Vietnam: The Fall of Dien Biem Phu On September 23, 1945, two days before General Gracey announced that it was going towards the proclamation of martial law in Saigon, a motley troop consisting of French Gaullists, liberated Vichy soldiers and other armed settlers, stormed the headquarters of the Viet Minh at the Saigon City Hall. They arrested some committee members, those who could not escape, and raised again the tricolor flag. This action began the colonial reconquest of Vietnam and the First Indochina War, which would last from 1946 to 1954. The beginning of the Indochina war. At first it seemed that the French and the Viet Minh were see- king a compromise solution. As a counterpart to the support of nationalist China, Ho had admitted in his government a small proportion of non-Communist Vietnamese nationalists and even, in November 1945, made the symbolic gesture of dissolving the Indochinese Communist Party. In March 1946, as a result of the Franco-Chinese agreement French troops replaced the Chinese troops stationed in the north of the country. Ho accepted the presence of 25,000 men, French and Vietnamese under French command, in the main urban areas of the north. For its part, France agreed to accept re- cognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state within an Indochina federation that was part of the French union, although the true meaning of that expression had not been clearly defined. The French troops were to be gradually withdrawn over five years, ending in 1952, the year in which, through a referendum, the Conchínchina pro- vinces could, if that was the popular will, become part of an independent Vietnam again. When non-communist nationa- lists denounced the arrangements, they started anti-French agitation. The Viet Minh even assisted the French in the task of suppressing them. However, despite this display of solida- rity, subsequent events more than demonstrated that nei- ther the French nor the Viet Minh had the slightest intention of respecting what was agreed. Forgetting the referendum requirement, the French High Commissioner in Indochina, Admiral Georges Thierry d’Ar- genlieu (Chales De Gaulle’s friend) proclaimed on June 1, 1946 the autonomous republic of Conchínchina, in fact a pu- ppet state in the hands of France. The political powers pro- mised to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were reverted Ho Chi Minh on an official visit to Paris, June 1946to the Indochina Federation organized under the direct control of the Gauls. The conferences held in Vietnam and France, in April and July 1946, collapsed without having reached any tangible re- sult: both sides maneuvered in search of a better position for the coming conflict. On October 15, French troops seized the Haiphong port in an act of affirmation of the political authority of the metropolis in the northern part of the country and as a precautionary measure to prevent the entry of military supplies for the Viet Minh. A naval bombardment by the French against the indigenous neighborhoods in the port on 23 November, resulted in the slaughter of 6,000 Vietnamese civilians, a figure that may seem exaggerated, but is feasible given the urban agglomeration and the poverty of the building materials. . On December 19 and 20, the Viet Minh, now an avowed communist mo- vement, responded with a revolt in Haiphong. The uprising failed because of the superior firepower of the French forces, but Vo Nguyen Giap was encouraged by the fact that it had taken the French almost a week to defite their ill-equipped guerrilla contingents from the city. The French cruiser Suffren protagonist of the bombing that Hai- phong of November 1946 Mao’s teachings. After its failed uprising, the Viet Minh pursued a policy of slow consolidation. Giap avoided open fighting and, conforming to Mao’s tea- chings on the art of war, kept the initiative. Giap believed that by keeping the French for- ces stuck, they entered what Mao called the second phase of the protracted people’s war. The first consisted of the occupation of cities, towns and communication routes by French troops. The second was to be their paralysis and the third, and final, the general countero- ffensive of the liberation movement. What this tactic of Mao has given can be seen is what has happened in countries like El Salvador and Guatemala. But at that time, the essencial thing for the Viet Minh was their own conser- vation. Even in the cases in which it faced French troops inferior in number, the guerillas dispersed. The principle established by Mao prevailed then: in each battle absolutely superior efforts must be concentrated, doubling, tripling, quadrupled, and even having their number rise five or six times over those of the enemy. When this maxim was followed faithfully, the Viet Minh’s provisional stra- tegy was successful; when he forgot it, the insurgent forces suffered serious setbacks. In addition to acting militarily against the Communists, France also used diplomacy. In april 1948, the French induced former Emperor Bao Dai to return to Indochina to form and head a Vietna- mese government. But although they agreed to provide financial aid and to recognize inde- pendence at a future date, secret clauses ensu- red dominance for the French over foreign rela- tions and military affairs. From a purely military point of view, the French were