The First Indochina War
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The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
) began in
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh ( Democratic Republic of Vietnam), and their respective allies. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
and Cambodia. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the
Combined Chiefs of Staff The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the supreme military staff for the United States and Britain during World War II. It set all the major policy decisions for the two nations, subject to the approvals of British Prime Minister Winston Churchil ...
decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. The Japanese forces located south of that line surrendered to him and those to the north surrendered to Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
. In September 1945, Chinese forces entered Tonkin, and a small British task force landed at city of
Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
( Cochinchina's capital). The Chinese accepted one Vietnamese government under Hồ Chí Minh, then in power in Hanoi ( Tonkin's capital). The British refused to do likewise in Saigon, and deferred to the French there from the outset, against the ostensible support of the Việt Minh authorities by American
OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...
representatives. On V-J Day, September 2, Hồ Chí Minh had proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for a period of about 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed under the Japanese rule. On 23 September 1945, with the knowledge of the British commander in Saigon, French forces overthrew the local DRV government, and declared French authority restored in Cochinchina.
Guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...
began around Saigon immediately, but the French gradually retook control of the South and North of Indochina. Hồ Chí Minh agreed to negotiate the future status of Vietnam, but the talks, held in France, failed to produce a solution. After over one year of latent conflict, all-out war broke out in December 1946 between French and Việt Minh forces as Hồ Chí Minh and his government went underground. The French tried to stabilize Indochina by reorganizing it as a Federation of Associated States. In 1949, they put former Emperor Bảo Đại back in power, as the ruler of a newly established
State of Vietnam The State of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc gia Việt Nam; Chữ Nôm: 國家越南; french: État du Viêt-Nam) was a governmental entity in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as a member of the French Union and later as a country ...
. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against the French. In 1949 the conflict turned into a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons supplied by the United States, China and the Soviet Union. French Union forces included colonial troops from their colonial empire - Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian Arabs/Berbers; Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese ethnic minorities; Black Africans - and French professional troops, European volunteers, and units of the Foreign Legion. The use of
metropolitan Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a typ ...
recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming even more unpopular at home. It was called the "dirty war" (''la sale guerre'') by leftists in France. The strategy of pushing the Việt Minh into attacking well-defended bases in remote parts of the country at the end of their logistical trails was validated at the Battle of Nà Sản even though the base was relatively weak because of a lack of concrete and steel. French efforts were made more difficult due to the limited usefulness of armored tanks in a forested environment, lack of strong air forces for air cover and
carpet bombing Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in th ...
, and use of foreign recruits from other French colonies (mainly from Algeria, Morocco and even Vietnam). Võ Nguyên Giáp, however, used efficient and novel tactics of direct fire artillery, convoy ambushes and massed anti-aircraft guns to impede land and air supply deliveries together with a strategy based on recruiting a sizable regular army facilitated by wide popular support, a guerrilla warfare doctrine and instruction developed in China, and the use of simple and reliable war material provided by the Soviet Union. This combination proved fatal for the bases' defenses, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the Fr ...
. An estimated 400,000 to 842,707 soldiers died during the war as well as between 125,000 and 400,000 civilians. Both sides committed war crimes during the conflict, including killings of civilians (such as the Mỹ Trạch massacre by French troops), rape and torture. At the International Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, the new socialist French government and the Việt Minh made an agreement which effectively gave the Việt Minh control of North Vietnam above the 17th parallel. The south continued under Bảo Đại. The agreement was denounced by the
State of Vietnam The State of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc gia Việt Nam; Chữ Nôm: 國家越南; french: État du Viêt-Nam) was a governmental entity in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as a member of the French Union and later as a country ...
and by the United States. A year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister,
Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of ...
, creating the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Soon an insurgency, backed by the north, developed against Diệm's
authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
government. The conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War (1955–1975), which saw massive American involvement, and resulted in the fall of South Vietnam and reunification of Vietnam.


Background

Vietnam was absorbed into
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
in stages between 1858 and 1887. Vietnamese nationalism grew until World War II, providing a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu. Châu looked to Japan, which had modernized and was one of the few Asian nations to successfully resist European colonization. With Prince
Cường Để Cường Để (, ; born Nguyễn Phước Dân ( vi-hantu, 阮福民); 11 January 1882 - 5 April 1951) was an early 20th-century Vietnamese revolutionary who, along with Phan Bội Châu, unsuccessfully tried to liberate Vietnam from French colo ...
, Châu started the two organizations in Japan, the Duy Tân hội (Modernistic Association) and Vietnam Cong Hien Hoi. Due to French pressure, Japan deported Phan Bội Châu to China. Witnessing
Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...
's Xinhai Revolution, Châu was inspired to commence the Viet Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou. From 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shikai's counterrevolutionary government. In 1925, he was captured by French agents in Shanghai and spirited to Vietnam. Due to his popularity, Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In September 1940, shortly after Phan Bội Châu's death, the Empire of Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina, mirroring its ally Germany's conquest of metropolitan France. Keeping the French colonial administration, the Japanese ruled from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France. As far as Vietnamese nationalists were concerned, this was a double-puppet government. Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, ensuring his lifestyle could continue. From October 1940 to May 1941, during the Franco-Thai War, the Vichy French in Indochina defended their colony in a border conflict in which the forces of Thailand invaded while the Japanese sat on the sidelines. Thai military successes were limited to the Cambodian border area, and in January 1941 Vichy France's modern naval forces soundly defeated the inferior Thai naval forces in the
Battle of Ko Chang The Battle of Ko Chang took place on 17 January 1941 during the Franco-Thai War in which a flotilla of French warships attacked a smaller force of Thai vessels, including a coastal defence ship. The battle resulted in a tactical victory by the ...
. The war ended in May, with the French agreeing to minor territorial revisions which restored formerly Thai areas to Thailand. In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh, seeing communist revolution as the path to freedom, returned to Vietnam and formed the ''Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi'' (League for the Independence of Vietnam), better known as the Việt Minh. Ho created the Việt Minh as an umbrella organization for all the nationalist resistance movements, de-emphasizing his communist social revolutionary background. During the Vietnamese famine of 1945, Hồ Chí Minh blamed ruthless Japanese exploitation and poor weather for up to two million Vietnamese deaths. The Việt Minh arranged a relief effort in the north, winning wide support there as a result. In Hanoi on 15–20 April 1945 the Tonkin Revolutionary Military Conference of the Việt Minh issued a resolution that was reprinted on pages 1–4 on 25 August 1970 in the '' Nhân Dân'' journal. It called for a general uprising, resistance and guerilla warfare against the Japanese by establishing 7 war zones across Vietnam named after past heroes of Vietnam, calling for propaganda to explain to the people that their only way forward was violent resistance against the Japanese and exposing the Vietnamese puppet government that served them. The conference also called for training propagandists and having women spread military propaganda and target Japanese soldiers with Chinese language leaflets and Japanese language propaganda. The Việt Minh's Vietnamese Liberation Army published the "Resistance against Japan" (Khang Nhat) newspaper. They also called for the creation of a group called "Chinese and Vietnamese Allied against Japan" by sending leaflets to recruit overseas Chinese in Vietnam to their cause. The resolution called on forcing French in Vietnam to recognize Vietnamese independence and for the DeGaulle France (Allied French) to recognize their independent and cooperate with them against Japan. On 17 August 1970, the North Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Truong Chinh reprinted an article in Vietnamese in Nhan Dan, published in Hanoi titled "Policy of the Japanese Pirates Towards Our People" which was a reprint of his original article written in August 1945 in No 3 of the "Communist Magazine" (Tap Chi Cong San) with the same title, describing Japanese atrocities like looting, slaughter and rape against the people of north Vietnam in 1945. He denounced the Japanese claims to have liberated Vietnam from France with the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere announced by Tojo and mentioned how the Japanese looted shrines, temples, eggs, vegetables, straw, rice, chickens, hogs and cattle for their horses and soldiers and built military stations and airstrips after stealing land and taking boats, vehicles, homes and destroying cotton fields and vegetable fields for peanut and jute cultivation in Annam and Tonkin. Japan replaced the French government on 9 March 1945 and started openly looting the Vietnamese even more in addition to taking French owned properties and stole watches, pencils, bicycles, money and clothing in Bac Giang and Bac Can. The Japanese tried to play the Vietnamese against the French and play the Laotians against the Vietnamese by inciting Lao people to killed Vietnamese as Lao murdered 7 Vietnamese officials in Luang Prabang and Lao youths were recruited to an anti-Vietnam organization by the Japanese when they took over Luang Prabang. The Japanese spread false rumours that the French were massacring Vietnamese at the time to distract the Vietnamese from Japanese atrocities. The Japanese created groups to counter the Viet Minh Communists like Vietnam Pao ve doan (Vietnam protection group) and Vietnam Ai quoc doan (Vietnam Patriotic Group) to force Vietnamese into coolie labour, take taxes and rice and arrested anti-Japanese Vietnamese with their puppet government run by Tran Trong Kim. The Viet Minh rejected the Japanese demands to cease fighting and support Japan, so the Japanese implemented the Three Alls policy (San Kuang) against the Vietnamese, pillaging, burning, killing, looting, and raping Vietnamese women. The Vietnamese called the Japanese "dwarfed monsters" ( Wa (Japan)) and the Japanese committed these atrocities in Thai Nguyen province at Dinh Hoa, Vo Nhai and Hung Son. The Japanese attacked the Vietnamese while masquerading as Viet Minh and used terror and deception. The Japanese created the puppet Vietnam Phuc quoc quan (Vietnam restoration army). and tried to disrupt the Viet Minh's redistribution and confiscation of property of pro-Japanese Vietnamese traitors by disguising themselves as Viet Minh and then attacking people who took letters from them and organizing anti-French rallies and Trung sisters celebrations. Japanese soldiers tried to infiltrate Viet Minh bases with Viet Minh flags and brown trousers during their fighting. The Japanese murdered, plundered and raped Vietnamese and beheaded Vietnamese who stole bread and corn while they were starving according to their martial law. They shot a Vietnamese pharmacy student to death outside of his own house when he was coming home from guard duty at a hospital after midnight in Hanoi and also shot a defendant for a political case in the same city. In Thai Nguyen province, Vo Nhai, a Vietnamese boat builder was thrown in a river and had his stomach stabbed by the Japanese under suspicion of helping Viet Minh guerillas. The Japanese slit the abdomen and hung the Dai Tu mayor upside down in Thai Nguyen as well. The Japanese also beat thousands of people in Hanoi for not cooperating. Japanese officers ordered their soldiers to behead and burn Vietnamese. Truong Chinh said that the Japanese wanted to plunder Asians for their own market and take it from the United States and Great Britain and were imperialists with no intent on liberating Vietnam. Truong Chinh wrote another article on 12 September 1945, No 16 in Liberation Banner (Co Giai Phong) which was also reprinted on 16 August 1970 in Nhan Dan. He commemorated the August revolution against the Japanese, after the Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945 then the Viet Minh started attacking and slaughtering Japanese and disarming them in a nationwide rebellion on 19 August 1945. The Japanese had already disarmed the French and the Japanese themselves lost morale so the Viet Minh managed to seize control after attacking the Japanese. Viet Minh had begun fighting in 1944, when the French were attacked on Dinh Ca in October 1944 and in Cao Bang and Bac Can French were attacked by Viet Cong in November 1944 and the French and Japanese fought each other on 9 March 1945, so in Tonkin the Viet Cong began disarming French soldiers and attacking the Japanese. In Quang Ngai, Ba To, Yen Bai and Nghia Lo political prisoners escaped Japanese were attake din Son La by Meo (Hmong) tribesmen and in Hoa Binh and Lang Son by Muong tribesmen. Viet Minh took control of 6 provinces in Tonkin after 9 March 1945 within 2 weeks. The Viet Minh led a brutal campaign against the Japanese where many died from 9 March 1945 to 19 August 1945. Truong Chinh ended the article with a quote from Sun Yatsen, "The revolution is not yet won, All comrades must continue their al out efforts!" On 26 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter calling for struggle against the French mentioning they were returning after they sold out the Vietnamese to the Japanese twice in 4 years. The Japanese forced Vietnamese women to become comfort women and with Burmese, Indonesia, Thai and Filipino women they made up a notable portion of Asian comfort women in general. Japanese use of Malaysian and Vietnamese women as comfort women was corroborated by testimonies. There were comfort women stations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea and South Korea. A Korean comfort woman named Kim Ch'un-hui stayed behind in Vietnam and died there when she was 44 in 1963, owning a dairy farm, cafe, US cash and diamonds worth 200,000 US dollars. 1 million Vietnamese were starved to death during World War II according to Thomas U. Berger. 2 billion US dollars worth (1945 values) of damage, 148 million dollars of them due to destruction of industrial plants was incurred by Vietnam. 90% of heavy vehicles and motorcycles, cars and 16 tons of junks as well as railways, port installations were destroyed as well as one third of bridges. Some Japanese soldiers married Vietnamese women like Nguyen Thi Xuan and Nguyen Thi Thu and fathered multiple children with the Vietnamese women who remained behind in Vietnam while the Japanese soldiers themselves returned to Japan in 1955. The official Vietnamese historical narrative view them as children of rape and prostitution. In the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 1 to 2 million Vietnamese starved to death in the Red river delta of northern Vietnam due to the Japanese, as the Japanese seized Vietnamese rice and didn't pay. In Phat Diem the Vietnamese farmer Di Ho was one of the few survivors who saw the Japanese steal grain. The North Vietnamese government accused both France and Japan of the famine and said 1-2 million Vietnamese died. Võ An Ninh took photographs of dead and dying Vietnamese during the great famine. Starving Vietnamese were dying throughout northern Vietnam in 1945 due to the Japanese seizure of their crops by the time the Chinese came to disarm the Japanese and Vietnamese corpses were all throughout the streets of Hanoi and had to be cleaned up by students. On 25 March 2000, the Vietnamese journalist Trần Khuê wrote an article "Dân chủ: Vấn đề của dân tộc và thời đại" where he harshly criticized ethnographers and historians in Ho Chin Minh city's Institute of Social Sciences like Dr. Đinh Văn Liên and Professor Mạc Đường who tried to whitewash Japan's atrocities against the Vietnamese by portraying Japan's aid to the South Vietnamese regime against North Vietnam as humanitarian aid, portraying the Vietnam war against America as a civil war. changing the death toll of 2 million Vietnamese dead at the hands of the Japanese famine to 1 million and calling the Japanese invasion as a presence and calling Japanese fascists at simply Japanese at the Vietnam-Japan international conference. He accused them of changing history in exchange for only a few tens of thousands of dollars, and the Presidium of international Vietnamese studies in Hanoi did not include any Vietnamese women. The Vietnamese professor Văn Tạo and Japanese professor Furuta Moto both conducted a study in the field on the Japanese induced famine of 1945 admitting that Japan killed 2 million Vietnamese by starvation. In March 1945, Japan launched the
Second French Indochina Campaign The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds eac ...
to oust the Vichy French and formally installed Emperor Bảo Đại as head of the nominally "independent"
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. The Japanese arrested and imprisoned most of the French officials and military officers remaining in the country. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General Joseph Stilwell privately made it clear that France was not to reacquire French Indochina after the war was over. Roosevelt suggested that
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
place Indochina under Chinese rule; Chiang Kai-shek supposedly replied: "Under no circumstances!" Following Roosevelt's death in April 1945, U.S. resistance to French rule weakened.


