The King and The Diplomat

 

 

    1     Kings and their ignorance

    2     Thugs ruling the world

    3     The apprentice diplomat

    4     The 1879 Hue cover to a mademoiselle

 

 

1  Kings and their ignorance

 

Since long ago I often wonder how things would have changed if Tu-Duc had been more of an open mind, more communicative, practical, knowledgeable. A little learning goes a long way, and in his case would have saved a kingdom, a people - Tu Duc, and his grandfather the stiff and stubborn Minh Mang. The grandfather was a stronger man but sadly even more curmudgeon. Single-mindedness is the hallmark of people who achieve things, as long as it doesn’t lead directly to disaster, the other side of the coin.

 

Tu-Duc was king of Viet-Nam, reigning during 1847-83. Before him was his father, Thieu-Tri, reigning 1841-47, and grandfather, Minh-Mang, 1820-1840. Minh-Mang’s father was Gia-Long, the founder of the Nguyen (more formally, “Nguyen-Phuc” or “Nguyen-Phuoc”) royal dynasty: they were Lords of  Southern Vietnam for centuries since 1558. Gia-Long eventually reunited the country in 1802, reigned till 1819.

 

Hue was the capital of the South since the late 16th century, and of the united nation since 1802.

 

(Before Gia-Long another leader from the South attempted to unite the country, king Quang-Trung, born 1752 in Tay-son, Binh-Dinh, near the capital Vijaya of the old kingdom Champa that was sacked by the Viets in 1471. Quang-Trung was formidable in military but weak in management, king only for 4 years until in 1792. He was brave and energetic all his life. He famously defeated the attempted invasion by the well-known Chinese Ching (“Qing”) emperor Qianlong in a serious of decisive battles near Ha Noi in 1789, the year when another country on the other side of the world was deep in turmoil. He died early in 1792 from ill heath, and his young sons lost out to Gia-Long in 1802. Northern Vietnam was, until the rise of Quang-Trung, ruled by the Trinh Lords since 1558, nominally under the banner of the Le dynasty. The Japanese had a similar arrangement over a similar period with shoguns and emperors.)

 

Gia-Long was a practical man, a political entrepreneur if one thinks of politics as a grand game of geo-business, which it in fact is. Apart from one grave error later on, during his reign, Gia-Long mostly understood the bigger picture, the picture of a world consisting of not only Viet-Nam and China but also of neighbours such as Xiem-la, now Thailand, and that menacing power from the other side of daylight, the French Empire - an understanding that was lacking by most of his contemporaries and sadly and fatally by his monarch-descendants. The power last mentioned had big guns, big ocean-going ships, and a heart of darkness, very much in line with European morality at the time. Chaps in Europa then were always happy to kill in the name of god, their god in the church but also the gods whose other names were gold, spice, lands, slaves, and sundry exotic materials that they didn’t have - ask the British, the Spanish, the Belgians. And don’t forget the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Germans, the Danish, the Italians, the Russians, the Turks, and so on. It was as if Europeans were so nasty as to make up for a lousy low life suffered not so long before - the Dark Age of a thousand years.

 

Back to Gia-Long. His fatal error was the refusal of earnest overtures from the British who was then the greatest power on earth. Three times the British offered presents and sought audiences and three times Gia-Long rudely ignored. No presents, no audience, no treaty, no playing-off one against another. Thus no second example of Thailand in the Far-East. And no chance, as such, to preserve the kingdom from French treacherous hostility later on. Within eighty years of the height of his power Viet Nam would fall to France.

 

I believe he ignored the British because of sentimental loyalty to French missionaries who sought his favour by helping him against the powerful Quang-Trung. The latter was more than a match in battles for Gia-Long or indeed for anyone in the realm, defeating Xiem-La (Thailand) and huge China, one after another, within a span of seven years. The French missionaries’ help to Gia-Long wasn’t much in the big scheme of things, but the king was grateful. And it was also likely that the same French Catholics had instilled a dislike of the Protestants in the mind of the king, an Asian who was not familiar with the twist and turn of Christianity (and neither really did the Christians who believed in the same god, the same doctrines and bible but were very keen in killing each other in the 16th and 17th centuries, and off and on thereafter, here and there! Ah, religions and their practitioners.)

