Everything about The First Indochina War totally explained
The
First Indochina War (also known as the
French Indochina War, the
The Anti-French War, the
Franco-Vietnamese War, the
Franco-Vietminh War, the
Indochina War and the
Dirty War in
France and in contemporary
Vietnam, as the
French War) was fought in
French Indochina from
December 19 1946 until
August 1 1954 between the
French Union's
French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by
France and supported by
Bảo Đại's
Vietnamese National Army against the
Viet Minh, led by
Ho Chi Minh and
Vo Nguyen Giap. 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 and
Cambodia.
Following the reoccupation of Indochina by the French following the end of
World War II, the area having fallen to the
Japanese, the Viet Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949, the conflict became a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons supplied by the
United States and the
Soviet Union.
French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, African, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Vietnamese ethnic minorities) and professional troops (European of the
French Foreign Legion). The use of metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the governments to prevent the war from becoming even more unpopular at home. It was called the "dirty war" (
la sale guerre) by the French communists and leftist intellectuals (including
Sartre) during the
Henri Martin affair in 1950.
With the fall of the short lived Japanese colony of the
Empire of Vietnam, the
Provisional Government of the French Republic wanted to restore its colonial rule in French Indochina as the final step of the
Liberation of France. An armistice was signed between Japan and the United States on
August 20. France signed the armistice with Japan onboard the
USS Missouri on behalf of
CEFEO Expeditionary Corps header
General Leclerc, on September 2nd.
On September 13, a
Franco-
British task force landed in
Java, capital of
Sukarno's
Dutch East Indies, and Saigon, capital of Cochinchina (southern part of French Indochina) both being
occupied by the Japanese and ruled by
Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's
Southern Expeditionary Army Group based in Saigon.
Allied troops in Saigon were an airborne detachment, two British companies of the 20th Hindi 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.
Almost immediately afterward, the
Chinese Government, as agreed to at the
Potsdam Conference, occupied French Indochina as far south as the 16th parallel in order to supervise the disarming and repatriation of the
Japanese Army. This effectively ended Ho Chi Minh's nominal government in Hanoi.
General Leclerc arrived in Saigon in
October 9, with him was 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 Viet Minh officials.
Timeline
The Indochinese conflict broke out in
Haiphong after a conflict of interest in import duty at Haiphong port between the
Viet Minh government and the French. On
November 23,
1946 the French fleet began a naval bombardment of the city that killed over 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in an afternoon according to one source or over 2000 according to another. The Viet Minh quickly agreed to a cease-fire and left the cities. There was no intention among the Vietnamese to give up though, and General
Vo Nguyen Giap soon brought up 30,000 men to attack the city. Although the French were outnumbered, their better weaponry and naval support made any Việt Minh's attack impossible. In December, hostilities broke out in Hanoi between the Viet Minh and the French and Ho Chi Minh was forced to evacuate the capital in favor of remote mountain areas. Guerrilla warfare ensued with the French in control of almost everything except very remote areas.
In
1947 General
Võ Nguyên Giáp moved his command to
Tân Trào. The French sent assault teams after his bases, but Giáp refused to meet them in battle. Wherever the French troops went, the Việt Minh disappeared. Late in the year the French launched
Operation Lea to take out the Việt Minh communications center at Bac Kan. They failed to capture Hồ Chí Minh and his key lieutenants as they'd hoped, but they killed 9,000 Việt Minh soldiers during the campaign which was a major defeat for the Việt Minh insurgency.
In
1948 France began to look for some way to oppose the Việt Minh politically, with an alternative government in
Saigon. They began negotiations with the former Vietnamese emperor
Bảo Đại to lead an "autonomous" government within the
French Union of nations, the
State of Vietnam. Two years before, the French had refused Hồ'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 Ðại as he'd always cooperated with French rule of
Vietnam in the past and was in no position to seriously negotiate any conditions (Bảo Ðại had no military of his own, but soon he'd have one).
