First Indochina War

First Indochina War
A French Foreign Legion unit patrols in a communist controlled area. The tank was supplied by the United States.
Date 19 December, 1946– 1 August, 1954 Location Southeast Asia Result Viet Minh victory Departure of France from Vietnam Provisional division of Vietnam
Belligerents
French Union France State of Vietnam Cambodia Laos	Viet Minh
Commanders and leaders
Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (1945-46) Jean-Étienne Valluy (1946-8) Roger Blaizot (1948-9) Marcel-Maurice Carpentier (1949-50) Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (1950-51) Raoul Salan (1952-3) Henri Navarre (1953-4)	Ho Chi Minh Vo Nguyen Giap
Strength
French Union: 190,000 Local Auxiliary: 55,000 State of Vietnam: 150,000	125,000 Regulars 75,000 Regional 250,000 Popular forces
Casualties and losses
94,581 dead 78,127 wounded 40,000 captured	300,000+ dead 500,000+ wounded 100,000 captured

The First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War, the Franco-Vietnamese War, the Indochina War in France and in contemporary Vietnam, as the French War) was fought in Indochina from 19 December, 1946 until 1 August, 1954 between the forces of the French Union, led by France, and the Viet Minh, led by Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Northern Vietnam (the area the French referred to as Tonkin) although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring Indochinese countries of Laos and Cambodia.

The Viet Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war were 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 two superpowers.

After eight years of bloody conflict, a French force was defeated at Dien Bien Phu, where they were engaged by the forces of General Vo Nguyen Giap. The forces the French had available were able to defeat successive human wave attacks with massive losses but direct Chinese support allowed the Viet Minh to use heavy artillery, trench warfare and some crucial anti-aircraft guns (that closed the only exit, the airfield) in the siege of the base. French Union forces were colonial troops (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, African, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Thai minorities from Vietnam) and professional troops (French Foreign Legion), the use of metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the governments to prevent the war from being even more unpopular at home where 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 .

If the strategy was sound (pushing the Viet Minh to attack a well defended base in a remote part of the country, at the end of their logistical trail - a strategy that worked well the year before), lack of building materials (especially concrete), tanks (for lack of road) and air cover precluded an effective defense. The French were defeated with significant losses among their most mobile troops.

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. Although 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. By 1949, however, 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 1950 in Washington the United States started to support the French Union effort politically, logistically and financially; by 1954, it was bearing 80% of the cost of the French war effort which was of 3,000,000 $ a day in 1952. Officially, U.S. involvement did not include use of armed force. However recently it has been discovered that undercover (CAT) -or not- US Air Force pilots flew in support to the French during Operation Castor in november 1953 and two of them were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu the following year. These facts have been declassified and been public more than 50 years after the events, in 2005 during the Legion of Honor award ceremony by the French ambassador in Washington .

After the war, the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954 made a provisional division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with the north being given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh and the south becoming the State of Vietnam under Emperor Bảo Đại. A year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Diem's refusal to enter into negotiations with North Vietnam about the holding of nationwide elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, would eventually lead to war breaking out again in South Vietnam in 1959 - the Second Indochina War.

Origins

File:Hanoingayve01.jpg

308th Division parading onboard Soviet-built GAZ-51 trucks in Hanoi (10.1954).

Vietnam had been absorbed into the colony of French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1883. With Western influence and education, Vietnamese nationalism grew until World War II provided a break in French control.

In 1905 the Vietnamese resistance was centered on the intellectual, Phan Boi Chau. Chau looked to Japan which had modernized itself and was one of the few Asian nations to resist colonization (Thailand being another). With Prince Cuong De, Châu started two organizations in Japan: 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's 1911 nationalist revolution, Chau was inspired to create the Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou. From 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shi Kai'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 1940, shortly after Phan Bội Châu's death, Japan invaded Indochina, coinciding with their ally Germany's invasion of 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. The symbolic Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, causing no trouble and ensuring his lifestyle could continue.

Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Ai Quoc and the French Communist Party

Leaving the French Indochina where he had a French education, Nguyen Ai Quoc (later called Ho Chi Minh) followed his studies in London and Paris during the 1910s. He came to communism in France through his friend Marcel Cachin (SFIO) who was sent in Russia in 1917 during World War I. Cachin was a pro-bolchevism politician, a fierce supporter of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and became the director of the popular communist newspaper L'Humanité ("The Humanity").

In 1920 during the Congress of Tours, France, Nguyen Ai Quoc became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party). During the Indochina War, the PCF would be involved with antiwar propaganda, sabotage and support to the revolutionary effort. It was then that he changed his name to Ho Chi Minh.

