Rebellion and Resistance in French Indochina in the First World War Jonathan Krause

Rebellion and Resistance in French Indochina in the First World War Jonathan Krause Abstract The First World War was not merely a clash of empires, it was also a clash within empires. This fact remains largely ignored despite the dozens of anticolonial uprisings around the world which erupted during, and as a result of, the war. In 1916 alone there were uprisings across French North, West and Equatorial Africa, in Portuguese Angola and Mozambique, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Ireland. Most of these uprisings were responding both to European efforts to extract resources (especially manpower) from the colonies to support the war effort, whilst also taking advantage of the reduced presence of European troops in Asia and Africa as men were recalled from the colonies to take part in the war in Europe. This article examines anticolonial rebellions in French Indochina, especially the attack on Saigon Central Prison in 1916, as a case study in the wider global history of anticolonial rebellion during the Frist World War. Examination of this rebellion shows how the First World War not only generated the opportunities and challenges which led to a surge of anticolonial uprisings around the world, but also changed the political, social and religious character of anticolonial struggle in Indochina. This article offers a reappraisal of the global and imperial consequences of the First World War, and argues that anticolonialism should be more central in our discussion and memory of the conflict. KEYWORDS: First World War, rebellion, Indochina, anticolonial, Saigon, empire On the night of 2/3 February 1916 Nguyen Anh Hue, sometimes referred to as ‘Professor Hue’ and the ‘soothsayer of Saigon’, arrived at the house of a man called Truong Van No, in the village of Cua Lap1. He brought with him plans for an insurrection stretching from Cambodia to Cochinchina2 (southern Indochina), to be launched in less than two weeks. Within days hundreds of rebels, men and women, found themselves making active preparations for their own small, local part in a grand uprising against French rule in Southeast Asia. Their preparations had not gone unnoticed. French authorities had received warning from an anonymous source that the conspirators would gather at Truong Van No’s house on the night of 13/14 February. French gendarmes arrived at Cua Lap at 23.00 on 13 February to find the village abandoned, save for a single house lit up. Inside the French found over 100 men and women who had taken oaths before a revolutionary flag3. They scattered upon the French arrival. 13 were captured and arrested (ten men and three women). Four more were caught trying to swim across one of the countless rivers of the Mekong Delta and escape. Those arrested had their houses searched. Inside the French found lances, machetes, sabres, and bamboo spears: preparations for an imminent rebellion. The French raid on Cua Lap did not deter the vast majority of conspirators who had managed to escape. They went on to launch an ill-fated attack on Ba Ria and Cap Saint-Jacques the very next night: 14/15 February 1916. These attacks were not isolated, but were part of a larger rebellion that raged across Cochinchina and into Cambodia. While the rebellion ultimately failed, it was 1 nevertheless an important moment for anticolonialism in the region, and part of a global trend of anticolonial rebellion during the First World War. This article primarily focuses on the signature effort of the rebellion in French Indochina in 1916: the attack on Saigon Central Prison. This rebellion was sparked, at least in part, by military recruitment, showing how the First World War influenced pre-existing patterns of anticolonial rebellion which eventually led to the development of nationalist and communist movements in the following decades. Analysis of the attack on Saigon Central Prison helps flesh out an under-explored facet of the global impact of the First World War. The rebellions in Indochina in 1916 and 1917 were not isolated incidents. Nearly every major French colony experienced some form of organised anticolonial resistance during, and as a direct result of, the First World War4. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, New Caledonia, and Indochina all experienced rebellion of some notable scope5. Similar patterns of unrest also developed in the British, Russian, Italian and Ottoman empires during the First World War, suggesting a global moment for anticolonialism. These rebellions took place for many different reasons, in a wide range of historical, cultural, political and economic contexts. For all their contextual diversity, however, the anticolonial rebellions that erupted from 1914 through to the 1920s could not help but be influenced by the realities presented by the First World War. Principal among these were the reduction of colonial occupation forces across Africa and Asia and the recruitment of Afro-Asians for military and industrial