In
1949 France officially recognized the "independence" of the
State of Vietnam within the
French Union under Bảo Ðại. However, France still controlled all defense issues and all foreign relations as Vietnam was only an independent state within the
French Union . The Việt Minh quickly denounced the government and stated that they wanted "real independence, not Bảo Ðại independence". Later on, as a concession to this new government and a way to increase their numbers, France agreed to the formation of the
Vietnamese National Army to be commanded by Vietnamese officers. These troops were used mostly to garrison quiet sectors so French forces would be available for combat. Private
Cao Dai,
Hoa Hao and the
Binh Xuyen gangster armies were used in the same way. The Vietnamese Communists also got help in 1949 when Chairman
Mao Zedong succeeded in taking control of
China and defeating the
Kuomintang, thus gaining a major ally and supply area just across the border. In the same year, the French also recognized the independence (within the framework of the
French Union) of the other two nations in
Indochina, the Kingdoms of
Laos and
Cambodia.
The
United States recognized the South Vietnamese state, but many nations, even in the west, viewed it as simply a French puppet regime and wouldn't deal with it at all . The United States began to give military aid to France in the form of weaponry and military observers. By then with almost unlimited Chinese military supplies entering Vietnam, General Giáp 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 Giáp went on the offensive, attacking isolated French bases along the Chinese border. In February
1950, Giáp seized the vulnerable 150-strong French garrison at
Lai Khe in Tonkin just south of the border with China. Then, on
May 25, he attacked the garrison of
Cao Bang manned by 4,000 French-controlled Vietnamese troops, but his forces were repulsed. Giáp launched his second offense again against Cao Bang again as well as
Dong Khe on
September 15. Dong Khe fell on
September 18, and Cao Bang finally fell on
October 3.
Lang Son, with its 4,000-strong
French Foreign Legion garrison, was attacked immediately after. The
retreating French on Route 4 were attacked all the way by ambushing Việt Minh forces, together with the relief force coming from
That Khe. The French dropped a paratroop battalion south of Dong Khe to act as a diversion only to see it surrounded and destroyed. On
October 17, Lang Son, after a week of attacks, finally fell. 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. 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 Aeronovale at the time).
The military situation began to improve for France when their new commander, General
Jean Marie de Lattre de Tassigny, built a fortified line from
Hanoi to the
Gulf of Tonkin, across the
Red River Delta, to hold the Viet 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, Giap moved the 308th and 312th Divisions, made up of over 20,000 men, to attack
Vinh Yen, northwest of Hanoi which was manned by the 6,000 strong 9th Foreign Legion Brigade. The Viet Minh entered a trap. Caught for the first time in the open, they were mowed down by concentrated French artillery and machine gun fire. By
January 16, Giap was forced to withdraw having lost over 6,000 killed, 8,000 wounded and 500 captured. The
Battle of Vinh Yen had been a catastrophe.
On
March 23, Giap tried again, launching an
attack against Mao Khe, 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 repulsed in bitter hand-to-hand fighting, backed up by French aircraft using napalm and rockets as well as gunfire from navy ships off the coast. Giap, having lost over 3,000 dead and wounded by
March 28, withdrew.
Giap launched yet another attack on
May 29 with the 304th Division at
Phu Ly, the 308th Division at
Ninh Binh, and the main attack delivered by the 320th Division at
Phat Diem south of Hanoi. The attacks fared no better and the three divisions lost heavily.
Taking advantage of this, de Lattre mounted his counter offensive against the demoralized Việt Minh, driving them back into the jungle and eliminating the enemy pockets in the Red River Delta by
June 18 costing the Viet Minh over 10,000 killed.
On
July 31, French General Chanson was assassinated during a
kamikaze attentat at
Sadec that was blamed on the Viet Minh, and it was argued that
Cao Dai nationalist
Trinh Minh The could have been involved in its planning.
