Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Military History and Policy)

Britain in Vietnam

The book is a study of the circumstances leading to British intervention in Vietnam in 1945, and the course and consequences of this intervention. The first part of the work links French colonialism with the native communist insurgency, while examining British and Foreign Office attitudes towards French Indochina. The study then looks at the key Anglo-American wartime relationship concerning Indochina and its impact. The second half of the book focuses on the local problems faced by the British in Southern Indochina, and whether commanding general Douglas Gracey was guilty (as critics have suggested) of collusion with French colonialism. It also examines the wider problems linked to available military resources, and the controversial issues of the role of the OSS and the use of Japanese troops to preserve law and order. Finally, the book makes a groundbreaking link between British intervention and the outbreak of the French–Viet Minh war in 1946. This book will be of interest to students of British foreign policy, military history and South-East Asian history in general. Peter Neville is a research fellow in history at Kingston University, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Cass Series: Military History and Policy Series Editors: John Gooch and Brian Holden Reid ISSN: 1465–8488 This series will publish studies on historical and contemporary aspects of land power, spanning the period from the eighteenth century to the present day, and will include national, international and comparative studies. From time to time, the series will publish edited collections of essays and ‘classics’. 1. Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917–1919 Matthew Hughes

15. British Armour in the Normandy Campaign 1944 John Buckley

2. Alfred von Schlieffen’s Military Writings Robert Foley (ed. and trans.)

16. Gallipoli Making history Jenny Macleod (ed.)

3. The British Defence of Egypt, 1935–1940 Conflict and crisis in the eastern Mediterranean Steven Morewood 4. The Japanese and the British Commonwealth Armies at War, 1941–1945 Tim Moreman 5. Training, Tactics and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee Seeds of failure Andrew Haughton 6. Military Training in the British Army, 1940–1944 From Dunkirk to D-Day Tim Harrison Place 7. The Boer War Direction, experience and image John Gooch (ed.) 8. Caporetto 1917 Victory or defeat? Mario Morselli 9. Postwar Counterinsurgency and the SAS, 1945–1952 A special type of warfare Tim Jones 10. The British General Staff Reform and innovation, 1890–1939 David French and Brian Holden Reid (eds) 11. Writing the Great War Sir James Edmonds and the official histories, 1915–1948 Andrew Green

17. British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–1945 Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa (eds) 18. The Baghdad Pact Anglo-American defence policies in the Middle East, 1950–59 Behcet Kemal Yesilbursa 19. Fanaticism and Conflict in the Modern Age Matthew Hughes and Gaynor Johnson (eds) 20. The Evolution of Operational Art, 1740– 1813 From Frederick the Great to Napoleon Claus Telp 21. British Generalship on the Western Front 1914–18 Defeat into victory Simon Robbins 22. The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914–1916 David Silbey 23. Big Wars and Small Wars The British army and the lessons of war in the 20th century Hew Strachan (ed.) 24. The Normandy Campaign 1944 Sixty years on John Buckley (ed.)

13. Lloyd George and the Generals David Woodward

25. Railways and International Politics Paths of empire, 1848–1945 T.G. Otte and Keith Neilson (eds) 26. Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I A comparative study Edward J. Erickson

14. Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925– 1943 Douglas Austin

27. Britain in Vietnam Prelude to disaster, 1945–6 Peter Neville

12. Command and Control in Military Crisis Devious decisions Harald Hoiback

Britain in Vietnam Prelude to disaster, 1945–6 Peter Neville

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” # 2007 Peter Neville All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Neville, Peter, 1944Britain in Vietnam : prelude to disaster, 1945-46 / by Peter Neville. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-415-35848-4 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-415-35848-5 1. Vietnam- -History- -1945-1975. 2. Indochinese War, 1946-1954. 3. Vietnam- -Foreign relations- -Great Briain. 4. Great Britain- Foreign relations- -Vietnam. 5. Great Britain- -Foreign relations- 20th century. I. Title DS556.8.N39 2007 959.7040 1- -dc22 2006036743 ISBN 0-203-00470-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–35848–4 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–00470–8 (ebk) ISBN 10: 0–415–35848–5 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–00470–1 (ebk)

To the Memory of Dr and Mme Ho Van Nhut

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Prologue Maps

1 The jewel in France’s crown

ix x xiv xvii

1

2 Japan, Britain and French Indochina

15

3 The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

28

4 The Japanese coup of 9 March 1945 and its consequences

41

5 The August Revolution

58

6 The coming of the British

68

7 The death of an OSS man

87

8 War with the Viet Minh

100

9 The last phase

116

10 Gracey’s farewell

131

11 The slide to disaster

142

viii

Contents

12 A Rubicon crossed

160

13 Conclusion

177

Annex 1 Annex 2 Annex 3 Annex 4 Notes Bibliography Index

189 190 191 192 193 215 220

Acknowledgements

I owe a considerable debt to a number of people in connection with this book. In particular to Professor Michael Dockrill of King’s College, the University of London, and Professor Kevin Ruane of Canterbury, Christchurch University College, who read the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. At Routledge, Andrew Humphrys was very patient when personal circumstances meant that the delivery of the book happened much later than originally envisaged. The staff at the Special Collections Division of the Hartley Library at Southampton University were kind and helpful during my research in the Mountbatten Archive there, as were staff at the National Archives in Kew and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College, London. My greatest debt as ever is to my wife Phuong Anh for her forbearance when much time had to be devoted to this project and invaluable assistance with Vietnamese terms and phrases. I also owe much to Mrs Carol Willis for her assistance throughout. Finally I should like to thank Professor Peter Beck and Kingston University for allowing me the study leave needed to complete this project. I am grateful to the following institutions for permission to reproduce material in the book: The Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, The Trustees of the Broadlands Archives and the National Archives at Kew.

Introduction

The fact that Britain intervened in Vietnam in the autumn of 1945 is a little-known one, but this has not prevented the small number of specialists on Indochina from waging an historical campaign about the consequences of this intervention ever since. The major player on the British side was Major-General Douglas Gracey, although he was executing orders from the Allied Landforce Commander South-East Asia, Sir William Slim, and the Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten. They, in their turn, were following the orders given by the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister in London. Most of Gracey’s critics, although not exclusively so, have been in the United States of America. Writers such as Ellen Hammer and Joseph Buttinger viewed Gracey as being an old-fashioned British imperialist who could not conceive of the possibility that a Far Eastern country should cease to be a European colony.1 Most extreme was the position taken by the otherwise distinguished historian Barbara Tuchmann, who in her polemic The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, published in 1984, held Gracey personally responsible for racist attitudes adopted by the Americans two decades later.2 But Tuchmann had joined a major actor in the events of 1945, Archimedes Patti, a former OSS man, who published his Why Vietnam? in 1980, a work which was strongly critical of both British and French imperialism.3 Patti saw British involvement as a contributory factor to the events leading to the Franco-Vietnamese war of 1946 to 1954. There have been British critics too, however. The journalist George Rosie argued in his The British in Vietnam (1970) that the British should never have become involved in helping to restore French sovereignty in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia.4 Rosie targeted Gracey as the major villain of the piece, but Mountbatten was also criticized. Likewise, in John Saville’s 1993 The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government, 1945–46, Gracey and Mountbatten appear as the stooges of a rightwing British administration determined to prop up French colonialism in Indochina.5 But Gracey has not lacked for defenders. In the early post-war period, F.S.W. Donnison highlighted the power vacuum into which Gracey had to

