French troops attacking Saigon, 1859.
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu took place because of France’s refusal to relinquish her vast empire. It was Vichy France’s stance during the Second World War that sowed the seeds for the First Indochina War. The helpless French colonial authorities became pawns in Japan’s grand strategy for Southeast Asia. This provided a fertile breeding ground for the spread of communism and nationalism.
France was liberated from Nazi Germany in August 1944 and two months later the Allies recognized Charles de Gaulle’s Free French government. When Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945, de Gaulle was at the height of his power. In Europe, triumphant French armies stretched across Germany into Austria. He was head of the French government, which, although it had not been elected and consisted only of his appointees, was recognized by the rest of the world. He had become head of state by sheer willpower and force of personality, though many found him cold and distant. De Gaulle was the undisputed leader of the French empire, to which only Indochina remained to be restored.
There followed a purge of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, and in the elections of October 1945, there was a very sharp swing to the left. The new assembly was dominated by France’s communists who profited from their impressive wartime resistance record. De Gaulle, although de facto president by virtue of having liberated Paris, thanks to General Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division, forfeited his position by insisting that France should retain its empire.
Many of France’s colonies felt the time was ripe for independence. Colonial troops had shed blood for mother France during the Tunisian campaign, in Italy, metropolitan France and Germany. This was especially the case with France’s tough Algerian and Moroccan divisions. In light of the post-war situation and strained military resources, the French government needed a large defence budget, but the communist politicians opposed this.
French troops attacking Saigon, 1859.
De Gaulle was forced to resign in January 1946. He hoped this would spark a political crisis and the government would be forced to recall him. A rumour spread through Paris that de Gaulle had summoned General Leclerc from Indochina to lead a coup d’état. Instead, France survived his departure.
That year the Fourth Republic created the Union Française (French Union) to replace the Empire Française (French Empire). This conceived the idea of a ‘Greater France’, represented by an Assembly of the Union. Thanks to left-wing opposition to empire, this seemed to suggest a much more liberal policy towards France’s colonial possessions. In reality, ultimate power remained with the French parliament and the temptation to retrieve lost glory was far too great even for the Fourth Republic.
During the nineteenth century, the French had carved themselves an empire in Southeast Asia and Africa. The region known collectively as French Indochina from 1893 to 1954 is now comprised of three sovereign states: Vietnam (consisting of the three kingdoms of Tonkin in the north, Amman in the centre and Cochinchina to the south), and Cambodia and Laos. The eastern provinces of Cochinchina were occupied by France in the early 1860s.
Cambodia became a protectorate in 1862 and four years later the rest of Cochinchina was taken over. After a series of military operations, Amman and Tonkin came under French rule. Indochina was completed ten years later when Laos also became a protectorate. The French Indochina Union was created in 1887.
The pre-war French power structure allowed for an Emperor of Annam, whose realm included parts of Tonkin as well as kings in Cambodia and Laos. They all ruled within the heavily French-controlled union. Indochina’s component states were ethnically and culturally very different. The Vietnamese, generally similar in appearance to the Chinese, contrast with Cambodia’s Khmer people who are much darker, having different features and quite distinct cultural and religious origins. Equally distinct are the mountain peoples of Laos. Notably, the Cambodians and Vietnamese were traditional enemies, which helped ensure French dominance.
French military expeditions also ensured control of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In sub-Saharan Africa, France ruled the vast French West Africa federation, which had existed since 1895, encompassing eight French colonial territories. These were French Guinea, French Sudan, Dahomey (Benin), Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). The federation was ruled from Dakar, remaining firmly under the control of Vichy during the Second World War. France’s other African colonies included the equally large French Equatorial Africa, which encompassed Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville) and Gabon. This had been established in 1910 and was controlled from Brazzaville.
