Despite such signs of French intransigence, pressures on Paris to teach a settlement were increasing as the result of reports that Sino-French discussions were under way in Chongqing to bring about the departure of Chinese troops and their replacement by the French. To lubricate those talks, official sources in Hanoi hinted at a willingness to consider concessions to bring about a satisfactory settlement. There were similar signs of compromise in Paris, where the resignation of Charles de Gaulle in mid-January resulted in the formation of a new and potentially more conciliatory coalition government led by Félix Gouin of the Socialist Party.
De Gaulle left no suggestions to his successor on how to handle the situation in Indochina, although he later chastised High Commissioner d’Argenlieu that order should have been restored prior to the opening of talks. D’Argenlieu returned to Paris in January to confer with the new government, while leaving instructions with General Leclerc not to use the word “independence” in talks with Ho Chi Minh. But Sainteny reported that Ho insisted on the phrase “independence within the French Union.” Otherwise, he warned, there would be war. On February 14, Leclerc cabled Paris with the suggestion that if France agreed to include the word “independence,” the preponderance of the problem could be resolved. “The moment is opportune,” he proposed, “for a precise governmental declaration confirming the word independence.” Independence, he said, could be accorded “on a limited basis, within the context of the French Union, to all of Indochina.” But d’Argenlieu, an imperious former Jesuit priest whose conservative views once earned him the sobriquet “the most brilliant mind of the twelfth century,” rejected the idea.17
Prior to his resignation, de Gaulle had dispatched Max André, a member of his cabinet, to Hanoi to sound out Ho Chi Minh’s attitude on a settlement. According to a French source, Ho hinted to this visitor at a possible willingness to permit a return of French troops to the north under certain conditions. But Ho was also under pressure from within his own constituency not to give in to the French, Nationalist publications criticized him incessantly for engaging in discussions with the French and called for the dissolution of his “government of traitors,” who would sell out the interests of Vietnamese independence in order to keep themselves in power.
Any tendency to compromise was becoming increasingly difficult because of the intensifying conflict in the south. In November 1945, French troops landed along the central coast and seized the resort city of Nha Trang. The city was then encircled by local Vietminh troops. A few weeks later, French units under General Alessandri crossed the Sino-Vietnamese frontier into Indochina at Lai Chau, in the far northwest, and began to seal off the border region to prevent the Vietminh from communicating with supporters in south China. Units of Hanoi’s National Defense Guard were sent toward the area to halt or delay the French advance. In an interview, General Lu Han confirmed the entry of the French troops but denied reports that an agreement to permit them to enter Indochina had been reached at the Sino-French talks.
In mid-February 1946, however, French sources confirmed that an agreement with China to bring about the withdrawal of Chinese occupation troops from Indochina was about to be concluded, and warned authorities in Hanoi that a political settlement between France and the DRV must be achieved soon. Otherwise, they intimated, the consequences could be harmful. In a cable to Paris on February 18, Sainteny reported a decisive talk with Ho Chi Minh two days earlier during which Ho agreed to abandon his demand for inclusion of the word “independence” in the proposed peace settlement and agreed to his country’s membership in the French Union. But Ho demanded in return that “the French government recognize in Vietnam the principle of self-government.” In Paris, d’Argenlieu expressed his agreement in principle.
While these negotiations were under way, a Reuters dispatch on February 20 disclosed the provisions of the projected Sino-French agreement, whereby Chongqing agreed to permit the arrival of French troops in the north to replace departing Chinese forces. To punctuate hints that Paris would not hesitate to use force if Hanoi refused a compromise, General Leclerc began making preparations for a French military landing at Haiphong. When this news broke in Hanoi, the mood was somber. Nationalist activists, already galvanized about reports of Ho’s willingness to compromise on the issue of independence, organized demonstrations on downtown streets and called for a general strike against the government. Some demanded the resignation of Ho Chi Minh and the formation of a new cabinet under “Citizen” Vinh Thuy. When crowds approached Hoan Kiem Lake, they encountered pro-government demonstrators, and clashes broke out between the two groups.