Every effort by Vo Nguyen Giap to break the line failed and every attack he made was answered by a French counter-attack that destroyed his forces. Viet Minh casualties rose alarmingly during this period, leading some to question the leadership of the Communist government, even within the party. However, any benefit this may have reaped for France was negated by the increasing opposition to the war in France. Although all of their forces in Indochina were volunteers, their officers were being killed faster than they could train new ones. Their only response was to ask for more millions of dollars from America.
On
November 14 1951, the
French seized Hòa Binh, west of the De Lattre line, by a parachute drop and expanded their perimeter. But Việt Minh launched attacks on Hòa Binh 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. In January, General de Lattre fell ill from cancer and had to return 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. Within that year, throughout the war theater, the Việt Minh cut French supply lines and began to seriously wear 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 itself for larger operations. On
October 17 1952, Giáp launched attacks against the French garrisons along
Nghia Lo, northwest of Hanoi, breaking them off when a French parachute battalion intervened. Giáp by now had control over most of Tonkin beyond the
De Lattre line. Raoul Salan, seeing the situation as critical, launched
Operation Lorraine along the Clear river to force Giáp to relieve pressure from the Nghia Lo outposts. On
29 October 1952, in the largest operation in Indochina to date, 30,000 French Union soldiers moved out from the De Lattre line to attack the Viet Minh supply dumps at
Phu Yen. Salan took
Phu Tho on
5 November, and
Phu Doan on
9 November by a
parachute drop, and finally Phu Yen on
13 November. Giap at first didn't react to the French offensive. He planned to wait until their supply lines were over extended and then cut them off from the Red River Delta. Salan correctly guessed what the Viet Minh were up to and cancelled the operation on
14 November, beginning to withdraw to the de Lattre line. The only major fighting during the operation came during the withdrawal, when the Viet Minh ambushed the French column at
Chan Muong on
17 November. The road was cleared after a bayonet charge by the Indochinese March Battalion and the withdrawal could continue. Though the operation was partially successful, it proved that although the French could strike out at any target outside the De Lattre line, it failed to divert the Viet Minh offensive or serious damage its logistical network.
On
April 9,
1953 Giáp after having failed repeatedly in direct attacks on the French changed strategy and began to pressure the French by invading
Laos. The only real change came in May when
General Navarre replaced
General Salan as supreme commander in Indochina. He reports to the 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
Ðiện Biên Phủ, located about north of the Lao border and west of Hanoi as a target to block the Việt Minh from invading Laos. Ðiện Biên Phủ had a number of advantages; it was on a Việt Minh supply route into Laos on the
Nam Yum River, it had an old Japanese airstrip built in the late 1930s for supply and it was situated in the
T'ai hills where the T'ai tribesmen, still loyal to the French, operated.
Operation Castor was launched on
November 20 1953 with 1,800 men of the French 1st and 2nd Airborne Battalions dropping into the valley of Ðiện Biên Phủ and sweeping aside the local Việt Minh garrison. The paratroopers managed control of a heart-shaped valley long and eight miles (13 km) wide surrounded by heavily wooded hills. Encountering little opposition, the French and T'ai units operating from
Lai Châu to the north patrolled the hills. 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 Ðiện Biên Phủ. By mid-December, most of the French and T'ai patrols in the hills 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".
