The Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (
Hán-Nôm: 越南光復會; , ''Restoration League of Vietnam'' or ''Restoration Society of Vietnam''
[Marr 1970] or VNQPH, was a nationalist republican militant revolutionary
organization
An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...
of Vietnam that was active in the 1910s, under the leadership of
Phan Bội Châu and Prince
Cường Để
Cường Để (, ; born Nguyễn Phúc Dân ( vi-hantu, 阮福民); 11 January 1882 - 5 April 1951) was an early 20th-century Vietnamese revolutionary and nationalist who, along with Phan Bội Châu, unsuccessfully tried to liberate Vietnam from ...
. Formed in March 1912, its objective was to overthrow
French colonial rule in Vietnam and establish a democratic republic.
The organization failed to gain momentum, crippled by arrests of its members,
then was dissolved to form the ''
Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng'' in 1924.
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History
The formation of Quang Phục Hội came after a meeting in March 1912 in the southern Chinese city of
Canton. The meeting brought together the remnants of the
Duy Tân Hội Duy Tân Hội (chữ Hán: 維新會, Association for Modernization) was an anti-French and pro-independence society in Vietnam founded by Phan Bội Châu and Prince Cường Để in 1904. Its aim was "defeat the French invaders, restore the Vie ...
(''Reformation Society'') which had been the leading revolutionary organization since the start of the 20th century. It had a monarchist bent, but had lost direction. The new organization was patterned after the Chinese republican
Tongmenghui. Its stated aim was to "drive out the French bandits, restore Vietnam, establish a democratic republic".
Democracy vs Monarchy
The group debated whether a democratic republican model or a monarchy should be the objective. Phan cited
Rousseau's arguments in advocating a republic, asserting that democracy was becoming a stronger force in China since
the 1911 revolution, especially among those Chinese who could assist them. Phan gained support from colleagues from
northern and
central Vietnam, including Nguyễn Thượng Hiền.
On the other hand, the
southerners, who tended to be more conservative and supportive of Prince
Cường Để
Cường Để (, ; born Nguyễn Phúc Dân ( vi-hantu, 阮福民); 11 January 1882 - 5 April 1951) was an early 20th-century Vietnamese revolutionary and nationalist who, along with Phan Bội Châu, unsuccessfully tried to liberate Vietnam from ...
, a direct descendant of Emperor
Gia Long
Gia Long (Chữ Hán, Chữ hán: 嘉隆) ( (''Hanoi, North''), (''Ho Chi Minh City, South''); 8 February 1762 – 3 February 1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh (阮暎), was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynas ...
, founder of the
Nguyễn dynasty
The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...
, were more inclined towards a return of the monarchy.
Organization
According to Phan's account, a majority of the participants agreed to make Cường Để the President of the newly formed group. Phan was named vice president, while ministries were created, with a delegate from each of Vietnam's three regions in each ministry. The most important of these was the "deliberative ministry", with Nguyễn Thượng Hiền, Phan Bội Châu and Nguyễn Thần Hiến representing the northern, central and southern regions respectively. The various military, financial and propaganda tasks were allocated, and the group dispersed. Some members went back to Vietnam while others stayed in the border provinces of
Yunnan
Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
and
Guangxi
Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...
along the Chinese border with Vietnam. Phan spent most of his time fundraising. This was an urgent matter, since his usual financial advisor, Lý Tuệ, had been jailed in Vietnam by French authority and funding from Vietnam was beginning to dwindle.
Phan decided to raise funds by issuing large numbers of Quang Phục Hội "military bonds". The group promised to reimburse the investors within two years, assuring the purchasers that they would come to power.
Flags
Quang Phục Hội proposed a flag design. Vietnam had never had a national flag, only banners to represent royalty. Their flag consisted of five, red, five-pointed stars, on a yellow background, to symbolise the "yellow" race.
The military flag had a red background with five white stars, which represented the three regions of Vietnam, along with
Laos
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...
and
Cambodia
Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
. The red background on the military flag represented fire, indicating their location to the south of China according to
''wuxing'', and the white represented the metal of their weapons, implying the destruction of the enemy.
Military
Plans were made for the creation of a Restoration Army (''Quang Phục Quân'') to be led by students who had been trained in China.
Phan, along with Hoàng Trọng Mậu created a training manual on military strategy that included information on ideology, disciplinary procedure, ranks and pay rates. However, these plans were never put in place as the army never materialised.