falling into their own trap. Although they increased their stren- gth to 150,000 men in mid-1949 much of their effort was spent on purely defensive measures, such as organizing, tracking, deploying patrols and escorting convoys.While the French were gradually being torn apart and discouraged by an eluding enemy, the Viet Minh was gaining military power and gaining experience. Perhaps the most important event for the Viet Minh was the victory of the Communists in China. The defeat of the Xiang Nationalists meant that arms and supplies could enter freely across the border that would henceforth be in the hands of friends. Giap, who was confident of the victory of the Viet Minh, announced in February 1950 that the moment of guerrilla warfare had passed and that the counteroffensive was about to begin. It was the prelude to the operations that culminated in Dien Bien Phu. Giap exposes his guerilla warfare to Ho Chi Minh During 1949 and 1950, the French followed the policy of “Laissez faire” letting things go at their own pace. Leon Pingon, the French high com- missioner, was more inclined to meddle in mi- litary affairs than to deal with civil matters and influenced the military commanders to take me- asures that were not always adequate. Thus, it was not reinforced in the area of the Red River delta, the area of Hanoi and Hiap Hong, nor was the slightest effort made to pacify their agricultu- ral regions. On the other hand, the Gauls unde- restimated the might of the guerrillas, although they knew perfectly well that they were receiving supplies from China. The wait-and-see attitude prevailed, but in the hope that the United States would provide much-needed modern equipment and that the French National Assembly would eventually authorize the dispatch of recruits. The calculations that the French had made about the time it would take for Giap to properly arm his troops were wrong. By the early 1950s, the Viet- namese leader had two infantry divisions, whose equipment included heavy mortars and anti-air- craft guns; and by the end of the same year, ano- ther division equipped with similar weapons. Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion in Dong Khe Confident of victory, Giap launched the attack on Dong Khe on September 16, 1950. This was a post based on the mountain range that formed the northeast border with China and was defended by two companies of the French Foreign Legion, some 260 men, who bravely resisted. After careful preparation with heavy mortar fire, the Vietnamese infantry rushed, wave after wave, to assault the French post. It came to hand-to-hand combat and then, after receiving another hail of mortars, the French defenders, outnumbered 8 to 1 by the attackers, managed to break through the encircle- ment that the Vietnamese had imposed on them. After the fall of Dong Khe, Giap attacked a retreating contingent from Cao Bang (another post in the border mountain range) and a relief column heading there. On October 9, he surprised the reinforcement troops in movement and in the open, causing them to retreat in disorder, inflicting a costly defeat on them.By the end of October, Giap had driven the French out of the northern part of North Vietnam. The Viet Minh’s successes were mainly due to their superior numbers and greater mobility. Giap’s excellent communications system allowed him to concentrate his troops at the right time and place. The climate also favors the Viet Minh: low fog, which followed the rainy season, impeded effective action by French aviation. That defeat was one of the worst in French colonial history. Of a total of close to 10,000 soldiers who manned the border, around 6,000 were held captive or had to be counted among the casual- ties. The material losses were enormous: more than 900 machine guns, 125 mortars, 13 light guns, as well as 1,200 automatic rifles, nearly 8,000 repeating and semi-automatic rifles, and some 450 trucks. The fighting morale of the French was in tatters. The politicians blamed the military and this on those. The troops were perplexed because they believed they had been beaten by a poorly trai- ned and poorly equipped guerrilla. French Foreign Legion in North Vietnam. Napalm One of France’s most famous soldiers enters this unflattering scenario: General Jean De Lattre de Tassigny, who was appoin- ted High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of Indochina in December 1950. Unlike his predecessors, he was empowered to freely take your decisions, without having to consult with Pa- ris before starting each operation. Under De Lattre’s leadership, the French air forces began to play a more important role. Aircraft of North American origin, such as the Grumman F8F Bearcats and the Douglas B-26 In- vaders, made the deployment of the Viet Minh so difficult that it was forced to move at night. Napalm bombs, composed of gelatinous oil that burned in a wide carpet of flames in contact with the ground, were used for the first time in Vietnam on De- cember 22, 1950, in an attack directed against a concentration of Viet Minh troops in Tien Yen. Explosión de Napalm durante la Batalla de Tien Yen Giap accepted the challenge thrown by the arrival of such a capable soldier as De Lattre was and sou- ght to turn the cards face up. And then he chose for his purposes the Vinh Yen post, 35 miles northwest of Hanoi. On January 14 