Sino-French War: Bombardment & French Occupation of Ershawan Battery

Ershawan Battery was first built in 1840, during the Opium War, under the Taiwan intendant Yao Ying, on the eastern shore of Keelung harbour. When the Sino-French War spread to Taiwan in 1884, the Qing court appointed Liu Mingchuan in July to take charge of the island's defense. The existing account describes Ershawan Battery as serving as Liu's command post; English-language accounts place his headquarters at Taipei-fu, with about 2,500 troops around Keelung.

On 5 August 1884, French warships under Rear Admiral Lespès bombarded the Keelung forts. English-language accounts name three ships — the ironclad La Galissonnière, Villars and Lutin — while some Chinese-language accounts speak of five ships and a bombardment of about five hours. Because the Chinese guns were fixed and could not traverse, most were quickly knocked out; the five 178 mm guns of Ershawan were destroyed and the battery was put out of action. A landing party of some 400 to 500 men went ashore the next day (6 August) but was counter-attacked and re-embarked, with French losses recorded as 2 dead and 11 wounded.

On 1 October 1884 an expeditionary corps of about 2,250 men under Admiral Courbet landed again and took Keelung, beginning the Keelung Campaign, which lasted into the spring of 1885 (October 1884 to April 1885). French forces occupied the battery and renamed it Fort La Galissonnière after the ironclad that had bombarded it. Heavy fighting took place in the hills around Keelung in January and March 1885, but the French never broke through towards Taipei, and disease cost them far more than combat: by early December 1884 only about 1,100 of the 2,250 men were fit for action, and some 600 to 700 soldiers and sailors eventually died of illness. After peace was concluded the French evacuated Keelung on 22 June 1885.

After the French withdrawal, Liu Mingchuan, now the first governor of Taiwan, rebuilt the fort as a modern battery on the hillside above the original site, employing German engineers. Sources differ on the dates (about 1885, or between 1886 and 1889) and on the armament: the existing account gives three Armstrong breech-loading guns purchased from British merchants, while Chinese Wikipedia speaks of German Krupp guns. The gate bears the inscription 'Haimen Tianxian' (海門天險). The battery was listed as a first-class historic monument on 28 December 1983 and is now a national monument; the gate, gun emplacements, barrack remains and the graves of Henan soldiers survive. Keelung also preserves a French cemetery of about 1,630 square metres holding those who were killed or died of disease during the campaign.