Chinese support
In April, Phan traveled to
Nanking and sought an audience with then temporary Chinese President
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-senUsually known as Sun Zhongshan () in Chinese; also known by Names of Sun Yat-sen, several other names. (; 12 November 186612 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, revolutionary, statesman, and political philosopher who founded the Republ ...
asking for help from his ideological counterpart. However, Sun was busy with his newly formed republic and could only meet Phan for a few minutes before delegating the matter to associate
Huang Hsing.
Huang was happy to support Phan on principle, but let him know that the new Chinese government was in no position to give substantial help. Huang recommended that Phan send Vietnamese students to study in China for a decade or so to build up his movement, but Phan had experienced the same thing in Japan before and was dispirited by the prospect. However, he accepted the education scheme and began to arrange for students to come to study at Chinese military academies.
They also formed an organisation, ''Chấn Hoa Hưng Á Hội'' (''Invigorate China, Revive Asia Society''), a friendship society designed to garner support for the Quang Phục Hội. Phan rented a large headquarters in Canton and went about promoting the organisation and predicting that the revolutionaries would soon experience success in Vietnam. He wrote and distributed a proclamation, depicting China as the model for all of Asia and hailing a new strategy to expel European authorities from various countries, starting with Vietnam, then Burma and India, which were under British rule.
During the first month, around two hundred Chinese joined the organisation, which raised substantial money from bond sales. Quang Phục Hội changed some of its leadership positions to allow Chinese to take part. The provincial Chinese governor of the area was a sympathiser and allowed it to happen.
Attacks
Phan knew that he would need results to sustain the momentum of the financial and political aid from his Chinese supporters. So he made plans for attacks inside Vietnam. With only a token in-country organisation, they were initially only able to engage in rhetoric, passing death sentences on the
Governor-General of French Indochina Albert Sarraut
Albert-Pierre Sarraut (; 28 July 1872 – 26 November 1962) was a French Radical politician, twice Prime Minister during the Third Republic.
Biography
Sarraut was born on 28 July 1872 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France.
On 14 March 1907 Sarraut ...
, and on the collaborator
mandarin Hoàng Cao Khải, known for his hand in the demise of the leading
Cần Vương revolutionary leader
Phan Đình Phùng.
Phan sent small teams into the three regions of Vietnam on assassination missions, attempting to perpetrate killings like that of the Japanese colonial official
Itō Hirobumi by Korean nationalists. The first plot, to kill Sarraut in November 1912, failed. Later on 13 April 1913, they killed
Nguyen Duy Han, the governor of
Thái Bình Province. Two weeks later, they blew up two French colonels at the
Hotel Hanoi.
However, the publicity and momentum caused by the attacks were outweighed by the French response. The authorities rounded up 254 people, executing seven and imprisoning 54. These decimated the organisation inside Vietnam. The French responded by pressuring China to clamp down on the group inside Chinese territory. By this time, the bonds were no longer generating much revenue and Chinese support and interest was beginning to dwindle.
Demise
Early in 1913, Phan held a meeting with around one hundred activists, and it was decided that Phan and would stay in Canton to try to revive interest and support among the Chinese. Another group was sent to
British Hong Kong
Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...
to build an explosives factory, while others continued to travel back into Vietnam to attempt assassinations and bombings. The result was basically that Quang Phục Hội dissolved. The Hong Kong branch, led by Nguyễn Thần Hiến, was captured by the British police, while other teams along the Chinese border and in Siam were captured and turned over to the French.
Legacy
The Quang Phục Hội never gained strong position within Vietnam, but its ideas did were adopted by later independence movements. Hoàng Trọng Mậu wrote a proclamation for distribution in Vietnam that elaborated their views. Quang Phục Hội laid the blame for the colonisation of the country at the feet and cowardice of the Nguyễn Dynasty. The piece clearly proclaimed that the Vietnamese people as a whole were the owners of the country, not a given royal family and said that if Vietnam was to be restored to independence, it was to be through the efforts of the whole of Vietnamese society. They declared that a
democratic republic
A democratic republic is a form of government operating on principles adopted from a republic and a democracy. As a cross between two similar systems, democratic republics may function on principles shared by both republics and democracies.
Whil ...
was necessary, the first time that the term was used in Vietnamese.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi
Defunct political parties in Vietnam
Phan Bội Châu
Vietnamese independence movement
Vietnamese nationalism
1910s in Vietnam
1910s in French Indochina
Overseas Vietnamese organizations
1912 establishments in Vietnam
Organizations established in 1912
Political parties established in 1912
Three Principles of the People