Indochinese revolution

While there is no single, widely accepted name for the period, First Indochina War is one of the terms used for the period after which France reasserted its colonial authority over the Indochina, then created a proto-state of Vietnam under a provisional government. The limited authority of that government was unacceptable to a wide range of Communist and non-Communist Vietnamese nationalists, but it took time for an armed resistance to form.

The Viet Minh, certainly Communist-controlled but, its earlier days, containing other nationalists, eventually formed an armed force that defeated the French and led to the 1954 Geneva accord that partitioned Vietnam into North and South. Vo Nguyen Giap emphasized "not only did we fight in the military field, but in the political, economic, and cultural fields." In other words, they had a much clearer concept of grand strategy than the French, who were more focused on continuation of the status quo than achieving a specific objective.

Admiral Georges d'Argenlieu, the High Commissioner was the senior official, with a military deputy.

While the senior French military and civilian leadership made questionable decisions, French as well as Vietnamese soldiers of middle rank and lower were often highly motivated and proficient. Bernard Fall quotes a French lieutenant colonel:

There is a difference between us French and Don Quixote. Don Quixote rode against windmills because he thought they were giants, but we ride against windmills knowing they are windmills but doing it all the same because we think that in this materialistic world, there ought to be someone who rides against windmills.

Vietnamese nationalism has a long history, but it is quite separate from any particular ideology. Fighters against the French, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, wanted to restore the Nguyen Dynasty, to return to their roles as aristocrats or mandarin officials. The nationalist tradition goes back far before the French; the Trung Sisters' revolt against the Chinese, in the first century CE, is still celebrated. Hammer makes the vivid observation that the Sisters have as strong a role in Vietnamese identity as does Joan of Arc in French identity.

1946

In many practical respects, the revolution began with the declaration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1946. This must be taken in context; at least in the eyes of the French, the specific negotiations affected only Tonkin, the northern part of Vietnam, and to some extent the central part of Annam. At first, the French negotiated separately with Cochin China in the South, and, while Cambodia and Laos were parts of French Indochina, they were not essential issues to the Vietnamese nationalists.

Ho's September speech began with

All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inalienable rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness...These immortal words are taken from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a larger sense, this means that: all the peoples of the world are equal; all the people have the right to live, to be happy, to be free. [turning to the Declaration of the French Revolution in 1791, "It also states Men are born, must be free, and have equal rights. These are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, French forces, assisted by British troops, reasserted control within the month. French solutions still focused around a concept of French Indochina, with multiple states under Bao Dai, former Emperor of Japan and de facto head of Indochinese state during the Second World War. It was, however, by the end of 1946 before the French Far East Expeditionary Force, with the French acronym CEFEO, established.

A substantial French military force under the command of Gen. Jacque Leclerc arrived in Hanoi on March 18, after the March 6 agreement among Jean Sainteny (Commissioner in Tonkin), Ho Chi Minh, and Vu Hong Khanh of the VNQDD. d'Argenlieu had been on leave, but was amazed "yes, that is the word, my amazement that France had such a fine expeditionary corps in France and yet its leaders preferred to negotiate rather than fight." Indeed, Leclerc, who had a distinguished Second World War combat record, preferred negotiation rather than the bellicose approach of d'Argenlieu, who had no ground combat experience wnd whose experience of war was at sea during the First World War. Leclerc knew limitations: "At the present time, there is no question of imposing ourselves by force on massses who desire evolution and innovation."

By July, Leclerc transferred to North Africa; he and d'Argenlieu were totally incompatible. He was replaced by General Jean Valluy. When the Viet Minh became active in Haiphong, d'Argenlieu, in Paris at the time, asked his government to authorize Valluy to use full military firepower, and was so authorized.

Valluy ordered that the Viet Minh evacuate Haiphong in two hours. At that point, French ground troops attacked, and there was bombardment by aircraft and naval guns. Even the French agreed there were 6,000 deaths; the Vietnamese claimed 20,000. By December, there was outright war between Viet Minh (under Vo Nguyen Giap and French troops. Moutet and d'Argenlieu rejected further negotiations, and this remained the policy until the French government changed; Paul Ramadier fired d'Argenlieu and replaced him wth Emile Bollaert,wit Paul Mus, a sympathetic expert on Vietnam, as an adviser.