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 of the
Fourth Republic meant that France was unable to extract itself from the conflict. The United States initially sought to remain neutral, viewing the conflict as chiefly a
decolonization war. The
Battle of Dien Bien Phu occurred in 1954 between
Viet Minh forces under
Vo Nguyen Giap supported by
China and the
Soviet Union and the
French Union's
French Far East Expeditionary Corps supported by Indochinese allies and the
United States. The battle was fought near the village of
Dien Bien Phu 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 the Việt Minh attacked preemptively surprising the French with heavy artillery. Their 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 till the opening of the
Geneva peace meeting on
April 26. The last French offensive took place on
May 4, but it was ineffective. The Viet Minh then began to hammer the outpost with newly supplied
Katyusha rockets. The final fall took two days,
May 6 and 7th, 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 5:30PM and to destroy all material (weapons, transmissions, etc.) to deny their use to the enemy. A formal order was given to not use the
white flag so that it wouldn't be considered to be a surrender but a ceasefire. Much of the fighting ended on May 7th, however a ceasefire wasn't respected on Isabelle, the isolated southern position, and the battle lasted until May 8th 1:00AM. At least 2,200 members of the 20,000-strong French forces died during the battle. Of the 100,000 or so Vietnamese involved, there were an estimated 8,000 killed and another 15,000 wounded. The prisoners taken at Dien Bien Phu were the greatest number the Viet Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war. One month after Dien Bien Phu, the composite Groupe Mobile 100 (GM100) of the French Union forces evacuated the
An Khe outpost and was ambushed by a larger Viet Minh force at the
Battle of Mang Yang Pass from
June 24 to July 17th. The Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu heavily influenced the outcome of the
1954 Geneva accords that took place on
July 21. In August began
Operation Passage to Freedom consisting of the evacuation of catholic and loyalist Vietnamese civilians from communist North Vietnamese persecution.
Geneva Conference and Partition
Negotiations between France and the Viet-minh started in Geneva in April 1954 at the
Geneva Conference. During this time the French Union and the Viet Minh were fighting the most epic battle of the war at Dien Bien Phu. In France,
Pierre Mendès-France, opponent of the war since 1950, had been invested 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 isn't resolved — and settled very fast — it's 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'd more assets. But even now there's some renouncings or abandons that the situation doesn't comprise. France doesn't have to accept and won't accept settlement which would be incompatible with its more vital interests [applaudingon certain seats of the Assembly 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've 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'll 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'll present myself before you before the 20th of July... If no satisfying solution has been reached at this date, you'll be freed from the contract which would have tied us together, and my government will give its dismissal to Mr. the President of the Republic."
The
Geneva Conference on
July 21,
1954 recognized the 17th
parallel as a "
provisional military demarcation line" temporarily dividing the country into two zones,
Communist North Vietnam and pro-
Western South Vietnam.
The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. However, the United States and the
State of Vietnam refused to sign the document. From his home in France Emperor
Bảo Đại appointed
Ngô Ðình Diệm as
Prime Minister of South Vietnam. With American support, in 1955 Diệm used a referendum to remove the former Emperor and declare himself the
president of the
Republic of Vietnam.
When the elections were prevented from happening by the Americans and the South, 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 guerilla fighting
National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. The war gradually escalated into the
Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the
Vietnam War in the
West and the
American War in Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh
Interestingly the
US Communist Party was outlawed in 1954, the very same year Wallace Buford and
James McGovern Jr. became the first American casualties in Vietnam. Their C-119 transport aircraft was shot down by Viet Minh artillery while on mission to drop supplies to the garrison of Dien Bien Phu. The war ended that year but its sequel started in
French Algeria where the French Communist Party played an even stronger role by supplying the
National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels with intelligence documents and financial aids. They were called "
the suitcase carriers" (
les porteurs de valises).
In 1923, Ho Chi Minh moved to
Guangzhou,
China. From 1925-26 he organized the 'Youth Education Classes' and occasionally gave lectures at the
Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina. He stayed there in
Hong Kong as a representative of the
Communist International. In June 1931, he was arrested and incarcerated by British police until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the
Soviet Union, where he spent several years recovering from tuberculosis. In 1938, he returned to
China and served as an adviser with the Chinese
Communist armed forces.
