Den Bien Phu
Map of American forces encamped at Den Bien Phu
In September 1945, less than a month after Ho Chi Minh had announced the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 200,000 Chinese troops invaded from the north, occupying the major city Hanoi. Hoping to seize the territory after the surrender of the Japanese who had formerly occupied it, their general went into negotiations with Ho, who was still determined to pursue Vietnamese independence. Ho managed to negotiate with their general, agreeing to dissolve the Vietnam Communist Party and to alter the nation’s newly written constitution to yield a government that would be a coalition between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of China. This agreement, while preferable to a total occupation by the Chinese, put an end to Vietnam’s short lived independence, and forced them to concede the values they had long fought for.
In February of 1946, in an even more unfavorable turn of events, the Republic of China traded its stakehold in Vietnam with the French for districts they had captured in China’s capital of Shanghai. Ho Chi Minh, representing his nation, had no choice but to sign an agreement with France placing Vietnam in the French Union of colonies. After years of fighting, Vietnam was again a French colony. Throughout the following year, Vietnam and the occupying French forces would collaborate in ridding the state of any parties that could oppose the joint rule of the Vietminh and French government coalition. Throughout this process, Ho Chi Minh and his cabinet attempted to negotiate peace treaties with France that would prevent their further military expansion into Vietnam, but no agreement could be reached. Finally, in December of 1946, with the Vietminh the only surviving Vietnamese nationalist party, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam declared war on the French Union, launching it and the surrounding territories in the Indochinese War.
With a French blockade limiting them to only remedial supplies, the Vietminh were forced to wage a guerrilla war against the French, relying on their knowledge of the landscape and their access to local resources to injure French forces, then disappear. This continue for nearly four years until 1950, when the Vietminh were able to break the French blockade and transport Ho Chi Minh to meet with Communist leaders Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong in Moscow. There they held a conference on the Vietnamese plight in which Mao promised to train 60,000-70,000 soldiers to supplement the Vietminh in their fight for independence. These forces, along with the break in the French blockade which allowed them to receive support and supplies, were the support that the Vietminh needed to break France’s forces. In 1954, the Vietminh guerilla army dealt a crushing defeat to the French at Den Bien Phu, a city in the hills North-Western Vietnam and key supply route to and from Laos. This defeat crippled the French occupational forces, and within weeks they announced their military withdrawal from Vietnam and the Indochinese region as a whole.
As part of surrender negotiations, Vietnam was divided by the French at the 17th parallel into two sovereign nations: the North was to be a communist republic led by Ho Chi Minh and the remains of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the South was to become a French-supplied monarchy led by former dynastic emperor Bao Dai.
In February of 1946, in an even more unfavorable turn of events, the Republic of China traded its stakehold in Vietnam with the French for districts they had captured in China’s capital of Shanghai. Ho Chi Minh, representing his nation, had no choice but to sign an agreement with France placing Vietnam in the French Union of colonies. After years of fighting, Vietnam was again a French colony. Throughout the following year, Vietnam and the occupying French forces would collaborate in ridding the state of any parties that could oppose the joint rule of the Vietminh and French government coalition. Throughout this process, Ho Chi Minh and his cabinet attempted to negotiate peace treaties with France that would prevent their further military expansion into Vietnam, but no agreement could be reached. Finally, in December of 1946, with the Vietminh the only surviving Vietnamese nationalist party, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam declared war on the French Union, launching it and the surrounding territories in the Indochinese War.
With a French blockade limiting them to only remedial supplies, the Vietminh were forced to wage a guerrilla war against the French, relying on their knowledge of the landscape and their access to local resources to injure French forces, then disappear. This continue for nearly four years until 1950, when the Vietminh were able to break the French blockade and transport Ho Chi Minh to meet with Communist leaders Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong in Moscow. There they held a conference on the Vietnamese plight in which Mao promised to train 60,000-70,000 soldiers to supplement the Vietminh in their fight for independence. These forces, along with the break in the French blockade which allowed them to receive support and supplies, were the support that the Vietminh needed to break France’s forces. In 1954, the Vietminh guerilla army dealt a crushing defeat to the French at Den Bien Phu, a city in the hills North-Western Vietnam and key supply route to and from Laos. This defeat crippled the French occupational forces, and within weeks they announced their military withdrawal from Vietnam and the Indochinese region as a whole.
As part of surrender negotiations, Vietnam was divided by the French at the 17th parallel into two sovereign nations: the North was to be a communist republic led by Ho Chi Minh and the remains of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the South was to become a French-supplied monarchy led by former dynastic emperor Bao Dai.