After the surrender of Japan

An armistice was signed between Japan and the United States on August 20, 1945. The
Provisional Government of the French Republic The Provisional Government of the French Republic (PGFR; french: Gouvernement provisoire de la République française (''GPRF'')) was the provisional government of Free France between 3 June 1944 and 27 October 1946, following the liberation ...
wanted to restore its colonial rule in French Indochina as the final step of the Liberation of France. On August 22, 1945, OSS agents Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate Allied POWs, and were accompanied by French government official Jean Sainteny. The Imperial Japanese Army, being the only force capable of maintaining law and order, remained in power while keeping French colonial troops and Sainteny detained. Japanese forces allowed the Việt Minh and other nationalist groups to take over public buildings and weapons without resistance, which began the August Revolution. On August 25, Hồ Chí Minh was able to persuade Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate. Bảo Đại was appointed "supreme advisor" to the new Việt Minh-led government in Hanoi. On September 2, aboard in Tokyo Bay, CEFEO Expeditionary Corps leader
General Leclerc Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque (22 November 1902 – 28 November 1947) was a Free-French general during the Second World War. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal ...
signed the armistice with Japan on behalf of France. The same day, Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France. Deliberately borrowing from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed:
We hold the truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
After their surrender, the Japanese Army gave weapons to the Việt Minh. In order to further help the nationalists, the Japanese kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. OSS officers met repeatedly with Hồ Chí Minh and other Việt Minh officers during this period. The Việt Minh recruited more than 600 Japanese soldiers and gave them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers. On September 13, 1945, a
Franco Franco may refer to: Name * Franco (name) * Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 * Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître" Prefix * Franco, a prefix used when ...
-British task force landed in Java, main island of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
(for which independence was being sought by
Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...
), and Saigon, capital of Cochinchina (southern part of French Indochina), both being occupied by the Japanese and ruled by
Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...
Hisaichi Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's Southern Expeditionary Army Group based in Saigon.
Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
troops in Saigon were an airborne detachment, two British companies of the Indian 20th Infantry Division and the French 5th Colonial Infantry Regiment, with British General Sir Douglas Gracey as supreme commander. The latter proclaimed martial law on September 21. The following night the Franco-British troops took control of Saigon.''Philipe Leclerc de Hauteloque (1902–1947), La légende d'un héro'', Christine Levisse-Touzé, Tallandier/Paris Musées, 2002 Almost immediately afterward, as agreed to at the Potsdam Conference (and under Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers' "General Order no. One"), 200,000 troops of the Chinese 1st Army occupied Indochina as far south as the 16th parallel. They had been sent by Chiang Kai-shek under General Lu Han to accept the surrender of Japanese forces occupying that area, then to supervise the disarming and repatriation of the
Japanese Army The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...
. This effectively ended Hồ Chí Minh's nominal government in Hanoi. Initially, the Chinese kept the French Colonial soldiers interned, with the acquiescence of the Americans. The Chinese used the VNQDĐ, the Vietnamese branch of the Chinese Kuomintang, to increase their influence in Indochina and put pressure on their opponents. On October 9, 1945, General Leclerc arrived in Saigon, accompanied by French Colonel Massu's March Group (''Groupement de marche''). Leclerc's primary objectives were to restore public order in south Vietnam and to militarize Tonkin (north Vietnam). Secondary objectives were to wait for French backup in view to take back Chinese-occupied Hanoi, then to negotiate with the Việt Minh officials. Chiang Kai-shek threatened the French with war in response to manoeuvering by the French and Hồ Chí Minh against each other, forcing them to come to a peace agreement. In February 1946, he also forced the French to surrender and renounce all of their concessions and ports in China, such as Shanghai, in exchange for withdrawing from northern Indochina and allowing French troops to reoccupy the region starting in March 1946. Following this
agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting o ...
, VNQDĐ forces became vulnerable due to the withdrawal of Chinese forces and were attacked by Việt Minh and French troops. The Việt Minh massacred thousands of VNQDĐ members and other nationalists in a large-scale purge. General Lu Han's 200,000 Chinese soldiers occupied north Vietnam starting August 1945. 90,000 arrived by October, the 62nd army came on 26 September to Nam Dinh and Haiphong. Lang Son and Cao Bang were occupied by the Guangxi 62nd army corps and the red river region and Lai Cai were occupied by a column from Yunnan. Vietnamese VNQDD fighters accompanied the Chinese soldiers. Ho Chi Minh ordered his DRV administration to set quotas for rice to give to the Chinese soldiers and rice was sold in Chinese currency in the red River delta. Lu Han occupied the French governor general's palace after ejecting the French staff under Sainteny. Chinese soldiers occupied northern Indochina north of the 16th parallel while the British under the South-East Asia Command of Lord Mountbatten occupied the south. Chiang Kai-shek deliberately withheld his crack and well trained soldiers from occupying Vietnam since he was going to use them to fight the Communists inside China and instead sent undisciplined warlord troops from Yunnan under Lu Han to occupy north Vietnam and Hanoi north of the 16th parallel to disarm and get Japanese troops to surrender. Ho Chi Minh confiscated gold taels, jewelry and coins in September 1945 during "Gold Week" to give to Chinese forces occupying northern Vietnam. Rice to Cochinchina by the French in October 1945 were divided by Ho Chi Minh, and the northern Vietnamese only received one third while the Chinese soldiers were given two thirds by Ho Chi Minh. For 15 days elections were postponed by Ho Chi Minh in response to a demand by Chinese general Chen Xiuhe on 18 December 1945 so that the Chinese could get the Dong Minh Hoi and VNQDD to prepare. The Chinese left only in April–June 1946. Ho Chi Minh gave golden smoking paraphernalia and a golden opium pipe to the Chinese general Lu Han after gold week and purchased weapons with what was left of the proceeds. Starving Vietnamese were dying throughout northern Vietnam in 1945 due to the Japanese seizure of their crops by the time the Chinese came to disarm the Japanese and Vietnamese corpses were all throughout the streets of Hanoi and had to be cleaned up by students. While Chiang Kai-shek, Xiao Wen (Hsiao Wen) and the Kuomintang central government of China was disinterested in occupying Vietnam beyond the allotted time period and involving itself in the war between the Viet Minh and the French, the Yunnan warlord Lu Han held the opposite view and wanted to occupy Vietnam to prevent the French returning and establish a Chinese trusteeship of Vietnam under the principles of the Atlantic Charter with the aim of eventually preparing Vietnam for independence and blocking the French from returning. Ho Chi Minh sent a cable on 17 October 1945 to American President Harry S. Truman calling on him, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Premier Stalin and Premier Attlee to go to the United Nations against France and demand France not be allowed to return to occupy Vietnam, accusing France of having sold out and cheated the Allies by surrendering Indochina to Japan and that France had no right to return. Ho Chi Minh dumped the blame on Dong Minh Hoi and VNDQQ for signing the agreement with France for returning its soldiers to Vietnam after he had to do it himself. Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh tried to organize welcome parades for Chinese soldiers in northern Vietnam and covered for instances of bad behavior by warlord soldiers, trying to reassure Vietnamese that the warlord troops of Lu Han were only there temporarily and that China supported Vietnam's independence. Viet Minh newspapers said that the same ancestors (huyết thống) and culture were shared by Vietnamese and Chinese and that the Chinese heroically fought Japan and changed in the 1911 revolution and was attacked by western imperialists so it was "not the same as feudal China". Ho Chi Minh forbade his soldiers like Trần Huy Liệu in Phú Thọ from attacking Chinese soldiers and Ho Chi Minh even surrendered Vietnamese who attacked Chinese soldiers to be executed as punishment in the Ro-Nha incident in Kiến An district on 6 March 1946 after Hồ Đức Thành and Đào Văn Biểu, special commissioners sent from Hanoi by Ho's DRV examined the case. Ho Chi Minh appeased and granted numerous concessions to the Chinese soldiers to avoid the possibility of them clashing with the Viet Minh, with him ordering Vietnamese not to carry out anything against Chinese soldiers and pledging his life on his promise, hoping the Chinese would disarm the Japanese soldiers and finish their mission as fast as possible. Chinese communist guerilla leader Chu Chia-pi came into northern Vietnam multiple times in 1945 and 1948 and helped the Viet Minh fight against the French from Yunnan. Other Chinese Communists also did the same.


