4. Colonial return and final diplomacy
War and Peace imbroglio
While Japan surrendered to Allies troops composed of Chinese in the north and British in the south of the 16th parallel, France was preparing for a hasty return to Indochina. She will have to transport her troops stationed in Ceylon, Madagascar and France itself totaling about 20,000 in fast order to reinforce her depleted contingent in the colony. In the meantime, China has 150,000 soldiers of Lu Han a warlord ready to cross the border into Tonkin, under the arrangement of the victorious Allies. On September 9th, the main force entered Hanoi. My mother recalled their arrival, hungry and haggard, ready to tear down anything and put into their bag or their mouth. People called them Tàu phù (bloated Chinese), a very demeaning label indeed. Viewed the historical sensitivity of the Vietnamese towards their fellow neighbors from the north, one could assume that Indochina was not a top priority for the Allies.
Ho Chi Minh was more concerned about the final motive of the Chinese who were still under Chiang Kai-shek orders, the nationalist leader and not exactly a Ho's supporter. And Chiang let the Americans know that they were favoring a return of France in Indochina. Ho instructed Giap and his army not to overreact and bite their tongue accepting Chinese occupying force and avoiding confrontation. In the south, the situation under the British control wasn't simple either, with a mixture of religious sects like the Cao Dai , Hoa Hao and the Binh Xuyen armed bandits roaming the streets of Saigon. With the added presence of the Viet Minh they were competing for the control of the south, in a multi party struggle, with different alliances back and forth like in a wild wild East movie. The situation had been relatively calm when suddenly fighting erupted among the different factions. And thanks to the inept handling of the British general Douglas Gracey who was siding with the colonialists. He freed and rearmed French soldiers who went on a rampage and terrorized Vietnamese locals. Thus on September 25th 1945, the first Indochina war had begun.
Leclerc the general who helped de Gaulle liberate Paris in 1944 became the new commander in Indochina and received instructions to be firm and uncompromising to the Viet Minh. The time for wavering attitude was over and Leclerc expected to pacify the South in the matter of months. But as a smart military leader, he knew that there is no military solution to a political problem which in essence was the situation in Indochina. Military operations are a kind of holding action for future negotiations towards a general political settlement with mutual concessions from both sides. The situation 20 years later, at the height of the American military buildup will be exactly the same.
Entered admiral d'Argenlieu, also a de Gaulle supporter who became the high commissioner for Indochina. If we look at the French position in 1946, at the start of the Indochina conflict, it mirrored exactly what the Americans went through years later. In retrospect, d'Argenlieu in Hanoi, the military man wearing the political hat was the general turned politician Maxwell Taylor in Saigon in 1966. Tough, professional, unwavering, these are the same attributes the public will give to the American during the 2nd Indochina war, and with the similar outcome, a stalemate in all aspects of the conflict.
Ho Chi Minh on the other side had another strategy in mind. Given the unpreparedness and the rudimentary Viet Minh army with lack of support from other nations, Ho was buying for time. He was more than ready to negotiate and resort to diplomacy for the time being. And more importantly, when it counted most, Ho got only lukewarm support from the Soviet Union under Stalin who was prepared for Chiang Kai-shek to remain in South east Asia. And Ho's communist friends in France weren't up to their reputation, instead they were advising Ho for patience. These communist national parties all toed the line of big brother Stalin and offered no big help to Ho for the time being.
Fontainebleau: the aborted peace accord
After preliminary discussions between Ho and Sainteny in Hanoi (?) in ...1946 which went nowhere, due to hagglings on the future status of VN, the next phase of the talks moved to Fontainebleau, near the Palatial residence of Napoleon. Sensing that Ho's troops were not in a position to take over the Tonkin and Hanoi, the French decided to consolidate their own forces being reinforced continually under Leclerc and d'Argenlieu. Ho's political position was not at it best, being pressured from all sides not to make concessions, but also had to produce a negotiated solution to avoid a bigger conflict which can only compromise the Viet Minh prospect in the long run. France sought self-government while the Vietnamese wanted independence and the gap was widening between the 2 parties at the table. The French stayed on their initial position that Cochin China (south VN) was not part of VN proper but of the Indochinese Federation comprising of Cambodia, Laos, Cochin China, Annam and the Central Highlands!