In an interview with journalists on February 22, Ho Chi Minh refused comment on the rumored Sino-French agreement, but subsequent events showed that Vietnamese leaders were concerned. During the next few days, the government intensified war preparations, organizing additional self-defense units and urging children and the elderly to leave the city. In the meantime, preparations were hastened to complete the formation of a new coalition government and convene the National Assembly, whose members had been elected in January. Sainteny had recently expressed his willingness to consider the possibility of Vietnamese autonomy (with no mention of independence), but he had raised a new hurdle by declaring his refusal to sign an agreement unless the Vietnamese government was broadened to include representatives of all groups in the population.18
Talks between Vietminh representatives and the nationalist parties had been tense, as the VNQDD, confident of Chinese support, still demanded a majority of cabinet posts in the new government. Ho may have momentarily lost hope that an accord could be reached. According to Bao Dai, on the morning of February 23 Ho suddenly asked to visit him and, on his arrival, appealed to him to take power. “Sire,” Ho sighed, “I don’t know what more to do. The situation is critical. I have well understood that the French will not treat with me. I have been unable to obtain the confidence of the Allies. The entire world finds me too ‘red.’ I urge you, my Lord, to make a second sacrifice, and resume power.”
At first Bao Dai declined, but then agreed to discuss the matter with his advisers, who recommended that he accept. But now it was Ho’s turn to change his mind. That afternoon, Ho asked Bao Dai to join him:
My Lord, please forget all that I told you this morning. I have no right to abandon my responsibilities just because the situation is difficult. To return power to you now would be an act of treason on my part. I beg you to excuse this moment of weakness and to [forgive me for having] thought in such circumstances to discharge myself of my duties to you. I had planned to resign above all because of the opposition of nationalist patties to the accords that we are preparing with the French.
What had happened to change Ho’s mind? It is significant that on the following day, government sources announced that the parties had agreed to form a new coalition government. Key ministries, such as Interior and National Defense, were to be assigned to independents, while the Vietminh, its puppet Democratic Party, the VNQDD, and the Dong Minh Hoi would share the remaining eight seats. According to Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh had consulted with Xiao Wen and emphasized the importance of forming a coalition government to resist the French. Xiao Wen, who had no liking for the French, apparently agreed to pressure the nationalists to compromise on their demands.19
D’Argenlieu returned to Saigon from Paris on February 27. That day, he accepted the broad outlines of the deal Sainteny was trying to work out for a “free state” in Vietnam, “with its own parliament, army and finances.” But he refused the Vietnamese demand for autonomy in foreign affairs or for the political and territorial unity of the three regions, although he did agree in principle to the holding of a referendum on the latter question. As if to punctuate d’Argenlieu’s views, on the same day French negotiators dropped their resistance to Chinese demands for an end to long-standing French extraterritorial rights (such as the French concessions in Canton and Shanghai) in China and agreed to sign the Sino-French accord. If an agreement with th
e DRV could be reached, the way was now clear for French troops to replace Chinese occupation forces in north Vietnam. Paris immediately sent word to Leclerc in Saigon: “Accord reached, the fleet can sail.”20
With peace in the balance, it was now important for Ho Chi Minh to obtain the consent of his own government and people. At 7:00 A.M. on the morning of March 2, the new National Assembly convened for the first time at the Municipal Theater in downtown Hanoi. The building was bedecked with the now familiar red flag with the gold star, still the national emblem despite the protests of the nationalists. Nearly 300 representatives, in addition to news reporters and other guests, jammed into the auditorium. Dressed in his rumpled khaki suit, Ho Chi Minh mounted the rostrum and appealed to the delegates to admit the 70 nonelected members of the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi, who had been forced to wait in an anteroom until being invited into the meeting hall. After the assembly approved, they filed into the hall and took their seats, at which time Ho declared that the assembly now represented the entire country and must now set out to create a government to reflect and carry out national aspirations. At that point the National Assembly formally accepted the resignation of the provisional coalition government that had been appointed in January and unanimously elected Ho Chi Minh president of a new coalition government of resistance and reconstruction. Nguyen Hai Than, who did not attend the meeting on the pretext of illness, was elected vice president. Then Ho announced the formation of a National Resistance Committee (Uy ban Dan toc Khang chien) to carry on the struggle for full independence and appointed a National Advisory Group, to be chaired by former emperor Bao Dai. The session concluded shortly after noon. That same day the French fleet transporting General Leclerc was sailing up the coast from Saigon toward Haiphong.21
