[1] On 30 July 1883, Admiral Courbet, General Bouët and Jules Harmand, the French civil commissioner-general for Tonkin, held a council of war at Haiphong.

The meeting noted that the Court of Huế was covertly aiding and abetting Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army, and that the Vietnamese commander-in-chief Prince Hoàng Kế Viêm was openly in arms against the French at Nam Định.

The three men agreed that Bouët should launch an offensive against the Black Flag Army in its positions around Phu Hoai on the Day River as soon as possible.

On 11 August the navy minister Charles Brun approved Harmand and Courbet's proposal for a naval descent on Huế to coerce the Vietnamese court.

The aim of the expedition was to put a landing force ashore to capture the Thuận An forts, which guarded the entrance to the River of Perfumes, after a preliminary bombardment by the warships of Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division.

As the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps would be fully committed to Bouët's projected attack on the Black Flag Army, it was agreed that the landing near Huế would be made by troops from the French garrisons in Cochinchina.

Courbet's naval force for the descent on Huế consisted of the ironclads Bayard and Atalante, the cruiser Châteaurenault, the gunboats Lynx and Vipère, and the transport Drac.

The French naval division left Tourane at 8 a.m. on 18 August, in order of battle with Bayard at its head, and anchored off the entrance to the Huế River around 2 p.m.

The light frigate Alouette from Cochinchina joined the division shortly before hostilities commenced, and Courbet ascertained that she had no new orders for him before opening fire.

The guns stopped firing at 7 p.m., and the French ships turned on their powerful electric searchlights to illuminate the forts, the Thuận An pass and the sea around their anchorage, in case of an enemy night attack.

To their surprise the Vietnamese replied with a well-aimed salvo of shells which whistled overhead and fell in the sea close around the French ships.

At 5.45 a.m. an advance guard under Parrayon's personal command, consisting of the three ships’ landing companies and two sections of marine infantry, climbed into the launches and made slowly for the shore.

A spearhead led by enseigne de vaisseau Olivieri crossed the beach defences and fought a brief action with a party of Vietnamese who left their entrenchments to confront the invaders.

After about an hour's fighting Captain Parrayon, Ensign Olivieri and lieutenant de vaisseau Palma Gourdon (who would later win fame in the Battle of Shipu) were among the first French soldiers to enter the fort.

On the morning of 21 August the division's launches landed a strong French column on the beach opposite the Southern Fort, ready to attack it if necessary.

At the same time the northern provinces of Nghệ An, Thanh Hóa and Hà Tĩnh were transferred to Tonkin, where they would come under direct French oversight.

[3] Courbet issued the following order of the day to his sailors and soldiers to commemorate the victory at Thuận An: Vous avez vaillamment combattu.

En quelques jours, vous avez donné un nouveau prestige au nom français dans l'Extrême-Orient.

Enseigne de vaisseau Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud (1850–1923), who served in Courbet's Tonkin Coasts naval division aboard the ironclad Atalante, described his campaigning experiences in a number of popular articles published under the pen name Pierre Loti.

He wrote a detailed account of the battle of Thuận An entitled Trois journées de guerre en Annam, which was published in three parts in Le Figaro on 28 September and 13 and 17 October 1883.

[5] Viaud's brutally realistic description of the fighting at Thuận An, his account of French atrocities (the bayoneting of wounded Vietnamese soldiers by French marine infantrymen after the battle) and the obvious pleasure the soldiers took in the slaughter of the outclassed Vietnamese, caused great offence in France, and he was recalled by the navy ministry and suspended from duty.