Interestingly the US Communist Party was forbidden in 1954 , the very same year Wallace Buford and James McGovern Jr. were the first American casualties in Vietnam. Their C-119 transport aircraft was shot down by the Viet Minh artillery while on mission to drop supplies to the garrison of Dien Bien Phu. This year the war ended but its sequel will start in French Algeria where the French Communist Party will play an even stronger role by supplying the FLN rebels with intelligence documents and financial aids. They were called "the suitcase carriers" (les porteurs de valises).

Ho Chi Minh and China and the Soviet Union

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 Chinese Communist armed forces.

Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh

Meanwhile, 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) or Việt Minh. Ho Chi Minh was a founding member of the French Communist Party in the 1920s in Tours. 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.

In 1945, due to a combination of Japanese exploitation and poor weather, a famine broke out killing approximately 2 million. The Viet Minh arranged a relief effort and won over some people in the north. When the Japanese surrendered in Vietnam in August 1945, they allowed the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups to take over public buildings without resistance, so as to cause more trouble for the French. This started the August Revolution. In order to further help the nationalists, the Japanese kept French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. Ho Chi Minh was able to persuade Emperor Bao Dai to abdicate on August 25, 1945. Bao Dai was appointed "supreme adviser" to the new Viet Minh led government in Hanoi, which asserted independence on September 2. The Viet Minh were not the only nationalist group active during this period as a variety of groups took over various towns and fought each other.

Almost immediately afterward, the Chinese Government, as agreed to at the Potsdam Conference, occupied 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. In southern Vietnam, the British, under General Sir Douglas Gracey, landed an army in October 1945.

Telegram from Hồ Chí Minh to U.S. President Truman requesting support for independence, Feb 1946 .

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 anything including French rule to end the 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 assistance in Vietnam. The French landed a military force at Haiphong in early 1946. Negotiations then took place which talked about a 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 U.S. became strongly opposed to Hồ Chí Minh, in part, because it was supported and supplied by China. A few hours after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 7th 1954, the U.S. Srecretary of State John Foster Dulles declared "the Chinese communists have been supplied the forces of the Viet Minh rebels with ammunitions, trucks, anti-aicraft guns, radars, technical equipments and technical advisors."

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

Unstable politics

The 1946 Constitution creating the Fourth Republic (1947-1958) 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-Democrat MRP, the Communist PCF (founded by Ho Chi Minh himself) and the Socialist SFIO. Known as "tripartisme", this alliance lasted from 1947 until the May 1947 crisis, with the expulsion from Paul Ramadier's government of the PCF ministers, marking the official start of the Cold War in France. However, this had as effect to weaken the regime, with the two most important movements of this period, Communism and Gaullism, in the opposition. Unlikely alliances had to be made between left and right-wing parties in order to have a government be invested by the Parliament, 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 Ðiện Biên Phủ in 1954. The turnover of governments left France unable to prosecute the war with any consistent policy . France was increasingly unable to afford the conflict in Indochina and, by 1954, the United States was paying the majority of France's costs. While the United States was willing to fund the French war as part of its Korean War strategy, the end of the war in Korea in 1953 made the U.S. less willing to spend the necessary money.

Antiwar sentiment

There was a strong antiwar movement in France coming mostly from the then powerful French Communist Party and notorious leftist intellectuals. Some communist militants were involved in sabotage actions like the famous Henri Martin Affair. Some military officers -like Raoul Salan- involved in the Generals Report scandal (Rapport des Généraux) were also very pessimistic about the way the war was done. In metropolitan France pacifist protesters have blocked ammunition trains preventing them to supply the French forces in Indochina, ammunition sabotage have been reported (grenades were exploding in the hand of the legionaries).

Scandals & Affairs

Multiple political-military scandals happened during the war starting with the Generals Affair (Rapport Revers) from September 1949 to January 1950 as a result General Revers had to dismiss. This scandal started the commercial success of the first French news magazine L'Express. A second famous scandal about sabotage was the Henri Martin Affair that divided the public opinion between pacifists (communists and leftists) and supporters (gaullists an nationalists) from 1950 to 1953 .

Cold War propaganda

In the French news the Indochina War was presented as a direct continuation of the Korean War where France had fought through the UN French battalion then incorporated in a U.S. unit and later involved in the terrible Battle of Mang Yang Pass of June and July 1954.

In an interview taped in May 2004, General 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-paratroopers 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 Challe through his famous "Do you want Mers-el-Kebir & Algiers to become soviet bases as soon as tomorrow ?", during the Algiers putsch (Algerian War) of 1961 with limited effects though.