 

But there you are, a mistake like that, when the world was raw. A nation, a people, tremendous bloodsheds and humiliation, were the price to pay for.

 

Now, in the late 18th century. Gia-Long wanted to unite the kingdom and was not above using foreign powers to influence events in Viet Nam. He brought the Thai army to Southern Viet Nam to force the issue against his opposite, Quang-Trung’s clan. That failed. So he dabbled in obtaining French influence to further his quest, as mentioned above. That endeavor didn’t amount to much, he was eventually successful because of Quang-Trung’s early death and of his (Gia-Long’s) own strength in the country, but that goes to show he was a rare global opportunist among the Viets at the time. His son, Prince Canh, at the age of seven in 1787 signed (with the help of diplomats) in Paris a rudimentary treaty with Louis XVI of France - this was more than 200 years ago, don’t forget, when the world was young. After becoming King of the realm (Emperor was the term he preferred) Gia-Long gave concessions to France on commerce and for spreading further Catholicism. This last specific gesture created much consternation among his family and his mandarins, perhaps in the populace as well, conservative when human establishments confront different ideas of faith. Much like the Romans before Constantine, putting Christians to the lions’ mouth.

 

It was that domestic political tension that would later destroy the legacy of Gia-Long’s ahead-of-time globalism. Has Crown Prince Canh succeeded him Viet-Nam might have progressed the relationship further with the French and, who knows, with the British as well. A more relaxed relation than what endured in China, certainly (contemporaneous rumours indicated that Canh was secretly baptised). More like Thailand, Persia. Perhaps Japan.

 

Alas, Canh died young from ill health (some said poisoned by his brother Minh-Mang), aged 21, and Minh-Mang succeeded Gia-Long. The reign of Minh Mang lasted twenty years. The stubbornness, narrow-mindedness mixed with personal mental strength would make Minh Mang unpopular, feared. Many rebellions were ruthlessly put down. Relationship to France came to a halt, then fatally reversed. Missionaries were persecuted, new Viet converts went to prisons, some executed. Economic management was maintained, but seeds of weakness, of failure, were sown. There was no commerce with the French or Western foreigners. Minh-Mang, born in power and riches, having developed so-called Chinese-influenced classic-inclined personal traits, was really a spoilt child who became king.

 

His son Thieu Tri was weak and indecisive, a kinder but ineffectual king in reality, in turn succeeded by the conservative Tu Duc who held a long reign confronting the naked ambition of France, France that was now ready to put grievances against Minh-Mang into fruition.

 

Tu-Duc could still have played a better hand at the wheel of faith (“could have would have” are of course ridiculous words). He could have looked at the question of commerce and global politics more closely – the China he revered was now truly humiliated by the British and all and sundry. He could have learnt from that. He could have been more knowledgeable, alas. But he and his men at court amused themselves solely by lines of classic Chinese poems – Li Po and Tu Fu and so on, certainly not the exceptionally liberal yet sophisticated lines from the rebellious Viet poet Cao Ba Quat. He continued the closed border against France and such and thought that would solve any problem pertaining. War would be hard work and full of uncertainty (Elizabeth I said it first), but such he and his court would not know - his court, men only, old, never energetic, was a sad typical sign of the time. Ignorant, weak, stubborn, blind belief in non-existent strengths, thought themselves scholars but really a bunch of parrots having simply learnt a few lines of Chinese poems here and there; a ripe recipe for disaster. There were some decent men (the diplomat Phan Thanh Gian and the general Nguyen Tri Phuong) who were few and far in between but, again, very old for the tasks at hand.

