I have so far avoided using these boxes myself.

Djwilms (talk) 01:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PHG,

Please see the above comments. Would you be able to do one of your neat templates for 'Cochinchina campaign'? It would initially include Siege of Đà Nẵng and Capture of Saigon, and would include under French personalities Rigault de Genouilly, Charner and Page. I eventually intend to create articles on Capture of My Tho and Capture of Bien Hoa to complete the military side of the campaign. And there would be space for biography articles of the Vietnamese commanders. There's a lot in Thomazi which I will put in shortly.

Cheers,

Djwilms (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go. Cheers PHG (talk) 05:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PHG,

What a splendid template! Thanks very much. By the way, I'll be doing something on the attack on the Ki Hoa lines shortly. It may end up as a separate article, but for starters I'll probably place it in Siege of Saigon. Djwilms (talk) 06:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Background on French help with Gia Long

Hi Djwilms, I am a bit surprised with your writings about Gia Long and Minh Mang's dealings with the French and Pigneau. From my understanding, the modern books - anything since WW2, all say that the French govt didn't go through with the assistance deal of 1500 odd men and few boats and in the end, Pigneau arrived in 1789 in Saigon with free-lance French officers. Cady, Hall, Karnow, etc, all the guys listed in Gia Long all cite around < 300 and say that by the time Gia Long fully won in 1802, not many were left (only a few dozen) and by the time Gia Long died, only four were left. Chaigneau, de Forsans, Vannier and Despiau I think. Per the paper by Mantienne, which I cited in Gia Long and Citadel of Saigon, it appears that modern consensus is that the French trained the Nguyen military in the 1790s and after that the Nguyen understood how Vauban and European boats and forts worked and they then built the later forts themselves. I don't think Thomaxi views are the prevailing ones anymore. Thoughts? Keep up the good work. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi YellowMonkey, You're probably on much stronger ground than me here. I've read up on Gia Long and Minh Mang essentially as background for my interest in the Sino-French War, and I haven't gone into their reigns in great detail. Having just taken a glance at the article Gia Long, I can see that there's a lot there that I wasn't aware of. I'm perfectly happy to revise what I've written already, but I'd need to get myself up to speed on this stuff before I worked out how to do it. But if you feel strongly about it, by all means revise it yourself.

Djwilms (talk) 06:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi YellowMonkey, me again. I've amended the section in question after doing a bit of checking. The mistake was entirely my fault: I'd just tended to assume that Vaubanesque citadels like at Son Tay had been built by French engineers. Thomazi, who is generally good on matters of fact if not of interpretation, attributes four citadels, all in Cochinchina, to Olivier de Puymanel. Here's the passage:

. . . we should mention Olivier de Puymanel, a volunteer who disembarked from Dryade in 1788 at the age of 20. The bishop so appreciated his qualities that he appointed him his chief of staff. When he died at the age of 31, in 1799, worn out by his efforts, he had accomplished a considerable work in Cochinchina, notably in directing the construction of Vaubanesque fortresses covering the principal strategic positions of the country—Vinh Long, Ha Tien, My Tho, Bien Hoa and so on—and which our soldiers, seventy years later, would be not a little surprised to find facing them.

So perhaps not Hanoi, Son Tay and Bac Ninh ...

Djwilms (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a lot of books in PDF form that I can email to you if you want. And papers as well. YellowMonkey (click here to chose Australia's next top model!) 03:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi YellowMonkey,

Thanks very much. Do you have any books or articles that deal with the Cochinchina campaign? That's the area that I expect to be working on in the next few weeks, and I'm sure I'll soon reach the limits of Thomazi's account, useful though it is.