1947

In October 1947, the French command launched a large and complex operation called Operation Lea, which was intended to try to devastate the Viet Minh in one major campaign. CEFEO was under budget and time pressures that might soon deprive it of 25,000 or more soldiers, so they had to strike hard while they had the resources.

The attack began with paratroopers jumping on Viet Minh bases in Bac Kan Province and nearby areas. They literally found Ho's mail on his desk, but neither captured nor killed any senior leaders. An armored group had struck out from Cao Bang Province; the Viet Minh took a stand at Phu Hoang Toa, north of Cao Bang, but the French broke through. Yet another riverborne force moved on the Viet Minh from another direction.

Having satisfied themselves that they could not fight the French head-on in conventional battle, they dispersed and successfully evaded, although there were as many as 9,500 Viet Minh casualties — which could include sympathizers and civilians. Ironically, in the separate Operation Lison, a light infantry force of two battalions of T'ai montagnards, cleared their homeland mountains for nearly five years.

1948

Bao Dai participated in discussions about a provisional government, in which he might be an acceptable, if not ideal, head of state. The new government, established with Bao Dai as chief of state, was viewed critically by nationalists as well as communists. Most prominent nationalists, including Ngo Dinh Diem, refused positions in the government. Many went into voluntary exile.

There was relatively little combat in 1948, generally limited to road ambushes.

The role of Ho's Communism

A major factor in the global context of negotiations was the overall conflict between Communism and the West, which became the Containment Policy. One of the stumbling blocks, in many negotiations between delegations under Ho and those led by France or the U.S., is the assumption that dealing with Ho was equivalent to dealing with Moscow. In 1948, however, U.S. State Department analysts estimated that the "Vietnamese Communists are not subservient to Moscow," and it had been the "French colonial press that had been strongly anti-American,...to approximating the official Moscow position."

As the U.S. Office of Strategic Services missions left Hanoi, their commander, MAJ Archimedes Patti, had personal disciussins with Ho and Giap. Patti, talking privately with Ho, asked him how he had decided Communism was the way,and he responded that he did not consider himself a true Communist, but a "national-socialist". He had come to communism trhugh meetings of anticolonialists, in Britain in 1913. at that point, he did not understand the differences among socialism, communism, trade unions, and even pollitical parties. At the time, Communism was by no means unified; there had been the Socialist Party, Bolshevik October Revolution, and Lenin's Third International.

For Ho, reading Lenin's Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions was a turning point. That made Leninism his guide for years, but he objected to the U.S. considering him a puppet of Moscow. Rather than making him a hard-line Communist in American terms, he was repaying 15 years of training with party work.

A search for new allies

Ho made it clear that he saw Vietnam as standing alone, with France's goals quite different from the Vietnamese. While his movement had received help from Communist China, Nationalist China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, he felt the greatest spiritual and material help had come to the U.S., and he wanted to remember the U.S. as a friend and ally.

It would be a grievous mistake to regard Ho as a kindly uncle interested only in altruism. Yet the record showed he was quite capable of playing Communist factions against one another, in pursuit of his own agenda.

1949

Under French sponsorship in July, Bao Dai was named to head a provisional government, creating Vietnam from the Indochinese regions of Tonkin (north), Annam (central) and Cochinchina (south). Bao Dai said of it, "it is not a Bao Dai solution...but just a French solution." Among the many problems were that the non-Communist groups had too many conflicting ties, such as the VNQDD with the Chinese Kuomintang; the Constitutionalists, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, and Binh Xuyen with France; the Dai Viet with Japan. Given this factionalism, the Viet Minh, accurately or not, enjoyed support as an uniquely Vietnamese faction.

Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of the nationalist majority in the National Assembly, committed to neither Bao Dai nor Ho Chi Minh. Diem refused to lead the cabinet, saying, on January 4,

The national aspirations of the Vietnamese people will be satisfied only on the day when our nation obtains the same political status which India and Pakistan enjoy...the best posts [should be] for those who merited most of the country: I speak of the resistance elements.