Ho was desperate for arriving of an accord or something that he could show to his people back home. After 8 weeks of discussion, Ho was worried that the radical elements of the Viet Minh would resort to force and wreck his peace effort. He's a hostage of French intransigence, opposition at home and the prospect of renewed fighting while he was buying for more time. To sum up, like in any negotiation, the conditions on the ground dictate its outcome, subjected to the rapport de force. And the French were still thinking they had the upper hand. It was a lost opportunity that the French were destined to regret.
Ho left VN in early June and returned only 5 months later in late October during which time he sought to extract a political settlement from the French. It was obvious that Ho's credibility has taken a hit. But he had an asset on hand, his partner Vo Nguyen Giap who was working hard to upgrade his army and prepare for war. One can see the strength of a movement by its rank and file. In this case, the Viet Minh had the better chance than most organizations, for they had the human factor which as always being the crucial element of any battle outcome. It's interesting that the 2nd Indochina War will be just a repeat of the First, with different dates, names and locations. And one fact I find revealing was the turnover rate of the main players in both camps.
For the total duration of the conflict, French and American military and political leadership were coming and leaving at a fast and furious pace, while the Communists kept their same people in place unless they were liquidated or killed in fighting. From the start, Ho's collaborators were the same lot, Giap, Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh, Ton Duc Thang, Le Duan etc...They were comrades in arm in an etymological sense. Of course they argued and fought against each other but the spirit of solidarity and the value of mission and purpose exemplified a common bond that remained unshakable. In contrast the French replaced their officials in Indochina so often they lost the sense of continuity and direction.
The same happened to the US later in South VN. It's also the clear sign their policy and action didn't bear result. And conducting a war thousands of miles away was not an easy task. The physical and psychological barrier separating the decision makers at home and the executioners on the ground remained to me an insurmountable and costly challenge. History has taught that military campaign and political conquest far away from home usually end up in disarray, even under the best of conditions even when directed by the ablest. Saint Cyr and West Point military centers surely have mentioned that in their teaching book.
The relative calm before the storm
Beginning in the spring of 1946, general Giap was preparing to consolidate his troops by creating rear base areas for rest and reinforcement . The most important was Viet Bac in the northern part of Tonkin of Cao Bang Lang Son provinces. In May the Chinese troops were withdrawing across the Sino-VN border and allowed both the French and the Viet Minh to move in to fill the void. But the opportunity was for Giap and his soldiers and they profited from the new situation to harass and attack the French. At the same time, rival nationalist groups who relied on the Chinese support were squeezed between the Viet Minh and the French. They were crushed by Giap ruthless attacks with the result that they had to fall back on the French (or Japanese) support or facing elimination.
My uncle Đỗ Đình Đạo was the case in point. It was another bitter tragedy of an fratricidal war that Vietnamese had to endure, putting them in an unenviable dead end trap. The Đại Việt Party which merged later with other nationalist groups to bear the name Viet Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD) was the main competitor of the Viet Minh. In 1946, Đạo was named chief of the Groupe Administratif Mobile en Opérations or GAMO (it reminded me of Jewish concentration camp collaborators of the Nazis KAPO), a VN military setup under French umbrella of division size unit. Dao was the son of Đỗ Đình Tiến my great uncle, a rich landowner who had the ambition of becoming a new emperor of VN (according to my mother, sic!).
Dr. Tiến, having hoarded vast quantity of gold from his farming business, bought back weapons that Japanese left after their surrender and his family fought the Viet Minh. But the Viet Minh would have none of it. They captured my great uncle Tien and liquidated him without leaving any trace while his son escaped and went to Hong Kong into exile. After his return along with Bao Dai in 1946 to VN, under his command the VNQDD armed branch went on fighting the Viet Minh in a protracted battle that lasted until Dien Bien Phu. Even after the French defeat in May 1954, the communists have a long memory, Giap and his men had him murdered by poisoning through a female double agent Thụy An who worked both for the Viet Minh and the French. His case was one among thousands of nationalists who had been eliminated by Ho and his associates.
The military situation was clear: The French controlled the cities and towns while the Viet Minh infiltrated the rural areas and the less dense regions. During day time, the French maintained security and order while at night it was contested and disrupted by Giap's forces. That kind of cat and mouse game was the standard situation which will repeat itself to become a deja vu event. It also led the French to believe or the illusion that they had things well under control. Especially for the public opinion back home, it was difficult to take the pulse of a situation evolving thousands of kilometers away and that the French government tried to put the best spin on it.
