Charner had been sent out to the Far East for the war with China, and had not expected to be required to fight a campaign in Cochinchina as well. Believing that he had broken Vietnamese resistance with his victories at Ky Hoa and My Tho, he asked to return to France in the summer of 1861. Rear Admiral Louis-Adolphe Bonard (1805–67), appointed as his successor by an imperial decree of 8 August 1861, arrived in Saigon on 27 November and assumed his duties on 30 November.