With Diem's refusal, Bao Dai himself, in July, assumed the role of Prime Minister, heading a cabinet of inexperienced officials. When the French Chief of Staff, Gen. George Revers had said in May and June that Ho had been able to prevent French intervention, it was because he surrounded himself with "men of incomparable worth". Bao Dai had no such group.

By the summer, Ho's faction was becoming more and more Communist-identified, although he said in an August interview that Vietnam was not in the Soviet camp. Nevertheless, more and more of the ostensibly coalition posts were filled by Communists, and in November, the Vietnamese labor groups sent representatives to Communist international labor forums.

Road ambushes continued, with a particularly large one on September 3. The French conducted several large sweeps, reminiscent of the U.S. "search and destroy" missions of the future, especially in the Mekong and Red River Deltas. Some of the sweeps used 14 to 17 maneuver battalions, which went into the range of corps-sized operations.

This was still a period of organization for the Viet Minh. In August, Giap formed the first divisional-sized force, Regimental Group 308. Also affecting the Viet Minh was the declaration of the People's Republic of China in October, which allowed an increase in weapons shipments. With this increased aid, the Viet Minh formations became stronger. Combat operations using these larger forces, containing larger battalions armed with Chinese heavy weapons, would take place in the next year. By the end of the year, however, the Viet Minh now were equipped with artillery (American-made recoilless rifles and 105mm howitzers).

1950

France, on 29 January 1950, designated Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as autonomous "Associated States" within the French Union. Voting in the lower house of Parliament was (396-193) with 181 of the opposing votes coming from French parliamentarians. This was another example of the strength of the French Communist Party, which was a part of the U.S. geopolitical desire to support the Western-oriented parts of the French government. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. recognized them, which allowed direct military and economic assistance. The People's Republic of China responded by recognizing Ho's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, followed by Soviet recognition. Mao's revolutionary theory was praised in the Viet Minh press.

According to Giap, there was, at this time, an active resistance to the French, within the context of a "long revolutionary war" that generally follow three stages: "defensive, equilibrium, and offensive." "From 1950 onwards, campaigns of local counter-offensives and we won the offensive on the northern battlefront."

A January 5, 1950 memorandum from the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs described the U.S. policy assumption that saw Vietnam as an autonomous state within the French Union, with Bao Dai, the former Emperor of Annam, as chief of state; U.S. policy was to strengthen him. The document said that Ho had been getting supplies from the Chinese Communists, but the extent was not known. A January 17 telegram from the Secretary of State said "Ho Chi Minh is not a patriotic nationalist but a Commie Party member with all the sinister implications in the relationship."

U.S. diplomatic traffic in January speaks of unpopularity of Bao Dai, and how he could be strengthened. The designated charge d'affaires of the presumed U.S. mission to Vietnam recommended de jure recognition of Bao Dai, "de facto recognition of Bao Dai, in the popular meaning of the term, would mean that Bao Dai was in control of certain areas, and we recognized him to that extent only. The question would certainly arise, and not only in Communist propaganda, as to whether, in fact, Ho Chi Minh was in control of a larger area and a larger number of souls."

On 27 February the National Security Council issued memorandum 64 which dealt exclusively with United States policy toward Indochina. Its text included:

The neighboring countries of Thailand and Burma

could be expected to fall under Communist domination if Indochina were controlled by a Communist-dominated government. The balance of Southeast Asia would then be in grave hazard. Accordingly, the Departments of State and Defense should prepare as a matter of priority - [a] program of all practicable measures designed to protect U.S. interests in

Indochina.

While the Joint Chiefs of Staff supported aid, they were conservative, saying "United States military aid not be granted unconditionally; rather, that it be carefully controlled and that the aid program be integrated with political and economic programs". Nevertheless, they saw little choice, assessing that Bao Dai's government could not survive without the 140,000 French soldiers in the field.

If the United States were now to insist upon independence for Vietnam and a phased French withdrawal from that country, this might improve the political situation. The French could be expected to interpose objections to, and certainly delays in, such a program. Conditions in Indochina, however, are unstable and the situation is apparently deteriorating rapidly so that the urgent need for at least an initial increment of military and economic aid is psychologically overriding.

