Annam, or Trung Kỳ (中圻), was a French protectorate and colony encompassing the territory of the Empire of Đại Nam in Central Vietnam. Before the protectorate's establishment, the name Annam was used in the West to refer to Vietnam as a whole; Vietnamese people were referred to as Annamites. The protectorate of Annam became a part of French Indochina in 1887, along with two other Vietnamese regions, Cochinchina in the South and Tonkin in the North. The region had a dual system of French and Vietnamese administration. The government of the Nguyễn Dynasty still nominally ruled Annam and Tonkin as the Empire of Đại Nam, with the emperor residing in Huế. In 1948, the protectorate was merged in the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam, which was replaced the next year by the newly established State of Vietnam. The French legally maintained the protectorate until they formally signed over sovereignty to the Bảo Đại and the government of the State of Vietnam in 1950 after signing the Élysée Accords in 1949. The region was divided between communist North Vietnam and anti-communist South Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva Accord of 1954.
The Nguyễn dynasty was the last Vietnamese dynasty, which was preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruled the unified Vietnamese state independently from 1802 to 1883 before being under French protectorate. During its existence, the empire expanded into modern-day southern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos through a continuation of the centuries-long Nam tiến and Siamese–Vietnamese wars. With the French conquest of Vietnam, Nguyễn dynasty was forced to give up the sovereignty over parts of Southern Vietnam by France in 1862 and 1874, and after 1883 the Nguyễn dynasty only nominally ruled the French protectorates of Annam as well as Tonkin. They later canceled treaties with France and were the Empire of Vietnam for a short time until 25 August 1945.
Cochinchina or Cochin-China is a historical exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer to the region south of the Gianh River.
The Empire of Vietnam was a short-lived puppet state of Imperial Japan governing the former French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin between March 11 and August 25, 1945. At the end of its rule, the empire also successfully reclaimed Cochinchina as part of Vietnam.
The Treaty of Huế or Protectorate Treaty was concluded on 6 June 1884 between France and Đại Nam. It restated the main tenets of the punitive Harmand Treaty of 25 August 1883, but softened some of the harsher provisions of this treaty. The treaty, which formed the basis for the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, and for French colonial rule in Vietnam during the next seven decades, was negotiated by Jules Patenôtre, France's minister to China, and is often known as the Patenôtre Treaty. The treaty was signed on the Vietnamese side by Phạm Thận Duật and Tôn Thất Phan, representatives of the emperor Tự Đức’s court. The treaty marked the Nguyễn dynasty's second acceptance of French protectorate in central and northern Vietnam, but it was canceled by the Nguyễn dynasty on 11 March 1945.
The cash, also called the sapek or sapèque, is a cast round coin with a square hole that was an official currency of Vietnam from the Đinh dynasty in 970 until the Nguyễn dynasty in 1945, and remained in circulation in North Vietnam until 1948. The same type of currency circulated in China, Japan, Korea, and Ryūkyū for centuries. Though the majority of Vietnamese cash coins throughout history were copper coins, lead, iron and zinc coins also circulated alongside them often at fluctuating rates. Coins made from metals of lower intrinsic value were introduced because of various superstitions involving Vietnamese people burying cash coins, as the problem of people burying cash coins became too much for the government. Almost all coins issued by government mints tended to be buried mere months after they had entered circulation. The Vietnamese government began issuing coins made from an alloy of zinc, lead, and tin. As these cash coins tended to be very fragile, they would decompose faster if buried, which caused the Vietnamese people to stop burying their coins.
During Vietnam's monarchial period, the Vietnamese nobility (tước) were classified into eleven classes, with names similar to their Chinese equivalent. These are listed here from the highest to the lowest, along with their equivalent European titles.
The House of Nguyễn Phúc, also known as the House of Nguyễn Phước, was a ruling family of Vietnam. It ruled from the city of Huế in central Vietnam beginning in 1636. As the Nguyễn lords, they often fought with the Trịnh lords, who were based in Hanoi. They were overthrown by the Tây Sơn dynasty in 1777 but restored in 1780.
Tonkin, or Bắc Kỳ (北圻), was a French protectorate encompassing modern Northern Vietnam. Like the French protectorate of Annam, Tonkin was still nominally ruled by the Nguyễn dynasty, but in 1886, the French separated Tonkin from the Nguyễn imperial court in Huế by establishing the office of "Viceroy". However, on 26 July 1897, the position of Viceroy was abolished, officially making the French resident-superior of Tonkin both the representative of the French colonial administration and the Nguyễn dynasty court in Huế, giving him the power to appoint local mandarins. In 1887, Tonkin became a part of the Union of Indochina.
The Bảo Đại Thông Bảo was a round Copper-alloy coin with a square hole produced by the Nguyễn dynasty under French protection and was the last cash coin produced both in Vietnam and the world, this ended a long series of cast Vietnamese coinage that started with the Thái Bình Hưng Bảo in 970. The cast Bảo Đại Thông Bảo were produced at the Thanh Hóa Mint, while the machine-struck variants were produced in Hanoi by the colonial French government. These coins bear the name of Emperor Bảo Đại who ascended the throne in 1926 but continued the production of the earlier Khải Định Thông Bảo (啓定通寶) that bore his father's name until 1933 when he ordered the production of new coins with his reign name, which was normal as previous Vietnamese emperors also kept producing cash coins with the inscription of their predecessors for a period of time. The cast smaller Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins with blank reverses were only valued at 1⁄600 piastre.