service in Europe, often through coercive means. The direct influence of aspects of the First World War in sparking anticolonial rebellions across large swathes of Africa and Asia demand that we discuss these rebellions as part of both the global experience and legacy of the First World War. In most mainstream, general histories of the First World War the anticolonial rebellions in Africa and Asia have largely been ignored, both individually and as part of a collective experience6. Even in Anglophone books more closely focused on Africa in the First World War major anticolonial wars like the Volta-Bani and Senussi wars are avoided7. Slowly, however, new research is bringing the anticolonial aspects of the First World War into greater prominence. In 2014 Joshua Sanborn wrote in his book Imperial Apocalypse: the Great War & the Destruction of the Russian Empire that Decolonization was a crucial aspect of the war from its beginning right through to its end, but it continues to be largely ignored by the mainstream scholarship…. Indeed, scholars have generally ignored the dynamic of decolonization even for the later stages of the conflict…when the process became virtually impossible to miss8. The work Sanborn and others have done in recent years on the anticolonial rebellions in Central Asia has helped redefine, once again, the limits of what might be considered part of the First World War, in its grandest sense. In a similar vein Erez Manela’s The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism argued that the First World War constitutes ‘a single historical moment’ for anticolonialism; a global affair born of a global conflict9. Other recent works confirm this conception of anticolonialism in the First World War as a ‘global’ moment10. These rebellions suggest the need to revise the limits of what are generally considered First World War histories, and also expand the histories of anticolonialism, decolonisation, and the emerging nationalisms in the twentieth century. To effectively do this, these rebellions needs to not only be discussed in relation to each other, but also in relation to their own antecedents. 2 The Saigon-Cholon Plot11, 1913 The First World War touched more or less every corner of the globe in one way or another, including Southeast Asia. A ‘state of siege’ was declared in Indochina on 10 October 1914, two months after the war began in Europe, thus giving the colonial administration broad powers for repression and economic control, including opening up the courts martial for civil offenses12. In late 1914 and early 1915 colonial authorities launched a repression of suspected dissidents, arresting an as of yet unknown number of people whom the French considered to be potential agitators or revolutionaries13. In a rash act spurred by fear of food shortages Indochina was forbidden from selling trade goods, especially rice, to nations not allied with France. Given the huge importance of rice exports to the economy of Indochina, and Cochinchina especially, this came as a heavy blow to already-struggling farmers and agricultural workers14. Fortunately, the export ban lasted for only a matter of weeks. No recruitment was expected of Indochina until January 1916, and there was little to no worry of any serious insurrection. The Can Vuong (or ‘Save the King’) movement, the last major instance of primary anticolonial resistance, was an increasingly distant memory. Smaller scale rebels, like the ‘pirate king’ De Tham, had largely been mopped up by 191415. Thus, Indochina entered the First World War relatively stable and secure, from a French perspective. The conditions of the war would change this, however, by introducing new pressures to Indochinese societies and exacerbating long- standing grievances. Indochina would suffer a series of rebellions from 1916 to 1918. The largest of these was the 1916 rebellion in Cochinchina. In order to truly understand the 1916 rebellion in and around Saigon we must first look back to 1913, and the radical movement of Phan Phat Sanh. Born in 1893 Phan Phat Sanh was the son of a Cholon police officer, who spent his youth as a boy servant to a French family16. In 1908 he fled to Siam, leaving his life of service behind him to pursue an independent career as a sorcerer and geomancer. He learned to read Chinese characters, apparently spent some time in religious seclusion as a monk, and eventually made a name for himself in Cambodia and Cochinchina as a respected healer and miracleworker adept in both the Buddhist arcane arts and ‘the rough magic of modern Taoism’17. Before long Phan Phat Sanh fell in with a pair of revolutionaries (Nguyen Huu Tri, aka Hai-Tri, and Nguyen Van Hiep) who together sought to parlay Phan Phat Sanh’s arcane prowess into real political power. After a period of building support and resources, during which Phan Phat Sanh changed his name to Phan Xich Long, the movement culminated in a bold attempt to foment rebellion by attacking French power in Cochinchina at its heart.

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