Ho wars
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The Siamese Army during the Ho Wars (1875)
| date | 1865 to 1890 |
|---|---|
| place | Northern Thailand , Northern Laos and the western part of Northern Vietnam |
| output | without result, the Ho gangs disbanded at the end of the clashes |
| consequences | The Ho gangs withdrew to Yunnan and refrained from further attacks on Southeast Asia. |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Commander | |
|
Rama V (Chulalongkorn, King of Siam), King Oun Kham of Luang Phrabang |
unknown |
| Troop strength | |
| 30,000 | unknown |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
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The Ho Wars ( Thai สงคราม ปราบ ฮ่อ , RTGS Songkhram Prap Ho , literally War to Suppress the Ho ) were triggered by southern Chinese paramilitary gangs that invaded Tonkin , northern Laos and northern Thailand between 1865 and 1890 and were successfully fought there.
Invasion of the Ho flag gangs
In the middle of the second half of the 19th century , Chinese marauders, the so-called flag gangs, invaded from the south of Yunnan in northern Laos and devastated large areas. They were outlaws and outcasts and fled as a result of the repression of the Taiping Uprising in southern China. The Thai and Lao mistakenly identified them with the Hui-Chinese Muslims they called Ho , who were emigrating from southern China to Southeast Asia at the same time . In 1865, as “ black flags ” and rival “yellow flags”, they first penetrated Tonkin in what is now North Vietnam, where they set up base camps on the upper reaches of the Red River .
Resistance by the Vietnamese and the Qing
Black and yellow flags
The black flags were able to achieve a certain independence in Annam under their leader Liu Yung-fu , whose king Tự Đức used them as a counterweight to the French influence in Indochina . However, the yellow flags could not establish themselves as a halfway legal power and were driven out by a joint operation of the black flags, the Annamites and the Qing forces. After the fall of their leader, Huang Chung-ying , who was captured and executed, the yellow flags fled westward and threatened the Tai people's areas around Sip Song Chu Thai in what is now North Vietnam and northeast Laos.
Red and Striped Flags
Further to the west, around 1872 other Ho gangs defeated by the Qing troops invaded Laos, which was then a vassal state of Siam. These new gangs were called Red and Striped Flags to distinguish them from the older ones. On their way south they took almost all of Luang Phrabang. In 1873, the Red Flags even plundered Dien Bien Phu , while the Striped Flags controlled the Laotian Plain of the Jars .
In 1874, King Oung Kham of Luang Phrabang and Monarch Tự Đức of Vietnam organized a concerted action in which the armed forces of both empires were supposed to drive out the invaders. They were beaten by the Ho and the Prince of Phuan, Ung, was killed in the process. The victorious Ho penetrated further south and took Vientiane , whereupon Oun Kham asked the Siamese king Chulalongkorn (Rama V) for help.
The Ho and the Siam reaction
Beginning of the arguments
In the spring of 1875 Siamese troops crossed the Mekong at Nong Khai and tried to capture the Ho headquarters at Chiang Kham. The Ho then withdrew to the mountains near Phuan and Huaphan, so that the Siamese left Laos later in the year and the armed Ho reappeared and plundered at will.
Second Thai operation
Chao Oun Kham had to call the Siamese again in 1883 after the Ho gangs threatened Luang Phrabang again. King Chulalongkorn dispatched a Siamese army, the majority of which were soldiers from Isan and northern Thailand. The British surveyor James McCarthy took part in the expedition, calling it "immature, poorly prepared and ultimately unsuccessful". He noted: "As we invaded Laos, we received news from the Ho, agonizing reports of the devastation of the villages whose inhabitants they slaughtered, mutilated or dragged away into captivity." And he further reports as an eyewitness that the temples were desecrated and deliberately destroyed and that mountains of palm leaf books lay under the open sky, which would soon be lost forever if someone did not take care of them.
Eventually McCarthy traveled to Luang Phrabang to consult with the commanders. The Ho had gone to Mueang You, which should have been defended by the Prince of Sukhothai. However, he was down because of malaria and had withdrawn with his troops to Luang Phrabang. This left the garrison open to the Ho, who captured the outpost and burned its fencing. After the onset of the rainy season in June, the malaria threat became greater than that of the Ho. As a result, the Siamese troops withdrew to Luang Phrabang and across the Mekong to Nong Khai.
Battle of February 1885
In early 1885 the fighting started again in Laos, but no successes could be achieved during the three-month clashes. The Ho gangs were armed with modern repeating rifles and trained in guerrilla tactics. They tried to demoralize their enemies by mutilating prisoners, setting hidden traps with sharpened stakes, and carrying out night raids.
The Siamese troops nevertheless advanced on the morning of February 22, 1885 towards the Ho Fort, which measured 400 m by 200 m, was surrounded by a bamboo fence and secured by seven structures about twelve m high. The Laotian and Siamese troops advanced in groups of 50 men and secured themselves with a mobile palisade. The attackers had six-pound mountain guns ( Howitzer ) at their disposal , but there was not enough ammunition for them. When the Siamese commander was seriously wounded at 2 a.m., the attack was called off.
End of ho
The Ho may have been sent south by the governor of Yunnan to provoke the French. This may be true of the Tonkin Black Flags, but the Ho evidently had other goals. The Ho continued their businesses into the mid- 1890s when the combined power of the Siamese and French colonial forces drove them out.
effect
The Ho Wars are largely forgotten today. In front of the Nong Khai town house there is a memorial in honor of the Siamese and Lao soldiers who were killed during the Ho wars. In front of the police headquarters there is a more modern monument for the dead. Near Wat Angkhan on the banks of the Mekong is a smaller garden of sorrow, where the soldiers' widows could express their grief.
Individual evidence
- ^ Dieter Brötel: France in the Far East. Imperialist expansion in Siam and Malaya, Laos and China, 1880–1904. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, p. 109.
- ^ McCarthy (1900)
literature
- James McCarthy: Surveying and Exploring in Siam by James McCarthy with Descriptions of Lao Dependencies and of Battles against the Chinese Haws . 1900
Web links
- http://taisea.org/eng/history/wt1.html Web pages on the White Thai (in English, last accessed on February 13, 2011)