The Khải Định Thông Bảo was a French Indochinese sapèque coin produced from 1921 until 1933, the design of the coin was round with a square hole that was used for stringing them together. Khải Định became Emperor of Annam in 1916 the funding for the production of new cash coins was reduced by the Hanoi Mint which lead to the demand of the Vietnamese market for low value denominations to not be met, furthermore, after Hanoi reduced funding for the Thanh Hóa Mint, which until that time was producing enough low denomination cast cash coins to meet the market's demands, which caused most, but not all, of the production of cash coins at the mint to cease in 1920. In response a new committee was formed in Hanoi which ordered the creation of machine-struck Khải Định Thông Bảo cash coins, these are the first machine-struck four character Thông Bảo (通寳) coins in Vietnam with the reigning emperor's name as the French government had prior tried to introduce a Cochinchinese 2 sapèque coin that continued under French Indochina that weighed 2.05 grams and had a nominal value of 1⁄500 piastre, later the colonial government of the French Protectorate of Tonkin had unsuccessfully tried to introduce a zinc milled sapèque produced by the Paris Mint with a nominal value of 1⁄600 piastre from 1905 until 1906. Unlike the earlier attempts at producing machine-struck cash coins by the colonial French authorities the Khải Định Thông Bảo proved to be much more successful as the first series had a production of 27,629,000 coins while the second series greatly exceeded this with around 200,000,000 coins produced in Huế, Haiphong, and Hanoi. The Khải Định Thông Bảo continued to be produced long after the death of Emperor Khải Định under his successor Bảo Đại until it was phased out by the Bảo Đại Thông Bảo (保大通寳) in 1933.
The seals of the Nguyễn dynasty can refer to a collection of seals specifically made for the emperors of the Nguyễn dynasty, who reigned over Vietnam between the years 1802 and 1945, or to seals produced during this period in Vietnamese history in general.
The Domain of the Crown was originally the Nguyễn dynasty's geopolitical concept for its protectorates and principalities where the ethnic Kinh did not make up the majority, later it became a type of administrative unit of the State of Vietnam. It was officially established on 15 April 1950. In the areas of the Domain of the Crown, the Chief of State Bảo Đại was still officially titled as the "Emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty".
The military of the Nguyễn dynasty were the main military forces of the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to August 1945 when it was dismantled by the August Revolution. The Nguyễn military force was initially formed by Nguyễn Hoàng as a division of the military of the Revival Lê dynasty in 1558 starting out with 3000 soldiers. During this period it was the military forces of the domain of the Nguyễn lords and commonly fought the Trịnh lords who controlled northern Vietnam. During the Tây Sơn Rebellion it was expelled out most of the county by the Tây Sơn dynasty. After the exiled Nguyễn Phúc Ánh returned and defeated the Tây Sơn rebels he crowned himself as the Gia Long Emperor and the Nguyễn military became the national military of Vietnam.
The French conquest of Vietnam (1858–1885) was a long and limited war fought between the Second French Empire, later the French Third Republic and the Vietnamese empire of Đại Nam in the mid-late 19th century. Its end and results were victories for the French as they defeated the Vietnamese and their Chinese allies in 1885, the incorporation of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and finally established French rules over constituent territories of French Indochina over Mainland Southeast Asia in 1887.
The government of the Nguyễn dynasty, officially the Southern Court and commonly referred to as the Huế Court, centred around the emperor as the absolute monarch, surrounded by various imperial agencies and ministries which stayed under the emperor's presidency. Following the signing of the Patenôtre Treaty the French took over a lot of control and while the government of the Nguyễn dynasty still nominally ruled the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, in reality the French maintained control over these territories and the Nguyễn government became subsidiary to the administration of French Indochina. During World War II the Japanese launched a coup d'état outsting the French and establishing the Empire of Vietnam which was ruled by the Nguyễn government. During the August Revolution the Nguyễn government was abolished in the aftermath of World War II.
During the Nguyễn dynasty period (1802–1945) of Vietnamese history its Ministry of Education was reformed a number of times, in its first iteration it was called the Học Bộ, which was established during the reign of the Duy Tân Emperor (1907–1916) and took over a number of functions of the Lễ Bộ, one of the Lục Bộ. The Governor-General of French Indochina wished to introduce more education reforms, the Nguyễn court in Huế sent Cao Xuân Dục and Huỳnh Côn, the Thượng thư of the Hộ Bộ, to French Cochinchina to discuss these reforms with the French authorities. After their return the Học Bộ was established in the year Duy Tân 1 (1907) with Cao Xuân Dục being appointed to be its first Thượng thư (minister). Despite nominally being a Nguyễn dynasty institution, actual control over the ministry fell in the hands of the French Council for the Improvement of Indigenous Education in Annam.
The Military Medal of Annam, also known as the Military Medal of Emperor Đồng-Khánh; officially the Military and Native Guard Merit Medal, was a short lived Order of Merit of the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin within the federation of French Indochina. The Military Medal of Annam was awarded to Annamese and Tonkinese soldiers of the Tirailleurs indochinois, the Garde indigène de l'Annam er du Tonkin, and other Indochinese military forces as well as police officers in the Garde Civil indigène for distinguished action or serious wounds.
The House of Representatives of the People of Annam was an advisory body for the French Indochinese colonial government in the protectorate of Annam. It was involved with economic, financial and social issues of the protectorate. The chamber was established by a decree on February 24, 1926, of Governor-General of Indochina Alexandre Varenne. The predecessor of the chamber was the Indigenous Consultative Council of Annam. The body officially ceased its operation on May 12, 1945, after a decree of dissolution by Emperor Bảo Đại following the Japanese coup d'état against the French colonial authorities in Indochina.
