Capture of Viet Minh Guerrilla

Terrorism and Anticolonial Conflicts: Vietnam and France

Photograph

Date: November 18, 1950

Source: The Associated Press

About the Photographer: The Associated Press is an international wire service that provides news and photographs to media outlets around the world.

INTRODUCTION

For over a century, the Vietnamese resisted foreign domination of their country. In the mid-nineteenth century, after the French established a foothold in southern Vietnam (which they called Cochin China), they encountered resistance from local Vietnamese officials, who refused to submit. Later, after the French expanded into central Vietnam (which they called Annam) and northern Vietnam (called Tonkin) and established Vietnam as a protectorate in 1883, insurgent peasants joined the nation's educated elite in a guerrilla war fought in the name of Emperor Ham Nghi even after the French captured him and forced him into exile in Algeria in 1888.

By the early twentieth century, the French had subdued Vietnam and gained control of its resources. French nationals were in charge of the administration of the country, while the Vietnamese worked in low-level positions. Displacing large numbers of peasants, French settlers occupied large tracts of land primarily in southern Vietnam, which became a rice-exporting region. The French opened rubber plantations and mines, where they exploited local workers who faced fines and jail time if they refused to work. The French levied taxes on major commodities, including salt, alcohol, and rice, and established a monopoly on the opium trade, turning Vietnam into a lucrative colony.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese enjoyed few political rights. They could not travel outside their district without authorization. Organized protest was brutally repressed. Fewer and fewer Vietnamese were able to pursue educational opportunities. The result of French colonial policies was to foster development of an underground resistance movement. Among the leaders of the resistance was Nguyen Tat Thanh, later known by the aliases Nguyen Ai Quoc and, more famously, Ho Chi Minh ("He Who Enlightens").

Ho Chi Minh began his organized opposition to French rule in 1941, when he formed the League for Vietnamese Independence, abbreviated as Viet Minh. During World War II (1938–1941), the Vietnamese faced the problem of dealing with two foreign occupying powers, the Japanese and French who were loyal to the Vichy government, Nazi Germany's puppet government in France after it fell in 1940. During this period, Ho Chi Minh and other guerrillas received military and financial assistance from the United States and in turn, often helped downed American pilots escape. With the end of the war, the Vietnamese resistance was hopeful that the victorious Allies would prevent the French from reasserting control of Vietnam. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam a free and independent nation.

The United States, concerned about the spread of communism in the early years of the Cold War—a concern that grew during and after the Korean War—supported France, its wartime ally, in its efforts against the Vietnamese resistance during the First Indochina War from 1946 until 1954. By 1954, the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was footing 75% of France's costs in the conflict, which were soaring because of successful guerrilla tactics used against French forces. While some Vietnamese leaders, including Vo Nguyen Giap advocated and led terrorist raids, the French were also brutal in their efforts to bring Vietnam into submission.

PRIMARY SOURCE

CAPTURE OF VIET MINH GUERRILLA

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Eventually, Ho Chi Minh and the resistance movement emerged victorious. The climactic event was the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, a military outpost in northwest Vietnam. The French had amassed 13,000 to 16,000 troops at the garrison, hoping to lure the Vietnamese into a pitched battle. Vietnamese forces began their assault in March 1954, but rather than conducting a full-scale frontal assault, they continued to employ guerrilla tactics. The French, under constant fire, unable to resupply, and battling monsoons as well as insurgent troops, fell on May 7, 1954, bringing an end to French Indochina. The dead included 2,200 French troops, with thousands more taken prisoner, and an estimated 8,000 of the 50,000 Vietnamese troops who took part in the battle.

In 1954, the Geneva Accords officially brought the fighting to an end. The accords divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel, with Ho Chi Minh in control of the area north of the line and Ngo Dinh Diem installed as president of the south. The division was regarded as temporary; the accords also called for elections in 1956 that would reunify the country.

Diem, however, did not hold the elections. Rather, he conducted a referendum that affirmed his position as president in the south. In the years that followed, Diem became increasingly authoritarian. His base of support consisted in large part of Catholic refugees from the north, so he faced intense opposition from Buddhists, some of whom protested his anti-Buddhist policies by setting themselves on fire with gasoline in public places. In response to Diem, insurgents formed the National Liberation Front, later called the Viet Cong. Diem was rapidly losing U.S. confidence and, with American support, was ousted in a military coup. He was assassinated by the Vietnamese military on November 1, 1963.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Duiker, William. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000.

Rice-Maximin, Edward. Accommodation and Resistance: The French Left, Indochina and the Cold War, 1944–1954. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Web sites

Asian Society: Education and Communications Department. "Vietnam: A Teacher's Guide." <http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/readings/r000189.htm#p> (accessed July 12, 2005).

The Wars for Viet Nam. "The Final Declarations of the Geneva Conference July 21, 1954." Vassar College. <http://vietnam.vassar.edu/doc2.html> (accessed July 12, 2005).