A few French units resisted. Ignoring Mordant’s advice, the Citadel in Hanoi held out for several hours, even after the capture of General Georges Aymé, Mordant’s successor as commander of the French Indochina Army, and even after a captured French trumpeter blew “Cessez le feu!” The Japanese finally gained control of the Citadel on the afternoon of the tenth, but after fierce fighting: 87 Europeans and about 100 Vietnamese were killed on the one side, 115 Japanese on the other. In Lang Son, the French garrison held out until noon on the tenth, whereupon the Japanese beheaded or bayoneted to death the survivors. One French commander, a Colonel Robert, was offered a pistol to commit “honorable” suicide; he refused and was beheaded.7
Only a small fraction of the Tonkin army managed to avoid early capture. One force of two thousand men, under General Marcel Alessandri, escaped to Dien Bien Phu in the remote northwestern part of Tonkin, near the Laotian border. Alessandri was soon joined by General Gabriel Sabattier, who had the presence of mind to leave Hanoi before the shooting started. Soon after arriving in Dien Bien Phu, Sabattier learned that General de Gaulle had appointed him commander of all French forces in Indochina and, further, that he was to maintain a presence in northern Indochina at any cost, to signify the continued French presence in the colony. It proved an impossible task, in the face of relentless Japanese pursuit, severe supply shortages, and plummeting troop morale. Paris sent no money, and Sabattier’s store of piasters and opium was almost gone. With the Americans offering only medicines, he saw no option but to seek sanctuary in southern China. In April and May, about 5,700 Indochina Army soldiers, including 2,400 Europeans, straggled across the frontier at various points, in wretched condition. They were promptly disarmed by the disdainful Chinese.8
II
THIS WAS A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR FRANCE IN INDOCHINA. THE MARCH coup dealt a blow to imperial authority from which it would never fully recover. Colonial rule had been based on the notion of European cultural and military supremacy, and though France had offered little more than token resistance to Japan in 1940, only now did most Vietnamese fully grasp how hollow was the French basis of power. The Japanese diplomatic victories in 1940–41, important though they were in many respects, had not appreciably altered everyday sociopolitical relations in Indochina—French officials thereafter still governed in the countryside and the villages, where Japanese officials seldom if ever set foot. Now, however, in the space of a few days, French colonial authority had disappeared, in plain view of Vietnamese in both urban and rural areas. Even de Gaulle’s modest hope that a token French military presence could be kept in northwestern Tonkin—he quite logically reasoned that such a presence would make it much easier to reassert French authority once the Pacific War was over—had been dashed. Nor did he have any means of sending troops to the Far East without access to Allied shipping. To add insult to injury, the Japanese prevailed on Bao Dai, the titular emperor of Vietnam, to proclaim his country’s “independence” and to appoint a new anti-French administration under Tran Trong Kim, a retired history teacher, to be based in Hue.9 The monarchs in Cambodia and Laos soon followed suit. Indochina seemed to be disappearing overnight.