Leclerc just after a short year organizing and executing the return of French trơops to Indochina left for his next assignment in Morocco. He was replaced in July 1946 by general Etienne Valluy, another veteran of WW2. He recommended right away to put pressure with large scale operations against the Viet Minh in Hanoi and Annam while the situation in Cochin China remained tenuous. Hai Phong was the focal point of battle. It became the first major confrontation of opposite forces. Valluy went for broke and hoped to destroy the main contingent of Viet Minh troops but instead the French by using excessive bombardment and firepower just destroyed civilian quarters in the city and provoking heavy casualties. The same situation happened in Hanoi where fighting broke out in all parts of the city. But the main French objective to pin down and destroy the enemy didn't materialize.
Giap and his deputies were adept at fighting both in rural areas as in urban places. And civilian casualties as well as physical destruction just played into their hands, raising even more hatred towards the occupying enemy. The French were still gang-ho and high in adrenaline using their better equipped army hoping to crush their enemy with superior firepower. But they encountered a tenacious and agile moving enemy force that avoided direct major battle and slipped away when conditions were not at their choosing. D'Argenlieu and Valluy along with French general staff didn't quite know yet the caliber of their adversaries especially their commander Vo Nguyen Giap. They probably underestimated him and his troops and still considered them as of inferior value. D'Argenlieu the aristocrat embodied the typical colonial mindset and with his arrogant and fanatical righteousness was by all account a racist, like many of his fellow countrymen in Indochina. And they finally had to face the consequence for their contempt towards their Vietnamese foes.
Logevall in his book stated that Valluy like his predecessor Leclerc realized that he did not have the manpower to fight a long and costly guerilla war against the Viet Minh. And he didn't expect to get reinforcement any time soon from France. He had to rely on volunteers coming from Africa (Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese etc...) and from Indochina itself (Cambodians, Vietnamese and Laotians). On top there is the famed French Foreign Legion and composed mostly of ex-Nazis or former soldiers from the Wermarcht avoiding French prison in exchange for a ticket in adventure. The assembly of these assorted pot pourri contingents did have a problem of motivation and morale. They constituted a burden more than help for the French army for they detested the French as much as they fought their enemy. The stage was set for the next phase of the conflict, a protracted war that will last another 8 years, but with an outcome never in doubt for Ho and his troops.
While Japan surrendered to Allies troops composed of Chinese in the north and British in the south of the 16th parallel, France was preparing for a hasty return to Indochina. She will have to transport her troops stationed in Ceylon, Madagascar and France itself totaling about 20,000 in fast order to reinforce her depleted contingent in the colony. In the meantime, China has 150,000 soldiers of Lu Han a warlord ready to cross the border into Tonkin, under the arrangement of the victorious Allies. On September 9th, the main force entered Hanoi. My mother recalled their arrival, hungry and haggard, ready to tear down anything and put into their bag or their mouth. People called them Tàu phù (bloated Chinese), a very demeaning label indeed. Viewed the historical sensitivity of the Vietnamese towards their fellow neighbors from the north, one could assume that Indochina was not a top priority for the Allies.
Ho Chi Minh was more concerned about the final motive of the Chinese who were still under Chiang Kai-shek orders, the nationalist leader and not exactly a Ho's supporter. And Chiang let the Americans know that they were favoring a return of France in Indochina. Ho instructed Giap and his army not to overreact and bite their tongue accepting Chinese occupying force and avoiding confrontation. In the south, the situation under the British control wasn't simple either, with a mixture of religious sects like the Cao Dai , Hoa Hao and the Binh Xuyen armed bandits roaming the streets of Saigon. With the added presence of the Viet Minh they were competing for the control of the south, in a multi party struggle, with different alliances back and forth like in a wild wild East movie. The situation had been relatively calm when suddenly fighting erupted among the different factions. And thanks to the inept handling of the British general Douglas Gracey who was siding with the colonialists. He freed and rearmed French soldiers who went on a rampage and terrorized Vietnamese locals. Thus on September 25th 1945, the first Indochina war had begun.
Leclerc the general who helped de Gaulle liberate Paris in 1944 became the new commander in Indochina and received instructions to be firm and uncompromising to the Viet Minh. The time for wavering attitude was over and Leclerc expected to pacify the South in the matter of months. But as a smart military leader, he knew that there is no military solution to a political problem which in essence was the situation in Indochina. Military operations are a kind of holding action for future negotiations towards a general political settlement with mutual concessions from both sides. The situation 20 years later, at the height of the American military buildup will be exactly the same.