Intra-Vietnamese factions

In addition to British support, the French also received assistance from various groups that modern historians consider unambiguously Vietnamese. Armed militias from the religious Hòa Hảo sect and the
Bình Xuyên Binh Xuyen Force ( vi, Bộ đội Bình Xuyên, ), often linked to its infamous leader, General Lê Văn Viễn (a.k.a. "Bảy Viễn"), was an independent military force within the Vietnamese National Army whose leaders once had lived outside t ...
organized crime group individually sought power in the country and fought the Việt Minh towards that end. Conversely, militias from the Cao Đài sect fought against the French. Vietnamese society also polarized along ethnic lines: the Nung minority assisted the French, while the
Tay Tay may refer to: People and languages * Tay (name), including lists of people with the given name, surname and nickname * Tay people, an ethnic group of Vietnam ** Tày language *Atayal language, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan (ISO 639 ...
assisted the Việt Minh.


Course of the war


War breaks out (1946)

In early 1946, the French landed a military force at Haiphong, and negotiations took place about the future for Vietnam as a state within the French Union. Fighting broke out in Haiphong between the Việt Minh government and the French over a conflict of interest in import duty at the port. On November 23, 1946, the French fleet bombarded the Vietnamese sections of the city killing 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in one afternoon. The Việt Minh quickly agreed to a cease-fire and left the cities. This is known as the Haiphong incident. There was never any intention among the Vietnamese to give up, as General Võ Nguyên Giáp soon brought up 30,000 men to attack the city. Although the French were outnumbered, their superior weaponry and naval support made any Việt Minh attack unsuccessful. In December, hostilities between the Việt Minh and the French broke out in Hanoi, and Hồ Chí Minh was forced to evacuate the capital in favor of remote forested and mountainous areas. Guerrilla warfare ensued, with the French controlling most of the country except far-flung areas. By January the following year, most provincial capitals had fallen to the French, while Hue fell in February after a six week siege.


French offensives, creation of the State of Vietnam (1947–1949)

In 1947, General Võ Nguyên Giáp retreated with his command to Tan Trao deep in the mountains of Tuyên Quang Province. The French sent military expeditions to attack his bases, but Giap refused to meet them head-on in battle. Wherever the French troops went, the Việt Minh disappeared. Late in the year the French launched Operation Léa to take out the Việt Minh communications center at Bắc Kạn. They failed to capture Hồ Chí Minh and his key lieutenants as intended. The French claimed 9,000 Việt Minh soldiers KIA during the campaign which, if true, would represent a major blow for the insurgency. In 1948, France started looking for means of opposing the Việt Minh politically, with an alternative government in
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. They began negotiations with the former emperor Bảo Đại to lead an "autonomous" government within the French Union of nations, the
State of Vietnam The State of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc gia Việt Nam; Chữ Nôm: 國家越南; french: État du Viêt-Nam) was a governmental entity in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as a member of the French Union and later as a country ...
. Two years before, the French had refused Ho's proposal of a similar status, albeit with some restrictions on French power and the latter's eventual withdrawal from Vietnam. However, they were willing to give it to Bảo Đại as he had freely collaborated with French rule of Vietnam in the past and was in no position to seriously negotiate or impose demands. In 1949, France officially recognized the nominal "independence" of the State of Vietnam as an associated state within the French Union under Bảo Đại. However, France still controlled all foreign relations and every defense issue. The Việt Minh quickly denounced the government and stated that they wanted "real independence, not Bảo Đại independence". Within the framework of the French Union, France also granted independence to the other nations in Indochina, the Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. Later, as a concession to the new government and a way to increase their numbers, France agreed to the formation of the Vietnamese National Army commanded by Vietnamese officers. These troops were used mostly to garrison quiet sectors, so French forces would be available for combat. Private armies from the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects and the
Bình Xuyên Binh Xuyen Force ( vi, Bộ đội Bình Xuyên, ), often linked to its infamous leader, General Lê Văn Viễn (a.k.a. "Bảy Viễn"), was an independent military force within the Vietnamese National Army whose leaders once had lived outside t ...
crime syndicate were used in the same way.


Việt Minh reorganization (1949–1950)

With the triumph of the communists in China's civil war, the Vietnamese communists gained a major political ally on their northern border, supporting them with weapons and supplies. Giap re-organized his local irregular forces into five full conventional infantry divisions, the 304th, 308th, 312th, 316th and the 320th. The war began to intensify when Giap went on the offensive, attacking isolated French bases along the Chinese border. The United States began to give military aid to France in the form of weaponry and military observers. By January 1950, Ho's government gained
recognition Recognition may refer to: *Award, something given in recognition of an achievement Machine learning *Pattern recognition, a branch of machine learning which encompasses the meanings below Biometric * Recognition of human individuals, or biomet ...
from China and the Soviet Union. In the same year, the government of Bảo Đại gained
recognition Recognition may refer to: *Award, something given in recognition of an achievement Machine learning *Pattern recognition, a branch of machine learning which encompasses the meanings below Biometric * Recognition of human individuals, or biomet ...
by the United States and the United Kingdom. In February, Giap seized the vulnerable 150-strong French garrison at Lai Khê in Tonkin just south of the border with China. In June, the Korean War broke out between communist North Korea (DPRK) supported by China and the Soviet Union, and South Korea (ROK) supported by the United States and its allies in the UN. The Cold War was turning 'hot' in East Asia, and the American government feared communist domination of the entire region would have deep implications for American interests. The US became strongly opposed to the government of Hồ Chí Minh, in part, because it was supported and supplied by China. Major General Thái attacked Đông Khê on September 15. Đông Khê fell on September 18. The Cao Bằng garrison was then evacuated south and, together with the relief force coming from
That Khe ''That'' is an English language word used for several grammatical purposes. These include use as an adjective, conjunction, pronoun, adverb, and intensifier; it has distance from the speaker, as opposed to words like ''this''. The word did not ori ...
, were attacked all the way by ambushing Việt Minh forces, which resulted in a stunning French defeat in the Battle of Route Coloniale 4. The French air-dropped a paratroop battalion south of Cao Bằng to act as a diversion only to see it quickly surrounded and destroyed. After that, Lạng Sơn was evacuated in panic while it was not menaced. By the time the remains of the garrisons reached the safety of the Red River Delta, 4,800 French troops had been killed, captured or missing in action and 2,000 wounded out of a total garrison force of over 10,000. Also lost were 13 artillery pieces, 125 mortars, 450 trucks, 940 machine guns, 1,200 submachine guns and 8,000 rifles destroyed or captured during the fighting. China and the Soviet Union recognized Hồ Chí Minh as the legitimate ruler of Vietnam and sent him more and more supplies and material aid. The year 1950 also marked the first time that napalm was ever used in Vietnam (this type of weapon was supplied by the U.S. for the use of the French Aéronavale).


