Page "History of Vietnam" Paragraph 48

After Gia Định fell to French troops, many Vietnamese resistance movements broke out in occupied areas, some led by former court officers, such as Trương Định, some by peasants, such as Nguyễn Trung Trực, who sank the French gunship L ' Esperance using guerilla tactics.

In the north, most movements were led by former court officers and lasted decades, with Phan Đình Phùng fighting in central Vietnam until 1895.

In the northern mountains, the former bandit leader Hoàng Hoa Thám fought until 1911.

Even the teenage Nguyễn Emperor Hàm Nghi left the Imperial Palace of Huế in 1885 with regent Tôn Thất Thuyết and started the Cần Vương, or " Save the King ", movement, trying to rally the people to resist the French.

He was captured in 1888 and exiled to French Algeria.

Decades later, two more Nguyễn kings, Thành Thái and Duy Tân were also exiled to Africa for having anti-French tendencies.

The former was deposed on the pretext of insanity and Duy Tân was caught in a conspiracy with the mandarin Trần Cao Vân trying to start an uprising.

However, lack of modern weapons and equipment prevented these resistance movements from being able to engage the French in open combat.

The various anti-French revolts started by mandarins were carried out with the primary goal of restoring the old feudal society.

However, by 1900 a new generation of Vietnamese were coming of age who had never lived in precolonial Vietnam.

These young activists were as eager as their grandparents to see independence restored, but they realized that returning to the feudal order was not feasible and that modern technology and governmental systems were needed.

Having been exposed to Western philosophy, they aimed to establish a republic upon independence, departing from the royalist sentiments of the Cần Vương movements.

Some of them set up Vietnamese independence societies in Japan, which many viewed as a model society ( i. e. an Asian nation that had modernized, but retained its own culture and institutions ).