The Haw Wars () were fought against Chinese quasi-military refugee gangs invading parts of Tonkin and Laos from 1865–1890. Forces invading Lao people were ill-disciplined and freely demolished Buddhist temples. Not knowing these were remnants of secret societies, the invaders were wrongly called Haw (; SEAlang library Lao lexicography. SEAlang Projects. http://sealang.net/lao/dictionary.htm ; Chinese: Hao). Forces sent by King Chulalongkorn failed to suppress the various groups, the last of which eventually disbanded in 1890.
Responding to this serious challenge, in 1874 Oun Kham, king of Luang Prabang, and the Nguyen monarch Tự Đức, sent a joint army to expel the invaders. The force was routed, and Chao Ung, prince of Phuan, was killed. The victorious Haw moved south to sack Vientiane, while Chao Unkham sent urgent appeals for assistance to the Thai monarch, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V).
McCarthy had begun his acquaintance with the Tonkin borderlands in the 1884, when he led a Thai surveying expedition to Phuan and the southern frontiers of Huaphan, as part of his task of mapping the Thai Kingdom. During this journey he travelled widely through territories subject to regular attack by the flag gangs. He noted that "as we went on, tales of the Haw were brought in, agonizing accounts of their raiding on villages, whose inhabitants they had slaughtered, mutilated or carried into captivity".
McCarthy was greatly impressed by the beauty and natural wealth of the regions, but found the inhabitants living a "wretched existence...harried, mutilated and slaughtered by robbers". As in Vientiane ten years before, the Wat were demolished and desecrated in a search for loot. McCarthy wrote that "the wats had been wantonly destroyed, and piles of palm-leaf records lay heaped together, which, unless soon looked at, would be lost forever."
Subsequently, McCarthy travelled to Luang Prabang to consult with the Siamese military commanders and Chao Unkham. There he learned the Haw had advanced to Muang You, which should have been defended by troops under Phraya Sukhothai. However, this Thai nobleman, ill with malaria, had withdrawn to Luang Prabang. The Haw were able to seize the outpost and burn the Siamese stockade. With the onset of the Wet season in June and July, malaria was to prove a more potent foe than the much-feared Haw. In McCarthy's words "the rain poured down steadily, and sickness prevailed". Accordingly, the Siamese troops stationed in the Laos region remained at Luang Prabang or withdrew across the Mekong to Nong Khai. McCarthy travelled to Bangkok to advise King Chulalongkorn of the situation and await the return of the dry winter months.
The Haw were armed with modern and Birmingham-manufactured ammunition, and many were skilled in guerrilla warfare. They used demoralising tactics such as mutilating captives, employed Punji stick, and made surprise night attacks. Magic was still believed in and was resorted to by both sides. Hora () accompanying the Siamese troops, determined that 10 o'clock on the morning of 22 February 1885 was the most auspicious time to begin the assault. At the predetermined time, a gun was fired and the attacking forces began their advance against the Haw stronghold, a well-defended stockade 400 metres long by 200 wide, surrounded by bamboo and watched over by seven towers each about 12 metres high. The Thai and Laotian troops advanced in companies of 50 men, each under the White Elephant flag of Siam, and established themselves behind a temporary palisade 100 metres from the Haw fort. The attacking forces were armed with Armstrong Gun 6-pounder (2.5 in/64 mm) guns, but these apparently lacked ammunition. McCarthy noted that most of the firing seemed to come from the Haw watchtowers and, despite Thai and Lao courage and almost reckless indifference to injury, "considerable execution" was caused to them. The Haw, on the other hand, remained relatively unscathed. At 14:00 the Thais suffered a further setback when their commander-in-chief, Phraya Raj, was injured by a shot "weighing about two pounds, which glanced off the post of a Chinese joss house where he was standing and struck him in the leg." The attack on the Haw stockade eventually had to be given up.
Today the Haw Wars are all but forgotten. One memorial to the Thai and Lao soldiers killed in the struggle stands in front of the old Nong Khai City Hall, now a community center and museum. A larger, newer one stands behind the police barracks. Down by the Mekong River in view of Laos on the opposite side stands Wat Angkhan (อังคาร), which is from the Pali language for "ashes of the dead", and is also Thai for the planet Mars that Romans named for their God of War. Nearby, the city maintains the Garden of Sorrows ( สวนโศกเศร้า), with signs signifying this is where widows came to grieve.
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