Renewed French success (January–June 1951)

The military situation improved for France when its new commander, General Jean Marie de Lattre de Tassigny, built a fortified line from Hanoi to the
Gulf of Tonkin The Gulf of Tonkin is a gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and South China. It has a total surface area of . It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern ...
, across the Red River Delta, to hold the Việt Minh in place and use his troops to smash them against this barricade, which became known as the De Lattre Line. This led to a period of success for the French. On January 13, 1951, Giáp moved the 308th and 312th Divisions, with more than 20,000 men, to attack
Vĩnh Yên Vĩnh Yên () is the city capital of Vĩnh Phúc Province, in the Red River Delta region of northern Vietnam. The population is 76,650 people, the area is 50.87 km². This city hosted 2012 Asian Men's Cup Volleyball Championship. Climate ...
, northwest of Hanoi, which was manned by the 6,000-strong 9th Foreign Legion Brigade. The Việt Minh entered a trap. Caught for the first time in the open and actually forced to fight the French head-on, without the ability to quickly hide and retreat, they were heavily attacked by concentrated French artillery and machine gun fire. By January 16, the Battle of Vĩnh Yên ended as Giáp was forced to withdraw, with over 6,000 of his troops killed, 8,000 wounded and 500 captured. On March 23, Giáp tried again, launching an attack against Mạo Khê, north of Haiphong. The 316th Division, composed of 11,000 men, with the partly rebuilt 308th and 312th Divisions in reserve, went forward and were beaten in bitter hand-to-hand fighting against French troops. Giap withdrew, having lost around 500 troops (by Việt Minh estimation) to over 3,000 (by French estimation) dead and wounded by March 28. Giáp launched yet another attack, the Battle of the Day River, on May 29 with the 304th Division at Phủ Lý, the 308th Division at
Ninh Bình Ninh Bình () is a small city in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. It is the capital of Ninh Bình Province. Geography Ninh Bình Province is located in northern Vietnam comprising 48 square kilometres; the 2007 city population was 130,517 ...
, and the main attack delivered by the 320th Division at
Phát Diệm Phát Diệm is a Commune-level town (Vietnam), township () and capital of Kim Sơn District, Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam.Charles Chanson Charles Chanson (1902–1951) was the Commander of the French-Indo-Chinese forces in southern Vietnam during the First Indochina War. Born on 18 February 1902 in Grenoble, France, Charles Marie Ferreol Chanson was educated at Ecole Polytechnique ...
was assassinated during a
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
suicide attack A suicide attack is any violent Strike (attack), attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has suicide, accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have oc ...
at Sa Đéc in South Vietnam that was blamed on the Việt Minh although it was argued in some quarters that Cao Đài nationalist
Trình Minh Thế Trình Minh Thế (1920 – 3 May 1955) was a Vietnamese nationalist and Cao Dai military leader during the end of the First Indochina War and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Early life Thế was born in Tây Ninh Province and raised in the ...
could have been involved in its planning. On November 14, 1951, the French seized Hòa Bình, west of the De Lattre Line, by a parachute drop and extended their perimeter. In January, General de Lattre fell ill from cancer and returned to France for treatment. He died there shortly thereafter and was replaced by General Raoul Salan as the overall commander of French forces in Indochina. The Việt Minh launched attacks on Hòa Bình, forcing the French to withdraw back to their main positions on the De Lattre Line by February 22, 1952. Each side lost nearly 5,000 men in this campaign, and it showed that the war was far from over. Throughout the war theater, the Việt Minh cut French supply lines and wore down the resolve of the French forces. There were continued raids, skirmishes and guerrilla attacks, but through most of the rest of the year each side withdrew to prepare for larger operations. In the Battle of Nà Sản, starting on October 2, French commanders began using " hedgehog" tactics, consisting in setting up well-defended outposts to get the Việt Minh out of the forests and force them to fight conventional battles instead of using guerrilla tactics. On October 17, 1952, Giáp launched attacks against the French garrisons along
Nghĩa Lộ Nghĩa Lộ is a town in Yên Bái Province, in the north-east region of Vietnam. It is bordered by Văn Chấn District and Trạm Tấu District. In 1951, the Viet Minh 312 Division fought French forces in the area as part of the First Indo ...
, northwest of Hanoi, and overran much of the Black River valley, except for the airfield of Nà Sản where a strong French garrison entrenched. Giáp by now had control over most of Tonkin beyond the De Lattre Line. Raoul Salan, seeing the situation as critical, launched
Operation Lorraine Operation Lorraine was a French military operation of the First Indochina War. Background On 15 October 1952, a regiment of the Việt Minh 312th Division surrounded the French garrison at Gia Hoi 25 miles southeast of Nghĩa Lộ. In response on ...
along the Clear River to force Giáp to relieve pressure on the Nghĩa Lộ outposts. On October 29, 1952, in the largest operation in Indochina to date, 30,000 French Union soldiers moved out from the De Lattre Line to attack the Việt Minh supply dumps at Phú Yên. Salan took Phú Thọ on November 5, and
Phu Doan Phu or ''variation'', may refer to: Places *Phủ, prefecture in 15th–19th century Vietnam People Given name *Phu Dorjee (died 1987), first Indian to climb Mount Everest without oxygen *Phu Dorjee Sherpa (died 1969), first Nepali to climb Mount ...
on November 9 by a
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
drop, and finally Phú Yên on November 13. Giáp at first did not react to the French offensive. He planned to wait until their supply lines were overextended and then cut them off from the Red River Delta. Salan correctly guessed what the Việt Minh were up to and cancelled the operation on November 14, beginning to withdraw back to the De Lattre Line. The only major fighting during the operation came during the withdrawal, when the Việt Minh ambushed the French column at
Chan Muong Chan may refer to: Places *Chan (commune), Cambodia *Chan Lake, by Chan Lake Territorial Park in Northwest Territories, Canada People *Chan (surname), romanization of various Chinese surnames (including 陳, 曾, 詹, 戰, and 田) *Chan Caldwel ...
on November 17. The road was cleared after a bayonet charge by the Indochinese March Battalion, and the withdrawal could continue. The French lost around 1,200 men during the whole operation, most of them during the Chan Muong ambush. The operation was partially successful, proving that the French could strike out at targets outside the De Lattre Line. However, it failed to divert the Việt Minh offensive or seriously damage its logistical network. On April 9, 1953, Giáp, after having failed repeatedly in direct attacks on French positions in Vietnam, changed strategy and began to pressure the French by invading Laos, surrounding and defeating several French outposts such as
Muong Khoua Muong may refer to: *Muong people, third largest of Vietnam's 53 minority groups **Muong language, spoken by the Mường people of Vietnam *No Muong, king of the southern Laotian Kingdom of Champasak in 1811 * Mueang Mueang ( th, เมือง ...
. In May, General
Henri Navarre Henri Eugène Navarre (31 July 189826 September 1983) was a French Army general. He fought during World War I, World War II and was the seventh and final commander of French Far East Expeditionary Corps during the First Indochina War. Navarre w ...
replaced Salan as supreme commander of French forces in Indochina. He reported to the French government "... that there was no possibility of winning the war in Indo-China", saying that the best the French could hope for was a stalemate. Navarre, in response to the Việt Minh attacking Laos, concluded that "hedgehog" centers of defense were the best plan. Looking at a map of the area, Navarre chose the small town of
Điện Biên Phủ Điện Biên Phủ (, meaning: ''Established Frontier Prefecture''), is a city in the northwestern region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Điện Biên Province. The city is best known for the decisive Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, which occ ...
, located about north of the Lao border and west of Hanoi, as a target to block the Việt Minh from invading Laos. Điện Biên Phủ had a number of advantages: it was on a Việt Minh supply route into Laos on the
Nam Yum River Nam, Nam, or The Nam are shortened terms for: * Vietnam, which is also spelled ''Viet Nam'' * The Vietnam War Nam, The Nam or NAM may also refer to: Arts and media * Nam, a fictional character in anime series ''Dragon Ball'' * ''NAM'' (video ...
, it had an old airstrip for supply, and it was situated in the Tai mountains where the Tai troops, allied with the French, operated.
Operation Castor Opération Castor was a French airborne operation in the First Indochina War. The operation established a fortified airhead in Điện Biên Province, in the north-west corner of Vietnam and was commanded by Brigadier General Jean Gilles. The ...
was launched on November 20, 1953, with 1,800 men of the French 1st and 2nd Airborne Battalions dropping into the valley of Điện Biên Phủ and sweeping aside the local Việt Minh garrison. The paratroopers gained control of a heart-shaped valley long and wide surrounded by heavily wooded mountains. Encountering little opposition, the French and Tai units operating from
Lai Châu Lai Châu () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital city of Lai Châu Province. The city borders Phong Thổ District, Sìn Hồ District và Tam Đường District. History Lai Châu, or Muang Lay (Vietnamese: Mư ...
to the north patrolled the mountains. The operation was a tactical success for the French. However, Giáp, seeing the weakness of the French position, started moving most of his forces from the De Lattre Line to Điện Biên Phủ. By mid-December, most of the French and Tai patrols in the mountains around the town were wiped out by Việt Minh ambushes. The fight for control of this position would be the longest and hardest battle for the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and would be remembered by the veterans as "57 Days of Hell".