In 1941,
Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist who saw
communist revolution as the path to freedom, returned to Vietnam and formed the
Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội (Allied Association of Independent Vietnam), also called the
Việt Minh. He spent many years in
Moscow and participated in the International
Comintern. At the direction of Moscow, he combined the various Vietnamese communist groups into the
Indochinese Communist Party in
Hong Kong in 1930. Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Minh as an
umbrella organization for all the nationalist resistance movements, de-emphasizing his communist social revolutionary background. Late in the war, the Japanese created a nominally independent government of Vietnam under the overall leadership of Bảo Đại. Around the same time, the Japanese arrested and imprisoned most of the French officials and military officers left in the country. After the French army and other officials were freed from Japanese prisons in Vietnam, they began reasserting their authority over parts of the country. At the same time, the French government began negotiations with both the Viet Minh and the Chinese for a return of the French army to Vietnam north of the 16th parallel. The Viet Minh were willing to accept French rule to end Chinese occupation. Ho Chi Minh and others had fears of the Chinese, based on China's historic domination and occupation of Vietnam. The French negotiated a deal with the Chinese where pre-war French concessions in Chinese ports such as Shanghai were traded for Chinese cooperation in Vietnam. The French landed a military force at Haiphong in early 1946. Negotiations then took place about the future for Vietnam as a state within the
French Union. These talks eventually failed and the Việt Minh fled into the countryside to wage guerrilla war. In 1946, Vietnam gained its first constitution.
The British had supported the French in fighting the Viet Minh, the armed religious
Cao Dai and
Hoa Hao sects, and the
Binh Xuyen organized crime groups which were all individually seeking power in the country. In 1948, seeking a post-colonial solution, the French re-installed Bảo Ðại as
head of state of Vietnam under the French Union. The Viet Minh were ineffective in the first few years of the war and could do little more than harass the French in remote areas of Indochina. In 1949, the war changed with the triumph of the communists in
China on Vietnam's northern border. China was able to give almost unlimited amounts of weapons and supplies to the Việt Minh which transformed itself into a conventional army. After World War II, the
United States and the
USSR entered into the
Cold War. The
Korean War broke out in 1950 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
United Nations. The Cold War was now turning 'hot' in East Asia, and American government's fears of communist domination of the entire region would have deep implications for the American involvement in Vietnam. The US became strongly opposed to the government of Hồ Chí Minh, in part, because it was supported and supplied by China. Hồ's government gained recognition from China and the Soviet Union by January 1950 in response to Western support for the
State of Vietnam that the French had proposed as an associate state within the French Union. In the French-controlled areas of Vietnam, in the same year, the government of Bảo Đại gained
recognition by the United States and the United Kingdom.
French domestic situation
The
1946 Constitution creating the
Fourth Republic (1946-1958) made France a
Parliamentary republic. 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) (founded by Ho Chi Minh himself) and the socialist
French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Known as
tripartisme, this alliance lasted from 1947 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. However, this had the effect of weakening the regime, with the two most important movements of this period, Communism and
Gaullism, in opposition.
Unlikely alliances had to be made between left and right-wing parties in order to have a government invested by the
National Assembly, resulting in strong
parliamentary unstability. Hence, France had fourteen
prime ministers in succession between the creation of the Fourth Republic in 1947 and the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The 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 (Lieutenant at Dien Bien Phu).
France was increasingly unable to afford the costly conflict of 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 movement existed in France coming mostly from the then powerful French Communist Party (outpowering the socialists) and its young militant associations, major trade unions like the
General Confederation of Labour as well as notable leftist intellectuals. The first occurrence was probably at the National Assembly on
March 21,
1947 when the communists deputees refused to vote the military credits for Indochina. The following year a pacifist event was organized by soviet organizations with the French communist atomic physicist
Frederic Joliot-Curie as president. It was the
World Peace Council's predecessor known as the "
1st Worldwide Congress of Peace Partisans" (
1er Congrès Mondial des Partisans de la Paix) which took place from
March 25 to
March 28,
1948 in Paris. Later in
April 28,
1950, Joliot-Curie would be dismissed from the military and civilian
Atomic Energy Commission. Young communist militants (UJRF) were also involved in sabotage actions like the famous
Henri Martin Affair and the case of
Raymonde Dien 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. Actually multiple political-military scandals happened during the war starting with the
Generals' Affair (
Affaire des Généraux) from September 1949 to November 1950.