and 15, 1951 two divisions of the Viet Minh gathered for the attack. General de Lattre reacted by personally taking over command of the battle. The Viet Minh sent row after row of at- tackers against the nearly 8,000 French soldiers. De Lattre counterattacked using all available aircraft, using napalm, other types of bombs and cannons. The Viet Minh insisted on the attack despite hun- dreds of men burned to death in the waves of the napalm. The French resisted and on January 17, in the afternoon, Giap ordered a withdrawal.This victory raised the figh- ting morale of the French. It is estimated that between 6,000 and 9,000 enemy sol- diers died and that 7,000 to 8,000 were wounded, 600 of whom were taken prisoner. Giap made some serious mis- takes, among which was his inability to predict the effec- tiveness of the French air force. The Naplam spray, a veritable shower of fire, had taken the Viet Minh by sur- prise. Still, as the French could see, the victory had been tight and it had revealed a weak- ness of its own: the inability to pursue and annihilate the retreating enemy. The French were limited by the roads. This lack of mobility became, if possible, more ostensible when, in anticipation of future communist invasions from the north, the commander-in-chief ordered the construction of a series of defensive positions that came to be known as the “Lattre´s Line ”. Such a device defended Hanoi and Haiphong by means of outposts placed in a circle that extended from the sea towards the vicinity of Vinh Yen, taking there the southeast direction, heading towards the sea again. General De Lattre also formed guerrilla counterparts composed of French and Indochinese, the latter recruited from among the Viet Minh fighters who had taken prisoner. But this innovation did not last long. The rea- son? The French officers simply did not like this irregular way of waging war. Giap was not resigned to being idle after the defeat of Vinh Yen Mao. He wanted to penetra- te the Red River delta. To this end, he tried on two more occasions to engage the French in large-scale battles in the delta area: Mao Khe in March and along the Day River in June 1951. The French were victorious at Mao Khe becau- se of their artillery superiority and the extreme quality of defense they developed. On the Day River they triumphed again, but for the reason that they succeeded in cutting off the Viet Minh supply line and had the support of a local popu- lation who did not sympathize with the Commu- nists. This confrontation, Giap overextended his forces, running out of reserve and thereby cau- sing his expertise as a commander to be called into question. The victories of 1951 restored the morale of the French. Similarly, the defeats had an impact on the Viet Minh leadership, which found a scapegoat in the person of Nguyen Binh, who conducted Viet Minh affairs in southern Indochina. Consequently, it was unfairly blamed for having suggested ac-tion on the Red River delta and for not having provided sufficient support to the Viet Minh in that area. After the unfortunate Nguyen Binh died in a skirmish with a French patrol, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap conti- nued to lead the revolutionary movement, the basis of warfare throughout the conflict. Giap strikes again. For both sides, the summer of 1951 was a time of pre- paration. Giap took advantage of this to reorganize the command structure and to try to bring under his con- trol functions such as those performed by the war de- partment, the central political office, and the supply service. General de Lattre took advantage of the break in the rainy season to replenish his strength, both in men and as a team. It hoped to use the recently organized Vietnamese national army more effectively, taking over the purely defensive sectors, leaving the French troops free for the operational sector. In general, I consider it of prime importance to reinforce the so-called De Lattre line. Giap was eager for some victory, and decided to attack the fortified points on the border again, this time at Nghia Lo. For four days, at the beginning of October 1951, the 312 division charged against the French positions without achieving great results. The French repulsed the successive thrusts with small arms. This time the paratroopers were released in time as reinforcements and to pursue and annihilate the retreating enemy forces. This success gave the French a feeling of false security. Putting their confidence in the effectiveness of the Air reinforcements, they saw no reason to conti- nue to maintain their line of outposts in the border mountains. General de Lattre de Tassigny was not content with defensive victories. He realized that to silen- ce criticism from metropolitan politicians and to get the government to authorize more funds and more reinforcement, a great offensive will be ne- cessary. A victory of such a nature also thought, to be able to incline the North American skeptics to supply more material and more money. Of the $ 23.5 million allotted by the United States in aid to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos through July 1951, the largest share by far went to Vietnam. For the offensive, De Lattre chose the city of Hoa Binh, an area of establishment of the Viet Minh Located about 80 km east of Hanoi and 40 km from the De Lattre line. On November 