Introduction

xi

step in September 1945 in his British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943–46 (1956). It was this, argued Donnison, which drove Gracey to make his controversial martial law declaration of 19 September. A decade later, Dennis Duncanson wrote a journal article for the Royal Central Asian Journal in which he pointed out that Gracey had to take measures to deal with the anarchic conditions he and his men found in Saigon, if he was to discharge the primary tasks set him by Mountbatten and Slim.6 The most detailed and scholarly defence of Gracey and the British forces, however, was written by Peter M. Dunn and was published in 1985. Dunn himself, although British-born, joined the United States Air Force and flew over 150 combat missions over North Vietnam and Laos during the American war before becoming an academic. In The First Vietnam War, Dunn offers a tenacious defence of Gracey which denies that he was a blinkered colonial officer with a condescending and arrogant attitude to the Vietnamese. Dunn was critical of Mountbatten, especially for leaving Gracey with an under-strength 20th Indian Division, the American OSS, the French and the Viet Minh in turn.7 Although undoubtedly influenced by the Cold War context in which he wrote, Dunn portrays Gracey as a thoroughly professional soldier who did the best he could in trying circumstances. He also provided important analysis of the pre-1945 roles of the French Vichy administration, Churchill and Roosevelt, the British Foreign Office and the US State Department. An impressive counterweight to Dunn came in 1987 with Peter Dennis’s Troubled Days of Peace, which looked at the British experience in the Dutch East Indies (thus providing useful comparison with Gracey’s actions), as well as the British intervention in Vietnam.8 Although fair to Gracey, Dennis was much more sympathetic to Mountbatten, whom he thought a successful leader dealing with taxing post-(Japanese) surrender tasks. Sympathy for Mountbatten’s role as Supreme Commander in SouthEast Asia was also a feature of Philip Ziegler’s official biography which appeared in 1985.9 The coverage of Indochina was necessarily limited, but the book contains interesting material about Mountbatten’s conception of his role at SEAC and his relationships with service heads like Lord Alanbrooke, together with a candid assessment of Mountbatten’s mercurial temperament. Most recently, in 2005, John Springall produced a lucid analysis of British problems in Vietnam in ‘Kicking Out the Viet Minh. How Britain Allowed France to Reoccupy South Indochina, 1945–6’ for the Journal of Contemporary History. Although he saw Douglas Gracey as an old-school conservative warrior, Springall noted his paternalist protectiveness towards his Indian and Gurkha soldiers and rejected the charge against him of taking it upon himself to restore French colonialism in Southern Indochina. Gracey, he argued, was made the scapegoat for a wider British policy of aiding their French and Dutch allies to return to the colonies which had been conquered by the Japanese.10

xii

Introduction

On the French side, a great deal of material has been produced about the experience of re-conquest and war in Indochina from 1945 onwards. French approval of Major-General Gracey emerges in the key Chronique d’Indochine by Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, also published in 1985.11 D’Argenlieu was a highly controversial appointment by de Gaulle and a consistent opponent of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, in his position as French High Commissioner between 1945 and 1947. A revisionist defence of the Admiral by the Editors is provided in the preface of this compilation from d’Argenlieu’s diaries, but many historians have felt that his myopic prejudices led directly to the tragedies in Haiphong and Hanoi in 1946. Jean Sainteny, the Commissioner for Tonkin, was an important eyewitness to events in Hanoi from ‘the August Revolution’ in 1945 onwards. Usually regarded as sympathetic to the Vietnamese cause and severely wounded in Hanoi in December 1946, Sainteny produced a useful memoir entitled Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnam in 1972, which had been preceded by his Histoire d’une paix manque´e: Indochine, 1945–7 (1953).12 An invaluable assessment of General Leclerc’s role appeared in 1992 with Leclerc et l’Indochine, edited by Guy Pedroncini and Philippe Duplay.13 The book consists of a large number of personal testimonies by French, British and Vietnamese participants in the events of 1945–6. Leclerc, who commanded the French forces in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia in 1945–6 alongside Gracey, is credited with liberal intentions, although his credentials as a Gaullist are never in doubt. Leclerc, unlike some of his military peers, swiftly came to realize that a military solution in Indochina could never be achieved. Martin Shipway has also written a lucid analysis of French policy in The Road to War (1996).14 The Vietnamese role in the events of 1945–6 is impressively assessed by the former US diplomat, William J. Duiker, in his biography Ho Chi Minh (2000), which fully engages with the debate about whether Ho was primarily a nationalist or a communist.15 There is also much helpful material about the role of the US State Department and the changing nuances of American policy. David Marr’s Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (1995) is also invaluable, as are the personal writings of Vo Nguyen Giap, the Viet Minh Commander-in-Chief, such as Unforgettable Months and Years (1972). A different Vietnamese perspective is offered in Bao Dai’s Le Dragon d’Annam.16 Finally, it needs to be recalled that Cambodia was also part of Gracey’s remit in 1945–6 and the British and French involvement there is usefully discussed by T.O. Smith in a 2006 article in Diplomacy and Statecraft.17 Intelligence was an important element in the events covered in this book, and there is much material in Richard J. Aldrich’s Intelligence and the War Against Japan (2000) on SOE and the OSS.18 Amidst this wealth of multi-national material (and much else could not be mentioned here), the purpose of this book is to re-examine the British experience in Vietnam in 1945–6, while placing it in a wider chronological and politico-military context which involves Britain, China, the USSR, the

Introduction

xiii

USA, France and the varying shades of Vietnamese nationalism which had emerged in the North and the South of that country by the summer of 1945. A deliberate decision has been taken by the author to expand the canvass (notably in contrast to Peter Dunn’s book) to examine the French experience up to the end of the year 1946. Two chapters are devoted to this. The rationale here was that to fully understand the Major-General’s legacy in Vietnam, one must see what happened next and focus on those moments when French decisions (or indeed Vietnamese ones) changed the course of events. To argue that Britain was somehow responsible for what happened to Vietnam in the next three decades is to create a serious debate, which this book will attempt to address by study of not just the British role, but also those of all the other elements in an exceedingly complex puzzle created when the Potsdam Conference gave China and Britain responsibility for Vietnam north and south of the 16th parallel. To attempt to understand this period has demanded study of the important collections of papers held at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College, University of London (including the Gracey and Alanbrooke papers), the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton (the Mountbatten Archive) and the relevant Foreign Office and service ministry files at the National Archives in Kew. I have, in addition, been pleased to include in the book the testimonies of veterans from the Burma Star organization who fought with Gracey’s 20th Indian Division in both Burma and Vietnam. They were members of Slim’s ‘forgotten army’ who have regularly failed to receive the attention they deserve. I hope that the contents of this book, in however small a way, will make some amends for the historical amnesia of post-war generations. King’s Lynn August 2006