 

 

2  Thugs ruling the world

 

Tu-Duc repeatedly knocked back new French overtures and never sought friendship with another land. After a few years, the French trumped up an excuse (a death of a missionary, the old tiresome cause), attacked Da Nang then invaded Southern Viet-Nam, causing death to tens of thousands of Viet and maybe a hundred or so French soldiers. Cochinchina was born, 1859.

 

The French empire and their opportunistic commercial adventurers now looked closely at Northern Viet Nam, Tonkin in their nomenclature. Things moved rapidly from here. A profiteer, Jean Dupuis (the world was full of these nasty specimens of humanity from Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands, etc., who stood proudly side by side with their nations’ navies and armies in exploiting the world) schemed with a like-minded human specimen, the French captain Francis Garnier, to invade Northern Viet Nam. This was against international law, such as it was. It’s even more glaring in that France was still trying to get Viet-Nam officially cede the Southern provinces to it.

 

The scheme was that Dupuis went up North, starting a commercial ruckus against the Viet regional government (I know, how a trader, a big bully notwithstanding, could muster enough firepower against a “native” administration and army to cause a ruckus? But gun powder spoke louder than words – and this was a play British traders performed to perfection in India the centuries before, Dutch traders in Indonesia … Belgians in Congo. The traders and the missionaries went first, arrogantly cooked up excuses, the invading navies and armies quickly followed, flimsily covering base intentions but always with powerful guns and rotting colonial hearts).

 

Then Garnier was to follow with a regiment of less than two hundred and a few small warships that still had serious canons, broadcasting that he would subdue Dupuis. In reality, his ultimate boss in Cochinchina, Admiral Jules-Marie Dupre, had already said yes please, secretly amused that the clever boys were acting things out so well indeed. There was no question of Garnier sorting anything out with Dupuis. Rather, the two French heroes conquered Tonkin (something to make up for the shocking and shameful defeat at the hands of the Germans on French soils just three years prior!): in quick succession grabbing Ha-Noi and the provinces Ninh-Binh, Nam-Ding. The Viets died fighting the French, then cowed under the colonialists’ single-mindedness. The brave Field Marshall Nguyen Tri Phuong was wounded after the fall of Ha-Noi, refused food and “care” from the French and their Viet acolytes, and died. His son and son-in-law too perished in battle.

 

Garnier and Dupuis installed a puppet administration consisting of Viet junior mandarins who were Catholics and who welcomed French arrival. Riches and glories now laid readily on the ground for Dupuis, Garnier, Dupre and France.

 

It was exceptionally blatant. Even with King Tu-Duc not having a friendly European power to protest to, it was still blatant. Paris was “upset” (because London and Berlin nearby were complaining, missing out the spoils?), scolded Dupre and commanded the latter to behave himself, to rectify the exploitation to a more palatable extent.

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Thus Dupre sent a naval lieutenant, Paul-Louis-Felix Philastre, to Hue to seek an audience with king Tu-Duc.

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3  The apprentice diplomat

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There is a conundrum that’s always in my mind whenever reading, re-reading, history: that is, do I believe in the kindness of strangers? Do I believe in the possibility that an adversary might turn side solely because of her/his inherent goodwill, without expectation of benefit, without planning for reward, but with substantial personal risk, physical or otherwise? Do I, when contemplating French homicidal nastiness upon Viet-Nam, concede to a kind unselfish gesture from an adversary? ((That is, of course, apart from love, sexual love, between members of opposite sides. Such love transcends things but lays outside the scope of this particular discussion!)

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Call me a cynic, sure, but what is cynicism if not practicality incarnated? When your side is forever in the losing position. A victor may be benevolent in thoughts (a “may” that is, in reality, “no”), but the defeated can not afford to be generous – there is nothing to be generous with.

