The a thousand year old domination of Vietnam by China influenced not only the country’s religion and language but also fuelled the Vietnamese hate for foreigners and establishment of control in their country. The only success of the west was in establishing Christianity in Indo-china in the sixteenth century. From the 1600’s Vietnam fell into disunity as competing clans jostled for power. In the late 1700’s a prince of one of these clans, Nguyen Anh, sought support from France. The French King, Louis XIV, was persuaded to help Nguyen Anh in his quest for power. By 1858 the French were seeking to expand their colonial empire. They used the support given over half a century earlier as the pretext to establish a base in Vietnam. The French claimed a moral reason for colonising Vietnam - the civilising mission (mission civilisatrice) - the obligation of advanced peo

By late 1946 it was clear there would be a war of independence in Vietnam between the Viet Minh, a nationalist-communist movement, and the French, a colonial power. On 23 November 1946 French planes and warships bombarded the Vietnamese section of the port of Haiphong killing 6000 people. The Viet Minh retreated from Hanoi after a heavy battle up to the safety of the mountainous north. During 1947-1948 the classic pattern of guerrilla warfare conflict typical of the Indochina wars took shape. The Viet Minh operated from bases in the countryside with small tightly equipped units using ambush attacks. The French controlled the urban centres and major roads of South and Central Vietnam. Isolated and fortified or built-up areas, they continued their old colonial policies. In early 1954 the French launched a plan which they hoped would end the war. The plan was to entice the Viet Minh to attack a French camp and then destroy the Viet Minh forces. The place chosen was Dien Bien Phu. The French plan ended in disaster: The location was surrounded by mountains and thick jungle and was 200 miles from the French supply base at Hanoi; the weather on the day was wet making it difficult for the French to supply or evacuate their troops by air support; French use of tanks was seriously restricted by the wet conditions and jungle vegetation; by January 1954 General Giap had over 40,000 troops based in the mountains around Dien Bien Phu surrounding the French force of 13,000 troops; the Viet Minh had hauled a large artillery force in to the mountains and were ready to fire on the French base. In March Giap attacked, the Viet Minh dug a series of tunnels as to gradually encircle the French strongholds. On 7 May Giap’s forces captured the French command post; over 80 percent of the French forces were killed or died later in prison camps. Dien Bien Phu ended the first Indochina war, it clearly showed the difficulty of fighting the Vietnamese in their own country. Dien Bien Phu also represented a significant defeat for Western imperialism.

Japan surrendered in August 1945 and a series of factors enabled the Viet Minh to seize control of Vietnam: Japanese defeat left a power vacuum presenting the Viet Minh with an opportunity to assume control; shortages of rice had resulted in deaths by starvation; the Viet Minh exploited crisis by providing food and directing discontent of peasantry towards those who had supported the French and Japanese. With the Viet Minh slogan: ‘Break open the rice stores to avert famine’, a general uprising erupted in August. Giap and his Viet Minh troops entered Hanoi on the 17th of August. Bao Dai, the puppet emperor of the Japanese, abdicated and asked the Viet Minh to form a government in Cochinchina. Within ten days of the Japanese surrender the Viet Minh controlled Vietnam. On 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh proclaimed, in Hanoi, the independence of a new state to be known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Unfortunately for Minh the Allies had agreed that when the Japanese were defeated, Indochina should be temporarily occupied by the Chinese Nationalists in the north and by British troops to the south. Th

Some topics in this essay:
Viet Minh, South Vietnamese, France France, Chi Minh, South Vietnam, Phu French, Vietnam French, South-East Asia, Bien Phu, viet minh, Nguyen Anh, south vietnam, ho chi, south vietnamese, ho chi minh, chi minh, bien phu, dien bien phu, dien bien, indochina war, vietnam war, democratic republic vietnam, republic vietnam, south vietnam including, viet minh 1941,