The French Foreign Legion was in the forefront of carving out this empire. It also acted as the glue that bound it together. Particularly in North Africa and the Levant, the Legion built their blockhouses and forts, becoming the symbol of France’s overseas military power. As well as taking a lead in empire building, the Legion was instrumental in crushing insurrection. Its success was to entrench military thinking when it came to the handling of France’s colonies.
French governor-general’s palace in Saigon, 1875.
After the fall of France in 1940, the prostrate country was divided into two. The southern, unoccupied ‘Free Zone’ was administered by a government based in Vichy. The armistice of 25 June 1940 permitted Vichy a metropolitan defence force of just 100,000 for maintaining public order. This regime, however, did not resist the German invasion on 11 November 1942. General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny wanted to fight and was imprisoned by Vichy for his defiance.
Following the armistice, the French colonial authorities found themselves in an extraordinary situation. Their first loyalty was to Vichy as the recognized government of unoccupied France, not some unknown general who had proclaimed himself leader of the Free French from the sanctuary of London. Yet Charles de Gaulle had raised a banner for all those who secretly felt that the armistice was humiliating. France should have gone down fighting and stayed in a state of war, even if all of metropolitan France had been occupied. Vichy offered nothing but a shaming compromise and smacked of collaboration with the enemy.
The Germans were lenient with France’s colonial empire, especially after Dakar repulsed de Gaulle’s Free French Forces in September 1940. This showed that France’s colonial troops were loyal to Vichy and therefore compliant. North Africa was firmly in Vichy’s hands under the supervision of the German and Italian Armistice Commission. Only French Equatorial Africa rallied to the Free French. In Syria, Lebanon and Madagascar, the Vichy garrisons resisted the Allies in 1941. The following year they resisted them in North Africa.
In his youth, de Gaulle was sceptical of the value of the French empire. While on a military course in 1938, he infuriated another student, who had just returned from Indochina, after launching into a lengthy solution for the Far Eastern problem when he had never even been there. Two years later, Equatorial Africa changed de Gaulle’s attitude forever. The recruitment of Brazzaville to his fledgling cause was welcome consolation in light of his failure before Dakar. It gave the Free French an independent base, a radio station and some 16,500 men.
French marines in Indochina, 1888.
The first thing de Gaulle did was to set up the Council for the Defence of the Empire and hold the Conference of Colonial Governors. In expressing his gratitude for the loyalty of his colonial supporters, he inadvertently overstepped the mark by saying:
In French Africa, as in all other territories where men live under our flag, there will be no progress unless the inhabitants benefit materially and morally in the countries of their birth, unless they can raise themselves little by little to the level where they are capable of taking part in the management of their own affairs in their homelands.
Whilst de Gaulle pledged to preserve French sovereignty wherever it existed, he also offered a move toward self-government, rather than adhering to the traditional concept of integrating French overseas territories with metropolitan France. The cynical might argue that he was simply being pragmatic in the face of rising nationalism in the old empires and America’s dominant anti-colonial influence. No doubt de Gaulle hoped his speech might sway the vast bulk of the French empire still loyal to Vichy. In his memoirs, de Gaulle wrote, ‘We were giving France back Independence, the Empire, and the Sword.’
In distant Indochina, the French garrison came under pressure from Japan and Thailand. The French governor-general, General Georges Catroux, found himself in an impossible position. On 19 June 1940, the Japanese insisted that he close the border with China, the British would not help, and Vichy instructed that he should comply with all Tokyo’s demands. Catroux disapproved of the armistice with Germany and was sympathetic to the Free French. Henri Lémery, Vichy’s minister of the colonies, immediately dismissed Catroux. He did not return to France but instead sought out de Gaulle.
Japan, seeking to stop the flow of arms to China and after threatening to invade Indochina, was permitted to station troops in Hanoi and Haiphong. Anyone showing support for de Gaulle’s cause was punished by the Vichy authorities. Many were arrested, and even senior officials and demonstrators were fired on.
