Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet (; 26 June 1827 – 11 June 1885) was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin Campaign (1883–86) and the Sino-French War (August 1884 – April 1885).
Early years
Courbet was born in Abbeville as the youngest of three children. His father died when he was nine years old. He was educated at the École Polytechnique.
From 1849 to 1853 Courbet served as a midshipman (aspirant) on the corvette Capricieuse (capitaine de vaisseau Roquemaurel). Capricieuse circumnavigated the globe during this period and cruised for several months along the China Coast, giving Courbet his first experience of the seas in which, thirty years later, he would win fame. After his return to France he was posted to the brick Olivier, attached to the Levant naval division. In December 1855, at Smyrna, he intervened to quell a mutiny aboard the Messageries impériales packet Tancrède, and was subsequently commended for his conduct by the navy ministry. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant de vaisseau in November 1856.
From 1864 to 1866 Courbet served on the two-deck broadside ironclad battleship Solferino as aide-de-camp and secretary to Admiral Bouët-Willaumez, commander of the escadre d'évolutions. He was promoted capitaine de frégate in August 1866 and posted to the ironclad frigate Savoie as chief of staff to Admiral de Dompierre d'Hornoy, commander of the North Sea and English Channel naval division. In March 1870 he was posted to the Antilles naval division as captain of the despatch vessel Talisman. This posting, which gave him no opportunity for action during the Franco-Prussian War, was his first independent command. He returned to France in May 1872.
In early 1873 Courbet returned to the Antilles as second officer on the frigate Minerve. He was promoted capitaine de vaisseau in August 1873. Between December 1874 and January 1877 he commanded the School of Underwater Defences (école des défenses sous-marines) at Boyardville (Ile d'Oléron). From 1877 to 1879 he was posted to the ironclad Richelieu, where he again served as chief of staff to Admiral de Dompierre d'Hornoy, now commander-in-chief of the escadre d'évolutions.
In May 1880 Courbet succeeded Admiral Olry as governor of New Caledonia. He returned to France in the autumn of 1882, where he was promised command of the Levant naval division by Admiral Bernard Jauréguiberry, the navy minister. Jauréguiberry was replaced as navy minister in January 1883 when Charles Duclerc's cabinet was replaced by the brief administration of Armand Fallières, and Courbet was instead appointed commander of the division navale d'essais in the Mediterranean. In April 1883 he hoisted his flag aboard the ironclad Bayard at Cherbourg.
Command of Tonkin Coasts Naval Division
In June 1883 Courbet was transferred from the division navale d'essais and given command of a new Tonkin Coasts naval division (division navale des côtes du Tonkin). The French government was attempting to impose a protectorate in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) at this period, in the face of bitter opposition from Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army. The Black Flag Army was covertly armed and supplied by China, and the role of the new naval division was to cut the flow of weapons and ammunition to the Black Flags by blockading the Gulf of Tonkin. The Tonkin Coasts naval division included the ironclads Bayard and Atalante from Courbet's Mediterranean command and the cruiser Châteaurenault from Algiers. Courbet was also given two torpedo boats, Nos. 45 and 46, and was ordered to take over the seagoing vessels of the Cochinchina naval division on his arrival in Tonkin. Courbet arrived at Along Bay in July 1883.
In August in response to the death of the Vietnamese emperor Tự Đức and a consequent succession crisis, the French government approved an operation to coerce the Vietnamese court at Huế. On 18 August Courbet's naval division bombarded the Thuận An forts at the entrance to the River of Perfumes, and on 20 August, in the Battle of Thuận An, a landing force of sailors and marine infantry overran the Vietnamese defences and captured the forts. Courbet's victory, which enabled the French to occupy Huế whenever they wanted, compelled the Vietnamese court to submit to French authority and sign the Treaty of Huế, which recognised the French protectorate in Tonkin.Loir, 13–22; Thomazi, Conquête, 165–6; Histoire militaire, 62–4
Command of Tonkin Expeditionary Corps In October 1883 Courbet was placed in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps. In December 1883 he struck at Sơn Tây. The Sơn Tây Campaign was the fiercest campaign the French had yet fought in Tonkin. Although the Chinese and Vietnamese contingents at Sơn Tây played little part in the defence, Liu Yongfu's Black Flags fought ferociously to hold the city. On 14 December the French assaulted the outer defences of Sơn Tây at Phu Sa, but were thrown back with heavy casualties. Hoping to exploit this reverse, Liu Yongfu attacked the French lines the same night, but the Black Flag attack also failed disastrously. After resting his troops on 15 December, Courbet again assaulted the defences of Sơn Tây on the afternoon of 16 December. This time the attack was thoroughly prepared by artillery, and delivered only after the defenders had been worn down. At 5 p.m. a Foreign Legion battalion and a battalion of marine fusiliers captured the western gate of Sơn Tây and fought their way into the town. Liu Yongfu's garrison withdrew to the citadel, and evacuated Sơn Tây under cover of darkness several hours later. Courbet had achieved his objective, but at considerable cost. French casualties at Sơn Tây were 83 dead and 320 wounded. The fighting at Sơn Tây also took a terrible toll of the Black Flags, and in the opinion of some observers broke them once and for all as a serious fighting force.Thomazi, Conquête, 171–7; Histoire militaire, 68–72