French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, end of the war (1954)

By 1954, despite official propaganda presenting the war as a "''crusade against communism''", the war in Indochina was still growing unpopular with the French public. The political stagnation in the Fourth Republic meant that France was unable to extract itself from the conflict. The
Battle of Dien Bien Phu The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the Fr ...
took place in 1954 between Việt Minh forces under Võ Nguyên Giáp, supported by China and the Soviet Union, and the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, supported by US financing and Indochinese allies. The battle was fought near the village of Điện Biên Phủ in northern Vietnam and became the last major battle between the French and the Vietnamese in the First Indochina War. The battle began on March 13 when a preemptive Việt Minh attack surprised the French with heavy artillery. The artillery damaged both the main and secondary airfields that the French were using to fly in supplies. The only road into Điện Biên Phủ, already difficult to traverse, was also knocked out by Việt Minh forces. With French supply lines interrupted, the French position became untenable, particularly when the advent of the monsoon season made dropping supplies and reinforcements by parachute difficult. With defeat imminent, the French sought to hold on until the opening of the Geneva peace meeting on April 26. The last French offensive took place on May 4, but it was ineffective. The Việt Minh then began to hammer the outpost with newly supplied Soviet Katyusha rockets and other weaponry provided by communist allies. The final fall took two days, May 6 and 7, during which the French fought on but were eventually overrun by a huge frontal assault. General Cogny, based in Hanoi, ordered General de Castries, who was commanding the outpost, to cease fire at 5:30 pm and to destroy all materiél (weapons, transmissions, etc.) to deny their use to the enemy. A formal order was given to not use the white flag so that the action would be considered a ceasefire instead of a surrender. Much of the fighting ended on May 7; however, the ceasefire was not respected on Isabelle, the isolated southern position, where the battle lasted until May 8, 1:00 am. At least 2,200 members of the 20,000-strong French forces died, and another 1,729 were reported missing after the battle, and 11,721 were captured. Of the 50,000 or so Vietnamese soldiers thought to be involved, there were an estimated 4,800 to 8,000 killed and another 9,000–15,000 wounded. The prisoners taken at Điện Biên Phủ were the greatest number the Việt Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war. One month after Điện Biên Phủ, the composite Groupe Mobile 100 (GM100) of the French Union forces evacuated the
An Khê An Khê is a town (''thị xã'') of Gia Lai province in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 63,118. The district covers an area of 199 km². The district capital lies at An Khê. Locat ...
outpost and was ambushed by a larger Việt Minh force at the
Battle of Mang Yang Pass The Battle of Mang Yang Pass (also known as the Battle of An Khê or the Battle of Đắk Pơ) was one of the last battles of the First Indochina War which took place on 24 June 1954. The battle was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Unio ...
from June 24 to July 17. At the same time, Giap launched some offensives against the delta, but they all failed. The Việt Minh victory at Điện Biên Phủ heavily influenced the outcome of the 1954 Geneva accords that took place on July 21. In August
Operation Passage to Freedom Operation Passage to Freedom was a term used by the United States Navy to describe the propaganda effort and the assistance in transporting in 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist N ...
began, consisting of the evacuation of Catholic and other Vietnamese civilians from communist North Vietnamese persecution.


Geneva Conference and Partition

The Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, recognized the
17th parallel north The 17th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 17 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. The parallel is par ...
as a " provisional military demarcation line", temporarily dividing the country into two zones, communist North Vietnam and pro-Western
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
. Negotiations between France and the Việt Minh started in Geneva in April 1954 at the Geneva Conference, during which time the French Union and the Việt Minh were fighting a battle at Điện Biên Phủ. In France, Pierre Mendès France, opponent of the war since 1950, had been invested as Prime Minister on June 17, 1954, on a promise to put an end to the war, reaching a ceasefire in four months:
Today it seems we can be reunited in a will for peace that may express the aspirations of our country ... Since already several years, a compromise peace, a peace negotiated with the opponent seemed to me commanded by the facts, while it commanded, in return, to put back in order our finances, the recovery of our economy and its expansion. Because this war placed on our country an unbearable burden. And here appears today a new and formidable threat: if the Indochina conflict is not resolved — and settled very fast — it is the risk of war, of international war and maybe atomic, that we must foresee. It is because I wanted a better peace that I wanted it earlier, when we had more assets. But even now there is some renouncings or abandons that the situation does not comprise. France does not have to accept and will not accept settlement which would be incompatible with its more vital interests
Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
on the left and at the extreme right]. France will remain present in Far-Orient. Neither our allies, nor our opponents must conserve the least doubt on the signification of our determination. A negotiation has been engaged in Geneva ... I have longly studied the report ... consulted the most qualified military and diplomatic experts. My conviction that a pacific settlement of the conflict is possible has been confirmed. A "cease-fire" must henceforth intervene quickly. The government which I will form will fix itself — and will fix to its opponents — a delay of 4 weeks to reach it. We are today on 17th of June. I will present myself before you before the 20th of July ... If no satisfying solution has been reached at this date, you will be freed from the contract which would have tied us together, and my government will give its dismissal to the President of the Republic.
The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Việt Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng, who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan", with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.''The Pentagon Papers'' (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation. From his home in France, Bảo Đại appointed
Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of ...
as
Prime Minister of South Vietnam This is a list of leaders of South Vietnam, since the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina in 1946, and the division of Vietnam in 1954 until the fall of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, and the reunification of Vietnam in 19 ...
. With American support, in 1955 Diem used a referendum to remove the former Emperor and declare himself the president of the Republic of Vietnam. When the elections failed to occur, Việt Minh cadres who stayed behind in South Vietnam were activated and started to fight the government. North Vietnam also invaded and occupied portions of Laos to assist in supplying the National Liberation Front guerrillas fighting in South Vietnam. The war gradually escalated into the
Second Indochina War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, more commonly known as the ''Vietnam War'' in the West and the ''American War'' in Vietnam.


French domestic situation

The 1946 Constitution creating the Fourth Republic (1946–1958) made France a
parliamentary republic A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch (the government) derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature (the parliament). There are a number ...
. Because of the political context, it could find stability only by an alliance between the three dominant parties: the Christian Democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the socialist
French Section of the Workers' International The French Section of the Workers' International (french: Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, SFIO) was a political party in France that was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the modern-day Socialist Party. The SFIO was found ...
(SFIO). Known as '' tripartisme'', this alliance briefly lasted until the May 1947 crisis, with the expulsion from Paul Ramadier's SFIO government of the PCF ministers, marking the official start of the Cold War in France. This had the effect of weakening the regime, with the two most significant movements of this period, Communism and
Gaullism Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withd ...
, in opposition. Unlikely alliances had to be made between left- and right-wing parties in order to form a government invested by the National Assembly, resulting in parliamentary instability, with 14 prime ministers in succession between 1947 and 1954's Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The rapid turnover of governments (there were 17 different governments during the war) left France unable to prosecute the war with any consistent policy, according to veteran General René de Biré (who was a lieutenant at Dien Bien Phu). France was increasingly unable to afford the costly conflict in Indochina and, by 1954, the United States was paying 80% of France's war effort, which was $3,000,000 per day in 1952. A strong
anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
movement came into existence in France driven mostly by the powerful French Communist Party (outpowering the socialists) and its young militant associations, major trade unions such as the General Confederation of Labour, and notable leftist intellectuals. The first occurrence was probably at the National Assembly on March 21, 1947, when the communist deputies refused to back the military credits for Indochina. The following year a pacifist event was organized, the " 1st Worldwide Congress of Peace Partisans" (''1er Congrès Mondial des Partisans de la Paix'', the World Peace Council's predecessor), which took place March 25–28, 1948, in Paris, with the French communist Nobel laureate atomic physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie as president. Later, on April 28, 1950, Joliot-Curie would be dismissed from the military and civilian Atomic Energy Commission for political reasons. Young communist militants (UJRF) were also accused of sabotage actions like the famous Henri Martin affair and the case of
Raymonde Dien Raymonde Dien (; 13 May 1929 – 19 August 2022) was a French communist activist. She became known for being imprisoned for ten months in 1950 after a protest against the Indochina War. Life On 23 February 1950, Raymonde Dien, a shorthand t ...
, who was jailed one year for having blocked an ammunition train, with the help of other militants, in order to prevent the supply of French forces in Indochina in February 1950. Similar actions against trains occurred in Roanne, Charleville, Marseille, and Paris. Even ammunition sabotage by PCF agents has been reported, such as grenades exploding in the hands of legionaries. These actions became such a cause for concern by 1950 that the French Assembly voted a law against sabotage between March 2–8. At this session tension was so high between politicians that fighting ensued in the assembly following communist deputies' speeches against the Indochinese policy. This month saw the French navy mariner and communist militant
Henri Martin Henri Martin may refer to: *Henri Martin (historian) (1810–1883), French historian *Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin (1860–1943), French impressionist painter *Henri Martin (French politician) (1927–2015), French communist leader *Henri Martin (Am ...
arrested by military police and jailed for five years for sabotage and propaganda operations in Toulon's arsenal. On May 5 communist Ministers were dismissed from the government, marking the end of Tripartism. A few months later on November 11, 1950, the French Communist Party leader Maurice Thorez went to Moscow. Some military officers involved in the Revers Report scandal (''Rapport Revers'') such as Salan were pessimistic about the way the war was being conducted, with multiple political-military scandals all happening during the war, starting with the Generals' Affair (''Affaire des Généraux'') from September 1949 to November 1950. As a result, General
Georges Revers Georges may refer to: Places *Georges River, New South Wales, Australia *Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses *Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 1977 ...
was dismissed in December 1949 and socialist Defense Ministry
Jules Moch Jules Salvador Moch (15 March 1893, in Paris – 1 August 1985, in Cabris, Alpes-Maritimes) was a French politician. Biography Moch was born into a renowned French Jewish military family, the son of Captain Gaston Moch and Rébecca Alice Po ...
(
SFIO The French Section of the Workers' International (french: Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, SFIO) was a political party in France that was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the modern-day Socialist Party. The SFIO was found ...
) was brought on court by the National Assembly on November 28, 1950. Emerging media played their role. The scandal started the commercial success of the first French news magazine, ''
L'Express ''L'Express'' () is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''Réussir''. History ...
'', created in 1953. The third scandal was financial-political, concerning military corruption, money and arms trading involving both the French Union army and the Việt Minh, known as the Piastres affair. The war ended in 1954 but its sequel started in
French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...
where the French Communist Party played an even stronger role by supplying the National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels with intelligence documents and financial aid. They were called " the suitcase carriers" (''les porteurs de valises''). In the French news, the Indochina War was presented as a direct continuation of the Korean War, where France had fought: a UN French battalion, incorporated in a U.S. unit in Korea, was later involved in the
Battle of Mang Yang Pass The Battle of Mang Yang Pass (also known as the Battle of An Khê or the Battle of Đắk Pơ) was one of the last battles of the First Indochina War which took place on 24 June 1954. The battle was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Unio ...
of June and July 1954. In an interview taped in May 2004, General Marcel Bigeard (6th BPC) argues that "one of the deepest mistakes done by the French during the war was the propaganda telling you are fighting for Freedom, you are fighting against Communism", hence the sacrifice of volunteers during the climactic battle of Dien Bien Phu. In the latest days of the siege, 652 non-paratrooper soldiers from all army corps from cavalry to infantry to artillery dropped for the first and last time of their life to support their comrades. The Cold War excuse was later used by General Maurice Challe through his famous "Do you want
Mers El Kébir Mers El Kébir ( ar, المرسى الكبير, translit=al-Marsā al-Kabīr, lit=The Great Harbor ) is a port on the Mediterranean Sea, near Oran in Oran Province, northwest Algeria. It is famous for the attack on the French fleet in 1940, in t ...
and
Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
to become Soviet bases as soon as tomorrow?", during the
Generals' putsch The Algiers putsch (french: Putsch d'Alger or ), also known as the Generals' putsch (''Putsch des généraux''), was a failed coup d'état intended to force French President Charles de Gaulle not to abandon French Algeria, along with the resi ...
(
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
) of 1961, with limited effect though. A few hours after the French Union defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, United States Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
made an official speech depicting the "tragic event" and "its defense for fifty seven days and nights will remain in History as one of the most heroic of all time." Later on, he denounced Chinese aid to the Việt Minh, explained that the United States could not act openly because of international pressure, and concluded with the call to "all concerned nations" concerning the necessity of "a collective defense" against "the communist aggression". The Viet Minh victory in the war had an inspirational effect to independence movements in various French colonies worldwide, most notably the FLN in Algeria. The
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
broke out on 1 November 1954, only six months after the Geneva Conference. Benyoucef Benkhedda, later became the head of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, praised the Viet Minh feat at Dien Bien Phu as "a powerful incentive to all who thought immediate insurrection the only possible strategy".


