The allied expedition arrived off the entrance to
Tourane Bay at nightfall on 31 August. At dawn on 1 September the warships took up positions facing the five Vietnamese forts on the Tiên Sa Peninsula. During the morning of 1 September Admiral Rigault de Genouilly summoned the Vietnamese to hand over the forts within two hours. The summons was taken ashore by a French staff officer and laid at the entrance to the Fort de l'Aiguade. No response was received within the stipulated period, and the French admiral ordered the allied flotilla to open fire, hoisting a French flag at the main mast of
Némésis and a Spanish flag at the mizzen mast. The warships of the allied flotilla soon dismounted the guns in the northern group of Vietnamese forts. The Vietnamese response was feeble, and none of the allied ships suffered any damage. Rigault de Genouilly then put ashore the landing companies of
Némésis,
Primauguet and
Phlégéton, under the orders of
capitaine de vaisseau Reynaud. The sailors captured their first objective, the Fort de l'Aiguade, with little trouble, charging into the Vietnamese positions with cries of 'Vive l'Empereur!' Rigault de Genouilly's summons was found on a table inside the fort, unopened. The attackers also overran a Vietnamese shore battery a little to the west of the fort. While this attack was being made, French soldiers went ashore in their turn. The southern objectives, Eastern Fort and Western Fort, were also taken without difficulty. Two French gunboats and the Spanish dispatch vessel
El Caño anchored off the entrance to the Da Nang river and bombarded Western Fort and Eastern Fort. A shell burst inside Eastern Fort as the attackers approached and the survivors of the Vietnamese garrison abandoned their positions forthwith, as did the defenders of Western Fort. Most of the Vietnamese made their escape from the Tiên Sa Peninsula, but the defenders of Observatory Fort were unable to evacuate their positions in time. The French stormed the fort, and its defenders were either killed where they stood or taken prisoner. The allies followed up their victory by occupying Tourane and the Tiên Sa Peninsula. Admiral Rigault de Genouilly left Da Nang with the bulk of his forces on 2 February 1859, to launch an attack on Saigon. The French left only a small garrison of soldiers and sailors at Tourane, under the command of
capitaine de vaisseau Thoyon, and two gunboats. Meanwhile, the Tourane peninsula had been placed under siege by a Vietnamese army under the command of
Nguyen Tri Phuong. The siege lasted for several months, though there was relatively little fighting. The Vietnamese adopted a scorched earth policy, laying waste the countryside around Tourane in the hope of starving the French and Spanish out. In April 1859, in the wake of his
Siege of Saigon on 17 February, Rigault de Genouilly returned to Tourane with the bulk of his forces to reinforce Thoyon's hard-pressed garrison. The French made two attacks on the Vietnamese positions later in the year. On 8 May, Rigault de Genouilly personally led 1,500 French soldiers and sailors in a successful assault on the Vietnamese trenches. A number of Vietnamese earthworks were destroyed and several cannon were captured and brought back to the French lines. French casualties were 78 men killed and wounded.
Engagement at Cẩm Lệ, 15 September 1859 A second, equally successful, assault was made on 15 September on the Vietnamese positions at
Cẩm Lệ. The Vietnamese had fortified a defense line one and a half kilometers long, consisting of strongpoints linked by trenches. Ditches filled with water had been dug in front of the trenches, and the defenses were crowned with bamboo stakes filed to sharp points. The allied garrison of Tourane had recently been reinforced by eight companies of marine infantry, and Rigault de Genouilly was able muster three columns for the attack, under the respective commands of Lieutenant Colonel Reybaud, Colonel Lanzarote and
capitaine de vaisseau Reynaud, backed by a strong reserve under the command of
chef de bataillon Breschin. The French and Spanish stormed the Vietnamese lines and put their defenders to flight. French casualties at Cẩm Lệ were 10 men killed and 40 wounded. Several hundred Vietnamese were killed and wounded, and the French and Spanish also captured 40 enemy cannon. The Vietnamese commander Lê Đình Lý was mortally wounded in the engagement. Despite these impressive tactical victories, the French were unable to break the siege of Tourane. Meanwhile, disease was taking a heavy toll of the allied expedition. Cholera broke out both among the allied landing force and on the warships. Between 1 June and 20 June 1859, 200 French troops died from cholera in Tourane, and one battalion that joined the garrison at the end of April 1859 lost a third of its strength in two months.
Capture of the Kien Chan forts, 18 November 1859 In the autumn of 1859, Rigault de Genouilly, whose conduct of the war had come under criticism, was repatriated to France and replaced in command of the allied expedition by Rear Admiral François Page. Page disembarked in Tourane on 19 October, and immediately after his arrival offered peace terms to the Vietnamese: an end to the persecution of Christians, the installation of French consuls in Vietnam and certain commercial privileges. These were relatively moderate terms, but the Vietnamese did not accept them. Instead, they spun out the negotiations, believing that the French would eventually leave Vietnam empty-handed. Page thereupon ordered a third attack on the Vietnamese siege lines at Tourane. The attack was directed against the Kien Chan forts, to the north of Tourane Bay, which barred the route to Huế. Its chief purpose was political rather than military, namely to impress upon the Vietnamese that the French were not prepared to make peace at any price. On 18 November 1859,
Némésis and
Phlégéton (towed respectively by
Prégent and
Norzagaray, a dispatch vessel recently bought at Manila), the gunboats
Avalanche and
Alarme, the transport
Marne and the Spanish dispatch vessel
Jorgo Juan (which had replaced
El Caño) anchored off the Kien Chan forts and opened a devastating bombardment. Before long the allied warships had wrecked the forts and dismounted their cannon. The casualties were not all on the Vietnamese side, however. Lieutenant Colonel Dupré-Déroulède, the senior French engineering officer, was cut in two by a cannonball while standing on the bridge of
Némésis. The same shot killed a French sailor, wounded several others, and spattered Admiral Page with blood. Once the forts were silenced a French landing force was put ashore and found that the Vietnamese had abandoned their positions. Once again the French had won a fine tactical victory, overwhelming the Vietnamese defenders and capturing the forts, but once again the victory had no strategic significance.
Allied evacuation of Tourane, 22 March 1860 Eventually the French decided to evacuate Tourane and concentrate their efforts around Saigon. Preparations for a methodical evacuation began in February 1860. The French and Spaniards disarmed and blew up one by one the Vietnamese forts they had occupied and burned their barrack huts. The last soldiers of the landing force re-embarked on 22 March 1860, without hindrance from the Vietnamese. The only trace left behind of the twenty-month Franco-Spanish occupation of the Tourane peninsula was a cemetery in which the allied dead had been buried. ==Aftermath==