Vietnam - Viet Minh on the warpath
The partisans lacked everything except will and ingenuity. At first, they relied on captured weapon and ammunition, but soon, with the help of three thousand Japanese deserters, weapons production was organized in guerrilla camps, and spent cartridges were carefully collected and reloaded after battle. The organization enjoyed widespread popular support: according to conservative estimates, the Viet Minh was supported by approximately 10 million Vietnamese. This support came in the form of direct participation in combat, labor service, or tax payments. Ho Chi Minh also didn't hesitate to use opium dealers to finance the movement, although he himself tried to avoid dabbling in the business.
War? Forget it!
The French frankly couldn't care less about the war 13 kilometers away. In 1947, the country happily forgot the hardships of wartime (they had suffered them—real hardships!), gorged itself on food and drink, sewed dresses designed by the young Christian Dior, and called the colonial turmoil "les sales guerres"—dirty wars. Against this backdrop, on January 20, 1946, General de Gaulle resigned as head of government and went into opposition. Then, as often happens, the distinguished general's eyes were opened! He realized that France had no vital interests in Indochina and was unable to hold on to it...
Maurice Thorez was the vice-premier; the communists did not hold higher positions in France.
But the general's rivals in the political arena didn't see it that way. For starters, the Fourth Republic had its own circus: after the war, crowds of communists and socialists (they were the majority in the Resistance) entered parliament, but the Americans refused to allocate Marshall Plan funds until they purged all leftists from the government, starting with Deputy Prime Minister Maurice Thorez. The uproar, of course, was enormous, and against this backdrop, the colonialist minority quite successfully pushed for the return of Indochina to the bosom of "La Belle France."
And what's surprising about the fact that the Vietnamese tried to fight during the dry season?
The war on the peninsula immediately assumed a protracted character: Uncle Ho's primary goal was to minimize the French presence in Indochina's costs. Therefore, the guerrillas avoided major battles, instead constantly waging a "small war." The Viet Minh considered the dry season from October to April to be the most suitable for combat operations, while May to October was a time for rest. Well, resting, perhaps—they engaged in combat and political training. Was it for nothing that Ho Chi Minh spent his time in Moscow? However, this was in the countryside: in the cities, explosions and machine-gun fire thundered year-round. This became the backdrop to local life: once, at a reception hosted by the mayor of Haiphong, guests heard an explosion and gunfire. After a police officer in attendance explained that a Vietnamese man had simply been shot for throwing a grenade into a police station, everyone present returned to their cocktails and canapés as if nothing had happened.
French fort in Vietnam
These gentlemen were extremely lucky. Because during a similar event, guerrillas burst into the home of a French official on Cape Saint-Jacques, near Saigon, armed with grenades and old British Sten guns. The party ended with the deaths of eight men, two women, six children, and four Vietnamese servants. What could the French counter the guerrillas with? Essentially, the same thing the British tried to counter the Boers in the Boer War: a network of blockhouses, although in French they were called forts and "miradores"—watchtowers. What were these marvels of fortification art? Minefields, barbed wire, sandbags, logs, ditches studded with sharpened bamboo stakes, and corrugated iron barracks within the perimeter. In total, about a thousand such structures were built.
Mirador: a garrison, judging by the white caps, from the Foreign Legion
The problem was that all this fortification was no more useful than the British network of blockhouses in South Africa. The guerrillas didn't use the roads that controlled these masterpieces of French military thought, but used jungle trails instead. The mines surrounding the forts were removed and used for their intended purpose, but this time against the descendants of the Gauls themselves. They were the ones who used the roads. French small boats plied the Black River, firing at the guerrillas (or those they mistook for guerrillas), and receiving fire in return. In the mountains, the GCMA (the French equivalent of the American "Green Berets") trained guerrilla units from local tribes, in order to set them against guerrilla units from non-native tribes. Since the Frogmen's helicopter fleet was meager, with only 23 aircraft, parachute landings were abnormally frequent (roughly once a week) during the First Indochina War. Regular infantrymen were constantly engaged in the tedious and unhealthy task of combing the countryside for Viet Minh presence.
While combing the countryside
Every now and then, the French managed to pick off a few guerrillas, but it took such effort that... Uncle Ho's strategy was starting to work—the war was becoming expensive, very expensive, for the Fourth Republic! Vo Nguyen Giap was a good smoker. history, both classics in the spirit of Clausewitz and more recent role models in the spirit of Mao Zedong. On January 27, 1947, his troops skillfully staged an ambush on a convoy of Vietnamese colonial officials. The ambush resulted in the destruction of 14 vehicles and the deaths of the Minister of Education and a French engineer. This positive experience was scaled up, and soon Highway 5 was dubbed "Bloody Road" by the French, and one village, near which the guerrillas frequently staged ambushes, was simply bulldozed. This did not endear the local population to the colonialists.
In Vietnam, secret societies have a deep history, so the guerrilla war had a solid social base. The worst situation was for village elders, who, willy-nilly, collaborated with the French administration. They most often fell victim to the Viet Minh—they were buried alive. However, the fate of Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial units was no better: the guerrillas lacked humaneness. But the terror wasn't one-sided: the French were given carte blanche to take any measures to combat the invisible enemy, so they shot at anything that moved, taking into account their superior firepower.