They recommended an immediate USD $15,000,000 in aid, with additional funding granted in accordance with still-developing United States policy.

President Truman, apparently without consulting any Members of Congress, approved the position on 24 April 1950 and the United States was officially committed to the Indochina war. "

The Korean War began in June. This was an immediate trigger for the U.S. to order military aid to the French, to strengthen as an Indochinese bulwark against Communist expansion. This involved support to the Bao Dai government, and various American officials cautioned that support of a French colonial army could hurt U.S. anticommunist goals in Indochina, and indeed in Europe. Ho was seen as unattractive, but less so than Bao Dai. Further, French commitments in Indochina interfered with their military role in Europe. Assistant secretary of state Dean Rusk, however, saw Ho as captured by Moscow.

As another example of the pattern of the start of an offensive in late fall or winter, in October 1950, the Viet Minh started a campaign against French forts along the Chinese border. Large Viet Minh forces, in divisional strength, defeated isolated forts one by one, until the main base at Lang Son evacuated prematurely. French losses included 6,000 men and huge quantities of supplies.

Whey tried to use similar tactics in the more open Hanoi area, they took severe casualties from French air and naval firepower at the Battle of Vinh Yen.

1951

While the Indochinese Communist Party had gone underground, officially dissolved in 1945 to obscure the Viet Minh's communist base, it resurfaced as the Vietnam Workers' Party in February, at a meeting called the Second National Party Congress of the ICP. Ho was elected chairman and Truong Chinh as general secretary. Truong Chinh had been the party ideologist and #2 in status since the return to Vietnam in 1946, although he had not been espcially active in the early revolutionary days. The renamed Communists, now called the Viet Nam Workers' Party (Lao Dong) became far more prominent, although the Lien Viet coalition ostensibly remained a broad front.

Given that the French had fallen back to a line north of Hanoi, the Viet Minh focused on Tonkin and consigned Cochin China to a lower priority. Giap wanted to free the northern areas to allow easy logistics from China, and launched a major offensive, with newly formed units of divisional strength. Their goal was to be in Hanoi by Tet in mid-February.

Giap did not fully appreciate, while he had tactical initiative, that the French had fallen back to a defensible line, behind which they had significant mobility, as opposed to their situation at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. A new French commander, Marshal Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, had taken over the Indochina command in December 1950.

North Vietnamese political and organizational changes

These defeats caused low morale and desertions. Giap's political opponent in the Viet Minh, Truong Chinh, attempted to have him relieved, and Giap survived with humiliation. Giap had learned a valuable lesson.

The countryside was to encircle the towns, the mountains were to dominate the rice lands of the plains.

He changed to leading the French on futile but costly chases. He encouraged them to defend static positions while he kept mobile, until, in 1954, he could fight a set-piece battle on his terms: Dien Bien Phu.

There were other political changes. While the military force continued, informally, to be called Viet Minh, the Viet Minh was formally absorbed into the "National Union of Viet Nam", or Lam Viet.

De Lattre ordered an offensive to take Hoa Binh, with a first phase, Operation Tulipe, on November 10, 1951. General Raoul Salan had tactical control of the operation. By November 19, the force had taken Hoa Binh.

Giap did not stop his plans for an upcoming attack in the Red River delta, but counterattacked toward Hoa Binh, with the focus on Tu Vu. He took Tu Vu with heavy casualties on both sides. Using it as a base, he began to reduce French pockets along the Black River, leading to Hoa Binh. The French fell back to the river, with uncomfortable similarities to the site-by-site movement against the norther fort line in October 1950. He also was able to block French river convoys moving to Hoa Binh.

1952

On February 5, Salan decided to make a fighting withdrawal from Hoa Binh, on the grounds that the troops were needed in the defense of the Red River delta; the retreat was over by the 23rd. There are suggestions he considered that a strong Delta defense had the chance of producing another Battle of Vinh Yen, where the French were able to mass air power on attacking troops in the open.

In April, Salan was named de Lattries' replacement.

Fall and Winter 1952

On October 17, 1952, the Communist forces opened a fall offensive with a three-division attack in the T'ai hill country of the North, centering on Nghia-Lo, which anchored the French static defense line in the area.

