"De Tham - the glorious period" from the French perspective

On August 27, on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the death of the "sacred tiger of Yen The" De Tham, Nha Nam and the French Institute jointly organized the launch of the work "De Tham - the glorious period".

The book De Tham - the glorious period collects telegrams, press information and analysis of the French army's campaign against De Tham from January to March 1909.

In the eyes of the French, Yen The was an area that was not easy to approach, with many hidden dangers and difficulties. The insurgents and the people of Yen The were people who were difficult to surrender to, and De Tham was truly a "sacred tiger", appearing and disappearing, impossible to subdue.

The book is a valuable collection of documents for those who want to learn more about the French perspective on a controversial figure like De Tham.

Book Introduction

Since De Tham was alive and after, when the echoes of the Yen The uprising were still deeply imprinted on the land of An Nam, the French spent a lot of ink, newspapers, and books to report, introduce, evaluate, and comment on the "sacred tiger of Yen The".

Cover of the book 'De Tham - the glorious period'. (Source: Nha Nam)

Some documents that can be mentioned are Pirates et rebels au Tonkin, nos soldats au Yen-The (Pirates and bandits in Tonkin, our army at Yen The, 1892) by Colonel Henri Frey, who directly participated in the battle of Ho Chuoi fort (late 1890 early 1891); Operations militaires au Tonkin (Operations in Tonkin, 1896) by officer Chabrol; Hoang Tham pirate (Robber Hoang Hoa Tham, 1933) by Paul Chack; Au Tonkin. La vie aventureuse de Hoang Hoa Tham chef pirate (In Tonkin: The wandering life of robber Hoang Hoa Tham, around the mid-1930s) by AL Bouchet, who met De Tham's family many times,...

The story of De Tham continued to linger in French historians until recent years, including the work Le De Tham 1846-1913 : Un résistant vietnamien à la colonisation française (De Tham 1846-1913: A Vietnamese patriot against French colonialism, 2007) by Claude Gendre.

The book De Tham – The Glorious Era, originally titled L'homme du jour. Le De Tham (The Contemporary. De Tham), published in 1909 in Hanoi, is one of De Tham's earliest, topical documents about the military confrontations between the French government and the Yen The army. The author of this document was Maliverney, editor of the newspaper Tuong Lai Bac Ky (L'Avenir du Tonkin).

The book includes three main contents: introduction of the origin, biography of De Tham and his activities before 1909; articles and telegrams sent from Yen The by reporters of the Northern Future newspaper; some reports and memoirs of the 1909 battle in Yen The.

The book provides readers with additional historical reference material with a lot of vivid and specific information, especially with photos and maps, about De Tham and the Yen The uprising.

Need to read in comparison, verification

De Tham - The Glorious Period was written from the perspective, viewpoint and mentality of the French, so this is a reference document that needs to be read in comparison and verification with many other historical documents and studies.

During the translation process, the publishing unit encountered many difficulties in editing the exact place names and names of people. The place names and names recorded by the French author often kept the original Vietnamese transcription without accents, sometimes based on memory/narration, so they cannot be considered absolutely accurate.

Furthermore, De Tham's area of ​​operation is very large, including Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Lang Son, so there are also many units such as villages/hamlets/villages or districts that have now, after many administrative reforms, changed or no longer exist. Some place names/person names cannot be looked up, the publishing unit decided to leave the original transcription intact...

Hoang Hoa Tham (1858-1913), better known as De Tham, was a prominent figure in Vietnamese history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As the leader of the Yen The uprising that took the French colonial government a lot of effort to suppress, De Tham received great public attention in both military and political aspects as well as information about his personal life, luggage, and life.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/de-tham-thoi-ky-huy-hoang-duoi-goc-nhin-cua-nguoi-phap-239868.html