Entered admiral d'Argenlieu, also a de Gaulle supporter who became the high commissioner for Indochina. If we look at the French position in 1946, at the start of the Indochina conflict, it mirrored exactly what the Americans went through years later. In retrospect, d'Argenlieu in Hanoi, the military man wearing the political hat was the general turned politician Maxwell Taylor in Saigon in 1966. Tough, professional, unwavering, these are the same attributes the public will give to the American during the 2nd Indochina war, and with the similar outcome, a stalemate in all aspects of the conflict.
Ho Chi Minh on the other side had another strategy in mind. Given the unpreparedness and the rudimentary Viet Minh army with lack of support from other nations, Ho was buying for time. He was more than ready to negotiate and resort to diplomacy for the time being. And more importantly, when it counted most, Ho got only lukewarm support from the Soviet Union under Stalin who was prepared for Chiang Kai-shek to remain in South east Asia. And Ho's communist friends in France weren't up to their reputation, instead they were advising Ho for patience. These communist national parties all toed the line of big brother Stalin and offered no big help to Ho for the time being.
Fontainebleau: the aborted peace accord
After preliminary discussions between Ho and Sainteny in Hanoi (?) in ...1946 which went nowhere, due to hagglings on the future status of VN, the next phase of the talks moved to Fontainebleau, near the Palatial residence of Napoleon. Sensing that Ho's troops were not in a position to take over the Tonkin and Hanoi, the French decided to consolidate their own forces being reinforced continually under Leclerc and d'Argenlieu. Ho's political position was not at it best, being pressured from all sides not to make concessions, but also had to produce a negotiated solution to avoid a bigger conflict which can only compromise the Viet Minh prospect in the long run. France sought self-government while the Vietnamese wanted independence and the gap was widening between the 2 parties at the table. The French stayed on their initial position that Cochin China (south VN) was not part of VN proper but of the Indochinese Federation comprising of Cambodia, Laos, Cochin China, Annam and the Central Highlands!
Ho was desperate for arriving of an accord or something that he could show to his people back home. After 8 weeks of discussion, Ho was worried that the radical elements of the Viet Minh would resort to force and wreck his peace effort. He's a hostage of French intransigence, opposition at home and the prospect of renewed fighting while he was buying for more time. To sum up, like in any negotiation, the conditions on the ground dictate its outcome, subjected to the rapport de force. And the French were still thinking they had the upper hand. It was a lost opportunity that the French were destined to regret.
Ho left VN in early June and returned only 5 months later in late October during which time he sought to extract a political settlement from the French. It was obvious that Ho's credibility has taken a hit. But he had an asset on hand, his partner Vo Nguyen Giap who was working hard to upgrade his army and prepare for war. One can see the strength of a movement by its rank and file. In this case, the Viet Minh had the better chance than most organizations, for they had the human factor which as always being the crucial element of any battle outcome. It's interesting that the 2nd Indochina War will be just a repeat of the First, with different dates, names and locations. And one fact I find revealing was the turnover rate of the main players in both camps.
For the total duration of the conflict, French and American military and political leadership were coming and leaving at a fast and furious pace, while the Communists kept their same people in place unless they were liquidated or killed in fighting. From the start, Ho's collaborators were the same lot, Giap, Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh, Ton Duc Thang, Le Duan etc...They were comrades in arm in an etymological sense. Of course they argued and fought against each other but the spirit of solidarity and the value of mission and purpose exemplified a common bond that remained unshakable. In contrast the French replaced their officials in Indochina so often they lost the sense of continuity and direction.
The same happened to the US later in South VN. It's also the clear sign their policy and action didn't bear result. And conducting a war thousands of miles away was not an easy task. The physical and psychological barrier separating the decision makers at home and the executioners on the ground remained to me an insurmountable and costly challenge. History has taught that military campaign and political conquest far away from home usually end up in disarray, even under the best of conditions even when directed by the ablest. Saint Cyr and West Point military centers surely have mentioned that in their teaching book.
The relative calm before the storm
Beginning in the spring of 1946, general Giap was preparing to consolidate his troops by creating rear base areas for rest and reinforcement . The most important was Viet Bac in the northern part of Tonkin of Cao Bang Lang Son provinces. In May the Chinese troops were withdrawing across the Sino-VN border and allowed both the French and the Viet Minh to move in to fill the void. But the opportunity was for Giap and his soldiers and they profited from the new situation to harass and attack the French. At the same time, rival nationalist groups who relied on the Chinese support were squeezed between the Viet Minh and the French. They were crushed by Giap ruthless attacks with the result that they had to fall back on the French (or Japanese) support or facing elimination.