Command of Far East Squadron The 1883 campaigns in Tonkin had been conducted, like most French colonial enterprises, by the troupes de marine, and had been overseen by the navy ministry. In December 1883, however, in view of the increasing commitment of troops from Algeria to Tonkin, the army ministry insisted on appointing a general from the regular army to command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps, which would be henceforth be constituted as a two-brigade infantry division with the normal complement of artillery and other supporting arms. Jules Ferry's cabinet approved this recommendation, and Courbet was replaced in command of the expeditionary corps on 16December 1883 by General Charles-Théodore Millot—ironically, on the very day on which he captured Sơn Tây. He resumed command of the Tonkin Coasts naval division, and for the next six months played a most unwelcome subordinate role, hunting down bands of Vietnamese pirates in the Gulf of Tonkin while Millot was winning glory in the Bắc Ninh campaign.Loir, 29–35
Courbet's luck changed in June 1884. On 27June, in response to the news of the Bắc Lệ ambush, the Tonkin Coasts naval division and the Far East naval division were amalgamated into a Far East Squadron. The new squadron, which would remain in existence throughout the Sino-French War, was placed under Courbet's command, with Admiral Sébastien Lespès (the commander of the Far East naval division) second in command. Courbet's squadron initially included the ironclads Bayard (the flagship), Atalante, La Galissonnière and Triomphante, the cruisers , , and , the light frigates Hamelin and Parseval, the gunboats Lynx, Vipère, Lutin and Aspic, the troopships Drac and Saône and Torpedo Boats Nos. 45 and 46. In July 1884 Courbet was ordered to concentrate part of the squadron at Fuzhou, to threaten the Fujian fleet (one of China's four regional fleets) and the Foochow Navy Yard.Loir, 65–87
Min River operations, August 1884
Negotiations between France and China to resolve the crisis over the Bắc Lệ ambush broke down in mid- August and on 22August Courbet was ordered to attack the Chinese fleet at Fuzhou. In the Battle of Fuzhou (also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage) on 23August 1884, Courbet's Far East Squadron annihilated China's outclassed Fujian fleet and severely damaged the Foochow Navy Yard. Nine Chinese ships were sunk in less than an hour, including the corvette Yangwu, the flagship of the Fujian fleet. Chinese losses may have amounted to 3,000 dead, while French losses were minimal. Courbet then successfully withdrew down the Min River to the open sea, destroying several Chinese shore batteries from behind as he took the French squadron through the Min'an and Jinpai passes.Lung Chang, 280–3; Thomazi, Conquête, 204–15
Operations in Formosa, October 1884 In late September 1884, much to his distaste, Courbet was ordered to use the Far East Squadron to support the landing of a French expeditionary corps at Keelung and Tamsui in northern Formosa (Taiwan). Courbet argued vigorously against a campaign in Formosa and submitted alternative proposals to the navy ministry for a campaign in northern Chinese waters to seize Port Arthur or Weihaiwei. He was supported by Jules Patenôtre, the French minister to China, but both men were overruled.Garnot, 32–40
On 1 October Lieutenant-Colonel Bertaux-Levillain landed at Keelung with a force of 1,800 marine infantry, forcing the Chinese to withdraw to strong defensive positions which had been prepared in the surrounding hills. The French force was too small to advance beyond Keelung. Meanwhile, after an ineffective naval bombardment on 2October, Admiral Lespès attacked the Chinese defences at Tamsui with 600 sailors from his squadron's landing companies on 8October, and was decisively repulsed by forces under the command of the Fujianese general Sun Kaihua (孫開華). The French were now committed to a prolonged Keelung Campaign, and Courbet's squadron was tied down in a largely ineffective blockade of Formosa.
Battle of Shipu Bay, February 1885 After several months of inactivity, Courbet won a series of victories in the spring of 1885. Courbet's squadron had been reinforced substantially since the start of the war, and he now had considerably more ships at his disposal than in October 1884. In early February 1885 part of his squadron left Keelung to head off a threatened attempt by part of the Chinese Southern Seas fleet to break the French blockade of Formosa. On 11February Courbet's task force met the cruisers Kaiji, Nanchen and Nanrui, three of the most modern ships in the Chinese fleet, near Shipu Bay, accompanied by the frigate Yuyuan and the composite sloop Chengqing. The Chinese scattered at the French approach, and while the three cruisers successfully made their escape, the French succeeded in trapping Yuyuan and Chengqing in Shipu Bay. On the night of 14February, in the Battle of Shipu, both ships were crippled during a daring French torpedo attack, Yuyuan by a French spar torpedo and Chengqing by Yuyuan'''s fire. Both ships were subsequently scuttled by the Chinese.De Lonlay, 67–90; Duboc, 274–93; Loir, 245–64; Lung Chang, 327-8
Blockade of Ningbo, March 1885 Courbet followed up this success on 1 March by locating Kaiji, Nanchen and Nanrui, which had taken refuge with four other Chinese warships in Zhenhai Bay, near the port of Ningbo. Courbet considered forcing the Chinese defences, but finally decided to guard the entrance to the bay to keep the enemy vessels bottled up there for the duration of hostilities. A brief and inconclusive skirmish between the French cruiser and the Chinese shore batteries on 1March enabled the Chinese general Ouyang Lijian, charged with the defence of Ningbo, to claim the so-called Battle of Zhenhai as a defensive victory.Loir, 271–84
Rice blockade, March–June 1885