Senior French commanders, remembering the disastrous results to their border forts in 1950, decided to pull back, having 6th Colonial Paratroop Battalion, under Marcel Bigeard, jump in as a sacrificial rear guard. There had changes on the French side. Salan had held Na San, in October, trying to repeat the Vinh Yen victory with a strongpoint there, but the wiser Communists bypassed it. They took Nghia Loa in October and Dien Bien Phu in November; Dien Bien Phu had earlier been abandoned by the French.

The paratroops held, taking heavy casualties, especially at Tu-Le Pass. The paratroops, in turn, asked a company of irregulars, at Muong-Chen, to hold while they escaped. 16 out of 84 of that unit survived.

Airborne raids and Operation Lorraine

Following the establishment, by paratroopers, of a base at Na San, the Viet Minh bypassed the french forces. On November 30, 1952, they took a place, defended only by a few Laotian infantry, called Dien Bien Phu. French commanders, seeing northern Laos falling under enemy control, decided to risk a deep thrust into the enemy's rear.

Operation Lorraine, as this thrust was called, was planned to have four phases, the first planned to run from October 29 to November 8:

1. Cross the Red River at Phu Tho
2. Break out of the bridgehead at Phu Tho, and link up with another group moving north from Viet Tri, on Highway 2. The joined groups would then march to Phu Doan, where Airborne Group 1 would be dropped to meet them. A dissault naval unit would protect their flank and cut off enemy troops trying to escape by water
3. The three ground units would sweep the Phu Doan area and destroy enemy facilities there.
4. At this point, the French expected the Viet Minh to pull out of the northern hills to protect their rear. Further French moves would be based both on their success in the Phu Doan area, and the opportunities generated from the operation.

This would be the largest operation ever run by the French, with five groups (i.e., four mobile and one airborne units comparable to modern brigaes), 2 infantry battalions, 5 commando units, two naval groups, artillery, engineers and four armored units, with a total of about 30,000 men.

1953

In April, having completed their tours of duty, Salan and his key staff officers returned to France. Henri Navarre, a protege of the senior solder of France, Marshal Alphonse Juin, replaced the mortally ill de Lattre on May 28. He had no Asian experience, and there were questions about his choices of staff and subordinates.

French counteroffensive

Responding to Giap's successes, Salan created an airhead in enemy territory, and inflicted some casualties at the Battle of Na San, which was at least as effective as Operation Lorraine. A paratroop attack, in July 1953, was successful against the Viet Minh depot at Land Son, perhaps overstating the capabilities of competent paratroopers, especially with the limited available air support.

A deep counterattack, called Operation Lorraine, was prepared, using the largest French force in any one mission, approximately 30,000 men. Airborne and riverine units again surprised the enemy with their speed, as in Operation Lea in 1947.

After another parachute landing and link-up with tanks, in early November, French forces found, at Phu Duan, by no means a major depot new Soviet-built equipment. This included trucks, light through heavy mortars, and up-to-date individual weapons. Colonel Dodelier, commanding the operation, pointed out the strength of this secondary depot even after the Viet Minh had impressed local labor to remove all that cound be removed. He reflected "...how large the Viet Minh main depots in Ŷen Bay and Thai Nguyên must be. This certainly sheds a new light on the enemy's future offensive intentions."

Giap had refused battle and continued to hold his Black River postions, and it was realized that Operation Lorraine had taken a position that was of no value. Salan ordered the Lorraine troops to begin a retreat, which began successfully but ran into major ambushes on the 17th. On November 23, Giap counterattacked against Na San, taking two outposts, but 308 Division was repulsed at Na San, with heavy losses. By December 1, the French had destroyed Black River bridges and fallen back, with casualties equalling the strength of a battalion, yet not establishing — Na San was not it — the strongpoint against which the Communists would smash themselves, as they did at the Battle of Vinh Yen. They were to try once again to establish such a strongpoint, at a place called Dien Bien Phu..

