How Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh was inspired by a Guangzhou hotel bomber’s anti-colonial spirit
- In 1924, an attempt was made on the life of the French governor of Indochina in Guangzhou. The plot failed, but the bomber’s influence was far-reaching
The night was a typically hot and humid one in Guangzhou. Martial Henri Merlin, serving governor-general of French Indochina for less than a year, had arrived by train that afternoon from Hong Kong.
It was June 1924 and he was on his way home to Hanoi after visiting Tokyo, ostensibly promoting greater trade with French Indochina.
His short time in Guangzhou was to be spent entirely on Shamian Island, divided into two foreign concessions controlled by France and Britain since 1859, measuring barely 900 metres from east to west, and 300 metres from north to south.
It may have been not much more than a sandbank, but it did boast some fine examples of European architecture, used as offices by foreign companies and consulates, a few walled comprador villas, tree-lined streets, the shady French Gardens, a Catholic chapel and a Protestant church, and two pedestrian bridges leading into and out of the teeming city beyond.
An ongoing wave of strikes across Guangzhou, occasionally turning violent, meant that foreign troops were stationed at the bridges behind barbed-wire barricades to prevent any incursions into the concessions.
Merlin, a Parisian in his mid-60s, was not a popular governor-general in Indochina. After administering France’s colonies in West Africa and Guadeloupe, he had become a hardliner, refusing any accommodation with local people regarding their own governance.
