Indochina and The Battle of Dien Bien Phu

hi on the history guy I have a degree in history and I love history and if you love history too this is the channel for you the war between North and South Vietnam fought between 1955 and 1975 known in Vietnam as the American war and in the United States has the Vietnam War was one of the deadliest of the proxy wars of the Cold War as many is a million-and-a-half north and south vietnamese combatants died in the conflict and more than 53,000 americans and while americans cannot forget the war that scarred our psyche we know much less about the conflict that drew us into that war because before the Vietnam War was the first Indochina war and the way that that war over decolonization transformed over time to become a proxy war of the Cold War is emblematic of the conflicts that followed the Second World War and so that seven-year conflict and its defining battle in a small valley near a remote village called DN bien phu deserves to be remembered french presence in Indochina started in the 17th century but it was during the 19th century that under the pretense of protecting Catholic missionaries French forces began to dominate the region officially forming the Protectorate of French Indochina in 1887 the grouping of territories eventually included the modern-day countries of Laos Cambodia and Vietnam while the French left local dynasties in each of the protectorates the power was actually held by the French colonial government during the second world war French Indochina was first of the control of the pro-german Vichy French regime and later taken over directly by the Japanese it was Japanese expansion into Indochina that prompted the American Congress to pass the Export Control Act of 1940 which restricted exports of critical materials to Japan and was seen as one of the actions that drove the Japanese to attack the United States in 1941 it was during this period that a Vietnamese communist named Ho Chi Minh created an organization dedicated to fighting for Vietnamese independence both from France in Japan called the League for the independence of Vietnam or in Vietnamese the Viet Minh as the Viet Minh was fighting the Japanese occupation they receive support from the allies including the United States who supported Ho Chi Minh's forces with military aid food in training after the war ho Chi Minh hoped to create a unified and independent Vietnam but the French wanted to restore their colonial rule under the new formation that brought all the French colonies into a French Union under the agreements made at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the Japanese forces in the North surrendered to the Chinese government represented by Chiang kai-shek and the Japanese forces in the South surrendered to a combination franco-british force the three powers China France in the Viet Minh then worked out an agreement where in exchange for other territorial concessions by France the Chinese forces vacated the country and the Viet Minh would get autonomy inside the French Union but the agreement between the Viet Minh and the French did not last long ho Chi Minh did not trust that the French gonna provide true autonomy and Ho Chi Minh wanted true Vietnamese independence in November of 1946 shots were fired between Vietnamese and French troops in the port city of Haiphong over a disagreement of the collection of import duties as a response the French Navy bombarded the Vietnamese section of the town called the Haiphong incident those shots were considered to be the first shots of the first Indochina war in the early years of a war the Viet Minh were poorly supplied and maintained mostly a small insurgency in the rural areas refusing to meet the French in open combat France was able to control most of the country at this point the Viet Minh forces were largely trained by men who had stayed behind from the Japanese Army and many of those men fought on the side of the Viet Minh for their part the inherent instability of the French promontory system there were 14 French prime ministers during the war and public opposition at home prevented the French from being able to fully prosecute the war and force the French to fight mainly with French colonial troops in the French Foreign Legion in 1948 the French formed a rival government under the former emperor Bao Dai in 1949 they recognized the Bao Dai government as an Associated state of the French Union granting similar independence to the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia he in practice however France still controlled their foreign and military policy as part of the recognition bow ties government formed its own army the war shifted in 1949 with the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War ho and the Viet Minh gained a powerful ally and a safe zone where Viet Minh troops could be trained and supplied the US which had been officially neutral in the conflict feared communist domination in Asia and started supporting the French in the end the United States was paying 80% of the costs of the war the newly empowered Viet Minh were able to score some territorial victories but the French changed to a strategy of creating fortified strong points forcing the Viet Minh to engage in direct combat rather than hit-and-run tactics this largely led to a stalemate where the Viet Minh proved unable to dislodge the French positions but the French proved unable to successfully attack outside their fortified line French resolve however was slowly wearing down in 1953 the Viet Minh shifted strategy invading Laos and attacking lightly held French positions there the French leveraging the success of their strategy of fortified strong points decided to create such a strong point in Vietnam that would block Viet Minh supply lines into Laos the goal was to draw the Viet Minh into a pitched battle the French chose is a location for the garrison an isolated valley just 10 miles from the Laotian border where the local people were supportive near the small village of DN bien phu while French paratroopers were quickly able to take the valley the Viet Minh managed an extraordinary feat moving heavy artillery provided by the Chinese through jungle territory moving them through tunnels dug into the surrounding hills and entrenching them surrounding the valley the artillery destroyed the roads and airfields Forks in the French to be supplied by air the combat on the ground was brutal trench warfare the French was stood many assaults but under the Viet Minh guns their perimeter slowly contracted making supply by air drop more difficult even as Viet Minh anti-aircraft guns took their toll on the planes dropping the supplies after a two-month siege the garrison no longer able to receive adequate supply was overrun over 11,000 troops from the French Far East expeditionary Corps were in captivity where many died later of disease after the loss the French finally accepted that victory was impossible and agreed to withdraw all French forces from French Indochina the country was to be temporarily divided between Ho Chi Minh 's government in the north and bowed eyes government in the south until elections could be held in 1956 the French loss in the first Indochina war was just the beginning of the decline of the French Empire the French were almost immediately drawn into another brutal war of independence in algeria france's oldest major colony and by 1960 all but a few small remnants of the french empire had gained their independence the elections that were supposed to occur in vietnam in 1956 never occurred the parties involved in the negotiations especially the United States and the Soviet Union could not agree upon how the elections would be conducted and when it was clear that they weren't going to be held the viet minh staged an uprising in south vietnam the united states moved to support the south vietnamese government and that's fully escalated into the second Indochina war which in the United States we know as the Vietnam War one interesting irony of the first Indochina war is that some former members of the Japanese are may stay behind and fought on behalf of the Viet Minh including members of the notorious kanpei Thai the Japanese secret police whereas on the other side the French Foreign Legion actively recruited foreign veterans including some German Polish and Russian former members of the SS and thus former members of two of the most notorious organizations of the Axis powers faced each other on the battlefields of Indochina the first Indochina war is a great example of how Wars of the past drive the wars of the present the colonial wars of the 19th century drove the wards of decolonization in the 20th century and the blocks that were created in the aftermath of the Second World War transformed those wars of decolonization into proxy wars between East and West and now as those blocks slowly disintegrate we are seeing another round of wars of decolonization as the wheel of history turns on the history guy and I hope you enjoyed this episode of my series five minutes of history short snippets have gotten history five to ten minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs-up button which you see on the right you have any questions or comments would like to suggest another topic for the history guide please feel free to write those in the comment section and I would be happy to respond and if you like five but it's more a forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 173,568

Rating: 4.9607506 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, military history, vietnam, dien bien phu, french history, world history, history guy

Id: HjEfCKZDGUE

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 29 2017