As a result General Revers was dismissed in December 1949 and socialist Defense Ministry
Jules Moch (
SFIO) was brought on court by the National Assembly in November 28th 1950. Emerging medias played their role, and this scandal started the commercial success of the first French news magazine
L'Express created in 1953.
The third scandal was a financial-political scandal, concerning military corruption, money and arms trading involving both the French Union army and the Viet Minh, known as the
Piastres Affair.
In the French news the Indochina War was presented as a direct continuation of the
Korean War where France had fought as a
UN French battalion then incorporated in a U.S. unit, which was later involved in the terrible
Battle of Mang Yang Pass of June and July 1954. The same propaganda existed in the United States with local newsreels using French news footages, probably supplied by the army's cinematographic service. Happening right in the
Red Scare years, propaganda was necessary both to justify financial aid and at the same time to promote the American effort in the ongoing Korea War. A few hours after the French Union defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the U.S.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles 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 Viet Minh, explained that the United States couldn't 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".
War crimes & re-education camps
The Boudarel Affair. Georges Boudarel was a French communist militant who used brainswashing and tortures against French Union POWs in Viet Minh reeducation camps. The French national association of POWs brought Boudarel to court for a war crime charge. Most of the French Union prisoners died in the Viet Minh camps, many POWs from the Vietnamese National Army are missing.
Passage to Freedom was a Franco-American operation to evacuate refugees. Loyal Indochinese evacuated to metropolitan France were kept in camps.
The A.O.F. (Afrique Occidentale Française) 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 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 "Moroccan Sharpshooters Regiment".
As a French protectorate, Bizerte, 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 Bao Dai's State of Vietnam (formerly Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchine) 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 Viet Minh. The Tai Battalion 2 (BT2, 2e Bataillon Thai) is famous for its desertion during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. Propaganda leaflets written in Tai and French sent by the Viet Minh were found in the deserted positions and trenches. Such deserters were called the Nam Yum rats 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 TOE after the victorious battle of Vinh Yen in 1951. In the 1950s, the French established secret commando groups based on loyal montagnard ethnic minorities referred as "partisans" or "maquisards", called the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés (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 include the name of its commander, famous Colonel Roger Trinquier, and a mission on April 30th 1954, when Jedburgh veteran Captain Sassi led the Mèo 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 Dinh. Recruits were volunteers from the Thổ people, Nung people and Miao people. This commando unit wore Viet Minh black uniforms to confuse the enemy and used techniques of the experienced Bo doi (Bộ đội, regular army) and Du Kich (guerrilla unit). Viet 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 Vet Minh recruit, commander Nguien Tinh Khoi (308th Division's 56th Regiment), who assassinated him (and his Vietnamese fiancee) with external help on the night of January 5th 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 - the first days only, after they were abandoned hence a terrible smell according to veterans - and they'd the dangerous job of gathering supply packets delivered in drop zones while the Viet Minh artillery was firing hard to destroy the crates. The Viet 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 Bao Dai'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.
One point that neither the Americans nor ther French seemed to grasp, was the concept of sanctuary. As long as the revolutionaries who are fighting a guerilla war have a sanctuary, in which they can hide out, recoup after losses, and store supplies, it's almost impossible for any foreign enemy to ever destroy them.