Djwilms (talk) 04:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The more general book is by McLeod, which concentrates on the period from 1858-1874. That is more about politics and Tu Duc's tactics and is more about political strategy rather than military tactics. Nevertheless it has info about the Catholic minority and how the French and the Emperor tried to deal with them. There is a book called "The French Presence

in Cochinchina and Cambodia Rule and Response (1859 - 1905)" by Milton Osborne which seems to be more about the general French rule. Some other books that I checked out recommended "The French Conquest of Cochinchina 1858-1862" which is a PhD thesis by Nguyen Thanh Thi at Cornell under some famous professors who wrote lots of books. The third one is not in pdf, but I can send you the pages as images if you want. There is also a profile paper on Phan Thanh Gian - the main mandarin in the peace negotiations - which is on JSTOR which you should have because you are at a university. I also have a paper about the 19th century Nguyen forts and navy. YellowMonkey (click here to chose Australia's next top model!) 07:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

poke. If you drop my an email I will respond with the papers. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reminder again in case all this was swamped by the bot notices. YellowMonkey (click here to chose Australia's next top model!) 01:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi YellowMonkey,

I think I'm going to need to sort out my user page. It's getting a bit long. Of the books you mention, the one that immediately appeals is the paper on the Nguyen forts and navy. Having mistakenly assumed that some of the citadels in Tonkin were built by the French, I would be interested in establishing when they were built and by whom. This is more for my Sino-French War book than for Wikipedia, but I'll doubtless add a couple of sentences to Son Tay Campaign and Bac Ninh campaign and other relevant pieces. My office email is davidjohn@cuhk.edu.hk if you want to send it to me by email. Thanks in advance,

Djwilms (talk) 01:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Siege of Saigon?

Hi PHG,

I've been fiddling around with my new article Cochinchina campaign to incorporate material from your article Capture of Saigon. I'm wondering whether your article might be more profitably retitled 'Siege of Saigon'. The capture took one day; the subsequent siege lasted a couple of years (I've got a lot of stuff in Thomazi on both the capture and the siege). It would add to the somewhat weak category Sieges involving Vietnam, and would be on the same footing as the analogous article Siege of Đà Nẵng. What do you think?

Djwilms (talk) 03:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem with me! Cheers PHG (talk) 05:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PHG,

Me again. I notice you have given the date 18 February 1859 for the capture of Saigon, whereas Thomazi's account gives 17 February. I've provisionally emended to 17 February, but if you have a better source for 18 February I will be happy to reconsider.

Djwilms (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Capture of Biên Hòa

Please move Capture of Bien Hoa to Capture of Biên Hòa. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 05:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're great. Could you tell me, when you log in, how did you move that the edit history comes along with it? 96.229.193.68 (talk) 07:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there 96.229.193.68

Dunno ... I just went to the original article Capture of Bien Hoa, selected 'Move' at the top of the page, pasted in the name with accents and clicked on 'Move'. Everything then happened automatically. Djwilms (talk) 07:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Paper Bridge

I think the title is not okay. Maybe we can't translate directly, which means the article should be renamed as Battle of Cầu Giấy, Battle of Cầu Giấy Bridge, or Battle of Giấy Bridge, is it better? 96.229.193.68 (talk) 06:17, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, 96.229.193.68,

In the French sources, the battle is almost invariably called Paper Bridge, though I have seen Battle of Cau Giay on occasion. I think western readers who know anything at all about Riviere's death would think of Paper Bridge rather than Cau Giay, so I think we need to keep Paper Bridge in the title somewhere. We could always do the same thing as I've done with the Battle of Bang Bo/Zhennan Pass, viz. put one of the names in brackets. How about Battle of Cầu Giấy (Paper Bridge)? Djwilms (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with title Battle of Cầu Giấy (Paper Bridge), cheer. 96.229.193.68 (talk) 02:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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WikiProject France newsletter

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Thanks for your contributions to the project, Jordan Contribs 17:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interested in working on the French Revolution

Greetings, I got your name from the WP:FRANCE members' list. Are you interested in working towards a substantial improvement to the French Revolution article? It is one of the most viewed throughout the encyclopedia, and should be of excellent quality. In my dream world, I'd like to separate the article into multiple sections, with each editor taking a particular part to improve. I hope to see you at the article! Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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