French Indochina War

The French Indochina War was a long armed conflict fought between the French colonial troops and the Viet Minh, from 1946 to 1954, in the French colony of Indochina. The French Fourth Republic, under President Vincent Auriol, was militarily and financially supported by the United States of America, receiving US Army’s weapons and uniforms. On the other hand, the Viet Minh was supplied by communist China, even though the Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, had a different view of communism than Mao’s.

At the beginning, it was a low-intensity, insurgent war, in which the Vietnamese people fought for their political and economic independence from France, which wanted to reestablish and maintain the colonial status of Southeast Asia right after World War II. However, as the years went by, the armed struggle became more intense, ending up in May, 1954, with the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu, where the French forces were thoroughly defeated by the Viet Minh, under General Nguyen Giap. This military defeat forced France to sign a treaty, which is known as the Geneva Accords. This political agreement divided Vietnam into North Vietnam, under Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam, ruled by France through the puppet government of Bao Dai, using the 17th Parallel as the dividing line.

Brief history

France had completed the conquest of her new colony of Southeast Asia at the beginning of the 1880s, under President Jules Grévy. It was a large territory composed of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, which in turn was subdivided into Tonkin, in the north, Annam, in the center, and Cochinchina in the south. All of them were known as the French Indochina. During WW2, the Japanese had invaded these territories as they looked for natural resources, such as rubber from rubber trees.

After Japan was totally defeated in August 1945, the French returned to Southeast Asia and reestablished the colonial status of Indochina, which was ruled by a puppet government. However, by 1946, Ho Chi Minh had already declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as he did not recognize the figurehead emperor Bao Dai. Thus, the Viet Minh, which would become the North Vietnamese Army, began launching surprise attacks on French military outposts.

Summary

The French Indochina War consisted of a series of French military operations to secure routes, towns, and areas deemed important by the French for their source of natural resources. These operations or campaigns were usually initiated and conducted after a town or a piece of territory fell under communist control. Means of communications, such as Colonial Routes, navigable rivers, and ports, as well as urban centers were strategically important for both the Viet Minh and the French.

The most important military operations were carried out by the French between 1950 and 1953, such as Operation Hirondelle, Camargue, Mouette, Brochet, and Castor, which secured the valley of Dien Bien Phu at the end of 1953. In most cases, these were successful missions, but sometimes the French were forced to evacuate an area due to the harassing and eroding attacks carried out by the Viet Minh, under the command of Nguyen Giap. Meanwhile, the most important battles fought during the French Indochina War were the Battle of Hoa Binh, Dong Khe, and Dien Bien Phu, which was the French Asian Waterloo, forcing Paris to sign the Geneva Accords in July 1954.

Below, map of North Vietnam. The site of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which put an end to the French Indochina War, is marked with an arrow.

Below, the valley of Dien Bien Phu temporarily captured through Operation Castor

 A French Military Operation in 1952 during the French Indochina War (video)