A French force again storms the citadel…

A French force again storms the citadel of Hanoi in April 1882 under the leadership of naval officer Henri Riviere.

Riviere and part of his forces are wiped out in a battle with a Vietnamese-Black Flag army, a reminder of Gamier's fate a decade earlier.

While Gamier's defeat had led to a partial French withdrawal from Tonkin, Riviere's loss strengthens the resolve of the French government to establish a protectorate by military force.

Accordigly, additional funds are appropriated by the French Parliament to support further military operations, and Hue falls to the French in August 1883, following the death of Tu Duc the previous month.

A Treaty of Protectorate, signed at the August 1883 Harmand Convention, establishes a French protectorate over North and Central Vietnam and formally ends Vietnam's independence.

In June 1884, Vietnamese scholar-officials are forced to sign the Treaty of Hue, which confirms the Harmand Convention agreement.

By the end of 1884, there are sixteen thousand five hundred troops French troops in Vietnam.

Resistance to French control, however, continues.