The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War is infamous. It was one of the most gruesome
Cold War-era conflicts, and it tarnished the USA's reputation forever. But America isn't the only
large Western nation the Vietnamese have routed, and for there to be a Second Indochina War,
there had to be a First. Here, in the wake of World War II, Hồ Chí Minh stood up to the French
to expel them from what was then French Indochina. It was a brutal seven-year conflict that is so
often swept under the rug. In this three-part video, we mean to rectify that. This is the story
of the First Indochina War, or as many in Vietnam remember it, the Anti-French Resistance War.
As with many of the 20th century's wars, the First Indochina War
was sparked by World War II. On the 25th of June 1940, France fell to the Germans,
and the Vichy government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, replaced the Third Republic.
At this time, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were ruled by the French in what was called French
Indochina, so these colonial territories fell under the Vichy administration. As the Vichy
government collaborated with the Germans—with Vichy France ultimately coming under direct
German control—it had to collaborate with Germany's soon-to-be Axis allies, too,
notably Imperial Japan. And the Japanese had had their eyes on Indochina for some time.
Fighting the Chinese in the concurrent Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese naturally wanted
to cut off China's supply lines. One major supply line was the Kunming-Hai Phong Railway, which went
from the Indochinese port of Haiphong to Hanoi and then into the Chinese province of Yunnan.
Staging their troops in Indochina, specifically in the region of Tonkin, would allow them to open
a new front against their enemies in China, too. With the collaborationist Vichy government now in
charge of French Indochina, Japan started laying on pressure in a political sense, and the Vichy
government was given an ultimatum. On one hand, they could close all supply routes to China,
let Japanese troops pass through Indochina, let Japanese air forces use their airbases, and give
the Japanese Navy basing rights at Guangzhouwan. On the other hand, the Japanese could invade.
While an agreement was ultimately reached, some Japanese units weren't interested in negotiating,
so they attacked the French border post of Đồng Đăng and the province of Lạng Sơn.
From the 22nd to the 26th of September 1940, Japanese forces marched into northern Indochina.
Following that, Japan said sorry, released the French they had taken as POWs,
and returned control of the towns they had seized to the French, at least on the surface.
After all, why would they go to war with the French when they could just rule them
from behind the scenes and use French Indochina as a base from which they could fight everyone
else? Not to mention that puppeteering the French would get a whole lot easier
after the Tripartite Pact had been signed on the 27th and Japan officially had Germany on its side.
In Vietnam, however, not everyone was happy living under the thumb of Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại,
a puppet of a French government that was itself puppeteered by the Japanese. The people's lives
were more uncertain than ever, and as World War II escalated, they whispered of revolution.
Before we get to that, though, the Vichy French were having serious problems in October 1940,
just after the Japanese invasion. Emboldened by the fall of France, the Thai Major-General Plaek
Pibulsonggram decided to bomb French Indochina and then launch an offensive through Laos
and Cambodia to regain territory previously lost to the French. The Thai Army was better equipped,
more experienced, and numerically superior to the French, boasting some 60,000 troops, as opposed to
the 50,000 troops fielded by the French. They also had more aircraft and more experienced
pilots. French naval forces reigned superior in the sea, though. From early to mid-January 1941,
Thailand appeared to have the upper hand, overrunning Laos and pushing into Cambodia.
But on the 17th, French naval forces defeated the Royal Thai Navi in the Battle of Ko Chang,
and it seemed the tide was turning. It was shortly after this that Japan stepped in as a mediator,
arranging a ceasefire on the 28th. To satisfy Thailand, the Japanese
made the French relinquish swathes of Laos and Cambodia to Pibulsonggram. For the time being,
this worked very much in Japan's favour, as the Japanese had improved their relations with
Thailand without absolutely destroying their relationship with the French.
Now, back to Vietnam and those whispers of revolution.
In February 1941, the leader of the Indochinese Communist Party, a man named Hồ Chí Minh returned
home from France and established the Việt Minh in Pac Bo Cave in Vietnam's Cao Bằng Province.
This was a coalition of communists and nationalists,
united in an anti-colonial independence movement against the Vichy French and Japanese.
Over the next four years—barring the 14 months he spent imprisoned in China—Hồ Chí Minh consolidated
his strength, receiving funding from the United States, the USSR, and China and rallying as many
as 1 million Vietnamese to his cause. On the 22nd of December 1944, he created the Vietnam
Liberation Army and made General Võ Nguyên Giáp, nicknamed "Red Napoleon," its military commander.
Just three days later, a contingent of the Liberation Army fought its first battle, and won.
This was the Battle of Khai Phat and Na Ngan, in which Red Napoleon
personally led 33 revolutionaries in a raid against two French outposts,
killing the outposts' armed French officers and forcing 37 colonial troops to surrender.
As loot, Red Napoleon seized 40 rifles, which they would make good use of in the battles to come.
By this point in the greater war, following massive defeats in Burma and the Philippines,
things weren't looking so hot for Japan. What pushed them over the edge in French Indochina,
however, was the liberation of Paris in August 1944. Fearing an Allied invasion of Indochina,
as well as a French uprising following the destruction of the Vichy government back
in France, the Japanese stepped out from behind the curtain and seized Indochina from the French
in a coup d'état between March and May 1945. Here, some 55,000 Japanese overran some 65,000 French
and French colonial soldiers throughout Indochina, capturing 15,000 and killing 4,000.
Some 3,000 French fled into China. Others joined the pro- or anti-Japanese guerrilla movements.
At the same time, the Vietnamese were struggling with a different sort of enemy:
famine. In the Vietnamese famine of 1945, between 400,000 and 2 million people starved to death
as a direct result of the French and Japanese occupation, but also factors beyond their control.
Natural disasters, including a series of droughts, floods, and typhoons, destroyed
edible crops. The French and Japanese seized, hoarded, and exported food and burned it for fuel;
forced the locals to grow industrial crops instead of edible crops; and generally did
a terrible job of managing the distribution of food and alleviating starvation. Allied airstrikes
against roads, warehouses, and transportation facilities didn't make things any easier.
All in all, Japan's coup d'état cost Vietnam dearly. But the end times were near
for the Japanese Empire. On the 6th of August, the US dropped the first
bomb on the Japanese Home Islands, and on the 14th, Japan agreed to surrender.
With his people starving and the Japanese laying down their guns, Hồ Chí Minh’s forces seized
Hanoi and most of Indochina, persuading the puppet-Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate.
This was known as the August Revolution, an event punctuated by Hồ Chí Minh's famous
independence speech, which borrowed language directly from the US Declaration of Independence.
But Hồ Chí Minh wasn't in the clear just yet. In fact, his first great war was
only just getting started, and by the time of his death, he would be neck-deep in the dead.
But we’ll save that for part two of this video,
now that we've set the stage for the First Indochina War.
Before we get to that bloody conflict, did you know about the simultaneous French and
Japanese occupation of French Indochina in World War II? What about the famine? Can you expand
on anything we covered in this video? Please feel free to share your comments section below.