 

So what am I to make of this guy, Philastre? A lowly ranked officer, only a lieutenant, moderately learned at this stage in military and administration from France’s naval school, arrived in Southern Viet Nam at the tender age of 24 in the midst of the French land grab. Then ordered to manage colonial affairs in various towns there, My Tho for instance. Became a judiciary officer dealing with the “natives”, the Viets, that is. Became ill, back to France, recovered then fought against Germany in 1870-71 (rather distinguishedly, in charge of an artillery regiment). France lost this war badly, the “emperor” Napoleon III was imprisoned by the German army and died, Paris surrendered. The eyes of other powers were looking keenly at the Germans so France lost only Alsace and Lorraine, everything else intact including the thuggish occupation of the colonies. Philastre returned to Saigon in 1873, working for Dupre – an ebullient bully who believes in the religion of colonialism.

 

Somehow Philastre was still a lieutenant despite his significant duties in “Cochinchina” and France. He didn’t play so well by the military rules? But consider this, a lieutenant was sent to represent France for a conference with the King of a realm, one with size and population, not to mention history, not so much smaller than France. A lieutenant! That was the height of French arrogance.

 

See, that’s the way the French, British, Dutch, Spanish, Germans … treated people at the colonies. They sent lackeys to do a serious job. They sent a captain to beat a whole army of the opposite. They never stooped down, nah, even showed a flicker of recognition, when dealing with the “indigenous” power in the colonies. You would think Dupre would go to Hue. Or his Deputy, another Admiral, a colonel … No, just a lieutenant, 36 years of age.

 

Philastre arrived in Hue. The Viet King was obviously upset with this delegate from France. He was humiliated badly enough losing Ha-Noi in such a soul-destroying fashion, and now had to hear nonsense from a lieutenant. Thus the King received the diplomat poorly. The latter had to wait for days, stayed in a not-so luxurious apartment, had very little attention from the Viet court. He only had his small team to confer with – a team, alas, that weren’t so experienced nor could offer any intellectual companionship for the lieutenant, and a few Viet diplomats who spoke some French. To while his time he did some thinking. He did the thinking, looked around the limited landscape that he was confined to. He looked around, did some thinking.

 

And, surprise, he understood better the situation in a philosophical sense more than all other French up to that point. Becoming enlightened, even if I myself say so.

 

He was belatedly received by the King, humbly accepted grievances from the throne. Is this what France calls decency, negotiating on the one hand so as to officially eat up other people’s land whilst on the other hand greedily eat up another? Is this the French style of civilization? And who are you to speak to me, Lieutenant, what can you achieve here, on this hallowed ground?

 

Philastre accepted all that, because a decent man could not deny the obvious facts of a murderous bully. Without further ado he promised the King that he was to go up North to sort out the thuggish Garnier and Dupuis. He was the diplomat, representing Dupre, representing France. France stands on his shoulder, on his personal integrity, he was not simply a humble naval officer.

 

The King, not having much faith in a French promise, couldn’t do much else. But he was mollified a little, not because of a possible favourable outcome, but because he found Philastre congenial. Dared he think, privately, dared he think that he had met a French that he could like?

 

Philastre went North with his small diplomatic contingent and the slightly larger Viet escort. They used the same warship docking in the port of Da Nang nearby. He arrived in Ha Noi on December 20 1873. From the time Garnier seized Ha Noi to the time Philastre got there after Hue it took only one month – such was the power of the Europeans: they have ocean-going vessels, as said, carrying great guns, as said.

 

It just so happened that Garnier died the next day in a skirmish against Viet forces. This sealed the fate and direction of Philastre’s future career, though delayed only by a few years, a decade in fact, the inevitable French full invasion of Northern Viet Nam (and, soon after, Hue and the Central, the whole Viet nation).

 

Philastre took charge, using experience over the years running French errands in Southern Viet Nam and Cambodia. He banished the nasty Dupuis from interfering in French affairs despite the latter’s strenuous protest. He sacked all new Catholic mandarins installed by Garnier, and reinstated previous Viet mandarins as King Tu-Duc wished. He signed agreement with the Viets to withdraw French (Garnier’s) troops from nearby provinces of Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh. And on 6 February 1874, six weeks after his arrival, evacuated French troops from Ha Noi and the region.