Prologue

On 13 September 1945, elements of the 20th Indian Division, mostly in fact Gurkhas, landed at Tan Son Nhut Airport in Saigon. They were commanded by Major-General Douglas Gracey, a man who was slim, ‘moustachioed, and ramrod straight . . . every inch the image of a British general’,1 and were the vanguard of an intervention force which was to remain in Southern Vietnam until March 1946. So began one of the most little-known episodes in modern British history. Gracey had been given command of all Allied land forces in Indochina, south of the geographical line of latitude known as the 16th parallel. He was appointed in the wake of the Potsdam Agreement in July 1945, which decreed that Vietnam was to be divided so that the British took responsibility for those areas of Vietnam to the south of the parallel. North of the line, Vietnam was to be occupied by the forces of the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, in what turned out to be an exercise in punitive looting which reminded the Vietnamese of their previous lengthy experience of Chinese occupation. But the situation was made more complex by the so-called ‘revolution of 25 August 1945’ in Hanoi, when the revolutionary government of Ho Chi Minh (he who enlightens) seized power in Tonkin. Ho quoted liberally from the US Declaration of Independence in his Hanoi speech on 2 September, and the US administration had seemed sympathetic to Vietnamese aspirations when Franklin Roosevelt was President. But Ho received no response when he wrote to President Truman asking for support. In the south, Gracey’s brief was to preserve law and order in key areas unless requested to do otherwise by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied commander for South-East Asia, from his Ceylon headquarters, or by the French colonial authorities. This represented an alteration of Gracey’s original brief by Lieutenant General William Slim (arguably the best British general of the Second World War), while he was en route to Saigon, which was to place Gracey in some difficulty when he arrived. More bizarrely, Gracey was to be obliged to co-opt the services of surrendered Japanese forces in Southern Vietnam because there were so few British

Prologue

xv

and French forces on the ground. In a March 1945 coup, the Japanese themselves had already disarmed and imprisoned French colonial forces apart from a battered remnant which straggled over Indochina’s northern frontier with China. A few Free French troops came with Gracey, who had only 750 men on arrival, and it would be some weeks before General Leclerc’s Free French forces were in Vietnam in any strength. Nevertheless, the inference behind Gracey’s amended orders seemed clear. Control of the southern half of Vietnam was to revert to the French. The fate of the North remained in the balance, but even in the South nationalist elements under the Viet Minh leader Tran Van Giau had set up the ‘committee for the South’ ahead of the British arrival. Tensions between the nationalists and the French colonial population had already erupted on 2 September in front of the Norodom Palace in the heart of Saigon as a crowd listened to the radio broadcast of Ho Chi Minh’s speech in Hanoi. Sniper fire, which was attributed to the French population, resulted in riots and looting which left four people dead and many wounded. ‘Black Sunday’, as French newspapers called it, was not a happy auspice for Gracey’s arrival ten days later. Gracey’s vanguard was speedily followed by the rest of the 20th Indian Division, and his force actually contained only one purely British regiment, the 114th Jungle Field Royal Artillery. The 20th Division were veterans of the hard-fought Burma campaign and were part of Slim’s so-called ‘forgotten army’, whose heroism was too easily outshone by the exploits of British troops in other theatres. They were entitled to hope that Vietnam would be an easier posting and the commander of 1/1 Gurkha battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Jardine, expressed these hopes. When we were told we were going to French Indo-China I thought it was to be just a good jolly and a rest after 2½ years in the jungle. Instead of taking the 3 inch mortars I thought it would be a good thing to take the pipe band. I soon realised my mistake.2 And looking back many years later, Jim Stowers (a former Royal Navy radio direction-finding operator who was then co-opted into working with the 20th Division because of his expertise in Japanese radio) noted how Gracey had ‘saved lives as well as a very dangerous situation – he was greatly respected by his Division’.3 Gracey’s brief was certainly one of daunting complexity. With only a small force, he was expected to disarm the Japanese, pacify the emergent Vietnamese nationalist forces and deal with the different Free French and former Vichyite components in the French forces and civil population. Just how Britain came to be involved in an occupation of southern Vietnam is a subject for later chapters in this book. But this involvement may have triggered off a situation which led to the Franco-Vietnamese war of 1946–54 and the ensuing US involvement in Vietnam. It is one of the ironies of the

xvi

Prologue

situation in Vietnam in 1945–6 that officers of the American OSS (the forerunner of the CIA) sympathized with Ho Chi Minh’s government and movement, whom they had assisted in their rather half-hearted war against the Japanese. One of the tasks of this study is to determine whether such a judgement of British policy and behaviour is justified.

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1

The jewel in France’s crown

The kingdom of Vietnam was an ancient one. The earliest event recorded in a Vietnamese source goes back as far as the seventh century BC. This source, the Viet su luoc, stated that Vietnamese history began when an ‘extraordinary man’ of Me-linh used magical powers to unite all the tribes of Vietnam under his authority.1 He then took the title of Hung King and called his kingdom Vang-lang. The rise of the Hung Kings is supported by archaeological evidence from the seventh century, although the story of the ‘extraordinary man’ lacks authenticity. Vietnam is a country of haunting beauty, from the intricate limestone islands of Ha Long Bay in the North (surely one of the natural wonders of the world) to the diverse pathways of the Mekong Delta in the South. And the classical elegance of the old imperial city of Hue´ in the centre of Vietnam, with its own ‘hidden city’ modelled on the Chinese original in Beijing. This underlines an essential point for the understanding of Vietnam and its history. When in 1945 Ho Chi Minh famously remarked that ‘it is better to sniff France’s dung than China’s all our lives’, he reflected the sentiments of all Vietnamese. Vietnam endured over a thousand years of Chinese occupation (between 208 BC and 938 AD). The shadow of its giant neighbour therefore hung over Vietnam across the centuries. By contrast, the arrival of the British, or even the return of the French, aroused less anxiety as Ho and his supporters were confident that European colonialism would be a much more transient phenomenon. Nevertheless, throughout the long years of occupation, the Vietnamese had been able to preserve their own distinctive language and culture. Even so, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism came with the Chinese to what they called Annam (Pacified South), as did the mandarin system of education based on competitive examinations. But the imperial Chinese administration never found Annam easy to govern, despite its name. Periodic revolts showed the martial qualities for which the Vietnamese became famous. Most notably in the first century AD when the Trung sisters Trac and Nhi led a protracted rebellion against Chinese domination. Trung Trac established her court at Me-linh where the Hong River flowed out of the mountains. Patriarchal attitudes in Vietnamese society, already inculcated

