The Invasion of Vietnam

Reasons

In the French's mind, the Vietnamese were inferior people, and they wanted to educate them with the French culture and religion. For example to enhance Vietnamese infrastructure, they built roads, railways, and a bridge across the Red River at Hanoi, and, to better their culture, set up multiple opera houses. In addition, Vietnam's copious natural resources were very appealing to a developing France. Rubber, the second largest export after rice, was produced by plantations across Vietnam. The French were just as interested in coal deposits, and output of the Hongay Coal Mines quadrupled in fourteen years. Another motivation in the eyes of the French was that the commercial success in Vietnam decreased the burden of taxpayers across France.

Method

The French colonized Vietnam in 1858. 2,500 soldiers took the port of Tourane and returned to take the capital, Saigon, in 1861. The French imposed an extremely harsh rule, which caused the Vietnamese people to become second class citizens in their own country. Only a very small percentage of the population were able to retain any amount of social standing while the majority of the Vietnamese were forced to slave away as the lowest working class.