Military columns were sent out each winter, but with small results. Before these forces the bands would retire to their rocky highland fortresses, and to reach them the troops had to pass through many miles of most difficult country, covered with dense forest and jungle, and traversed by few paths, the whereabouts of which were kept secret by the enemy.
Information was most difficult to obtain, the fear of the Chinese being so great that even their victims refused to give the officers any aid in the matter, knowing full well that reprisals would follow.
Frequently disasters would occur, and a reconnoitring party would be cut up in a narrow defile, or a convoy ambuscaded and captured. From 1887 to 1891 each successive General commanding the troops in the colony had urged on the Government the necessity of undertaking operations on a more extensive scale than heretofore; and had these officers been allowed a free hand in the matter, there is little doubt that this chronic state of insurrection and anarchy would have been brought to a speedy end.
But the Ministry in Paris would not hear of such a thing. In France the mere mention of the word "Tonquin" raised a babble of excited recriminations. The public would have none of it.
In 1883, 1884 and 1885 nearly fifteen thousand of the flower of the French army had perished of disease, or had been slain by a merciless enemy.
The expedition had cost hundreds of millions of francs, and the large army of soldiers it was still necessary to maintain in the colony was of great expense each year to the metropolis. The majority of Frenchmen who had never at any time possessed serious cravings for a Colonial Empire, were tired of the whole business.
RIVER SCENE AT HAÏPHONG.
Right up to 1890 it was seriously debated in the Chamber, on different occasions, whether it would not be better to abandon this new colony. Fortunately for France she retained her rich prize.