What if the British aided the Chinese and Annamese (Vietnamese) during the Sino-French war of 1884-1885?

[raharris1973]

What if the British, deciding they didn't like the encouragement of French competition in southern China and their monopolization of commerce in all Indochina, supported Qing dynasty and Nguyen dynasty forces with finances, weapons, and training when the French went to war against them? Note that the French started the war with a secure hold on Cochinchina in southern Vietnam, and Cambodia only. Their hold on Hanoi and northern Vietnam was tenuous and being contested by Vietnamese armies backed by the Chinese.

Could the French prevail in Indochina against British cock-blocking? What does this do to Anglo-French relations longer term? How does Britain end up collecting on the additional 'debts' that the Chinese and Vietnamese incur from them?

Britain doesn't have an especially strong affirmative reason to do this, but Britain also doesn't have any compelling need for close French friendship at the time either. It has the 'freest hand' of all the great powers, and all the great powers thought the French war on China of 1884-1885 was somewhat piratical and greedy [in reality because they weren't in on it]. So I could imagine Britain trying to contain French ambitions a little more tightly than OTL. Whether smart or not, the British can afford to be more 'frivolous' whereas the Germans at the time were deliberately encouraging the French to look to the colonial realm instead of Europe, so less likely to get involved, the Russians were looking at possible French friendship, so wouldn't mess with that, the Americans were too apolitical, and the Italians and Austrians were too weak to matter.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Parts of campaign were a close run, but if French know the British are messing with them they will double down on the war out of sheer spite. Also, unless the British deliver guns and money directly to the Black Flags and Taiwan forces, it will be retained by Quing for their Bejing army. Entente negotiations will be more difficult, but both countries needed the alliance at the time.

How does Britain end up collecting on the additional 'debts' that the Chinese and Vietnamese incur from them?

Concession port on Taiwan?

 

[raharris1973]

So @PsihoKekec, you figure that if the British do this, despite Clemenceau's domestic criticism of Ferry for running an imperial sideshow, French anger at Britain will inspire the French to double-down, and they ultimately prevail in putting all Vietnam under their boot, because the stakes will be higher for them in the end than for Britain?

What about the consequences though of this intense Anglo-Qing collaboration and British armament for the Qing? Might that deter the Japanese from picking a fight with China in the 1890s? That would be kind of a big deal. Certainly if the British have a concession port on Taiwan, the Japanese won't mess with that island in any Sino-Japanese War during the Edwardian era.

 

[PsihoKekec]

So @PsihoKekec, you figure that if the British do this, despite Clemenceau's domestic criticism of Ferry for running an imperial sideshow, French anger at Britain will inspire the French to double-down, and they ultimately prevail in putting all Vietnam under their boot, because the stakes will be higher for them in the end than for Britain?

That's the time when the two countries still tried to one up each other and British support for the Chinese would be seen as another piece of English perfidity, like when they snatched Egypt from under the French nose, just a few years ago, so the impetus would be to double down on the war effort, before the British snatch the Tonkin and Taiwan from under their noses.