The implications were profound, not least for the cause of Vietnamese nationalism. In the absence of colonial restraint, the latent political forces in Vietnam, which had been stymied or given only narrow lanes of expression before March 9, now received a new lease on life. Before World War II, French control over some twenty-three million Vietnamese could be maintained by twelve thousand French soldiers plus perhaps three or four times as many native troops, assisted by a very efficient secret police. Very soon after the coup de force, it became clear that such minimal numbers would thenceforth be insufficient, that any French attempt to reclaim control would demand vastly larger numbers. The woeful response to the coup made that abundantly clear. Although few Vietnamese felt any kinship toward Japan, they had expected the Americans, not the French, to liberate them. American prestige in Vietnam had risen dramatically since U.S. forces began the reconquest of the Philippines some months before and affirmed that Filipinos would soon achieve their independence. Many Vietnamese believed that the sounds of gunfire and explosions on March 9 meant that the Americans had arrived. The reality was otherwise, but a key point remained: In the hour of extreme danger, the French had shown themselves wholly outclassed by an adversary that was itself perilously close to defeat in the larger world war.10
France, all independent observers could agree, had experienced a severe decline in power, in both absolute and relative terms, as indeed had all the European colonial powers—Britain, certainly, but also the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal. If an Allied victory in most theaters seemed all but certain in March 1945 and highly likely even in the Far East, for Ho Chi Minh—and for other nationalist leaders in Asia and Africa—the continued viability of the colonial empires was anything but assured, committed though Europe’s leaders might be to that objective. France, after fighting to liberate herself from Axis tyranny, could not now easily deny that liberty to others in her fold, especially given the high hopes they invested in the new French nation that emerged from the Resistance. The stage was set for a collision of nationalisms.11
In Paris, though, these myriad problems concerning the colonial enterprise were ignored, or at least unacknowledged, by politicians who found it easy to assume that France’s five-year nightmare was over and that things could once again be more or less as they were. For the Paris government, indeed, the March coup in Indochina, however disastrous militarily, was something of a political godsend, since it allowed de Gaulle and other leaders to say that France had spilled blood in the defense of her own territory. What’s more, the coup removed the political embarrassment that was the collaborationist Decoux regime; thenceforth Indochina would be squarely in the fight against Japan. On March 14, de Gaulle delivered a heartfelt broadcast in which he promised to reverse the effects of the coup and criticized the Allies for not doing more to help the French in Indochina or to transport French troops to the Far East. “Not for a single hour did France lose the hope and the will to recover Free Indochina,” he intoned. He made clear that, in his mind at least, it was French Indochina that battled the Japanese, and that French Indochina it would remain: “By the trials of all and the blood of the soldiers at this moment a solemn pact is sealed between France and the peoples of the Indochinese Union.”12
Time and again during these weeks, de Gaulle spoke of the cohesion, the unbreakable bond, between metropolitan France and her overseas territories. Like so many in the Free French movement, he failed to grasp that the colonial peoples might consider liberation from foreign rule as important as he did. The bloody events in Indochina were a cause for concern, de Gaulle told the French Provisional Government’s Consultative Assembly on March 20, but France could and would prevail. He read a cable from one of the besieged French garrisons in Indochina praising the morale of the troops, pleading for immediate aid, and concluding with a patriotic flourish: Vive la France!13
The chamber erupted in shouts of support. Some assembly members were seen wiping away tears. For them, as for most of their compatriots in 1945, it was self-evident that the colonies were essential to the pressing task that lay ahead: restoring France to her central place on the international stage. The debates in the Consultative Assembly that spring made starkly clear that a consensus existed around the proposition that France’s future grandeur depended on the preservation of the empire. “Either we want France to resume her place as a great nation or we don’t,” assembly rapporteur Hettier de Boislambert declared in one session. “If that is not what we want, then there is nothing else for any of us to do here.” Or as Gaston Monnerville, an assimilated black from French Guiana who was president of the Assembly Committee on Overseas France, put it: “France must make a choice: to remain a second-rank nation or instead, thanks to the contribution of her overseas territories, to become once again a great power.… France is at a crossroads. Let her hesitate n
o longer.”14
Jean-Paul Sartre put the matter more simply: “In the space of five years,” he wrote that spring, “we have acquired a formidable inferiority complex.”15 A vigorous defense of the empire would be necessary to overcome it.
There were other motivations too. French business enterprises were keen to reestablish themselves in Indochina. The Michelin Tire and Rubber Company, for example, owned large rubber plantations in the interior areas of Cochin China, and numerous French firms profited from deposits of bauxite, manganese, and other minerals. In terms of security too, Indochina could be an asset, assembly members reminded one another. In World War I, France had drawn on an enormous reservoir of soldiers from the empire to help defend her against the Central Powers. Though the defeat in 1940 happened too quickly for colonial troops to be put to use, in a future war the imperial holdings could once again be critical to victory.