On March 5, Ho Chi Minh called a secret meeting of Party leaders at Huong Canh, a suburb of Hanoi, The Standing Committee had already met on February 24 to assess the situation and hammer out an appropriate strategy. There were widely disparate opinions on what to do. Some wanted to take up arms immediately, others recommended a request for Chinese military support against the French. But to Ho Chi Minh, given the current weakness of Vietminh forces, it was vitally important to reach an agreement if at all possible. At one point he remarked in exasperation: “Can’t you understand what would happen if the Chinese stayed? You are forgetting our past history. Whenever the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French, on the other hand, can stay for only a short time. Eventually, they will have to leave.” In a later comment to the French historian Paul Mus, he would use a more earthy remark: “It is better to sniff French shit for a while than to eat China’s for the rest of our lives.”22
In the end, the cool realism of Ho Chi Minh’s argument held sway. As the resolution issued at the end of the meeting stated, “The problem now is not whether we wish to fight. The problem is to know ourselves and know others, to realize objectively all conditions which are favorable and unfavorable in the country and abroad, and then to advocate correctly.” In fact, the problem was that the situation was considerably more complex than it had been during the August Revolution. Then, the political situation inside the country was favorable to the Party, and opposition parties had been unwilling ot unable to oppose it in public. Now, nationalists felt emboldened to rely on the potential support of Chinese occupation forces and could afford to take a hard line against the government. During the August Revolution the Party had been able to manipulate the contradictions among the Allied powers to its advantage; now, the resolution noted, those contradictions had been at least temporarily harmonized, while at the same time, the progressive forces of the world led by the Soviet Union were unable to come to the aid of the Vietnamese revolution. Under those circumstances, a “fight to the end” would leave the Vietminh both weakened and isolated.
The resolution conceded that a conciliatory policy could make the Party vulnerable to charges of selling out the interests of the country, as well as of enabling the French to strengthen their own forces for a future attack on the north. On the other hand, it would eliminate or at least reduce the influence of the Chinese and their nationalist collaborators, and also give the Hanoi government time to prepare under more favorable circumstances for a struggle to seize full independence. In the end, it concluded, France must recognize the right of the Vietnamese people for full self-determination and national unity.23
On March 5, General Leclerc’s fleet sailed into the Tonkin Gulf. That same day, Sainteny received a report from Saigon that the Chinese had abruptly reneged on their agreement with France and now refused to permit French troops to disembark on Indochinese territory without further concessions. Meanwhile, in Hanoi the newly established National Resistance Committee had issued an appeal to the people to prepare to rise up to defend the fatherland. If French forces should attempt to land in the absence of an agreement with Chongqing, they would be resisted by both the Chinese and the Vietnamese. For the safety of his troops, General Leclerc requested Sainteny to do everything in his power to reach an agreement within the shortest time possible, “even at the cost of initiatives that could eventually be disavowed.”24
Later that day, negotiations resumed. Sainteny appeared anxious to reach an accord and Ho Chi Minh, who was undoubtedly aware of the recent difficulties in the Sino-French talks, may have decided to press his luck, insisting on inclusion of the word “independence” in the agreement, as well as French acceptance of the principle of Vietnamese territorial integrity. As the talks continued into the evening, Sainteny agreed to turn the latter issue over to a referendum to be held in all three regions of the country, but he categorically refused to include the word “independence.” With the talks deadlocked, the French left, appealing to Ho Chi Minh to give further consideration to their proposals.
