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

by Fredrik Logevall

The Viet Minh commander’s main concern was the coming fall campaign. Having suffered bloody failures in the delta, he looked for more favorable terrain. He had his eye on the Tai highlands, an almost inaccessible area of mountain gorges, grass-cloaked plateaus, and dense jungle in northwestern Tonkin along the border with Laos. Although far from the delta, these uplands, covering an area the size of Vermont, were dotted with small French posts, and the Viet Minh had thus far failed to generate support for their cause among the roughly three hundred thousand Tai tribal inhabitants. Large-scale operations in this region could plant the necessary infrastructure for political action and moreover would force Salan to choose between abandoning the frontier and exposing northern Laos, or defending it. It would be an agonizing choice for the French, Giap knew: If Salan accepted battle in the northwest, he would draw crucial resources away from the delta to fight in an area desperately short of airfields and passable roads for his motorized troops.