Cần Vương in the context of "Tonkin campaign"

The Battle of Thuận An (20 August 1883) was a clash between France and Vietnam during the period of early hostilities of the Tonkin Campaign (1883–1886). During the battle a French landing force under the command of Admiral Amédée Courbet stormed the coastal forts that guarded the river approaches to the Vietnamese capital Huế, enabling the French to dictate a treaty to the Vietnamese that recognised a French protectorate over Tonkin. The French strike against the Vietnamese in August 1883, sanctioned by Jules Ferry's administration in Paris, did more than anything else to make a war between France and China inevitable, and sowed the seeds of the Vietnamese Cần Vương national uprising in July 1885.

Phạm Thận Duật (chữ Hán: 范慎遹, 1825–1885) was a high-ranking mandarin serving in the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam. He and Tôn Thất Phan, representing emperor Tự Đức's court, signed the Treaty of Huế with France. He participated in the anti-colonial Cần Vương resistance and died while being sent to exile in Tahiti by the French. Knowledge of his role in the resistance was hidden or lost for many decades after his death; he was thought to have been a French collaborator for having signed the treaty.

He was also a celebrated historian who was in charge of the National History Institute (Quốc Sử Quán) and the Imperial College (Quốc Tử Giám). He was the final editor of The Imperially Ordered Annotated Text Completely Reflecting the History of Vietnam, a Chinese-language history of Vietnam commissioned by the emperor Tự Đức, and the mentor of future emperors Dục Đức and Đồng Khánh. There is now a prize for doctoral theses in History named after him, the Phạm Thận Duật Award.