Early the following morning, the French fleet entered Haiphong harbor. At 8:30 A.M., as the first French landing craft was lowered onto the Cua Cam River, Chinese troops along the riverbank opened fire. After a delay of a quarter of an hour, the French responded. In the exchange, which lasted until 11:00 A.M., several French ships were slightly damaged, while a Chinese ammunition depot was set on fire. During the height of the battle, bullets were pelting the streets of downtown Haiphong like rain.”25
While the French and the Chinese were exchanging fire in Haiphong, the talks in Hanoi were finally coming to a successful conclusion. Pressured by the Chinese occupation command not to be too adamant, Ho held final consultations with the Party Standing Committee late on the evening of March 5 and obtained its approval to make the needed concessions to reach an agreement. Shortly before dawn, Ho’s emissary, Hoang Minh Giam, arrived at the Sainteny residence and announced that his government accepted French conditions and agreed to the French phrase recognizing Vietnam as a “free state.” About four o’clock, Vietnamese delegates arrived at a villa on Ly Thai To Street, just across a park from the Northern Palace, where many of the talks had been taking place. Before an audience of French and Vietnamese representatives as well as several diplomatic observers, the agreement was first read aloud. It called for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state, with “its own government, parliament, army and finances within the French Union.” The French government agreed to the holding of a referendum to determine the possible unification of the three regions. In return, Vietnam agreed to allow 15,000 French troops to replace the departing Chinese in the north. Ho Chi Minh was the first to sign. He then handed the pen to his deputy commissioner of national defense, the VNQDD leader Vu Hong Khanh. After the ceremony, Sainteny expressed his satisfaction regarding the agreement, but Ho replied: “And I am sorry, because fundamentally you have won the contest. You were well aware that I wanted more than this. But I realize well that we cannot have everything at once.” Then he recovered his good spirits and embraced Pignon and Sainteny. “My consolation,” he remarked to Sainteny, “is our friendship.”26
In asking Vu Hong Khanh to sign the agreement, H
o Chi Minh hoped to mute possible criticism of the agreement by nationalist elements. Shortly after the ceremony, he met with the ICP Standing Committee to determine how to present the agreement to the people and sent representatives to other parts of the country to explain the rationale behind the decision. Hoang Quoc Viet went to Saigon, Hoang Minh Giam to Da Nang, and Vo Nguyen Giap to Haiphong, where the French would soon be disembarking.
News of the agreement appeared in the Hanoi newspapers the following morning. According to reports, it was greeted with a combination of surprise, anger, and indifference. Despite the government’s appeal to the populace to remain calm and avoid provocative actions against French residents, the tension in the capital was palpable. Nationalists charged that Ho Chi Minh had been duped by the French, and some even called him a traitor (Viet gian). To counter such charges, Party leaders planned a mass rally in front of the Municipal Theater at 4:00 P.M. to explain the decision. According to Jean Sainteny, nationalist elements circulated through the crowd to agitate the people to express their dissatisfaction. One activist threw a hand grenade, but forgot to pull the pin. Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, who had arrived back from Haiphong just before the ceremony, spoke first, explaining the need for the accord and the importance of maintaining law and order. He compared the agreement to Lenin’s decision in 1918 to accept a loss of Russian territory to Germany in the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, and promised that this development would eventually lead to full independence. After several other speakers, Ho Chi Minh appeared on the balcony and spoke a few brief words. “Our country,” he said,
became free in August 1945. However, to this day not a single great power has recognized our independence. The negotiations with France have opened the road to our international recognition, and toward strengthening the position of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the world atena. We have become a free nation. As is declared in the agreement, French troops will gradually be withdrawn from Vietnam. Our fellow countrymen must remain calm and disciplined, and must strengthen their unity and cohesion.
Ho Chi Minh Page 51