De Gaulle could do nothing about the pleas for help from Indochina. It was too far away and he simply did not have the resources. Vichy France was intent on doing nothing that would antagonize the Japanese or their German allies. The colony was on its own. Catroux, whom British Prime Minister Winston Churchill vainly hoped might replace de Gaulle, made it clear that Indochina was totally supportive of the Free French cause. De Gaulle recalled, ‘At that time, for me Indochina was like a great disabled ship that I could help only after a long process of gathering the rescue apparatus. Seeing her moving farther away in the mists, I swore to myself that one day I should bring her back.’
Meanwhile, Thailand swiftly sought to capitalize on France’s defeat and Indochina’s disarray by claiming former territories in Cambodia and Laos. This led to a brief border war in October 1940, which, three months later, saw the Thais conduct a full-scale invasion. Although Japan sided with Thailand over territorial concessions, it continued to court Vichy. In December 1941, Japanese troops passed through Indochina with the acquiescence of Vichy in order to attack first Thailand and then British Burma, Malaya and Singapore.
After the Allied invasion of French North Africa, by 1943 every French overseas possession, with the exception of Indochina, which was under Japanese domination, had declared its allegiance to de Gaulle. This made him the virtual ruler of all Frenchmen outside occupied metropolitan France.
The Japanese tolerated Vichy’s continued civil administration of Indochina in return for substantial basing and airfield rights until early March 1945. By this stage, Vichy had collapsed and had been replaced by a hostile de Gaulle. The Japanese seized complete control, by either capturing the small French garrison or by driving it into China.
French troops fleeing over the Chinese border after the Japanese took Indochina in early 1945.
The Emperor of Annam, Bao Dai, was permitted to declare Vietnam’s independence. Prince Norodom Sihanouk did likewise in Cambodia, as did Laos. In a stroke, French Indochina vanished. De Gaulle was not happy that the one colonial possession he had pledged to restore had suddenly slipped from his grasp, thanks to Japanese duplicity.
In reality, Bao Dai ruled little more than Hanoi. North of the city, the communist-controlled League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh, had created a sizeable liberated area. Their leader, Ho Chi Minh, also had supporters in central and southern Vietnam. They not only resisted the Japanese but also removed those seen to be collaborating with the French colonial administration. Although a communist, Ho was seen as a moderate influence, holding in check the more militant leaders such as Vo Nguyen Giap – soon to be known as General Giap, the master of guerrilla warfare – who advocated violence to achieve their goals.
The Viet Minh gained favour with America, that staunch opponent of colonialism, by intelligence gathering. In return, the Americans supplied them with weapons with which to fight the Japanese. The collapse of Japan’s war effort in August 1945 presented Ho Chi Minh and his supporters a golden opportunity to finally free themselves of France.
In Paris, de Gaulle had a major problem on his hands with America. President Roosevelt made no secret of his dislike for the man, who he saw as being undemocratic. He also considered France a citadel of colonialism. Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal all had overseas empires, but in Roosevelt’s eyes, France’s was by far the worst. He was only too aware of how France and Spain had treated Moroccan independence aspirations in the 1920s: they had launched a series of bloody military campaigns.
Following the liberation of France Charles de Gaulle was determined to reclaim Indochina.
Roosevelt’s son, Elliot, who travelled to Casablanca with his father in January 1943, recalled the president was not convinced it would be right to restore the French empire ‘at all ever, without first obtaining in the case of each individual colony some sort of pledge, some sort of statement of just exactly what was planned in terms of each colony’s administration … How do they belong to France?’
In the case of Indochina, Roosevelt said the locals considered anything was better than a return to France. He was never keen on France reassuming control of Indochina, writing, ‘France has milked Indochina for a hundred years. The people of Indochina deserve better than that.’
The fact that the Philippines had been under American protection since 1902 was an entirely different matter. When Roosevelt died in April 1945, his successor Harry S. Truman was no more sympathetic.