They shot at everything that moved...
The French simply called the destruction of villages in areas where guerrilla units were active "Operation." The brutality of these operations was explained by the fact that local peasants knew where the guerrillas were hiding, where ambushes would be set, and where traps were laid. On average, for every Frenchman or their ally killed (armies of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, plus some Montagnards, fought on the colonial side), five civilians were killed. In November 1948, a massacre occurred in the village of Michát, where approximately 200 women and children were killed. However, unlike the Americans with their massacre at My Lai, the French deny this "operation," blaming their allies. Often, they didn't waste ammunition on the extermination of civilians: several were tied up and drowned in the river.
Senegalese riflemen in Vietnam
The French considered the years 1947–49 relatively calm. Nevertheless, approximately 200 Foreign Legion soldiers died during this period. The Legionnaires became part of the heroic French mythology of the Indochina War. They were nicknamed "genre rouleau compresseur"—"road rollers." However, it was shamefully omitted that the majority of the Foreign Legion at that time was staffed by experienced counterinsurgency specialists. Belarusian partisans. The Legion sheltered soldiers and officers of the SS and Wehrmacht, especially those accused of war crimes—they were not extradited from Indochina.
Naturally, the legionnaires stole everything that wasn't nailed to the floor, but mostly gold and money. The "Senegalese riflemen" weren't above anything: they even stole salt and fish sauce from the local population. The Moroccans were traditionally the lowest of the low—they were the worst in the French army. However, according to the memoirs of Vietnamese peasants, any French sergeant was their king and god, addressed as "ngai"—"Your Excellency," as gods and mandarins were formerly addressed. Some Western historians express a completely intolerant and offensive view of the French: the cruelty of the colonial administration was based on the experience of the German occupation of France, where the Nazis managed to terrorize the local population into keeping quiet. But the Vietnamese weren't French...
Moroccans on the march
Against this backdrop of panopticon, the guerrillas, despite their cruelty, looked extremely advantageous—they were distinguished by their honesty. As a result, the Viet Minh enjoyed the support of the local population throughout the war. This further intensified the colonialists' repression. In response, the guerrilla units swelled with new members, motivated to drive the colonialists and their henchmen out of Vietnam. In short, the wheel of escalation was spinning, with no end in sight. It became clear to the French administration and the military that new ways out of the current situation had to be found.
Emperor Bao Dai and de Lattre de Tassigny, it is immediately clear that people are doing well!
The administration focused on creating an anti-communist front led by the former Emperor Bao Dai, who had been cleansed of the Parisian dust and returned to his homeland. His Imperial Majesty had no authority whatsoever, but he was a sucker for francs and piastres from his masters, so the military decided to use its own methods. An additional 62 infantry battalions were deployed to Vietnam: 13 North African, 3 airborne, 6 from the Foreign Legion, and the rest French. In addition, several hundred thousand local militiamen were recruited, each with varying degrees of usefulness, but mostly uselessness. The problem was that Vietnam was vast! And all these forces could only control a series of loosely connected "archipelagos" of towns and villages within its territory.
In 1949, the situation for the French became dramatically more complicated. Mao's victory in China significantly eased the Viet Minh's situation. First, the Vietnamese communist guerrillas found safe haven in communist China. Second, Uncle Ho's fighters obtained American weapons supplies from the warehouses of Chiang Kai-shek's defeated army. Camps were established in China's border regions where young Vietnamese fighters underwent military training. And the units themselves were joined by Chinese advisers, who had eaten a whole dog sled in guerrilla warfare.
The war was becoming more and more expensive for France with each passing day. The border regions with China had to be abandoned—losses there had become absolutely indecent. Moreover, by law, France could not send conscripts to Indochina—all French units were exclusively mercenaries. And the mercenaries' morale was lower than that of the city sewers. The Germans in the Foreign Legion did whatever they wanted in their free time. What they wanted was to guzzle rice vodka and smoke opium, as was clearly evident from the smell of burnt caramel in the barracks, their yellow complexions, and the ingrained oily soot on the index finger of their left hand.
"We were amazed that humanity had invented paper that rained off."
Then, in December 1950, High Commissioner Jean de Lattre de Tassigny decided to create a conscript army of Vietnamese. An unofficial fee for exemption from conscription was immediately introduced—50,000 piastres, so the quality of the Vietnamese units left much to be desired. By this time, Giap commanded six divisions of 10,000 men each. All the fighters were well armed with small arms, and there were a sufficient number of machine guns and mortars. Of course, not everything was ideal: problems with uniforms and food were a fact of life, but the guerrillas had something to fight with. In 1952, they were even issued waterproof tents, which for yesterday's peasants was something fantastic. As one soldier said, "We were amazed that humanity had invented paper that drips rain." Paradox: French Indochina produced rubber in huge quantities, but local residents viewed it as a miracle...