War crimes and re-education camps

* According to Arthur J. Dommen, the Việt Minh assassinated 100,000–150,000 civilians during the war out of a total civilian death toll of 400,000. Benjamin Valentino estimates that the French were responsible for 60,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths. * The
Boudarel Affair The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...
.
Georges Boudarel Émile Raymond Georges Marius Boudarel (21 December 1926 – 26 December 2003) was a French academic and militant communist who was accused of torturing French prisoners for the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. Biography Born at ...
was a French communist militant who used brainwashing and torture against French Union POWs in Việt Minh reeducation camps. The French national association of POWs brought Boudarel to court for a war crime charge. * Many French Union and Vietnamese National Army prisoners died in the Việt Minh POW camps. * Passage to Freedom was a Franco-American operation to evacuate refugees. Loyal Indochinese evacuated to metropolitan France were kept in detention camps. * In 1957, the French Chief of Staff with Raoul Salan would use the POWs' experience with the Việt Minh reeducation camps to create two " Instruction Center for Pacification and Counter-Insurgency" (''Centre d'Instruction à la Pacification et à la Contre-Guérilla'' aka CIPCG) and train thousands of officers during the
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
. * The French Army tortured Việt Minh prisoners. * During the war, there were many instances of rape of Vietnamese civilians by French soldiers. This occurred in Saigon, alongside robberies and killings, following the return of the French in August 1945. Vietnamese women were also raped by French soldiers in northern Vietnam in 1948, following the defeat of the Viet Minh, including in Bảo Hà,
Bảo Yên District Bảo Yên is a rural district of Lào Cai province in the Northeast region of Vietnam. As of 2003, the district had a population of 73,924. The district covers an area of 821 km2. The district capital lies at Phố Ràng. The Giáy langua ...
, Lào Cai province and Phu Lu This led to 400 French trained Vietnamese defecting to the Viet Minh June 1948. * French killings of Vietnamese civilians were reported, including on the Mỹ Trạch massacre of November 29, 1947, in which French soldiers killed over 200 women and children. Regarding this massacre and other war crimes during the conflict,
Christopher Goscha Christopher E. Goscha (born 1965) is an American-Canadian historian specializing in the history of the Cold War in Asia, decolonization, and the wars for Vietnam. He teaches the history of international relations, the Vietnam Wars, and world his ...
wrote in ''The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam'':


French Union involvement

By 1946, France headed the French Union. As successive governments had forbidden the sending of metropolitan troops, the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (CEFEO) was created in March 1945. The Union gathered combatants from almost all French territories made of colonies, protectorates and associated states ( Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal, Tunisia, etc.) to fight in French Indochina, which was then occupied by the Japanese. About 325,000 of the 500,000 French troops were Indochinese, almost all of whom were used in conventional units.
French West Africa French West Africa (french: Afrique-Occidentale française, ) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burki ...
(''Afrique Occidentale Française'', AOF) was a federation of African colonies. Senegalese and other African troops were sent to fight in Indochina. Some African alumni were trained in the Infantry Instruction Center no.2 (''Centre d'Instruction de l'Infanterie no.2'') located in southern Vietnam. Senegalese of the Colonial Artillery fought at the siege of Dien Bien Phu. As a French colony (later a full province), French Algeria sent local troops to Indochina including several RTA (''Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens'')
light infantry Light infantry refers to certain types of lightly equipped infantry throughout history. They have a more mobile or fluid function than other types of infantry, such as heavy infantry or line infantry. Historically, light infantry often fought ...
battalions. Morocco was a French protectorate and sent troops to support the French effort in Indochina. Moroccan troops were part of light infantry RTMs (''Régiment de Tirailleurs Marocains'') for the "Moroccan Sharpshooters Regiment". As a French protectorate,
Bizerte Bizerte or Bizerta ( ar, بنزرت, translit=Binzart , it, Biserta, french: link=no, Bizérte) the classical Hippo, is a city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia. It is the northernmost city in Africa, located 65 km (40mil) north of the cap ...
, Tunisia, was a major French base. Tunisian troops, mostly RTT (''Régiment de Tirailleurs Tunisiens''), were sent to Indochina. Part of French Indochina, then part of the French Union and later an associated state, Laos fought the communists along with French forces. The role played by Laotian troops in the conflict was depicted by veteran Pierre Schoendoerffer's famous ''317th Platoon'' released in 1964. The French Indochina state of Cambodia played a significant role during the Indochina War through its infantrymen and paratroopers. While Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam (formerly Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina) had the Vietnamese National Army supporting the French forces, some minorities were trained and organized as regular battalions (mostly infantry ''tirailleurs'') that fought with French forces against the Việt Minh. The Tai Battalion 2 (BT2, ''2e Bataillon Thai'') is infamous for its desertion during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. Propaganda leaflets written in Tai and French sent by the Việt Minh were found in the deserted positions and trenches. Such deserters were called the ''
Nam Yum rats The Rats of Nam Yum were internal deserters from the French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War. The "Rats" consisted of French, French Foreign Legion, Foreign Legion, African, Vietnamese, and Thai people in Vietnam ...
'' by Bigeard during the siege, as they hid close to the Nam Yum river during the day and searched at night for supply drops. Another allied minority was the Muong people (''Mường''). The 1st Muong Battalion (''1er Bataillon Muong'') was awarded the ''
Croix de guerre des théâtres d'opérations extérieures The ''Croix de guerre des théâtres d'opérations extérieurs'' (War Cross for foreign operational theatres), also called the ''Croix de Guerre TOE'' for short, is a French military award denoting citations earned in combat in foreign countri ...
'' after the victorious Battle of Vĩnh Yên in 1951. In the 1950s, the French established secret commando groups based on loyal Montagnard ethnic minorities referred to as " partisans" or "
maquisard The Maquis () were rural guerrilla bands of French and Belgian Resistance fighters, called ''maquisards'', during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II. Initially, they were composed of young, mostly working-class, men who had escap ...
s", called the ''
Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés The Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés ( en, Mixed Airborne Commando Group) commonly referred as just GCMA, was the "Action Service" of the SDECE French counter-intelligence service active during the Cold War. The GCMA's origins lay in ...
'' (Composite Airborne Commando Group or GCMA), later renamed ''Groupement Mixte d'Intervention'' (GMI, or Mixed Intervention Group), directed by the SDECE counter-intelligence service. The SDECE's "Service Action" GCMA used both commando and guerrilla techniques and operated in intelligence and secret missions from 1950 to 1955. Declassified information about the GCMA includes the name of its commander, famous Colonel Roger Trinquier, and a mission on April 30, 1954, when Jedburgh veteran Captain Sassi led the Meo partisans of the GCMA Malo-Servan in Operation Condor during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. In 1951, Adjutant-Chief Vandenberghe from the 6th Colonial Infantry Regiment (6e RIC) created the "Commando Vanden" (aka "Black Tigers", aka "North Vietnam Commando #24") based in Nam Định. Recruits were volunteers from the Thổ people, Nùng people and
Miao people The Miao are a group of linguistically-related peoples living in Southern China and Southeast Asia, who are recognized by the government of China as one of the 56 List of ethnic groups in China, official ethnic groups. The Miao live primarily in ...
. This commando unit wore Việt Minh black uniforms to confuse the enemy and used techniques of the experienced
Bo doi Bo or BO may refer to Arts and entertainment Film, television, and theatre *Box office, where tickets to an event are sold, and by extension, the amount of business a production receives *'' BA:BO'', 2008 South Korean film * ''Bo'' (film), a ...
(''Bộ đội'', regular army) and Du Kich (guerrilla unit). Việt Minh prisoners were recruited in POW camps. The commando was awarded the ''Croix de Guerre des TOE'' with palm in July 1951; however, Vandenberghe was betrayed by a Việt Minh recruit, commander Nguien Tinh Khoi (308th Division's 56th Regiment), who assassinated him (and his Vietnamese fiancée) with external help on the night of January 5, 1952. Coolies and POWs known as ''PIM'' (''Prisonniers Internés Militaires'', which is basically the same as POW) were civilians used by the army as logistical support personnel. During the battle of Dien Bien Phu, coolies were in charge of burying the corpses—during the first days only, after they were abandoned, hence giving off a terrible smell, according to veterans—and they had the dangerous job of gathering supply packets delivered in drop zones while the Việt Minh artillery was firing hard to destroy the crates. The Việt Minh also used thousands of coolies to carry the Chu-Luc (regional units) supplies and ammunition during assaults. The PIM were civilian males old enough to join Bảo Đại's army. They were captured in enemy-controlled villages, and those who refused to join the State of Vietnam's army were considered prisoners or used as coolies to support a given regiment.


