The Battle of Keelung 1884-1885

On top of this hill, to the west of Keelung, there is the 大武崙砲臺 which had also played an important role in defending Keelung during the Sino-French War. One look at the terrain, it is immediately clear that the rough drawing shown below is in fact a realistic portrayal of the landing of French Fusiliers Marins on Oct 1, 1884. Indeed, there were no landing areas to speak of. It was all an uphill struggle for the French.
In this campaign, the 1,800 French were led by Lieutenant-Colonel Bertaux-Levillain. The Corps expéditionnaire de Formose consisted of three battalions of Fusiliers Marins (4 companies in each battalion), a marine artillery battery, and a battery of two 80-mm mountain guns and 4 Hotchkiss canons-revolvers. And Liu Ming-Ch'uan led 2,000 troops in defense.

Previously on Aug 5, two French warships, La Galissonnière and Villars, and gunboat Lutin, bombarded and disabled Keelung's three coastal batteries, 大沙灣砲台, 二沙灣砲台, and 仙洞砲台 (located on 火號山). A small landing force (120 men) then attacked Keelung. This Admiral Lespès's attempt of occupying Keelung was, however, thwarted by the arrival of an overwhelming number of Chinese troops (around 2,500 men) and the fusiliers marins had to retreat back on board the warships on Aug 6.

The French, after failing to capture Keelung, set their sight on the nearby Danshui. This set the background for Adm Lespès's second defeat.

(Looking westward to Danshui, where the sun sets, from 大武崙山 in Keelung)

The Battle of Keelung continued, from Jan into Mar/Apr, 1885, after the reinforcement arrived from Tonkin which consisted also of the 3rd African Light infantry Battalion (arriving on Jan 6) and the 4th Foreign Legion Battalion (on Jan 20).

Starting in Jan, the locals had also participated in the battles. Lim DiawDon林朝棟 had raised a Hakka militia of 500 men to defend 獅球嶺 - the gateway to Taipei. They engaged the French in two fierce battles (known as the 月眉山戰役), the first on Jan 25 - Feb 1, and the second on Mar 3-7 (the latter to come to the rescue of the Qing regular army then in somewhat of a disarray). The French must have regretted for snickering at the poorly equipped Hakka militia at first (e.g., "boys throwing stones can do better than that"). The Mountain Hakkas were actually very experienced fighters who had done battles with the Aborigines numerous times before. They also had a unique way of handling their flintlock rifles - by lying supine firing over their toes. The enemies often did not even know where the Hakkas were firing from.