Uncle Ho at Dongkha
In September 1950, five Viet Minh battalions attacked the French base in Dong Khe (sometimes spelled Jong-Khe, with other spellings also found). This was where Vo Nguyen Giap's military leadership began. He meticulously planned the operation, which later became his signature. However, nothing ever goes according to plan in war—one of the battalions lost its way, resulting in heavy guerrilla losses. To inspire the fighters, Uncle Ho personally walked several kilometers through the jungle, urging calm and fortitude among the soldiers and commanders. The battle lasted 52 hours, and on September 18, the French fort fell. Only one officer and 32 Foreign Legion soldiers managed to escape and, after a week of wandering, reached their unit's base.
This became the impetus: Cao Bang fell short of Dong Khe, and the French decided to abandon it. The garrison commander, Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Charton, decided, contrary to orders, not to abandon any of his belongings and to take everything with him. He paid the price: after 15 kilometers, the column encountered a blown-up bridge and stopped, after which it was rained down upon by fire from thousands of guns. 3500 soldiers (Task Force Bayard), under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Lepage, were sent to meet the breaking column. Just before reaching Dong Khe, the group was ambushed. Lieutenant Colonel Lepage received orders to abandon the vehicles and artillery and march through the jungle to meet Charton's dying group. The two groups met on October 7: both were short of water, ammunition, and food; Lepage's group was forced to abandon its wounded in the jungle, never to be seen again. And at that moment, the French detachment was attacked by 15 Viet Minh battalions...
Victory! It's no sin to get drunk here...
Panic gripped the mercenaries, and their commanders ordered them to break up into small groups and flee as best they could. The results of the "operation" were staggering: only 600 fighters managed to reach their own lines, while 4800 were killed or missing. The wounded Lieutenant Colonel Charton was captured. 450 trucks, 8000 rifles, 950 machine guns, and 100 mortars were lost. Giap admitted that after this battle, he got drunk for the first time in his life! True, the Vietnamese losses were also high, 9000 killed and wounded, but news of the glorious victory quickly brought thousands of new recruits to the Viet Minh ranks. Meanwhile, the defeat forced the abandonment of another garrison – in Lang Son.
Vo Nguyen Giap was not invincible. In 1951, he suffered several devastating defeats near Hanoi: the French used napalm bombs in Vietnam for the first time, costing the guerrillas 6000 dead and 8000 wounded. But Ho Chi Minh continued to trust his commander, and he lived up to his trust.
No, not the Americans - the Foreign Legion after the ambush...
True, in 1950, the French found themselves with "endless ammunition": the United States assumed the costs of the war in Indochina. Truman was concerned about the communist threat and couldn't afford to engage in another war at the same time as Korea. So he simply paid the bills regularly. Soon, the United States also began supplying the troops fighting in Vietnam with equipment, weapons, and gear, which is why photos from the First and Second Indochina Wars are sometimes confused: the two sides were armed almost identically, drove identical jeeps, and wore the same helmets. Incidentally, not everyone in the United States was thrilled with the French's support in Vietnam. In 1951, a young congressman from Massachusetts visited the country and wrote: "In the minds of the Vietnamese, we are increasingly becoming colonialists. They are convinced that we control the UN and are inexhaustibly rich, and therefore they curse us for not supporting them in realizing their national aspirations." The congressman's name was John Kennedy - the irony of fate!
By 1953, the Americans were paying 80 percent of the military costs of the Indochina War—approximately $1 billion per year. Having learned from the bitter experience of the collapse of the empire, the British warned Eisenhower against such generosity: no amount of money or weapons would help the French retain their colonies. But, according to British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, "At present, the emotional attitude of the United States toward Communist China and, to a lesser extent, Russia, borders on hysteria."
De Lattre Line
The hysteria is understandable: Uncle Ho knew how to rip off the French—to defend the Red River Delta, they erected the "de Lattre Line," 2200 fortified positions, pouring 39 million cubic meters of concrete into the ground. This construction was especially favorable to... the Viet Minh: guerrillas attacked isolated fortified positions, taking them out one by one. The guerrillas moved stealthily through the jungle—in single file, so that everyone could see the backpack of the one in front—and took up positions for the attack. First, sappers would stealthily remove the mines, then, using a pole charge, they would make a passage in the barbed wire, after which the command "Tien Len!"—"Forward!"—would follow, and the infantry would rush into the attack.
"Iron Mike" O'Doniel, it would be hard to kill such an advisor!
In April 1953, a new front opened in Laos. At the same time, China increased military supplies from 250 to 2000 tons per month. The French situation became critical, and to salvage the situation that summer, General Henri Navarre was appointed as the new commander of forces in Indochina. General John O'Doniel, nicknamed "Iron Mike," the US commander in the Pacific, visited his headquarters in Saigon. He gave his French counterpart "valuable advice" based on experience from the Korean War: try to force the Viet Minh onto a battlefield with well-prepared positions, covered by artillery and aviationFrom these positions, the American believed, the French would be able to crush Giap's army and inflict a defeat from which the Viet Minh would be unable to recover. Navarre agreed with his colleague's arguments and chose the battlefield for his eventual victory. It bore the romantic name "Valley of Jars," or Dien Bien Phu in Vietnamese.
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