December 19, 1946 – First Indochina War: Start of the Battle of Hanoi
When French authorities demanded that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) government relinquish control of Hanoi, on December 19, 1946, some 30,000 Viet Minh fighters attacked the French, and attempted to block access to the main French garrison in the city. French authorities, who were informed of the plan, foiled the Viet Minh. But the latter detonated explosives that shut down Hanoi’s power plant, cutting off electricity and plunging the city into darkness.
In the ensuing two-month long Battle of Hanoi, French and
Viet Minh forces engaged in intense house-to-house fighting, but French
military superiority, especially the use of heavy artillery and air firepower,
forced Viet Minh forces to evacuate the city and retreat to their traditional
strongholds in the Viet Bac region in the far north. French forces then gained control of Hanoi. By late 1946, the Viet Minh still controlled
the areas around Haiphong, Hue, and Nam Dinh, but in March 1947, French
operations cleared the roads to these major urban areas.
Present-day Southeast Asia.(Taken from First Indochina War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)
Early in the war, the Viet Minh suffered from a serious lack
of weapons, and thus resorted to guerilla warfare. But they took advantage of Vietnam’s
thickly covered jungle mountains for refuge and concealment. Jungles and mountains comprised 40% of Vietnam’s
territory, an invaluable asset for the Viet Minh, but also a formidable
obstacle which French forces were unable to overcome in the war. Throughout the war, while the French
controlled the major urban areas, Viet Minh forces operated in much of the
hinterland regions, where they established their influence, and gained the
support of the residents in remote villages and settlements.
The French military in Indochina
was organized as the French Far-East Expeditionary Corps (CEFEO; French: Corps
Expéditionnaire Français en Extrême-Orient).
At its peak, CEFEO had a total strength of 200,000 troops, and consisted
mostly of pro-French Vietnamese soldiers.
Small contingents also were brought in from French territories in Africa, as well as from the French Foreign Legion. Early on, CEFEO suffered from inadequate or
obsolete weapons, which nonetheless had more firepower than those used by the
Viet Minh.
In October 1947, French authorities launched Operation Lea
in Bac Can
Province (located near the Chinese
border) with three major aims: to stop the flow of weapons from China to the
Viet Minh, destroy the Viet Minh organization, and capture the Viet Minh
leadership. Some 1,000 French commandos
were air-dropped in Viet Minh-held territory, while 15,000 ground troops were
tasked to block Viet Minh escape routes.
The offensive inflicted some 9,000 Viet Minh casualties, but the French
also suffered 1,000 killed and 3,000 wounded; large quantities of Viet Minh
stores and equipment also were seized.
But Ho Chi Minh and his commanders, as well as the bulk of the Viet
Minh, slipped past the French cordon.
A second French offensive (Operation Ceinture) in November
1947 near Thai Nguyen and Tuyen Quang failed to battle the Viet Minh, which
again escaped. The Viet Minh implemented
the policy of carrying out guerilla attacks in scattered areas in order to
over-extend French forces and defeat the French in a protected war of
attrition. The French soon experienced
dwindling military resources and were unable to launch more large-scale
attacks, while the Viet Minh, by late 1947, had grown to some 250,000 fighters,
and occupied areas that the French had abandoned.
By 1948, France
realized that it could not anymore restore colonial rule in Indochina. French authorities therefore opened talks
with former Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai regarding establishing a pro-French
Vietnamese state, which would accomplish the political objective of undermining
the Viet Minh and its DRV government.
Negotiations were successful, with the French government and Bao Dai
signing two agreements: the First Hai Long Bay Agreement (December 1947), which
stipulated Vietnam’s
“independence within the French Union”, and the Second Hai Long Bay Agreement
(June 1948), which provided for a clearer stipulation of Vietnam’s
independence. In both agreements, France
would continue to administer Vietnam’s
foreign policy decisions and external security functions. As a result of the two agreements, Bao Dai
formed a new government in Saigon. However, within a short period, he abdicated
and left Vietnam for Europe in frustration at not being granted genuine
political power.
The French renegotiated with Bao Dai, which led to the
signing in March 1949 of the Elysee Agreement, which stipulated the formation
of the State of Vietnam comprising Tonkin,
Annam, and
Cochinchina. However, the agreement also
allowed France to continue
to control Vietnam’s
foreign policy and external security functions.
Bao Dai then returned to Vietnam
and formed a new government. Under
French oversight, in July 1949, the “independent” Vietnamese state formed its
own armed forces (the Vietnamese National Army), which thereafter fought alongside
CEFEO.
During the first years of the war, the major world powers
saw the conflict merely as an internal (i.e. colonial) matter of the French, or
an independence struggle of the Vietnamese people. In March 1947, U.S. President Truman
delivered a speech, which eventually came to be known as the Truman Doctrine,
where he vowed to “contain” what he saw was the Soviet Union’s expansionist
ambitions in Greece and Turkey. This new American policy marked the start of
the Cold War.
During World War II and in the immediate aftermath, the U.S. government appeared opposed to restoring
French rule in Indochina, for a number for reasons: Ho Chi Minh had been a U.S. ally in the war; pre-war French colonial
rule had been repressive; and the United States was averse to
colonialism. But with the restoration of
French rule, the United States
kept a hands-off policy in Indochina.
Two events changed U.S.
policy toward Indochina and Asia. First, in October 1949, Chinese communists,
emerging victorious after a long civil war in China,
established the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a communist
state. Second, in June 1950, North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and the
PRC, invaded U.S.-allied South
Korea, triggering the Korean War. President Truman became convinced that not
only did the Soviet Union have expansionist ambitions in Europe, but that
Soviet leader Josef Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong also were determined
to spread communism in Asia. The next
U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would introduce the Domino Principle,
which stated that if the communists prevailed in Korea and Vietnam, the rest of
the countries of Southeast Asia would be next to fall to communism, akin to a
row of dominoes falling one after the other.
As a result, the United States
strengthened its military presence in East Asia,
reversing its post-World War II policy of withdrawing American forces from the
region. In February 1950, the U.S. government recognized the French-backed State
of Vietnam,
which was led by Bao Dai. In July 1950,
the first shipments of U.S.
war supplies arrived. Three months later
(September 1950), after French and American military officials held talks in
Washington, D.C., the United States established the Military Assistance and
Advisory Group (MAAG), tasked with serving as the liaison agency that would
provide weapons, as well as military advice and training. U.S. military support to the French
would dramatically increase over the following years to a total of $3
billion. By 1954, the United States would be supplying 80% of the
total weapons used by French forces in Vietnam. A total of 1,400 tanks, 340 planes, 240,000
small firearms, and 150 million bullets were sent.
