Philippe Vannier

Vannier was born in Brittany, in the town of Auray.[2] He had served from 1778 in the Royal French Navy,[3] and had reportedly fought in the American War of Independence.[2]

Philippe Vannier entered the service of Nguyễn Ánh in 1789 following the encouragements of Mgr Pigneau de Béhaine.[3] In 1790, Nguyễn Ánh gave him the command of one of his ships. In 1792 he was in command of a warship furnished by Jean-Marie Dayot, and fought at the battle of Qui Nhơn.[2] In 1800, Philippe Vannier was commander of the Phoenix (Phuong-Phi), the largest ship of Nguyễn Ánh's navy, with 26 guns and 300 men.[2][4] In April 1801, he again fought in front of the harbour of Qui Nhơn, and was nominated General (Brigadier) of the Navy.[2] The battle opened the way for Nguyễn Ánh's invasion of northern Vietnam.[4]

His second-in-command was another Frenchman, Renon, from Saint Malo.[2]

After the end of the war in 1802 and the victory of Nguyễn Ánh, Philippe Vannier remained in the service of the Vietnamese emperor, as a Mandarin. He married a Vietnamese Christian woman named Madeleine Sel-Dong, with whom he had several children.[4] He served Nguyen under the name Nguyen Van Chan until 1826,[1][5] but then left Vietnam at the same time as Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau, soon after the accession of Minh Mạng to the throne.

Philippe Vannier died in Lorient on 6 June 1842.[4] His Vietnamese wife died in the same city on 6 April 1878.[4]

One of their grandsons, Emile Vannier, was a Navy officer who participated to the Cochinchina campaign in 1863–1864, and died in 1885.[4]

• France-Vietnam relations

• Mantienne, Frédéric (1999). Monseigneur Pigneau de Béhaine. Paris: Editions Eglises d'Asie. ISBN 2-914402-20-1. ISSN 1275-6865.
• Salles, André (2006). Un Mandarin Breton au service du roi de Cochinchine. Les Portes du Large. ISBN 2-914612-01-X.
• Tran, My-Van (2005). A Vietnamese royal exile in Japan: Prince Cường Để (1882–1951). Routledge. ISBN 0-415-29716-8.
• Tran, Nhung Tuyet; Reid, Anthony (2006). Việt Nam: borderless histories. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-21774-4.