Politics

The French established Bao Dai, who had called for, in the absence of a legislature, for major political leaders to join in a "National Congress" in Saigon. He thought it might strengthen his hand when he negotiated with the French. Bernard Fall, who attended, wrote: "That National Congress ... became a monumental free-for-all in which nationalists of all hues and shades concentrated on settling long-standing scores and in outbidding each other in extreme demands on the French and on the Vietnamese Government."

French form a "fire brigade"

After the end of the Korean War, the French transferred their force to Indochina, the Bataillion de Corée, which had distinguished itself, to Indochina. On November 15, 1953, an reaction force, Groupe Mobile 100 (GM100), was created, with a core of the Korean veterans.

The Dien Bien Phu campaign

Navarre, apparently in response to Thai pressure under the Franco-Thai treaty, decided to reoccupy Dien Bien Phu as a step to pacifying the Thai region of Indochina. Paratroopers jumped into Dien Bien Phu on November 20. Navarre also saw it as defending northern Laos, although General Georges Catroux, the head of the subsequent French investigation into the disaster there, said it was quite limited in the area it could dominate. It was harder to understand why the French thought it was a valid strongpoint. Navarre, and Pierre Koenig, a distinguished WWII commander, said that a group of U.S. experts had inspected the location and assured the French that plausible Russian anti-aircraft artillery could not interfere with its resupply by air, and that French artillery could defeat any Communist artillery in the surrounding hills. Catroux's investigation put special blame on the northern theater commander, Rene Cogny, for not seriously testing the optimistic assumptions.

Giap threatened Lai Chau, in Thailand, in December.

1954

The North Vietnamese began their attack on Dien Bien Phu on March 12, with a force of 50,000 regular troops, 55,000 support troops, and 100,000 transport workers, versus 15,000 French. They had managed, quite beyond French expectation, to put well-protected artillery and air defenses into the surrounding high ground, making air resupply almost impossible. Brigadier General Christian de Castries, commanding Dien Bien Phu, was a paratroop leader, skilled in the offensive but not an expert in dogged defense. Dien Bien Phu fell on May 7; the Geneva Conference began the next day.

GM100 dies

GM 100 had had some success in relieving An Khe in April. On June 24, however, GM100 was ambushed and destroyed, at the Mang Yang Pass on Highway 19.

War's end

Officially, the war ended on July 20. Prisoner exchanges showed an unexpectedly high number of the French captives of the North Vietnamese had died in the prison camps, and that there had been, as in the Korean War, systematic pressure for conversion to the Communist cause.

Geneva conference

Several groups started the talks:

• China, led by Zhou En-Lai with Chang Wen-t'ien and Li K'e-nung
• Bao Dai Indochinese, with Dac Khe and Tran Van Don
• Royal Cambodian Indochinese, with Tep Phan and Sam Sary
• France, under Georges Bidault, with Jean Chauvel and Pierre Mendès-France
• Royal Laotian Indochinese, with Phoui Sananikone
• Soviet Union, under Vyacheslav Molotov
• United Kingdom, under Anthony Eden
• United States, introduced by John Foster Dulles but led by Walter Bedell Smith with U. Alexis Johnson
• Viet Minh, under Pham Van Dong

Barred at first were

• Viet Minh-led Free Cambodians Khmer Issarak
• Viet Minh-associated Free Laotian ]]Pathet Lao]]

The negotiations were complicated by bilateral issues. Dulles said the only way he could meet with the Chinese would be in a car accident. French and Viet Minh delegates would meet but Bao Dai and Viet Minh would not. The U.S. also would not meet with the Viet Minh. Not all Franco-American military information went to the British.

Pham Van Dong's initial proposal was for the French to leave promptly and let the Vietnamese, dominated by the Viet Minh, to work out the country. France and Bao Dai obviously were opposed, but at least France could discuss it with them. Eventually, Pham Van Dong and Tran Van Do were convinced to have private meetings.

Zhou's priorities were blocking U.S. expansion into Vietnam, Vietnamese expansion into Laos and Cambodia, and promote ties to the neutralist bloc. Soon after, Zhou met with Indian prime mininster Jawaharlar Nehru at the Bandung Conference. Zhou told Mendes-France that as opposed to the Viet Minh demand, he supported a cease-fire before negotiations. He also foresaw partition.