He did not advocate wholesale concessions to the Vietnamese, and he continued to affirm the righteousness of the French cause. (Leclerc was never as conciliatory, never as moderate, as many historians have suggested.)14 But he grasped that the military means at his disposal were limited and that he faced not one but two potential foes in Tonkin—the Viet Minh as well as the Chinese occupying forces under Lu Han.