2

The jewel in France’s crown

by the Chinese through Confucianism, probably account for the eventual defeat of the legendary sisters. A fifteenth-century Vietnamese source reported that Trung Trac, seeing that the enemy was strong and that her own followers were undisciplined, feared that she could not succeed . . . her followers, seeing that she was a woman, feared she could not stand up to the enemy and consequently dispersed.2 Popular legend provided various versions of the Trung sisters’ fate. Some said that they had been beheaded, others that they drowned themselves in a river or disappeared into the clouds. But the sisters entered the mythology of anti-Chinese Vietnamese resisters. National survival became a dominant theme of Vietnamese culture, and Chinese influence remained a threat even when the occupation had ended in the tenth century. As late as 1803 when delegates from the new Nguyen dynasty went to Beijing to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese Manchu emperors, the Chinese authorities insisted on calling the country VietNam, rather than Nam Viet as the Vietnamese would have preferred. (The Chinese objection sprang from the link between the old rebellious kingdom of Nam Viet and the Nguyen.) By the twentieth century, even the Vietnamese themselves had accepted the Chinese usage. The Chinese continued to regard Vietnam as one of their satellite kingdoms, part of that ring of satellites which, in their eyes, protected China, ‘the central kingdom’, from the uncouth ‘foreign devils’ who lay beyond it. Chinese cultural superiority was taken for granted, and they attempted at intervals to re-impose direct rule upon the Vietnamese – notably in the early part of the fifteenth century when the Ming dynasty tried to take advantage of internal disunity in Vietnam. But again the Vietnamese produced another brilliant military leader, in this case Le Loi, who waged a ten-year campaign against the Chinese, working together with his scholar-adviser Nguyen Trai. This was a golden age in Vietnamese history as, after defeating the Chinese, Le Loi overcame the Kingdom of the Chams in Central Vietnam in a decisive battle in 1471. This ethnic Indian civilization, which followed the Hindu religion and has largely disappeared from modern Vietnam, was sandwiched between the territory of the Viets in the north and the Khmers (modern Kampuchea) in the south. Le Loi’s success, however, proved to be short-lived and the authority of his Late Le dynasty was soon under challenge from powerful regional lords. In the north, the Trinh were dominant, and in the south, the Nguyen, until in 1672 half a century of civil war ended with a treaty between the rival clans, which saw the Nguyen transfer their capital to Hue´. This internal feud coincided with the appearance of European missionaries and traders in Vietnam. Portuguese Catholic missionaries arrived

The jewel in France’s crown

3

in the middle of the sixteenth century, to be followed by Jesuit missionaries from Japan, the Dutch (remnants of whose warehouses can still be seen in towns like Hoi An, which is just to the south of Da` Nang), and most significantly of all, French Catholics. It was the French Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660) who invented the quoc ngu, a phonetic Latinized transcription of the Vietnamese language which is still in use today. But the Vietnamese rulers increasingly came to see Christianity as subversive, and in 1645, de Rhodes himself was fortunate to escape a death sentence for illegal preaching of Christianity. He was expelled from Vietnam. The Vietnamese authorities believed that Christianity undermined the autocratic principles enshrined in Confucianism, but the appearance of the Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries proved to be more than a straw in the wind. France in particular maintained its interest in Indochina and its involvement soon proved to be decisive. The situation once again arose from internal revolution in Vietnam, in this instance the revolt of the Tay Son brothers against the tyranny of the Nguyen lords in 1771. They captured and killed the Nguyen leaders and entered Saigon in 1783, before moving on to overthrow the northern Trinh lords as well. The most able military leader among the Tay Son brothers, Quang Trung, then declared himself emperor in 1788, and routed a huge Chinese army of 200,000 men which tried to take advantage of the conflict (this was the first ‘Tet’ or New Year offensive). Quang Trung, who had presided over a land redistribution programme, died in 1792 and his dynasty only survived another ten years. This was because the Tay Son brothers had not in fact succeeded in liquidating the entire clan of Nguyen lords. Prince Nguyen Anh had survived and fled to Cambodia. There he came under the protection of the French bishop, Pigneau de Be´haine, and Prince Nguyen used the French to win back his throne. In 1784, he sent his seven-year-old son (‘le Petit Prince’ as the French came to call him) with de Be´haine to the French Court at Versailles, but King Louis XVI would do nothing to assist the Nguyens, other than sign a rather meaningless treaty. But the cleric de Be´haine, one of a series of muscular French missionaries, set about organizing a counter coup inside Vietnam by recruiting mercenaries. Although the bishop did not live to see his victory, Nguyen Anh was able to proclaim himself emperor of a united Vietnam in 1802, taking the title Gia Long. It was the first time for almost two centuries that Vietnam had been united. Although he did not know it, Gia Long had introduced a French Trojan horse into Indochina. French merchants who had supported Nguyen Anh obtained important trading concessions, and Catholic missionaries were becoming more and more active. Only the coincidence of the Napoleonic Wars (it was in 1804 that Bonaparte sold Louisiana for a song to the United States), and the lengthy period of recovery required thereafter, together with the constant changes of re´gime in France between 1815 and 1848 prevented more concentrated French attention on Indochina.

4

The jewel in France’s crown

The Nguyen emperors were partly responsible for French intervention when it came in 1857, because of their savage persecution of Catholics in Vietnam. Gia Long was a loyal Confucian, but he concentrated on improving his country’s infrastructure with a canal and road-building programme. His successor, Minh Mang (1820–41), was much more hostile to Western influences, however, and in the 1830s an imperial edict from Hue´ encouraged persecution of Catholics. The persecution sharpened under Minh Mang’s successors Thieu Tri (1841–47) and Tu Duc (1848–83), and priests and the faithful were massacred. It would be inaccurate though to pretend that French intervention was purely a reaction to Vietnamese persecution of Catholics. Both France and Britain were already involved in extracting concessions from the weakened Manchu dynasty in China, and Indochina offered equally tempting commercial plunder. It was also true that Emperor Napoleon III (1852–70) was under pressure from French Catholic opinion to prevent the persecution of their co-religionists in Vietnam, and in 1857, a fleet was sent which, with Spanish co-operation, captured Saigon. Tu Duc would not give in, however, and the French had to send reinforcements to assist their expeditionary force which was suffering badly from malaria and other diseases. Ultimately, a modern European army was bound to prevail against the outdated military technology available to Tu Duc. In 1862, his forces suffered a serious reverse, and the emperor was forced to make concessions which included the right of Catholics to practise their religion. Popular resistance, led by the mandarin class of government officials, did not cease, which the French used as an excuse to acquire more territory. In 1867, another French victory ended with Cochin China (the southernmost segment of Vietnam) becoming a French colony and Cambodia becoming a French protectorate.3 These humiliations at the hands of the French destroyed the traditional authority of the Hue´ emperors, and the northern province of Tonkin fell under the control of the Co Ben, known to the French as the pavillon noirs or ‘Black Flags’, a motley mixture of Chinese troops from Yunnan, Thai highlanders and bandits pure and simple. The French found it difficult to crush the Black Flags. Between 1872 and 1874, a French naval squadron penetrated the Red River Delta, but its commander was killed and the situation in Tonkin remained chaotic. A pretender also claimed the imperial throne in Hue´, and although a second French river expedition captured Hanoi in 1882, its commander Rivie`re and 30 of his men were captured by the Black Flags shortly afterwards, and their heads were triumphantly paraded around the countryside on spears.4 Emperor Tu Duc died in 1883 and with him the semblance of Vietnamese independence. The French manipulated the succession to install a puppet emperor, and in 1887 created what they called the Indochinese Union made up of Cochin China, Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia (Laos became a protectorate in 1893). The first three named were the provinces of Vietnam as

