Sino-French War 1884-1885. I'm looking for more detailed accounts of this war and more particulary, the battle of Foochow, in wich the Chinese fleet was destroyed.

I'm interested in knowing the reasons, why the French attacked with no declaration of war and who was the French citizen who supervised and built the Chinese fleet.

I guess i could just check out wikipedia but i don't take wikipedia as a very reliable source. Thanks!

I didn't know the French had a true war with China, the only one I knew of from this time period is the Opium Wars, where the English walked all over the Chinese fleet.

I wasn't aware aswell :). Untill i searched where the name Courbet (there is a naval vessel named after this admiral) come from.

Try this:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/8088/FoochowB.html

Or this:
http://copernicus.subdomain.de/Sino-French_War

This battle also saw the last use of spear torpedoes. They were already outdated by the mobile torpedo and here they only worked because of the surprise. Only a little later Rumania was the last country to use these weapons on ships.

Adler