Prosper Giquel

Prosper Giquel

Prosper Giquel (1835-1886).
Nickname(s) 日意格
Born 1835
Died 1886
Allegiance France
Service/branch French Navy

Prosper Marie Giquel (1835–1886), sometimes spelled Gicquel, was a French naval officer[1] who played an important role in the modernization of 19th century China. His Chinese name was 日意格.

Career

Prosper Giquel first arrived in China in 1857 as part of the allied assault forces of the Arrow War. Taking the opportunity that service in the Canton occupation force allowed, Giquel began the study of Chinese. In late 1861 he joined the Imperial Maritime Customs Service under Robert Hart,[2] as the director of the Ningpo office and remained there until the city was captured by the forces of the Taiping Rebellion in December 1861. He was again the Commissioner of Customs for Ningpo in 1864.

Taiping rebellion

After spending the following spring working in the coordinated French and English campaign to drive the rebels from Shanghai, Giquel returned to Ningpo to organize the force which eventually became the Ever-Triumphant Army (常捷軍), also known as the "Franco-Chinese force". The force numbered between 2,000 and 3,000 men. On 15 March 1863, the force, under the command of Ensign Paul d'Aiguebelle (德克碑) captured the city of Shao-hsing from the Taiping rebels. Prosper Giquel took command of the "Franco-Chinese force" when Paul d'Aiguebelle returned to France, but the force was soon dissolved in October 1864, in agreement with Zuo Zongtang.[3]

Foochow arsenal

See also: Fujian Fleet
Prosper Giquel supervised the building of the Foochow Arsenal in Mawei.

In 1866 Giquel became involved in the organization and planning for the Foochow Dockyard project envisioned by Zuo Zongtang. From 1867 to 1874 he served as European director of the project which Shen Pao-chen, as the imperial commissioner, headed. The objective of the dockyard was to create a modern Chinese fleet of warships and transports, and to educated technicians in Western sciences. These efforts contributed to China's Self-Strengthening Movement of acquiring Western knowledge (similarly the Nankin Arsenal was put under the responsibility of the Englishman Halliday Macartney).[4]

Having completed his direct administration of the project by 1874, Giquel continued to serve the dockyard by working as a consultant, purchasing agent, and co-director of the European Educational Mission in 1877. The educational mission's goal was to provide advanced technical training to complement the dockyard's instructional program.

In the mid-1870s and 1880s Giquel became increasingly involved in international diplomacy. He first served as an adviser during the "Taiwan crisis"; a diplomatic clash between Japan and China in 1874. In 1881 he helped Tseng Chi-tse peacefully conclude the "IIi crisis" between China and Russia. Giquel spent his last years, 1883–1885, struggling to help end the Sino-French war which had broken out due to conflicting Sino-French claims to Indochina. Among the traumatic events of that period, certainly for Prosper Giquel, was the August 1884 destruction by the French navy of the Foochow Dockyard, the principal accomplishment of his entire career in China, in the Battle of Fuzhou.

Works

Notes

  1. ↑ The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China - Page 203 by Knight Biggerstaff
  2. ↑ Robert Hart and China's Early Modernization by Robert Hart, Richard p.219
  3. ↑ The Cambridge History of China By John King Fairbank, Denis Crispin Twitchett, p.433
  4. ↑ The Rise of Modern China by Immanuel Chung-yueh Hsü p.282-283

References

Prosper Giquel appears as a character in Li Bo's Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom an historical novel set in the middle of the 19th century.

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