My uncle Đỗ Đình Đạo was the case in point. It was another bitter tragedy of an fratricidal war that Vietnamese had to endure, putting them in an unenviable dead end trap. The Đại Việt Party which merged later with other nationalist groups to bear the name Viet Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD) was the main competitor of the Viet Minh. In 1946, Đạo was named chief of the Groupe Administratif Mobile en Opérations or GAMO (it reminded me of Jewish concentration camp collaborators of the Nazis KAPO), a VN military setup under French umbrella of division size unit. Dao was the son of Đỗ Đình Tiến my great uncle, a rich landowner who had the ambition of becoming a new emperor of VN (according to my mother, sic!).
Dr. Tiến, having hoarded vast quantity of gold from his farming business, bought back weapons that Japanese left after their surrender and his family fought the Viet Minh. But the Viet Minh would have none of it. They captured my great uncle Tien and liquidated him without leaving any trace while his son escaped and went to Hong Kong into exile. After his return along with Bao Dai in 1946 to VN, under his command the VNQDD armed branch went on fighting the Viet Minh in a protracted battle that lasted until Dien Bien Phu. Even after the French defeat in May 1954, the communists have a long memory, Giap and his men had him murdered by poisoning through a female double agent Thụy An who worked both for the Viet Minh and the French. His case was one among thousands of nationalists who had been eliminated by Ho and his associates.
The military situation was clear: The French controlled the cities and towns while the Viet Minh infiltrated the rural areas and the less dense regions. During day time, the French maintained security and order while at night it was contested and disrupted by Giap's forces. That kind of cat and mouse game was the standard situation which will repeat itself to become a deja vu event. It also led the French to believe or the illusion that they had things well under control. Especially for the public opinion back home, it was difficult to take the pulse of a situation evolving thousands of kilometers away and that the French government tried to put the best spin on it.
Leclerc just after a short year organizing and executing the return of French trơops to Indochina left for his next assignment in Morocco. He was replaced in July 1946 by general Etienne Valluy, another veteran of WW2. He recommended right away to put pressure with large scale operations against the Viet Minh in Hanoi and Annam while the situation in Cochin China remained tenuous. Hai Phong was the focal point of battle. It became the first major confrontation of opposite forces. Valluy went for broke and hoped to destroy the main contingent of Viet Minh troops but instead the French by using excessive bombardment and firepower just destroyed civilian quarters in the city and provoking heavy casualties. The same situation happened in Hanoi where fighting broke out in all parts of the city. But the main French objective to pin down and destroy the enemy didn't materialize.
Giap and his deputies were adept at fighting both in rural areas as in urban places. And civilian casualties as well as physical destruction just played into their hands, raising even more hatred towards the occupying enemy. The French were still gang-ho and high in adrenaline using their better equipped army hoping to crush their enemy with superior firepower. But they encountered a tenacious and agile moving enemy force that avoided direct major battle and slipped away when conditions were not at their choosing. D'Argenlieu and Valluy along with French general staff didn't quite know yet the caliber of their adversaries especially their commander Vo Nguyen Giap. They probably underestimated him and his troops and still considered them as of inferior value. D'Argenlieu the aristocrat embodied the typical colonial mindset and with his arrogant and fanatical righteousness was by all account a racist, like many of his fellow countrymen in Indochina. And they finally had to face the consequence for their contempt towards their Vietnamese foes.
Logevall in his book stated that Valluy like his predecessor Leclerc realized that he did not have the manpower to fight a long and costly guerilla war against the Viet Minh. And he didn't expect to get reinforcement any time soon from France. He had to rely on volunteers coming from Africa (Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese etc...) and from Indochina itself (Cambodians, Vietnamese and Laotians). On top there is the famed French Foreign Legion and composed mostly of ex-Nazis or former soldiers from the Wermarcht avoiding French prison in exchange for a ticket in adventure. The assembly of these assorted pot pourri contingents did have a problem of motivation and morale. They constituted a burden more than help for the French army for they detested the French as much as they fought their enemy. The stage was set for the next phase of the conflict, a protracted war that will last another 8 years, but with an outcome never in doubt for Ho and his troops.
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