The First Indochina War

The French withdrawal from Vietnam in 1954 was the product of global pressures and triggered significant global consequences. By treating the war as an international issue, this book places Indochina at the center of the Cold War in the mid-1950s. Arguing that the Indochina War cannot be understood as a topic of Franco-US relations, but ought to be treated as international history, this volume brings in Vietnamese and other global agents, including New Zealand, Australia, and especially Britain, as well as China and the Soviet Union. Importantly, the book also argues that the successful French withdrawal from Vietnam – a political defeat for the Eisenhower administration – helped to avert outright warfare between the major powers, although with very mixed results for the inhabitants of Vietnam who faced partition and further bloodshed. The End of the First Indochina War explores the complexities of intra-alliance competition over global strategy – especially between the United States and British Commonwealth – arguing that these rivalries are as important to understanding the Cold War as east-west confrontation. This is the first truly global interpretation of the French defeat in 1954, based on the author’s research in five western countries and the latest scholarship from historians of Vietnam, China, and Russia. Readers will find much that is new both in terms of archival revelations and original interpretations.

Shawn McHale explores why the communist-led resistance in Vietnam won the anticolonial war against France (1945-54), except in the south. He shows how broad swaths of Vietnamese people were uneasily united in 1945 under the Viet Minh Resistance banner, all opposing the French attempt to reclaim control of the country. By 1947, resistance unity had shattered and Khmer-Vietnamese ethnic violence had divided the Mekong delta. From this point on, the war in the south turned into an overt civil war wrapped up in a war against France. Based on extensive archival research in four countries and in three languages, this is the first substantive English-language book focused on southern Vietnam's transition from colonialism to independence.

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A multifaceted history of Ho Chi Minh’s climactic victory over French colonial might that foreshadowed America’s experience in Vietnam On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of by any other national liberation movement. The Road to Dien Bien Phu tells the story of how Ho Chi Minh turned a ragtag guerrilla army into a modern fighting force capable of bringing down the formidable French army. Taking readers from the outbreak of fighting in 1945 to the epic battle at Dien Bien Phu, Christopher Goscha shows how Ho transformed Vietnam from a decentralized guerrilla state based in the countryside to a single-party communist state shaped by a specific form of “War Communism.” Goscha discusses how the Vietnamese operated both states through economics, trade, policing, information gathering, and communications technology. He challenges the wisdom of counterinsurgency methods developed by the French and still used by the Americans today, and explains why the First Indochina War was arguably the most brutal war of decolonization in the twentieth century, killing a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians. Panoramic in scope, The Road to Dien Bien Phu transforms our understanding of this conflict and the one the United States would later enter, and sheds new light on communist warfare and statecraft in East Asia today.

"Vietnam 1946 is a masterful narrative of the immediate origins of the first Vietnam War. It is, by turns, vivid and shocking; it is always immensely revealing. Tønnesson brings forensic clarity to crucial events about which, even now, some sixty years later, fundamental misapprehensions exist. An outstanding work of scholarship of major international importance."—Martin Thomas, author of Empires of Intelligence "Tønnesson captures brilliantly the 1946 confrontation between two republics: France determined to redeem itself from Axis humiliation by regaining Indochina; Vietnam equally determined to retake independence after eighty years of colonial servitude. Tønnesson also demonstrates, however, that some leaders on each side really wanted a peaceful, mutually beneficial outcome. Descent into full-scale war was not inevitable. This is a carefully researched, clearly written analysis of a vital moment in the 20th century history of both countries. It is also a meditation on the elusive boundary between free will and determinism in human affairs."—David Marr, author of Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945 “Stein Tønnesson's Vietnam 1946 answers the fundamental question about the first of Vietnam's 20th century wars, the one fought against the French: how did it happen? He has written a meticulously researched account which restores their contingency to the events. The first Indochina war, like those that succeeded it, was not inevitable and Tønnesson explains why and how it happened anyway.”—Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990

When the world held its breath It is 25 years since the end of the Cold War, now a generation old. It began over 75 years ago, in 1944long before the last shots of the Second World War had echoed across the wastelands of Eastern Europewith the brutal Greek Civil War. The battle lines are no longer drawn, but they linger on, unwittingly or not, in conflict zones such as Iraq, Somalia and Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced AK-47s and ICBMs, one such flashpoint was French Indochina At the end of the Second World War France sought to reassert its military prestige, but instead suffered humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu in French colonial Indochina. The First Indochina war became a textbook example of how not to conduct counterinsurgency warfare against nationalist guerrillas. Anthony Tucker-Jones guides the reader through this decisive conflict with a concise text and contemporary photographs, providing critical insight into the conduct of the war by both sides and its wider ramifications.The Viet Minh, after resisting the Japanese in Indochina, sought independence for Vietnam from France. The French, with limited military resources, moved swiftly to reassert control in 1945, sparking a decade-long conflict. French defense of Hanoi rested on holding the Red River Delta, making it a key battleground. When the Viet Minh invaded neighboring Laos the French deployed to fight a set-piece battle at Dien Bien Phu, in 1954, but instead were trapped. All relief attempts failed and French defenses were slowly overwhelmed. America considered coming to the garrisons rescue using nuclear weapons, but instead left it to its fate, which set the scene for the Algerian and the Vietnam conflicts.

In 1950, France experienced two parallel but different outcomes in its Indochina war. While the conflict in the north ended with a disastrous defeat for the French at Dien Bien Phu, in southern Vietnam, or Cochinchina, France emerged victorious in a series of violent but now largely forgotten actions. In the Year of the Tiger tells the story of this critical southern campaign, revealing in dramatic detail how the French war for Cochinchina set the stage for the American war in Vietnam. In northern Vietnam, the French troops had focused on destroying Viet Minh main force units. A dearth of resources in the south dictated a different strategy. William M. Waddell III describes how, by avoiding costly attempts to defeat the Viet Minh in the traditional military sense, the southern French command was able to secure key economic and political strongholds. Consulting both French and Vietnamese sources, Waddell examines the principal commanders on both sides, their competing strategies, and the hard-fought military campaign that they waged for control of the south. The author’s deft analysis suggests that counter to widely accepted views, the Viet Minh were not invincible, and the outcome of the conflict in Indochina was not inevitable. A challenge to historical orthodoxy, In the Year of the Tiger presents a more balanced interpretation of the French war for Indochina. At the same time, the book alters and expands our understanding of the precedents and the dynamics of America’s Vietnam War.