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5

the French saw them, and remained the basis for the administration of colonial Vietnam until 1954. The Vietnam that the French inherited in the 1800s stretched for some thousand miles from the border with China (above the 23rd parallel to the north west), to Ca Mau Point in the south. The fertile delta of the Red River in Tonkin (Bac Bo to the Vietnamese) covers about 350 miles from the west to the east. In the south, the spectacular delta of the Mekong, in what the French called Cochin China (Nam Bo), stretches for 150 miles. Between these two great river deltas, Vietnam is linked by a long, narrow waist which at its narrowest point is only 31 miles across. The three separate parts of Vietnam (the other being Annam) were traditionally known as ‘The Three Ky’. The geography of Vietnam did not make it easy for a colonial power to administer. Three-quarters of the country is made up of hills and mountains, and a third of it is over 4,900 feet above sea level. For Europeans the wet lowlands and the Annamese highlands were a particular hazard, because they were breeding grounds for the anopheles mosquito, which spreads malaria. Although the anti-malarial drug quinine was in use by the time the French had total control of all Vietnam, the disease was still a potent threat to French colonials, just as it was to the British in India. French economic interest focused on the two deltas. The fertile rice-growing area of the Red River Delta of almost 6,000 square miles contained the ancient city of Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin, and its port Haiphong. Its population density of more than 1,000 persons per square mile made the Red River Delta absolutely essential for French economic interests. Its only rival was the Mekong Delta wetland in Cochin China, with its capital the bustling city of Saigon. Its paddy fields covered a massive 23,000 square miles, an area almost four times greater than the Red River Delta. Much French energy was put into the excavation of the Mekong Delta, and it proved to be a triumph for French engineering (which had already proved its capabilities with the construction of the Suez Canal). Between 1869 and 1930, the French increased the area of cultivable land from 215,000 to 2,200,000 hectares. Although oddly the French only owned 15 per cent of the Delta by 1931, allowing the rest to fall into the hands of sometimes rapacious Vietnamese landlords who exploited the peasantry, and raised their rents to unreasonable levels.5 This was not due to any altruism on the part of the French, but rather a result of their unwillingness to be directly involved in farming the Mekong Delta. The French liked to claim that they had raised the living standards of the peasantry, and wages did increase fourfold between 1898 and 1930. The population in the Delta also increased threefold in the same period (improved medical care was also a factor), but by the 1930s agricultural yields were down, land hunger became characteristic of the Delta, and wages also fell. It became clear that French rule was only benefiting a minority of middlemen who made huge profits, as did the businessmen who controlled

6

The jewel in France’s crown

Vietnam’s export trade. The country was one of the world’s major rice exporters; subsequently rubber was an important export too, but the ordinary Vietnamese gained little. The French liked to work through the mandarin class, who were encouraged to send their children to lyce´es. Yet even the Catholic minority in Vietnam was to be involved in anti-French revolts, because of the belief that Vietnam had become a French milch cow. In fact this was not true, as ‘the exploitation was of little benefit to the French state; France spent far more on administering or defending its empire than it collected from taxes’.6 The French also built Vietnam’s only railway (there is still only one), which ran from Hanoi in the north to Saigon in the south. They liked to think of themselves as conducting a civilizing mission in Vietnam and throughout the whole of Indochina. If Annamese peasants were forced to endure the rigours of the Western front in the Great War, this was only to be expected as a sign of gratitude for the receipt of French culture and civilization. The French thought themselves to be more enlightened colonialists than the British, and in 1921, the then French Minister for Colonies was happy to remind the Chamber of Deputies in Paris of their virtues. The Yellow People [this most senior French official told his audience] have noticed the contrast between our attitudes and the indifference of Anglo-Saxons towards other races. The Indochinese elites have observed with great satisfaction that France has affirmed the equality of races. England and America however, have refused Japan . . . the victory of this principle.7 French criticism focused here on the Anglo-American refusal to concede naval equality to Japan in the Pacific, which the Japanese certainly regarded as racist, but the mass of the people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia had no means of signalling their ‘great satisfaction’ with French colonial rule. The only defence that can be made for the Minister for Colonies’s arrogance is that he shared the elitist assumptions of all the European colonial powers at the time, and those European powers who aspired to greater imperial conquest. Italians, for example, were to have no compunction about gassing and massacring Abyssinian tribesmen in 1935–36. Meanwhile, the Minister for Colonies was certain that ‘the mass of peasants . . . are full of admiration for France’.8 Such French overconfidence was about to receive a rude awakening in the early part of the twentieth century. And some Frenchmen, like the novelist Marcel Proust, were alarmed by his countrymen’s assumptions. In 1919, he wrote to his friend Daniel Hale´vy, ‘One could weep tears of joy to learn that among all the nations of the world, France has been chosen to watch over the world’s literatures; but it’s a bit shocking to see us assuming that role ourselves’.9 French policy in the inter-war period, however, has to be seen through the prism of national catastrophe. One million Frenchmen