Foreign involvement


Japanese volunteers

Many former Imperial Japanese Army soldiers fought alongside the Việt Minh—perhaps as many as 5,000 volunteered their services throughout the war. These Japanese had stayed behind in Indochina after World War II concluded in 1945. The occupying British authorities then repatriated most of the rest of the 50,000 Japanese troops back to Japan. For those that stayed behind, supporting the Việt Minh became a more attractive idea than returning to a defeated and occupied homeland. In addition the Việt Minh had very little experience, in warfare or government so the advice of the Japanese was welcome. Some of the Japanese were ex-
Kenpeitai The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
who were wanted for questioning by Allied authorities. Giap arranged for them all to receive Vietnamese citizenship and false identification papers. Some Japanese were captured by the Việt Minh during the last months of the World War II and were recruited into their ranks. Most of the Japanese officers who stayed served as military instructors for the Việt Minh forces, most notably at the Quảng Ngãi Army Academy. They imparted necessary conventional military knowledge - such as how to conduct assaults, night attacks, company/battalion level exercises, commanding, tactics, navigation, communications and movements. A few, however, actively led Vietnamese forces into combat. The French also identified eleven Japanese nurses and two doctors working for the Việt Minh in northern Vietnam in 1951. The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates a number of Japanese involved in the First Indochina War. Notable Japanese officers serving in Việt Minh included: * Colonel Mukaiyama - reportedly a staff officer in the 38th Army, who became a technical advisor to the Vietnamese. Credited as the leader of Japanese forces in Vietnam; killed in combat in 1946. * Colonel Masanobu Tsuji - Operations Staff Officer. * - a staff officer in the 55th Division who had commanded a squadron of its cavalry regiment. Supposedly the youngest major in the Imperial Army at the time, he led a number of volunteers to the Vietnamese cause, becoming a colonel and military advisor to General Nguyễn Sơn. He headed the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy for a while before founding the Tuy Hòa Military Academy, and was killed by a land mine in 1950. * Major Kanetoshi Toshihide - served with Major Igari in the 2nd Division and followed him to join the Việt Minh; he became Chief of Staff for General Nguyễn Giác Ngộ. * - a staff officer in the 34th Independent Mixed Brigade; he joined the Viet Minh forces, and was killed in action against the French in 1946. He allegedly conceived the idea of establishing the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy. * Lieutenant Igari Kazumasa - the commander of an infantry company in the 2nd Division's 29th Infantry Regiment; he became an instructor at the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy. * Lieutenant Kamo Tokuji - a platoon leader under Lieutenant Igari; he also became an instructor at the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy. * an intelligence officer who was originally supposed to remain behind in Indonesia, but linked up with the 34th Brigade to try to get home, only to end up as an instructor at the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy until 1954. * 2nd Lieutenant Nakahara Mitsunobu - an intelligence officer of the 34th Independent Mixed Brigade; became a decorated soldier in the Việt Minh forces, and later an instructor at the Quảng Ngãi Military Academy.


China

One point that the French had a major problem with was the concept of "sanctuary". So long as the anti-colonial revolutionaries who are fighting a guerrilla war have a sanctuary, in which they can hide out, rest and recuperate after losses and store supplies and necessary material, it is almost impossible and highly unlikely for any foreign enemy or foe to ever destroy and defeat them. During the early 1950s guerrilla troops used the southern areas of China, by then under the rule of Chinese communists allied with the anti-French Việt Minh, as a sanctuary. The Việt Minh successfully carried out several hit-and-run ambushes against French Union military convoys along the neighboring Route Coloniale 4 (RC 4) roadway, which was a major supply passage in Tonkin (northern Vietnam). One of the most famous attacks of this nature was the
Battle of Cao Bằng A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
of 1947–1949. China supplied and provided the Việt Minh guerrilla forces with almost every kind of crucial and important supplies and material required, such as food (including thousands of tonnes of rice), money, medics and medical aid and supplies, arms and weapons (ranging from artillery guns (24 of such were used at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu) to rifles and machine-guns), ammunition and explosives and other types of military equipment, including a large part of war-material captured from the then-recently defeated
National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
(NRA) of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese government following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Evidence of the PRC's secret aid and supplies were found hidden in caves during the French military's Operation Hirondelle in July 1953. 2,000 military advisors from the PRC and the Soviet Union trained the Việt Minh guerrilla force with the aim of turning it into a full-fledged armed force to fight off their French colonial masters and gain national independence. On top of this, the PRC sent two People's Liberation Army (PLA) artillery battalions to fight at the siege of Dien Bien Phu on May 6, 1954, with one battalion operating the Soviet Katyusha multiple-rocket launcher systems (MRLS) against French forces besieged at Dien Bien Phu's valley. From 1950 to 1954 the Chinese government shipped goods, materials, and medicine worth $ billion (in dollars) to Vietnam. From 1950 to 1956 the Chinese government shipped 155,000 small arms, 58 million rounds of ammunition, 4,630 artillery pieces, 1,080,000 artillery shells, 840,000 hand grenades, 1,400,000 uniforms, 1,200 vehicles, 14,000 tons of food, and 26,000 tons of fuel to Vietnam. Mao Zedong considered it necessary to buttress the Viet Minh to secure his country's southern flank against potential interference by westerners, while the bulk of the PRC's regular military forces participated in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. After the end of the Korean War and the resolution of the First Taiwan Strait Crisis, China stepped up involvement in the Indochina Wars, viewing the presence of potentially hostile forces in Indochina as the main threat.


Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was the other major ally of the Việt Minh, alongside the PRC. Moscow supplied GAZ-built trucks, truck engines and motor-parts, fuel, tyres, many different kinds of arms and weapons (including thousands of
Škoda Škoda means ''pity'' in the Czech and Slovak languages. It may also refer to: Czech brands and enterprises * Škoda Auto, automobile and previously bicycle manufacturer in Mladá Boleslav ** Škoda Motorsport, the division of Škoda Auto respons ...
-manufactured light machine-guns of Czech origin), all kinds of ammunition (ranging from rifle to machine-gun ammunition), various types of anti-aircraft guns (such as the 37mm air-defense gun) and even cigarettes and tobacco products. During Operation Hirondelle, French Union paratroopers captured and destroyed many tonnes of Soviet-supplied material destined for Việt Minh use in the area of Ky Lua. According to General Giap, the chief military leader of all Việt Minh forces, the Việt Minh used about 400 Soviet-produced GAZ-51 trucks at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the Fr ...
. Because the trucks were concealed and hidden with the use of highly effective camouflage (comprised predominantly of thick vegetation), French Union reconnaissance aircraft were not able to notice them and take note of the effective Việt Minh supply-train. On May 6, 1954, during the siege against French forces at the valley of Dien Bien Phu, Soviet-supplied Katyusha MLRS were successfully fielded against French Union military outposts, destroying enemy troop formations and bases and lowering their morale levels. Together with the PRC, the Soviet Union sent up to 2,000 military advisors to provide training to the Việt Minh guerrilla troops and to turn it into a conventional army.


United States


Mutual Defense Assistance Act (1950–1954)

At the beginning of the war, the U.S. was neutral in the conflict because of its opposition to European colonialism, because the Việt Minh had recently been U.S. allies, and because most of its attention was focused on Europe where
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
argued an
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
had fallen. Then the U.S. government gradually began supporting the French in their war effort, primarily through the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, as a means of stabilizing the French Fourth Republic in which the French Communist Party was a significant political force. A dramatic shift occurred in American policy after the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War. By 1949 the United States became concerned about the spread of communism in Asia, particularly following the end of the Chinese Civil War, and began to strongly support the French as the two countries were bound by the Cold War Mutual Defense Programme. After the Moch– Marshall meeting of September 23, 1950, in Washington, the United States started to support the French Union effort politically, logistically and financially. Officially, US involvement did not include use of armed force. However, recently declassified US documents have revealed that undercover ( CAT)—or not— US Air Force pilots flew to support the French during
Operation Castor Opération Castor was a French airborne operation in the First Indochina War. The operation established a fortified airhead in Điện Biên Province, in the north-west corner of Vietnam and was commanded by Brigadier General Jean Gilles. The ...
in November 1953. Two US pilots were killed in action during the siege at Dien Bien Phu the following year. These facts were declassified and made public more than 50 years after the events, in 2005 during the Légion d'honneur award ceremony by the French ambassador in Washington. In May 1950, after Chinese communist forces occupied Hainan island, U.S. President
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
began covertly authorizing direct financial assistance to the French, and on June 27, 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, announced publicly that the U.S. was doing so. It was feared in Washington that if Ho were to win the war, with his ties to the Soviet Union, he would establish a puppet state of Moscow, with the Soviets ultimately controlling Vietnamese affairs. The prospect of a communist-dominated Southeast Asia spurred the U.S. to support France, with a view to containing the spread of Soviet-allied communism. On June 30, 1950, the first U.S. supplies for Indochina were delivered. In September, Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Indochina to assist the French. Later, in 1954, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower explained the escalation risk, introducing what he referred to as the "domino principle", which eventually became the concept of domino theory. During the Korean War, the conflict in Vietnam was also seen as part of a broader proxy war with China and the USSR in Asia. As the situation at Dien Bien Phu deteriorated in 1954, France requested more support from the United States, including equipment and direct intervention. For instance, on April 4 French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel and Foreign Minister
Georges Bidault Georges-Augustin Bidault (; 5 October 189927 January 1983) was a French politician. During World War II, he was active in the French Resistance. After the war, he served as foreign minister and prime minister on several occasions. He joined the ...
conveyed to U.S. Ambassador C. Douglas Dillon that "immediate armed intervention of US
carrier Carrier may refer to: Entertainment * ''Carrier'' (album), a 2013 album by The Dodos * ''Carrier'' (board game), a South Pacific World War II board game * ''Carrier'' (TV series), a ten-part documentary miniseries that aired on PBS in April 20 ...
aircraft at DienBien Phu is now necessary to save the situation". The United States discussed with allies multiple options, including the use of nuclear weapons. A key concern in the planning was the response of China. While the planning continued, the United States moved an aircraft-carrier task-force, which included the carriers ''Boxer'' and ''Essex'', into the South China Sea between the Philippines and Indochina. However, the leadership of the United States eventually decided that there was not sufficient international or domestic support for the United States to become directly involved in the conflict.


US Navy assistance (1951–1954)

delivered
Grumman F8F Bearcat The Grumman F8F Bearcat is an American single-engine carrier-based fighter aircraft introduced in late World War II. It served during the mid-20th century in the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps, and the air forces of other n ...
fighter aircraft to Saigon on January 26, 1951. On March 2, 1951, the United States Navy transferred (LST 490) to the French Navy in Indochina in accordance with the MAAG-led MAP. Renamed RFS ''Vulcain'' (A-656), she was used in Operation Hirondelle in 1953. carrier delivered Grumman F8F Bearcat aircraft to Saigon on March 26, 1951. During September 1953, (renamed ''Bois Belleau'') was lent to France and sent to French Indochina to replace the . She was used to support delta defenders in the Hạ Long Bay operation in May 1954. In August she joined the Franco-American evacuation operation called " Passage to Freedom". The same month, the United States delivered additional aircraft, again using USS ''Windham Bay''. On April 18, 1954, during the siege of Dien Bien Phu, delivered 25 Korean War AU-1 Corsair aircraft for use by the French Aeronavale in supporting the besieged garrison.