The very 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 the financial aid and in 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 did an official speech depicting the "tragic event": "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 the Chinese aid toward 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" with the necessity of "a collective defense" against "the communist aggression".

Other countries' involvement

By 1946, France was the head of the French Union. As successive governments had forbidden the sending of metropolitan troops, the C.E.F.E.O. was created in march 1945. The Union gathered combatants from almost all French territories made of colonies, protectorates and associated states (Madagascar, Senegal, Tunisia, etc.) to fight in the French Indochina 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. The French established some guerrilla groups based on native tribal members, 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 GCMA were used as conventional guerrillas.

French Algeria

As a French colony (later a full province), Algerian troops were sent in Indochina including several infantry battalions.

West French Africa

The A.O.F. (WFA) was a federation of african colonies. Senegalese and other african troops were sent to fight in Indochina. The Senegalese artillery fought at Dien Bien Phu.

Morroco

Morroco was a French protectorate and sent troops to support the French effort in Indochina.

Tunisia

As a French protectorate, Bizerte was a major French base. Tunisian troops were sent in Indochina.

Laos

Part of the French Indochina, next part of The French Union and later as an associated state, Laos fought the communists along the French forces. The role played by Laotian troops in the conflict was depicted by veteran Pierre Schoendoerffer's famous 317th Platoon released in 1964.

Cambodia

This French Indochina state played a significant role during the Indochina War through its infantrymen and paratroopers.

Vietnamese minorities

While Bao Dai's State of Vietnam (formerly Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchine) had its army supporting the French forces, Thai minorities were trained and organized as regular battalions that fought the Viet Minh with them. The Thai Battalion 2 (BT2) is famous for its desertion during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. Propaganda leaflets written in Thai and French sent in the trenches by the Viet Minh were found in the deserted positions. Such deserters were called the Nam Yum rats by de Castries during the siege for they were hiding in blockhaus close to the Nam Yum river on day time and were going outside at night to search for supply drops.

Several 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 the coolies were also in charge of burrying the corpses -the first days only, after they were abandonned hence a terrible smell according to veterans- and they had the dangerous job of gathering supply packets delivered in drop zones while the Viet Minh artillery was firing hard at them to destroy the crates. On their side The Viet Minh also used thousands of coolies to carry their supply and support the Chu-Luc (regional units) with ammunitions during assaults.

The PIM were civilian male aged enough to join Bao Dai's army. They were captured in ennemy controlled villages, those who refused to join the State of Vietnam's army were considered as prisonners or were used as coolies in support to a given regiment.

United States

Further information: The United States and the Vietnam War

A 1952 F4U-7 Corsair of the 14.F flotilla who fought at Dien Bien Phu.

Bois Belleau (aka USS Belleau Wood) transfered to France in 1953.

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France-marked USAF C-119 flown by CIA pilots over Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Anticommunist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM to the USS Montague during operation Passage to Freedom in 1954.

According to General Giap, 400 Soviet-built GAZ-51 supplied by China were used at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

File:Zalp katyush.jpg

Soviet-built Katyushas were used at Dien Bien Phu on May 7th 1954.

Mutual Defense Assistance Act (1950-1954)

On September 1950, Truman sends the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Indochina to Vietnam to assist the French.

However at the beginning of the war, the U.S. was neutral in the conflict, because of opposition to imperialism and consequently to helping colonial powers regain their empires, because the Viet Minh had recently been their allies, and because most of its attention was focused on Europe.

Then the U.S. government gradually began supporting the French in their war effort, primarily through Mutual Defense Assistance Act, as a means of stabilizing the French Fourth Republic in which the French Communist Party -created by Ho Chi Minh himself- was a significant political force. A dramatic shift occurred in American policy after the victory of the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War. In May 1950, after the capture of Hainan island by Chinese Communist forces, President Harry Truman began covertly authorizing direct financial assistance to the French, and in June 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 Soviet-style government with Moscow ultimately controlling Vietnamese affairs. The prospect of a communist dominated Southeast Asia was enough to spur the U.S. to support France, so that the spread of Soviet-allied communism could be contained. Later in 1954 President Eisenhower described this sitution with 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.

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) moved from Yokosuka, Japan to Tourane Air Base (Danang), Vietnam in April 1954.

US Air Force assistance followed in November 1953 when French commander in Indochina, General Navarre asked General McCarty for 12 Fairchild C-119. These aicrafts were used in Operation Castor.

In March 3rd 1954, twelve USAF C-119 painted with France insignia were loaned to France with 24 CIA pilots. Maintenance was done by the US Air Force.