And yet, French officials understood, on some level at least, that times had changed; that in Indochina and elsewhere, it would no longer do to simply assert French sovereignty. Special inducements would have to be dangled to persuade the Indochinese to return to the French fold, in view of Japan’s offer for independence. Moreover, Franklin Roosevelt’s anticolonial pronouncements over the past several years had left their mark on Paris authorities. The fear of FDR-inspired international trusteeship was palpable among them. Nor was it simply the Americans that were a source of concern in this regard; both Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek had indicated general support for the trusteeship idea.16
Hence the issuance on March 24 of a carefully crafted declaration on Indochina that pledged a new imperial relationship, one based on federalism but rejecting independence.17 The ideas contained therein were not new. Already a year earlier, in January 1944, representatives of Free France had met in Brazzaville, the capital of Free French Equatorial Africa, to discuss postwar colonial policies. Though Indochina was not on the agenda, the Brazzaville conferees vowed to “elevate” native peoples in the empire through ideals of wider citizenship and constitutional reforms that would give birth to a form of federalism of “associated peoples.” The colonies would not be mere appendages of metropolitan France but would be developed in accordance with their own interests. Self-government would not happen, however—federalism was indeed designed to head it off—and the international community would have no say in how France conducted her colonial affairs. Any changes would be made within the family, much as the United States might decide to alter the status of Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.18
The Indochina declaration, already drafted when the Japanese takeover occurred, built on this Brazzaville foundation. Its principal authors were Henri Laurentie, director of political affairs in the Ministry of Colonies, and his top Indochina expert, Léon Pignon. The declaration announced the formation of an “Indochinese Federation” within a larger “French Union.” The five “lands” of Indochina—Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China (respectively, northern, central, and southern Vietnam), Cambodia, and Laos—were to be headed by a federal government composed of ministers drawn from both the Indochinese and the French communities in Indochina. The Indochinese population would become eligible for a new form of imperial French citizenship, and would receive new political and electoral rights as well as unprecedented employment opportunities. “Today, Indochina is fighting, and in its army, Indochinese and Frenchmen are striving together for victory, side by side,” the declaration said. “All the people, the leading classes as well as the masses who cannot let themselves be misled by the enemy’s contrivances, are holding out with courage and gallantry for the triumph of the cause which is that of the entire French community. Thus, Indochina is acquiring further rights to the special position that is its due.”19
What exactly were these “further rights”? The declaration did not say, but it promised equal access to jobs for Vietnamese, as well as freedom of the press, of belief, and of association. It pledged the creation of a “compulsory and effective” primary education system and the expansion of secondary and further education, and it mandated that the study of local languages and culture would be closely tied to French culture. Industrialization would be encouraged, and the federation would have economic autonomy. France would retain control over defense and foreign affairs, and the governor-general would be the arbiter of local differences. The French Constituent Assembly would determine the final shape of political participation.20
“A decisive turning point in French colonial policy,” one French official jubilantly said of the declaration as it was issued. In reality, it was anachronistic even before the ink on it had dried. Drafted largely before the Japanese takeover, it seemed blind to the new realities on the ground in Indochina. Thus while the French press—including Communist and Socialist newspapers—praised the proclamation, Indochinese groups in France excoriated it for its vagueness on the all-important matter of Indochinese autonomy and freedom. The Japanese had declared Cambodia and Annam independent; why was Paris not doing the same? To these skeptics, the declaration seemed to exist uneasily between two contradictory principles: increased autonomy for Indochina and closer imperial unity. Even more egregious, the declaration’s demand that the tripartite division of Vietnam be kept defied growing clamor among virtually all politically conscious Vietnamese—from the most conservative mandarin to the most radical Marxist—for national unity, and it indicated that Paris intended to adhere to its prewar policy of “divide and rule.” The French, Joseph Buttinger would later write, “were preparing to destroy the independence of Vietnam at the very moment when it was about to become a reality.”21