US Air Force assistance (1952–1954)

A total of 94 F4U-7s were built for the Aéronavale in 1952, with the last of the batch, the final Corsair built, rolled out in December 1952. The F4U-7s were actually purchased by the U.S. Navy and passed on to the Aéronavale through the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). They were supplemented by 25 ex-U.S.MC AU-1s (previously used in the Korean War) and moved from Yokosuka, Japan, to Tourane Air Base (Da Nang), Vietnam, in April 1952. US Air Force assistance followed in November 1953 when the French commander in Indochina, General Henri Navarre, asked General
Chester E. McCarty Major General Chester E. McCarty (December 31, 1905 – April 5, 1999) was an officer and pilot in the United States Air Force who served as chief of staff for U.S. Air Forces in Europe in February 1963. He came to Germany from Headquarters U.S. ...
, commander of the Combat Cargo Division, for 12 Fairchild C-119s for Operation Castor at Dien Bien Phu. The USAF also provided C-124 Globemasters to transport French paratroop reinforcements to Indochina. Under the codename Project Swivel Chair, on March 3, 1954, 12 C-119s of the 483rd Troop Carrier Wing ("Packet Rats") based at Ashiya, Japan, were painted with France's insignia and loaned to France with 24 CIA pilots for short-term use. Maintenance was carried out by the US Air Force and airlift operations were commanded by McCarty.


Central Intelligence Agency covert operations (1954)

Twenty four Central Intelligence Agency (Civil Air Transport) pilots supplied the French Union garrison during the siege of Dien Bien Phu - airlifting paratroopers, ammunition, artillery pieces, tons of barbed wire, medics and other military materiel. With the reducing Drop zone areas, night operations and anti-aircraft artillery assaults, many of the "packets" fell into Việt Minh hands. The CIA pilots completed 682 airdrops under anti-aircraft fire between March 13 and May 6. Two CAT pilots, Wallace Bufford and
James B. McGovern Jr. James Bernard McGovern Jr. (February 4, 1922 – May 6, 1954) was a World War II fighter pilot and later an aviator with the Central Intelligence Agency. He and co-pilot Wallace Buford were the only Americans to die in combat in the First Indochin ...
were killed in action when their Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was shot down on May 6, 1954. On February 25, 2005, the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, awarded the seven remaining CIA pilots the Légion d'honneur.


Operation Passage to Freedom (1954)

In August 1954, in support of the French navy and the merchant navy, the U.S. Navy launched Operation Passage to Freedom and sent hundreds of ships, including , in order to evacuate non-communist—especially Catholic—Vietnamese refugees from North Vietnam following the July 20, 1954, armistice and
partition of Vietnam Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...
. Up to 1 million Vietnamese civilians were transported from North to South during this period, with around one tenth of that number moving in the opposite direction.


Other assistance

* New Zealand During 1952 and 1954 New Zealand provided from its obsolete and surplus (but serviceable) military stocks a selection of military equipment for the French Forces in Indochina, including: * 43,000 rifles * 1,350 machine guns * 670,000 rounds of small arms ammunition * 10,000 rounds of 40mm armour-piercing shot * 500 revolvers * 50 Bofors anti-aircraft guns and ammunition * wireless sets * field telephones * charging sets * various uniform items


Popular culture

Although a kind of taboo in France, "the dirty war" has been featured in various films, books and songs. Since its declassification in the 2000s, television documentaries have been released using new perspectives about the U.S. covert involvement and open critics about the French propaganda used during wartime. The famous Communist propagandist
Roman Karmen Roman Lazarevich Karmen (real name Efraim Leyzorovich Korenman) (russian: Роман Лазаревич Кармен; – 28 April 1978) was a Soviet film director, war cinematographer, documentary filmmaker, journalist, screenwriter, pedagogue and ...
was in charge of the media exploitation of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. In his documentary, ''Vietnam'' (Вьетнам, 1955), he staged the famous scene with the raising of the Việt Minh flag over de Castries' bunker which is similar to the one he staged over the Berlin Reichstag roof during World War II (''Берлин'', 1945) and the "S"-shaped POW column marching after the battle, where he used the same optical technique he experimented with before when he staged the German prisoners after the
Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...
(''Ленинград в борьбе'', 1942) and the
Battle of Moscow The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between September 1941 and January ...
(''Разгром немецких войск под Москвой'', 1942). Hollywood made a film about Dien Bien Phu in 1955, ''
Jump into Hell ''Jump into Hell'' is a 1955 war film directed by David Butler. The film stars Jacques Sernas and Kurt Kasznar. As the first Hollywood film based on the war in French Indochina, the story is a fictionalized account of the Battle of Dien Bien Ph ...
'', directed by David Butler and scripted by Irving Wallace, before his fame as a bestselling novelist. Hollywood also made several films about the war, Robert Florey's ''
Rogues' Regiment ''Rogues' Regiment'' is a 1948 film noir action film directed by Robert Florey and starring Dick Powell, Märta Torén, and Vincent Price. It is the first American feature film to be set in the First Indochina War. Plot An American Intelligence ...
'' (1948).
Samuel Fuller Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and World War II veteran known for directing low-budget B movie, genre movies with controversial themes, often ...
's '' China Gate'' (1957). and
James Clavell James Clavell (born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell; 10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994) was an Australian-born British (later naturalized American) writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best ...
's ''
Five Gates to Hell ''Five Gates to Hell'' is a 1959 American adventure film written and directed by James Clavell in CinemaScope. The film stars Dolores Michaels, Patricia Owens, Neville Brand, Ken Scott, Nobu McCarthy and Benson Fong. It was Clavell's directorial ...
'' (1959). The first French movie about the war, ''Shock Patrol'' (''Patrouille de Choc'') aka ''Patrol Without Hope'' (''Patrouille Sans Espoir'') by Claude Bernard-Aubert, came out in 1956. The French censor cut some violent scenes and made the director change the end of his movie which was seen as "''too pessimistic"''. Léo Joannon's film ''Fort du Fou'' (Fort of the Mad) /''Outpost in Indochina'' was released in 1963. Another film was '' The 317th Platoon'' (''La 317ème Section'') was released in 1964, it was directed by Indochina War (and siege of Dien Bien Phu) veteran Pierre Schoendoerffer. Schoendoerffer has since become a media specialist about the Indochina War and has focused his production on realistic war movies. He was cameraman for the army ("Cinematographic Service of the Armies", SCA) during his duty time; moreover, as he had covered the Vietnam War he released ''
The Anderson Platoon ''The Anderson Platoon'' (french: La Section Anderson, released in 1966 in Europe, 1967 in the US) is a documentary feature by Pierre Schoendoerffer about the Vietnam War, named after the leader of the platoon - Lieutenant Joseph B. Anderson - wi ...
'', which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Graham Greene's novel ''
The Quiet American ''The Quiet American'' is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene. Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam W ...
'' takes place during this war. In 2011 a Vietnamese software developer released a first-person-shooter called ''
7554 ''7554: Glorious Memories Revived'' () is a first-person shooter video game developed by Vietnamese video game developer Emobi Games for Windows. It was released for Vietnamese markets on December 16, 2011. The game is set during the Franco-Viet ...
''. Named after the date 07-05-54 (7 May 1954) which marks the end of the decisive
Battle of Dien Bien Phu The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the Fr ...
, it commemorates the First Indochina War from the Vietnamese point of view. The 2017 film by Olivier Lorelle, ''
Ciel Rouge ''Ciel rouge'' (literally, 'red sky') is a French film written and directed by Olivier Lorelle, shot in 2015 and released in 2017. It is set in the first First Indochina War, Vietnamese offensive against French colonial rule and follows the fate of ...
'', starring Cyril Descours and
Audrey Giacomini Audrey Giacomini (born 20 January 1986) is a French actress and model of Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietn ...
, is set during the early part of the First Indochina War.Ciel Rouge - dossier de presse. Mille et une productions and Jour2Fête, 2017.


See also

* Cambodian–Vietnamese War *
Hélie de Saint Marc Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc or Hélie de Saint Marc, (11 February 1922 – 26 August 2013) was a senior member of the French resistance and a senior active officer of the French Army, having served in the French Foreign Legion, in particular at t ...
* Franco-Thai War * Japanese invasion of French Indochina * Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina * Indochina Wars * Mỹ Trạch massacre *
North Vietnamese invasion of Laos North Vietnam supported the Pathet Lao to fight against the Kingdom of Laos between 1958–1959. Control over Laos allowed for the eventual construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that would serve as the main supply route for enhanced NLF (the ...
*
Second Indochina War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
* Third Indochina War *
Pathet Lao The Pathet Lao ( lo, ປະເທດລາວ, translit=Pa thēt Lāo, translation=Lao Nation), officially the Lao People's Liberation Army, was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The gro ...
* United Issarak Front *
Mémorial des guerres en Indochine The Mémorial des guerres en Indochine (Indochina War Memorial) is located in the municipality of Fréjus, Gallieni sector, in the Var department. It was inaugurated on 16 February 1993 by François Mitterrand, President of France. The bodies ...
*
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NIAS Press version
at UQÀM website. * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * *


External links





* Fall, Bernard B
''Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina''


(National Association of Former POWs in Indochina)
Hanoi upon the army's return in victory (bicycles demystified)
Viet Nam Portal
Photos about the First War of Indochina (French Defense Archives)
(ECPAD) {{Authority control 1940s conflicts 1940s in French Indochina 1940s in Vietnam 1950s conflicts 1950s in French Indochina 1950s in Vietnam 20th century in France 20th century in Vietnam Indochina01 Articles containing video clips Indochina Indochina Indochina French Indochina #1 Insurgencies in Asia Invasions by France Invasions of Vietnam Proxy wars Resistance to the French colonial empire Indochina Viet Minh Vietnamese independence movement Indochina Wars involving France Indochina Indochina Wars involving the Soviet Union Wars involving the United States Wars involving Vietnam Wars of independence Guerrilla wars