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7

had perished in the Great War, and the memories of the Somme and Verdun cut deep, leading to a xenophobic mood, which rejoiced (for example) in the canonization of Joan of Arc by Pope Benedict XIII in 1920. Had she not repelled the English? And was not the victory of 1918 another triumph of Latin Catholic civilization over the invader? France’s great empire was yet further proof of this civilization’s virtues. Yet she had to shoulder unfair burdens as the Anglo-Americans deserted her, and left the French army to deal with any renewal of German militarism (both powers reneged on their 1919 promise to guarantee French military security). A France in such a mood was unlikely to be sympathetic to Vietnamese nationalist aspirations. A steadily increasing urban population by the 1920s (a million people, most of whom lived in Hanoi or Saigon) helped provide a basis for mass action, although early-twentieth-century nationalists, like Phan Chu Trinh advocated non-violence. For other Vietnamese, the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in China in 1911 was a major watershed. Phan Boi Chan’s ‘Restoration Society’ aimed at copying Sun Yat-sen’s republican model, rather than, as Phan had originally intended, merely advocating a constitutional monarchy to replace the perceived French puppet emperor in Hue´. Sun Yat-sen himself promised that Vietnam would be the first country to receive Chinese republican aid when his revolution established itself, but it was never able to do so, and China soon fell under the domination of the warlord Yuan Shi-kai. Phan himself was arrested for alleged subversion and remained in prison until 1917, by which time Sun Yat-sen was in exile in Japan. He then seemed to lose his nerve and even offered to co-operate with the French colonial authorities if they instituted political and economic reforms. Nevertheless, the 1920s was a time of transition in Vietnam which saw ‘the decline of the traditional scholar-gentry class, which had dominated Vietnamese politics for centuries’.10 Phan Boi Chau, who was a son of this class, hoped that ‘ten thousand nameless heroes’ would drive the French into the sea, but he failed to recognize the need to enlist the support of the peasantry in a largely agrarian country.11 This was not surprising, as the scholar-gentry class regarded the peasants as utterly inferior to themselves, but without their support, Vietnamese independence from France could only be an illusion. The mistake was a common one. In China, the communist Mao Zedong, who followed classic Marxist principles in the 1920s, made precisely the same error. The decline of the old mandarin class was paralleled by the rise of a new Westernized middle class, many of whom worked for European firms or for the bureaucracy. Increasingly, many of this educated middle class supported the idea of independence, while at the same time coming under the influence of French culture. This new middle class wore Western-style clothes, spoke French and in some instances were sent to France to be educated. Drinking French wine also became the norm, but more astute members of the French colonial elite found this Francophilia worrying. The French journalist Paul Monet wrote that these new class of Vietnamese were ‘the prototypes of our

8

The jewel in France’s crown

culture, deprived of traditional beliefs and uprooted from ancestral soil, totally ignorant of Confucian morality, which they despise because they don’t understand it’.12 Monet’s anxieties did not, however, find any echo in the policies of the French colonial administration. French rule remained paternalistic, and while the Minister for Colonies, Albert Saurrat, promised reform in 1914, his public statements were revealing about French attitudes. France, he announced, would treat the people of Indochina ‘like an older to a younger brother and slowly give you the dignity of a man’.13 Even in the mid-1920s, only 5,000 students got high school education in Vietnam. French domestic opinion was largely uninterested in colonies, which were costly and a long way off. But the authorities in France tried to promote the country’s civilizing mission through vehicles such as the 1931 Colonial Exhibition, which boasted about how France had brought schools, hospitals and equality to the remotest corners of the earth. The famous creator of the Maigret detective novels Georges Simenon (he was actually a Belgian) was acerbic in his rejection of this imperial romanticism. Returning from a trip to Africa in 1932, he wrote a series of articles under the subtitle ‘Afrique vous parle. Elle vous dit merde’ (Africa talks to you: It says go to hell). This contrasted rather sharply with the film commissioned by Citroe¨n called merely L’Afrique vous parle, which was supposed to show the merits of French rule.14 There is little reason to doubt that most Vietnamese would have endorsed what Simenon was saying. Nevertheless, it was true that as a result of the European Depression, which cut off markets for French exports, more emphasis was placed on finding colonial markets. By the later 1930s one-third of French exports went to the colonies even if ‘for the average Frenchman the colonial image, if any, was that of a grinning black man advertising a sweet chocolate drink: Banania.’15 French governments continued to hope that an empire of 109 million souls would somehow compensate for the economic weaknesses of the period between 1936 and 1938, when the franc had to be devalued as international markets panicked when the left-wing Front Populaire came into office. Ostensibly, the French left opposed colonialism, but this opposition was half-hearted and inconsistent as Vietnamese leaders like Ho Chi Minh were to find in their dealings with French socialists and communists. Nguyen Ai Quoc (better known as Ho Chi Minh) told the Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam that Vietnam was ‘a nation plunged into darkness’. His own route out of darkness was Marxism, but other Vietnamese chose a largely nationalist path. In June 1924, disillusioned supporters of Phan Boi Chau, in exile in Canton, made an attempt on the life of the French Governor-General Martial Merlin when he visited the city. They had set up Tam Tam Xa (the Association of Like Minds) and the would-be assassin. Pham Hong Thai drowned in the Pearl River while trying to escape, before entering the mythology of national martyrs in the battle against the French. Predictably, the French blamed the Soviet Union for the assassination

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9

attempt, and it was true that Nguyen Ai Quoc was a Comintern agent whose special brief was to encourage revolutionary communism outside the Soviet Union. Quoc had left Vietnam as early as June 1911 for France, where he was active in French left-wing politics, while at the same time (and despite himself) acquiring a love for French culture. It was Quoc who presented a petition to the Allied powers at the Versailles Conference in 1919 which laid out the ‘demands of the Annamite people’ for liberty and equality. It was while living in the Villa des Gobelins on the right bank of the Seine in Paris that Quoc made the crucial decision to join the French Communist Party, but his primary aim was always to secure the freedom of his homeland. By 1923, Quoc (who had also been known as Nguyen Sinh Cung and Nguyen Tat Thanh) was in the Soviet Union for training as a Comintern agent, before arriving in South China in December 1924, five months after Pham Hong Thai’s attempt on Merlin’s life. The earlier period of Quoc’s life involved an extraordinary migration from France to Britain and the United States (where he worked as a pastry cook in Boston, and witnessed the lynching of blacks by the Ku Klux Klan in the South).16 In London, where he arrived in 1913, Quoc claimed to have worked as a snow sweeper in a school, and as a boiler operator, while trying to improve his English. As always, he showed immense dedication to the task in hand, and a readiness to cope with Spartan living conditions which was to remain with him for the rest of his life. Quoc, or Ho Chi Minh as he was to become in 1939, was the model Vietnamese revolutionary. He was to need these qualities in the long struggle to come, which precluded any real personal life although Quoc may have gone through a formal marriage ceremony with a party comrade, Nguyen Thi Minh Kai (who was subsequently executed by the French in 1941). An earlier marriage to a Chinese woman, Tuyet Minh, had ended in 1927. One of the talents which Comintern agents invariably had, provided they were allowed by an arbitrary Kremlin to use it, was the ability to use other left-wing and nationalist groupings to the advantage of the USSR and its cause of global communism. Quoc soon showed such an ability when he arrived in Canton and detected the ideological confusion of the remaining exiled members of Tam Tam Xa. They were rapidly converted to Marxism by Quoc, who was always an able proselytiser. By December 1924, Quoc was able to tell Comintern headquarters in Moscow that he was in contact with ‘national revolutionaries’ in South China.17 In February 1925, skilfully disguising his own communist convictions, Quoc set up the Indochinese Nationalist Party (Quoc Dan Dang Dong Duong), which provided a cover for communist ambitions in French Indochina. Mindful of the need for covert activity, Quoc was also in touch with the ageing Phan Boi Chau, who was probably unaware of the fact that he was the son of Chau’s old friend, Nguyen Sinh Sac.18 The classic communist technique of using somewhat naı¨ve fellow travellers, was well in evidence here. Quoc was soon able to get the older man interested in Marxist ideology.

