Giap spent the rainy season preparing for a large-scale autumn offensive. There was in effect a truce in the fighting from July to September, as the war came to a stop in the wet. The rain fell almost continuously, and the rivers overflowed. The spongy, saturated jungles were virtually impassable by French troops—and, for that matter, by Viet Minh units—and the going was not much easier in the watery surfaces of the deltas.