14, 1951, 3 battalions of paratroopers occupied the city without major difficulties. Meanwhile, other French detachments began to make their way overland towards him by two different paths. In order to establish new posts along these two new ones, the French over-extended their lines. Giap already realized it and took advantage of the circumstance. Consequently he ordered his regional troops to bulldoze the roads that the French were opening; on 9 December a key French post at Lang Tu Vu was attacked. The attack was a success, but as Giap’s purpose was more to affect the French morale Casas fuertes hechas a lo largo de la Línea Lattrethan to preserve territory, he abandoned the conquered position thus allowing the Gauls to regain ownership of it. Giap’s strategy was correct: on the one hand the enemy caused a great number of casualties, on the other, he threatened to take Hoa Binh, while the French had to insist on holding there at all costs. Indeed, as the Hoa Binh operation had hastily enchanted victory, the French did not want to look bad by making a withdrawal in order to let then save many lives. Another disadvantage was the departure of General De Lattre, who died of cancer in January 1952. General Raoul Salan, his suc- cessor as commander of the French expeditionary force, inherited an almost hopeless situation. Salan ordered the paralysis of the roads to Hoa Binh, the abandonment of the French posts along the Black River between Hoa Binh and Viet Tri, and finally the evacuation of Hoa Binh. Giap found the occasion to continue in his purpose of causing heavy casualties. Ambush by ambush, it was hin- dering the retreat and gradually destroying many elements of the French rear. With the French withdrawal, both sides stabilized to regroup, for the most part, activity during the sum- mer of 1952 was reduced to isolated encounters with the guerrillas. The Viet Minh dedicated them- selves to strengthening their divisions and concen- trating on training with the new weapons received from China. For his part, General Salan was preparing for a great offensive. It received some American supplies: sma- ll arms, artillery, trucks, amphibious vehicles, M 26 tanks and Douglas C 47 Skytrain aircraft. However, he had a setback regarding his plan to partially Viet- namize the war. Vietnam’s national army suffered from a shortage of officers and was affected by de- sertions of men serving outside their home region. General Salan found that he did not have enough French troops to carry out his planned offensive. For more than a year, Giap had hoped to cleanse the area of the mountainous area that dominated the Nghis Go outpost of French, thereby giving control of the important watershed between the Red River and the Black River. With that goal in mind, he orde- red his men to advance in the direction of the delta, perform a diversionary maneuver, and then launch a close attack on Nghis Lo. The assault began on Oc- tober 17, 1952: after some attacks the position fell; then nearby posts fell. After moving west for a month, the Viet Minh had stretched their supply lines too far and was forced to halt his offensive. Nonetheless, it was a victory for the Viet Minh. The French blamed the defeat on bad weather that ren- dered the air support and the nume- rical superiority of the enemy troops ineffective. As the Viet Minh lobbied the rugged country around Nghi Lo, General Sa- lan planned an offensive to drive his troops deep into Viet Minh-occupied territory. In the so-called Operation Lorena, which began on October 29, 1952, with about 30,000 men that left the Delta region in two groups. The operation met with some success, capturing Doan Hung (Phu Doan), a major supply center, where French forces, transported by road, were vulnerable to ambush. Furthermore, contingents of such magnitude created a logistical problem for the C47 aircraft. Consequently, the operation had to be interrupted and the withdrawal ordered. Thus, Operation Lorena failed its initial objecti- ve of provoking the Viet Minh into a great battle. Between December 1952 and March 1953 there were no major encounters, but this period of reduced activity caused increased casualties on both sides. The French hoped that the Viet Minh would not consider major offensives until the summer rains had broken out in April 1953, when it became clear that the enemy was preparing for a mass invasion on the sides. For a month, Giap moved his divisions with the dexterity of a chess master. He carried out a war of movements, very few encounters and constant displacements, which left the French entirely mired in confusion. Giap forced the French to focus on two defensive cen- ters; but then, realizing that with his primitive supply system he could not sustain a great offensive for long, he gave it up. Although the losses owed were minimal on both sides, the Viet Minh had won the strategic batt- le. The Communists were left with complete freedom of movement through much of northern Laos and in a po- sition to dominate the territory west of the Black River. Giap showed that despite their lack of air support they could control the country and keep the French at bay. These, in order to preserve their defense center (located about 480 km from Hanoi), used their entire fleet of C 47 aircraft, running out of the slightest reserve for an unforeseen action.Next >