The 37 CIA pilots did 682 airdrops under anti-aircraft fire between March 13th and May 6th. Ceasefire began the following day under Hanoi-based General Cogny's orders.

On February 25, 2005 French ambassador to the United States Jean-David Levitte awarded the seven remaining CIA pilots with the Legion of Honor.

US Navy assistance (1953-1954)

On September 1953 the USS Belleau Wood -renamed Bois Belleau- was lent to France and sent in French Indochina to replace the Arromanches. She was used as a support to delta defenders in the Halong bay in May 1954. The same month the United States delivered additionnal aircrafts using the USS Windham Bay carrier

On April 18 1954 during the battle of Dien Bien Phu the USS Saipan delivered 25 Korean War AU-1 Corsair to be used by the French Aeronavale as a support to the bessieged garrison.

Central Intelligence Agency covert operations (1954)

Two CIA pilots (CAT) were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Twenty four CIA pilots have supplied the French Union garrison by airlifting paratroopers, ammunition, artillery pieces, tons of barbed wire, medics and other kind of military material. With the reducing DZ areas, night operations and anti-aircraft artillery assaults, many of these so called "packets" actually fallen in Viet Minh hands.

Passage to Freedom (1954)

In August 1954, the United States launched operation Passage to Freedom with French assistance and sent hundreds of ships -including USS Montague- in order to evacuate 293.000 non-communists -especially catholic- Vietnamese refugees prosecuted by the Communist Viet Minh following the French ceasefire. The last French troops left Vietnam in 1956.

China

China supplied Viet Minh with arms, ammunitions, artillery and other military equipment including a large part of captured material used by the Chiang Kai-shek's army during the Chinese Civil War. Military advisors trained the Viet Minh guerrilla to turn it into a full army. China was the Soviet Union the first nations to recognize Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnam.

Soviet Union

The USSR was the other ally of the Viet Minh supplying GAZ trucks, arms, ammunitions, artillery, Katyusha, and other military equipment. The Soviet Union was with China the first nations to recognize Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnam.

The war by Year

1946

The Indochinese conflict broke out in Haiphong after a conflict of interest in import duty at Haiphong port between Việt Minh government and the French. The French fleet began a naval bombardment that killed a large number of Vietnamese civilians. The Việt Minh quickly agreed to a cease-fire and left the cities. There was no intention among the Vietnamese to give up though, and General Võ Nguyên Giáp 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 Việt Minh and the French and Hồ Chí Minh was forced to evacuate the capital in favor of remote mountain areas. Guerrilla warfare ensued with the French in control of most everything except very remote areas.

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 had hoped, but they killed 9,000 Việt Minh soldiers during the campaign which was a major defeat for the Việt Minh insurgency.

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 Ðại to lead an "autonomous" government within the French Union of nations. 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 had 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).

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 officers of the French army. 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.

1950

Further information: Battle of Cao Bang

The United States recognized the South Vietnamese state, but many nations, even in the west, viewed it as simply a French puppet regime and would not 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 Air Force at the time).

1951

Further information: Trinh Minh Thế

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 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, made up of over 20,000 men, to attack Vĩnh Yên, 20 miles 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, they were mowed down by concentrated French artillery and machine gun fire. By January 16, Giáp was forced to withdraw having lost over 6,000 killed, 8,000 wounded and 500 captured. The Battle of Vĩnh Yên had been a catastrophe.

On March 23, Giáp tried again, launching an attack against Mao Khe, 20 miles 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. Giáp, having lost over 3,000 dead and wounded by March 28, withdrew.

Giáp 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 Việt Minh over 10,000 killed.

Every effort by Võ Nguyên Giáp to break the line failed and every attack he made was answered by a French counter-attack that destroyed his forces. Việt 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.

1952

Further information: Operation Lorraine

French colonial para firing with a FM 24/29 during an embush (1952).

On November 14 1951, the French seized Hòa Binh, 25 miles 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.

At the start of the year, 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 October 29 1952 in the largest operation in Indochina to date, 30,000 French troops 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 Phú Doan on November 9 by a parachute 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 over extended and then cut them off from the Red River Delta.

Salan, correctly assuming what the Việt Minh were up to and seeing that his troops were walking into their own trap, began a retreat to Hanoi on November 14. On November 17, the Việt Minh launched an ambush at Chan Muong, turning the French retreat into a disorganized rout. About 1,200 French troops were killed, wounded or captured before the rest of the force reached the safety of the De Lattre Line on November 24.

Though the operation was partially successful, it proved that although the French could strike out at any target outside the De Lattre line, it also showed that the Việt Minh was rapidly evolving into a well-equipped conventional army and that limited French forces could not stand against them in remote areas when they concentrated their forces.