10

The jewel in France’s crown

While Quoc loyally continued to work as a servant of the Comintern, restiveness with French rule in Vietnam reached a crisis point in 1930. A serious uprising in Tonkin resulted in 700 executions, and some 10,000 Vietnamese nationalists were under arrest.19 The uprising was the work of the VNQDD (Vietnamese National Party), which had considerable support amongst the French colonial army in Vietnam. Like the British in India, the French relied heavily on local recruitment, and about two-thirds of the colonial army was ethnic Vietnamese. French disciplining of the native troops was brutal, and by 1930 the Vietnamese units in Tonkin were on the verge of mutiny. Some thousand cells existed in the north, and early in 1930, revolts broke out in army posts which were co-ordinated by leaders convinced that massive French countermeasures against the VNQDD were imminent. As it was, the French got wind of the uprising and it was a catastrophic failure when it was attempted on 10 February. Thirteen VNQDD leaders were executed, as the organization paid for its failure to engage with the peasant masses. The survivors of the disaster fled over the border into China. The Yen Bay mutiny, as it was called, was deceptive in one respect. The lack of civilian response to the revolt did not mean, as the French may have hoped, that ordinary Vietnamese had accepted their lot. Did the French colonialists, therefore, learn anything from the 1930 revolt? The evidence suggests not. There were, of course, individual French men and women who diagnosed the problems the colonial authorities were creating for themselves in Vietnam. Paul Monet has already been mentioned, but a more profound analysis of French misconceptions was provided by the great French expert on Vietnamese culture, Paul Mus, in a book ironically published on the eve of France’s decisive defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In a chapter called ‘sur la route Vietnamine’, Mus spoke of the way in which Vietnamese sacred values had been violated by French secular culture and institutions. While France had, it was true, provided schools, a railway and ‘administration laique’, Mus claimed that the Chinese understood Vietnam better. ‘Without religious mandate,’ Mus deduced, ‘with little knowledge of traditional Vietnamese morality, and even less attention to local nativism and sensibility, the French were merely inattentive conquerors.’20 A Vietnamese intellectual, Tran Duc Thao, put it even more succinctly in 1946. The French, he declared, thought of themselves as a global community, whereas for the Vietnamese the horizon was defined by Vietnam itself, and the French were outside it. While Vietnamese nationalism suffered a severe setback at home, Nguyen Ai Quoc sought refuge in the British Crown colony of Hong Kong, early in 1930 using the pseudonym TV Wong. He thus became an object of interest to the British Secret Service which, like the French, regarded communism as a subversive movement which could undermine British colonial authority. Quoc was arrested by the British in 1931, even though he had not committed any obvious offence. The British authorities in Hong Kong

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11

certainly considered extraditing Quoc to French Indochina, on the basis that he represented a threat to all colonial empires. But there was no existing extradition treaty which allowed the British to send Quoc, or Wong in his new incarnation, back to Indochina. To confuse matters further, when Quoc was arrested he produced a passport in the name of Song Man Cho, and claimed to be a Chinese citizen. He denied ever visiting the Soviet Union to disguise his Comintern affiliation, although he did admit that he had visited France. All the Hong Kong authorities could do in the circumstances was to expel Quoc from the Crown Colony. The French meantime wanted to know where Quoc would be sent, but his able British lawyer, Loseby, was able to persuade the Governor of Hong Kong to send Quoc to a destination chosen by him. This, despite the protests by the French Ambassador in London who angrily complained that Quoc was ‘an international danger’. The Foreign Office were not impressed by French protests, but wanting co-operation with France on colonial policy suggested that the communist agitator Quoc, whose identity had by now become known, should be sent to Indochina, regardless of the absence of proper extradition arrangements.21 British paranoia about global communism was made clear in Foreign and Colonial Office minutes. One Colonial Office official named Calder believed that Quoc was ‘one of the worst agitators who was put in the bag . . . and it is probably bad luck that we have not got enough evidence to imprison him for revolutionary activities in Hong Kong’. British partiality became more evident as the minute continued: Revolutionary activity in Annam is a really low-down dirty business, including every kind of murder, even burning public officers alive and torturing them to death. For much of this crime Nguyen is personally responsible, and it is not in his favour that he has directed the affairs from afar instead of having the guts to go and take a hand in things himself. This absurdly naı¨ve comment by Calder (would Lloyd George have been expected to personally direct the terror campaign of the so-called ‘Black and Tans’ in Ireland between 1919 and 1921?) concluded with a real insight into British policy, and its essential continuity to the point where the 20th Indian Division arrived in Vietnam in 1945. I do entirely agree with the FO [Calder wrote] and the French government that it is in the general interest of civilization in the East that the Colonial Powers should stand together and help one another to suppress this kind of crime, which is highly infectious.22 The British were, of course, facing their own colonial agitation in India, although they were fortunate that Gandhi and Nehru believed in non-violence,

12

The jewel in France’s crown

but their sympathy with their co-colonialists is strongly evident where Indochina is concerned. There were those in India who did contemplate the use of violence in the achievement of swaraj, and anxiety about this permeated some officialdom at the time. In fairness to the British, it must be recognized that there were more enlightened officials in the Foreign and Colonial Offices. And Quoc also had a legal system on his side which could set aside colonial prejudices when faced with the facts. But the need to support another colonial power, France, was deemed paramount and the Foreign Office tried to have an order issued deporting Nguyen Ai Quoc to French Indochina. Quoc’s lawyer, Loseby, then appealed to the Privy Council in London. Meanwhile, the French had told the British government of their suspicions that Quoc acted as a liaison officer for all the communist parties in South-East Asia (including those in Crown colonies). He was further accused of trying to overthrow the government of Annam, and being behind discontent in the Central Highlands. In an effort to speed Quoc’s return to Indochina, the French gave an undertaking that he would not be executed if the British agreed to extradite him. The case before the Privy Council came up at the end of 1931, and Quoc was represented by the well-known left-wing barrister D.N. Pritt, while the Hong Kong government was represented by the equally radical figure of Sir Stafford Cripps, a man whose ultra-leftism caused him to be expelled from the Labour Party in 1939 (although he subsequently became the most austere of post-war Labour Chancellors of the Exchequer). Whether Cripps was influenced by his left-wing politics remains a matter for conjecture, although the Colonial Office certainly suspected him of bias.23 He did though have a sharp legal mind which convinced him that the Crown had a poor case and that it would be wiser if Quoc was released from his Hong Kong prison and allowed to go where he wished. After months of foot-dragging, it was finally agreed on 27 June 1932 that the British government would pay for Quoc’s passage to a destination of his own choosing, and the matter never came before a court. Nguyen Ai Quoc had some anxieties about being seized by French Suˆrete´ agents en route, but was eventually sent to China via Singapore (where he spent three days in prison for not having the right papers). The shadowy figure of Quoc thus disappeared from British jurisdiction, if not from later British preoccupations. But British sympathy for French colonial rule persisted for many years, as did illusions about its efficacy. Writing as late as 1954 about a visit to Indochina in the 1920s, Sir Owen O’Malley, a long-serving British diplomat (who was Minister in Mexico and Ambassador to Portugal) did so in the most condescending terms. ‘The people of Indochina,’ O’Malley opined (he excluded the Khmers in Cambodia), resemble the Tibetans rather than the inhabitants of Liang Kwang or Hainan, but they are smaller in stature, the eyes are nearer together

