Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

The announcement was of course an admission of weakness, tacit acknowledgment that the Expeditionary Corps as presently constituted was not up to the job. But the move gave desperate war planners in Paris a reason to hope both that their great and growing military manpower needs could be met and that Bao Dai’s anemic government could, by fielding its own army, enhance its popular support. The ordinary villager was weary of the war, French analysts believed, and wished for nothing more than peace and security. If Bao Dai could exploit this desire, if he could convince the peasantry that he would provide that security, he might be able to swing public opinion in his favor. But for that argument to have any chance of working, he needed to be his own man. And to be his own man, he needed Vietnamese troops. Far too many villagers were reluctant to enter areas held by the Expeditionary Corps. Many of them chose instead to back the Viet Minh, not out of ideological conviction but because they were Vietnamese.