1953

Further information: Operation Castor

A Bearcat of the Aéronavale drops napalm on Viet Minh Division 320th's artillery during Operation Mouette. (11.1953)

On April 9, 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 Henri Navarre took command 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 10 miles north of the Lao border and 175 miles 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 12 miles long and eight miles 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".

1954

Further information: Battle of Dien Bien Phu

French-Vietnamese treating a wounded Viet Minh soldier at Hung Yen (1954).

The Battle of Ðiện Biên Phủ occurred in 1954 between Việt Minh forces under Võ Nguyên Giáp supported by China and the Soviet Union and the French Union's Far East Expeditionary Corps supported by Indochinese allies and the United States. The battle was fought near the village of Ðiện 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 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 Việt Minh then began to hammer the fort with newly acquired Russian rocket artillery. The final fall took two days, May 6th and 7th, during which the French fought on but were eventually overrun by a huge frontal assault.

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 Ðiện Biên Phủ were the greatest number the Việt Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war.

Shortly after Ðiện Biên Phủ, the Groupe Mobile 100 of the French army were wiped out at the Battle of Mang Yang Pass.

The Việt Minh victory at Ðiện Biên Phủ led to the 1954 Geneva accords.

Beginnings of operation Passage to Freedom in order to evacuate catholic and loyalist vietnamese civilians from communist North Viet Namese prosecution.

Geneva Conference and Partition

Main article: Partition of Vietnam

Geneva Conference.

Negotiations between France and the Viet-minh started in Geneva in April 1954 at the Geneva Conference. 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 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 [applauding on 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 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 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.

Students demonstration in Saigon, July 1964, observing the tenth anniversary of the July 1954 Geneva Agreements

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 Ðại 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 Indochinese War, which is also referred to as the Vietnam War or the American War.

War crimes & reeducation camps

• Viet Minh artilery assault on evac convoys and medical centers at Dien Bien Phu.
• The Boudarel Affair. Boudarel was a French communist militant which used brainswashing and tortures against French Union POWs in reeducation camps. Most of the prisonners died in the Viet Minh camp.
• Passage to Freedom was a French-US operation to evacuate refugees. Loyal Indochinese evacuated to metrpolitan France were kept in camps.
• President Chirac's speech of 2004.
• Stones thrown at veterans coming back from the camps.

In 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 involvment and open critics about the French propaganda used during wartime.

The war depicted by the communist propaganda

Famous communist propagandist Roman Karmen was in charge of the propaganda exploitation of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. 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 during World War II) 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 Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. .

Censorship and influence over Hollywood productions

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 him change the end of the movie which was seen as "too much pessismistic" .

The second film The 317th Platoon (La Section 317) 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 military time, moreover as he had covered the Vietnam War he released an Oscar winning documentary called The Anderson Platoon in 1966.

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 leave and the Yellow stay" which is borrowed from the The 317th Platoon) and explicit references were removed from the edited version that was premiered in France in 1979.

Names for the conflict

• The Indochina War is used in France.
• The Dirty War (la sale guerre) was used in France by antiwar protesters (essentially communists) and leftist intellectuals.
• French Indochina War, the Franco-Vietnamese War and the First Indochina War are used in the United States.
• The French War is used in contemporary Vietnam

References

• Summers, JR., Harry G. Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. ISBN 0-395-72223-3
• Wiest, Andrew (editor). Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84693-020-6
• Windrow, Martin. The French Indochina War 1946-54. London: Osprey Publishing, 1998. ISBN 1-85532-789-9

See also

• Indochina Wars
• Vietnam War (Second Indochina War, 1957-75)
• Cambodian-Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese Wars (Third Indochina War, 1978-1989; 1979)

External links

• Pentagon Papers, Chapter 2
• Vietnam: The Impossible War
• Fall, Bernard B. Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina
• ANAPI's official website (National Association of Former Pows in Indochina)
• Hanoi upon the army's return in vitory (bicycles demystified) Viet Nam Portal
• Template:Fr Operation reports & 90,000 pictures about the First War of Indochina (Defense Mediatheque) (ECPAD)

Media links

U.S. and French newsreels

• Universal Newsreels (January 17th, 1947)
• The News Magazine of the Screen (May 1952)
• The News Magazine of the Screen (December 1953) (Operation Mouette)
• The News Magazine of the Screen (May 1954)
• Coronet Instructional Films - Communism (1952)
• Template:Fr Les Actualités Françaises (October 26th, 1950) (The War in Indo-China)
• Template:Fr Les Actualités Françaises (November 5th, 1953) (Operation Mouette in the delta)