More generally, de Lattre now declared that French officers and soldiers had sacrificed themselves needlessly to defend and protect a selfish and mistrustful Vietnamese people. “If this constant sacrificing of our youths’ flower does not prove us sincere in our desire to give Vietnam independence,” he asked, with scarcely disguised contempt, “what further is necessary to drive the point home?” In a “bona fide war,” he would at least have the consolation that his son had died a heroic death. Instead, Bernard had been “offered up on behalf of an ungrateful people,” who not only had failed to
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