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Chapter 5. The First Indochina War
- Temple University Press
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C H A P T E R F I V E The First Indochina War When a French patrol boat captured a Chinese junk carrying petroleum into Haiphong harbor, which the French were blockading , in mid-November 1945, Viet Minh shore batteries fired shots at the French boat. Angered by this action, on November 23 the commander of French forces in Haiphong gave the Vietnamese two hours to leave the French quarter, the Chinese quarter, and the docks. When the two hours expired, French troops bombarded the Vietnamese quarter, killing some six thousand people. At the beginning of December, the French demanded that the Vietnamese withdraw all their military forces from Haiphong and announced that henceforth all roads into Haiphong would be controlled by the French. Hoping to avert a war, Ho Chi Minh sent an appeal to the French government in Paris, but to no avail. The conflict quickly spread to Hanoi. When the French parachuted troops into the capital , the Vietnamese lobbed grenades at them. Meanwhile, the DRV government prepared to evacuate both cities. When the French tried to disarm the Vietnamese militia in Hanoi on December 19, in retaliation the Vietnamese cut off electricity and the water supply. Four days later, the French imposed martial law on all of northern Vietnam and a part of central Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, for his part, declared a state of emergency in the DRV (whose geographic boundaries had never been specified). Marius Moutet, who had signed the modus vivendi with Ho in March, arrived on December 25 to investigate the situation on the ground. Two days later, he announced that it would be impossible to negotiate with the DRV because “before any negotiations . . . it is necessary to have a military decision.” Radiating out from Hanoi, the fighting spread to the countryside. The First Indochina War had begun.1 36 Chapter Five Negotiating and Fighting The war lasted eight years during which the French held the cities while the Viet Minh dominated the countryside. Negotiations and fighting proceeded simultaneously. In search of an alternative to the DRV, the French tried to persuade Bao Dai to return to head a new government, but Bao Dai told them that he would expect even more concessions than Ho Chi Minh had asked for. As news of what the French were trying to do spread, many groups, including the VNQDD, the Dong Minh Hoi, the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, Catholics, and former court officials, proclaimed their undying loyalty to Bao Dai. These groups, which had never got along with one another, nonetheless formed a National Union Front in February 1947 and pledged allegiance to the former emperor. Even Ho Chi Minh contacted Bao Dai to indicate the DRV’s interest in taking “joint action” with the man who had once been designated as its “supreme political advisor.” Bao Dai coyly announced that he would go home if his people really wanted him to do so. The government in Paris also signed on to the “Bao Dai solution.” Still, Bao Dai equivocated.2 Finally, in May 1948, Bao Dai expressed his support for a provisional government to be formed by General Nguyen Van Xuan, one of the few Vietnamese to have acquired French citizenship. Perhaps because the general had served as vice president and the minister of national defense of the French-installed Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina,heenjoyednorespect.Oneafteranother,individualshe invited to serve in his cabinet declined to do so; those who eventually agreed to serve had little or no political experience. The provisional government accomplished very little with one significant exception: it persuaded the French to renounce the separate status of Cochinchina and to recognize that Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina composed a single “associated state” within the French Union. In July 1948, Bao Dai, General Nguyen Van Xuan, and a small entourage met with the French high commissioner for Indochina on a boat anchored in Ha Long Bay. They signed an agreement to formalize France’s acceptance of Vietnam’s territorial integrity as a single country. Thus, from 1948 on, though Vietnam was now one country, there existed two governments within its territory—the DRV and the government headed by Bao Dai. The latter, however, controlled no territory and its titular head continued to live in Hong Kong.3 The DRV continued to grow in strength even though it received no international diplomatic recognition. Its troops fought with weapons [44.211.36.199] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:10...