In the early 1950s, southern China was used as a sanctuary by Viet Minh guerrillas. Several hit and run ambushes were successfully operated against French Union convoys along the neighboring Route Coloniale 4 (RC 4) which was a major supply way in Tonkin (northern Vietnam). One of the most famous attack of this kind was the battle of Cao Bang. China supplied the Viet Minh guerrillas with food (thousands of tons of rice), money, medics, arms (Sung Khong Zat cannons), ammunitions (SKZ rockets), artillery (24 guns were used at Dien Bien Phu) and other military equipment including a large part of material captured from Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army during the Chinese Civil War. Evidences of the Chinese secret aid were found in caves during Operation Hirondelle in July 1953. 2,000 Chinese and Soviet Union military advisors trained the Viet Minh guerrilla to turn it into a full range army. China and the Soviet Union were the first nations to recognize North Vietnam.
The USSR was the other ally of the Viet Minh supplying GAZ trucks, truck engines, fuel, tires, arms (thousands of Skoda light machine guns), all kind of ammunitions, anti-aircraft guns (4 x 37 mm type) and cigarettes. During Operation Hirondelle, the French Union paratroopers captured and destroyed tons of Soviet supply in the Ky Lua area. According to General Giap, the Viet Minh used 400 GAZ-51 soviet-built trucks at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Using highly effective camouflage, the French Union reconnaissance planes were not able to notice them. On May 6, 1954 during the siege, Katyusha were successfully used against the outpost. Together with China, the Soviet Union sent 2,000 military advisors to train the Viet Minh guerrilla and turn it into a fully organized army. 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 didn't include use of armed force. However, recently it has been discovered that undercover (CAT) -or not- US Air Force pilots flew to support the French during Operation Castor in November 1953. Two US pilots were killed in action during the siege of 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.
On March 2nd, the US Navy transferred the USS LST 490 (Agenor) to the French navy in Indochina per the MAAG-led MAP. Renamed RFS Vulcain (A-656), she was used in Operation Hirondelle in 1953. The USS Sitkoh Bay carrier delivered Grumman F8F Bearcat aircraft to Saigon on March 26, 1951. During September 1953, the USS Belleau Wood -renamed Bois Belleau- was lent to France and sent to French Indochina to replace the Arromanches. She was used to support delta defenders in the Halong bay in May 1954. In August, she joined the Franco-American evacuation operation Passage to Freedom.
The same month the United States delivered additional aircraft using the USS Windham Bay carrier. She would return to Saigon in 1955. On April 18, 1954, during the siege of Dien Bien Phu, the USS Saipan delivered 25 Korean War AU-1 Corsair aircraft to be used by the French Aeronavale to support the bessieged garrison.
US Air Force assistance (1952-1954)
A total of 94 F4U-7s were built for the Aeronavale 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 Aeronavale 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 1954. US Air Force assistance followed in November 1953 when the French commander in Indochina, General Navarre, asked General McCarty, commander of the Combat Cargo Division, for 12 Fairchild C-119 for Operation Castor at Dien Bien Phu.
On March 3, 1954, twelve 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)
Two CIA pilots (CAT) were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The last French Union troops left Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1956.
Popular culture
Although a kind of taboo in France, "the dirty war" has been featured in various films, books and songs. Since its declasification 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.
Famous Communist propagandist Roman Karmen 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 Viet Minh flag over de Castries' bunker which is similar to the one he staged over the Nazi 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 before when he staged the German prisoners after the Siege of Leningrad (Ленинград в борьбе, 1942) and the Battle of Moscow (Разгром немецких войск под Москвой, 1942).
The first 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 censorship has cut some violent scenes and made the director change the end of his movie which was seen as "too much pessismistic". The second film 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 mediatic 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'd covered the Vietnam War he released the The Anderson Platoon, which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The popular Hollywood Vietnam war movies Apocalypse Now Redux, and most obviously Platoon, are inspired by Schoendoerffer's work on the First Indochina War. An interesting detail about Apocalypse Now is all its First Indochina War related scenes (including the line "the White leaves but the Yellow stays" which is borrowed from the The 317th Platoon) and explicit references were removed from the edited version that was premiered in Cannes, France in 1979.
Further Information
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