 

It was true, revenge was taken on Viet Catholics after the French left. The loss of lives, perhaps to a hundred or so, that resulted was much lower than the tens of thousands of Viet lives died in battles fighting Garnier. A life lost is the same as another, and one thing always leads to another, human history particularly.

 

Philastre left Ha-Noi with French troops for Sai Gon to face the wrath of Dupre. But at least he (Philastre) had done the right thing by Paris that wished, on the surface at least, to restore the rules of international diplomacy such as it was. He also had Tu-Duc’s very agreeable terms (provided the French left Ha Noi) for Cochinchina. Dupre had to accept the fait accompli, and got the right treaty anyway. “Cochinchina” was now French, in reality and on paper. But he hated Philastre. He could not fathom the kind of an anti-colonialist Philastre had become. And thus, despite efficient management and stunning diplomatic success, Philastre was not promoted, a lowly naval lieutenant he continued to be. Dupre received accolade and rewards, and France bided its time for the next move whilst silently punishing the like of Philastre.

 

Yet France recognised his talent and empathy for the occupied land, continued to use him extensively in Southern Viet Nam, in Cambodia, in matters of administration, judiciary, diplomacy. The locals were happy to deal with him, listened to him, discussed things with him. Liked him.

 

Lawrence of Arabia half a century earlier in another far-off place?

 

Perhaps unlike Lawrence Philastre was a quiet and humble man. He discovered himself in the pursuit of local customs, local languages and culture. He learnt Vietnamese and Chinese, maybe others too. As a judge in these localities he consulted the well-known complete formal law code in Vietnamese until French occupation. The code was compiled by scholars under the auspices of King Gia-Long during 1800-20. He translated it into French, and named it the Annam Law Code. (He would know the term Annam was an insulting word. It literally means “pacified Southern Land”. The Viets referred to their land as Viet Nam, or Dai Viet (Greater Viet Nam) in an earlier age. But I supposed when it was published in Paris, La Code Annamite, in 1876 he had to apply the term the French were used to.)

 

He went back to Hue in 1877 as Head of Station (Charge d’affaires) until 1879. The Viets there now liked him, and accorded him all courtesy and conveniences. I am sure he had many a congenial conference with the king and other mandarins – stuffy and ignorant they still were, but they liked him. He didn’t overstay, however, went back to Paris in 1880. Later taught maths in a few French cities, died in 1902, aged 65. Tu-Duc had died a little less than twenty years prior on the other side of the world, when Viet Nam was well under the boots of Philastre's compatriots.

 

 

4  The 1879 Hue cover to a mademoiselle

 

The cover above was sent by Philastre in 1879. Apart from diplomatic communication it was one of the earliest from Hue in the modern postal system (Western style, naturally). It’s probably older than most personal and certainly commercial covers. It was addressed to a daughter or an unmarried sister (address care of a Madame Goldsmith), he was 42 at the time. The cover was redirected from Paris to Cannes. On the back were arrival postmarks of Sai Gon, Paris (R(ue) Montaigne) and Cannes. On the front there was a very faint blue octagonal strike from a paquebot - a maritime ocean-going mailboat.

 

But the most striking, and the most important, postal strikes were the two Hue cancels, one on the stamp and one of the cover by itself by regulation, with “79” by hand, showing Corr. D. Armees and HUE. Emotive, even if it’s a French postmark.

 

The cover went on 11 Jan 1879 from Hue, reached Sai Gon on 23 Jan likely by a warship, dispatched soon thereafter for a long voyage on the paquebot, got to La Havre on 28 Feb, Paris (Rue Montagne) on 1 March, and finally to Cannes on 3 March 1879 into the young lady’s hand.

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This is for you, Mạ, with love, the occasional harsh words against forebears notwithstanding. Peace on the other side, it’s been so long. Long.

 

Long Vo-Phuoc, March 2021.

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