III
IF ALL VIETNAMESE NATIONALISTS WERE IN ACCORD ON THIS POINT, one group was particularly well situated to articulate it and present an alternative: the Indochinese Communist Party, led by Ho Chi Minh. For Ho and the ICP, the March coup represented a glorious opportunity, one they moved swiftly to seize. In 1941, the party had been in disarray, its members dead or incarcerated or living precariously in the jungles and swamps of the Vietnamese interior. Gradually, however, its fortunes revived, for several reasons. Most important, perhaps, the Vichy-Japan modus vivendi of 1940–45 over time grievously undermined those Vietnamese nationalist groups that had tied their fortunes to either the French or the Japanese; all were mortally wounded by the association. At the same time, the Vichy-Japan détente allowed the ICP-dominated Viet Minh to launch attacks on France’s colonial rule without being labeled as profascist or hostile to the Allied cause. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia where such agreements between Tokyo and the colonial power did not exist—notably in Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines—Communist parties were not so lucky.22
By early 1943, the Viet Minh had gained a considerable amount of control in northern Tonkin—specifically in the provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Kan, and Lang Son. This border region, peopled substantially by ethnic minorities (notably Tai, Nung, Dao, and Hmong) living in a clan-based social system, had never been brought fully under French control. The Viet Minh too encountered resistance but gradually gained the trust and participation of the population in several districts. On July 8, 1944, the French police discovered a Viet Minh base near Soc Giang in Cao Bang containing a sizable cache of arms, tracts, and clothing, and warned of the immediate need to “re-establish authority.” The following month two village chiefs were assassinated and several Viet Minh hideouts were discovered, confirming, the Sûreté reported, “some voluntary support” by the population. Louis Arnoux, the head of the Sûreté, had by then already identified the leader of the movement. In a letter to Decoux, he noted the effectiveness of “the guerrilla tactics advocated by the propaganda leaflets printed in China by the anti-French parties—whose leader now seems to be Ho Chi Minh, alias Nguyen Ai Quoc.”23
And indeed, Ho Chi Minh’s importance to the revolutionary cause in this period would be hard to exaggerate. He had been arrested in China in August 1942 by local authorities suspicious of his political activities; by his own estimate he then passed t
hrough eighteen prisons before winning his release in August 1943. During his incarceration, he kept in touch with his closest colleagues via letters written in disappearing ink, and upon his release, he stepped up his efforts to form a broad united front to drive the French and the Japanese from Indochina. In 1944, he helped put together a precarious coalition—known as the Vietnam Revolutionary League, or Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi—with several non-Communist groups operating from exile in southern China. The ICP was from the start the central force in this coalition, and Ho the leading personality. He took care to downplay his background as an agent of the Comintern and talked up the need for nationalist unity. “I am a communist but what is important to me now is the independence and the freedom of my country, not communism,” he told a Chinese general at the close of the congress establishing the league. “I personally guarantee you that communism will not become a reality in Vietnam for another fifty years.”24
By late 1944, Ho Chi Minh, now back in Tonkin, could see the endgame. He predicted that Japan would lose the Pacific War, France would seek to regain Indochina, and before that Tokyo would overthrow the Decoux regime in order to protect its army. The result would be a power vacuum the Viet Minh could fill.25 But he cautioned his more militant comrades to move carefully and to avoid launching a premature insurrection. Japan’s defeat was inevitable, he told them; why not wait until the fruit was ripe to be picked? Even in Tonkin, Ho knew, the Viet Minh controlled only a small part of the territory, while in the rest of the country—especially in Cochin China in the south—its presence was spotty at best. (Some provinces remained devoid of Viet Minh organizing until well into 1945.) “The hour of peaceful revolution has passed,” Ho said, “but the hour of the more general insurrections has not yet sounded.”26
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam Page 10
