ABSTRACT
Despite the long history of French presence in Vietnam going back to the beginning of the seventeenth century, major French territorial conquests had to await the second half of the nineteenth century. Bernard Fall attributes the French success to the alienness of the Vietnamese in Cochin China, which they had "colonized" only recently and where they were "the least secure in their social structure and institutions." With the conquest of Cochin China in 1862, France claimed to have succeeded Vietnam as overlord of Cambodia. The de Lagree—Garnier expedition had reported on the unsuitability of the Mekong as a commercial artery into South China. On March 28, 1885, French forces were badly beaten by Chinese troops at the Sino-Vietnamese border post of Langson. In 1883 and 1884, under immense pressure, Vietnam signed new treaties agreeing to become a French protectorate, to surrender administrative responsibility for the Tongking province to France, and to accept French residents at Hanoi and Hue.
