precipitated by an attempt by the Vietnamese commander Prince Hoàng Kế Viêm, with limited assistance from Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army, to capture Hanoi from the French during Rivière's absence at Nam Định with the bulk of the available French forces. The battle On 27 and 28 March the commander of the Hanoi garrison, chef de bataillon Berthe de Villers, sallied out against Prince Hoang's Vietnamese army, around 6,000 strong, with two companies of marine infantry and a small force of sailors from the gunboat Léopard, leaving behind a single company of marine infantry to garrison the Royal Palace. Using intelligent fire and movement tactics and supported by Léopard'''s artillery, the French attacked the Vietnamese defences, captured the villages of Gia Thuy (Thượng Cát) and Gia Cuc (Gia Quất), and finally drove the Vietnamese from the battlefield. French casualties were 4 men wounded. The Vietnamese may have lost as many as 1,000 dead and wounded. One of the factors in the Vietnamese defeat was the absence of serious pressure on the French from Liu Yongfu (Liu Yung-fu, 劉永福) and the Black Flag Army. Liu was supposed to attack Hanoi from the west while Prince Hòang descended from the north. However, the two men were on the coolest of terms, and Liu made only a feint attack on the French-held Royal Palace. This attack was easily beaten off by the French garrison. Significance Berthe de Villers' remarkable victory at Gia Cuc, coupled with Rivière's simultaneous Capture of Nam Định, demoralised the Vietnamese, appreciably raised French prestige in Tonkin, and emboldened French policymakers to shrug off the growing prospects of direct Chinese intervention in Tonkin. Meanwhile, the failure of cooperation between Prince Hoang and Liu Yongfu alarmed the Chinese. The senior Chinese civil mandarin Tang Jingsong reconciled the two men in April 1883, and persuaded Liu Yongfu to take the field against the French with the Black Flag Army. The result, in May 1883, was the disastrous French defeat at the Battle of Paper Bridge, in which both Rivière and Berthe de Villers were killed. Notes Footnotes References Bastard, G., Défense de Bazeilles, suivi de dix ans après au Tonkin (Paris, 1884) Duboc, E., Trente cinq mois de campagne en Chine, au Tonkin (Paris, 1899) Eastman, L., Throne and Mandarins: China's Search for a Policy during the Sino-French Controversy (Stanford, 1984) Huard, L., La guerre du Tonkin (Paris, 1887) Lung Chang (龍章),