Rollicking tales of the sea: French Navy sails into Korea in 1901

The French warship Bayard in Japan, circa 1895/ Robert Neff Collection

In any small community there is going to be gossip and the small Western expat community in Seoul in the early 1900s was no exception.

Americans seem to have been especially plagued with wagging-tongues (and poisonous pens) that were quick to point out the perceived slights and wrong-doings of peers, the scandalous behavior of neighbors and the oddities of strangers.

Perhaps one of the most notorious of these holier-than-thou gossipers was Horace N. Allen, the American Minister to Korea. But strangely, when it came to describing the officers of the French Navy, he managed to keep his thoughts to himself.

Fortunately, William Franklin Sands ― an American adviser for the Korean government ― was more than willing to share his views and even went on to publish them in a book several decades later.

When the French fleet sailed into Jemulpo (modern Incheon) in June 1901, Sands managed to ingratiate himself with Admiral Edouard Pottier ― the commander-in-chief of the French Far East Squadron ― and develop a fawning relationship with the commander and his officers.

According to Sands, Admiral Pottier “was a museum piece … a figure of the eighteenth century sea fighters. Under his sea wolf blusters he was a shrewd diplomat, and under his weather-beaten skin he was a man of peace.”

He was a contradiction of the era. While other admirals made their flagships on the most modern warships at their disposal, Pottier chose one of his oldest vessels ― the iron-clad Redoubtable ― because he valued the comfort and charm it provided as opposed to the “discomforts of the new mechanical fighting machines.”

The descriptions of his quarters defy what one would expect on a warship: “His quarters were fitted like a Paris apartment, and across the stern he had run out nothing less than a glassed balcony where he raised flowers.”

Attending his every needs was a civilian butler-valet who had dutifully served him for nearly four decades and ― due to their long bond ― was able to mischievously denounce the admiral's rather frequent exaggerations of his adventures in the various ports of the world.

The admiral was quite fond of entertaining guests aboard his ship (“he entertained like an ambassador,” declared Sands) and delighted and shocked them with “his brilliant conversation” that was filled with “hair raising oaths [and] quite impossible barrack-room terms.”

His female guests were cautioned, in advance, to feign confusion as to what he was talking about because, “if a lady took offense, she proved herself no lady for she had no business to understand them.”

He was a shrewd character with “kindly wisdom” but very open and undiplomatic when it came to showing his personal displeasure with the behavior of one of his own officers.

Lieutenant Louis Marie-Julien Viaud joined the navy in 1867 at the age of 17 and was a fairly unusual naval officer. Sands described him as being “a short little man, with high heels to give him stature, corseted tightly as a belle of former days, cheeks and lips rouged like a modern flapper.”

Jemulpo (modern Incheon) in the early 20th century/ Robert Neff Collection

The admiral's language in regards to his lieutenant was “unstudied and without reserve.” Sands, however, was somewhat impressed with Viaud's ability to “live under such studied rudeness and contempt” by his superior as well as his subordinates who “disliked his effeminacy as only a blue-water sailor [could] detest such things.”

The crew “expressed their feelings as only a French courtier could ― to remain well within bounds of civilized intercourse while making life unbearable for one whom they quite plainly believed to be unfit for the company of men.”

While they may have viewed Viaud with contempt, he had a great deal of respect for the crew. He wrote that they were “poor sequestered beings living between steel walls … constantly toiling with never a murmur or a loss of courage during our long and dangerous sojourn.”

For them, life aboard the ship was far different than the Paris-like apartment the admiral enjoyed. Because of the ship's engines, the “fires were burning day and night in their stifling quarters; they lived bathed in a moist heat, dripping with perspiration, coming out only for exhausting drill-work in small boats, in bad weather, and often in the dead of night and on boisterous seas.”

Viaud sympathized with their plight and claimed that “one needs but a glance at their thin pale faces now, to understand how difficult their obscure role has been.”

Shortly after his visit to Korea, Viaud confessed to a friend that he was having no end of trouble with his naval superiors and some suggested that it was because they were jealous.

Louis Marie-Julien Viaud is better known by his pen name ― Pierre Loti ― and was a prolific writer of great esteem. An encyclopedia entry from the early 20th century described him as “unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day.”

Often what we mock today we admire tomorrow.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books including, Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.