The jewel in France’s crown

13

and the bridge of the nose is often sunk in a way which suggests, and often rightly suggests, the possession of a certain cunning and disingenuous obstinacy.24 O’Malley moved on to lavish praise on the French colonial administrators, saying that they ‘carried out their duties with firmness, sympathy and rectitude’. Economic development, according to O’Malley, had been ‘rapid’, and the indigenous population ‘valued the relative comfort, riches and security enjoyed under French rule, and were, according to my hosts, reluctant to exchange their present advantages for the speculative and illusory glories of complete independence’.25 Much of this analysis was, in fact, nonsense written long after the event (O’Malley visited French Indochina in 1927). But O’Malley did at least have the grace to concede, almost 30 years on, that the impressions he had had during his visit looked ‘rather silly in the light of the so-called war of independence which has been going on for five years’.26 In fact, French rule was to end following the catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu – in the same year 1954, in which O’Malley’s book was published. Even in the 1930s, indications were present that French rule in Indochina might be tenuous, although unlike Britain (which passed the 1935 India Act which foresaw the derogation of political power to the native people) the French did nothing to prepare the Vietnamese for self-government. Instead, the security apparatus was beefed up, and in 1931 the French Foreign Legion wreaked a terrible revenge on the Vietnamese population for the 1930 revolt. This was known as the White Terror which did have the result of eliminating about 90 per cent of the Indochinese Communist Party. The Party itself was criticized by the Comintern for poor planning in 1930, but the uprising was subsequently seen as a dress rehearsal for what was to happen in August 1945. The ICP was to judge that ‘Our Party was steeled and tempered in the fire of revolutionary struggle and accumulated experiences, in seizing revolutionary power for the People’.27 Meanwhile, retraining was the order of the day in Moscow, where Vietnamese cadres attended courses at the University of the Toilers of the East. Future leaders like Tran Van Giau spent up to three years on Soviet courses. It was accordingly something of an irony that at a time when Trotsky himself was wandering the globe in exile, having been sent into permanent exile in 1929, the Trotskyists began to make an impact in Vietnam and Indochina. Leaders like Tran Van Giau and Tha Thu Thau set up the famous newspaper La Lutte to propagate the cause, but Nguyen Ai Quoc told the surviving communist cadres in Vietnam not to co-operate with the Trotskyists (this did not save them from a Comintern accusation that they were co-operating with the Trotskyists). Pressure on the ICP lessened somewhat when the Popular Front government came to power in France in 1936 under the Socialist Le´on Blum. This government also contained communists (the Party in France was led by the

14

The jewel in France’s crown

flexible Maurice Thorez). Under the new dispensation, political prisoners in Indochina were released early, and political parties were allowed some freedom of organization.28 Moscow itself underwent a major re-orientation in 1934 when Stalin’s disastrous analysis of fascism as the last stage of capitalism before a communist revolution in Europe was abandoned. Instead popular fronts were to be formed across the globe with progressive anti-fascist groupings. This meant that in Indochina a new Indochinese Democratic Front was set up in 1936 (not without opposition inside the ICP), while Nguyen Ai Quoc watched events from his new base in southern China, still worried that his whereabouts would be discovered by the Suˆrete´. Then the pendulum swung against the ICP again. In 1938, the new Daladier government took a harder anti-communist line in France, and this policy was mirrored by the actions of the French Governor-General Catroux in Indochina. There was an anti-communist clampdown and the Comintern representative in Indochina, Le Hong Phong, was arrested in Saigon in September. Only four members of the Central Committee of the ICP could attend a meeting near Saigon in November 1938, and two of them were arrested by the French on the way home. In its weakened state in 1938–39, therefore, the ICP could only hope that a French defeat or a Japanese invasion might create new opportunities to destroy colonialism, and achieve national independence for the three Indochinese kingdoms of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (Cambodge as the French called it). But the sudden signing of the notorious Nazi–Soviet pact in August 1939 created further complications. The USSR ceased to be France’s ally, and the popular fronts policy was abandoned, which drove the ICP into a nationalist enclave. Friend became foe almost overnight, and then everything changed again with the Japanese intervention in Indochina in 1940.

2

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was a dissatisfied power. Its great-power status had been demonstrated in dramatic fashion by the victory over Tsarist Russia in 1905, it had already forged an alliance with Great Britain in 1902 and sided with the Entente powers in the First World War. But the Japanese felt they had been unfairly treated by the Versailles Settlement (albeit they had been involved in very little military action during the war), and they were particularly outraged by the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. This fixed the ratio of warships over 100,000 tons in the Pacific to Japan’s disadvantage. It could only build three capital ships for every five built by the Americans and the British. The Japanese believed that the Treaty reflected white racism towards an Asiatic people, and the League of Nations Covenant had also failed to include a clause safeguarding racial equality as Japan wanted. Equally humiliating for Japan was the British decision not to renew the Anglo-Japanese alliance which was up for renewal in 1923. Here American influence had been key. The United States administration believed that the very existence of the treaty infringed the concept of ‘Open Diplomacy’ advocated by President Woodrow Wilson, which was designed to outlaw the secretive pre-war diplomacy in Europe deemed to have been a contributory factor to the outbreak of war in 1914. The Americans also had a second objection to the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance because its continuation would force the United States to embark on a very costly building programme to ensure that its navy could equal the combined Anglo-Japanese navies in strength. Washington now viewed Imperial Japan as being its main potential enemy, and the British Foreign Office also believed that Japan sought naval hegemony in the Far East. This anxiety was combined with the fear that cheap Japanese exports were starting to undermine Britain’s empire.1 There were those who believed that retention of the alliance would be beneficial to Britain. Lord Balfour, the former Premier and Foreign Secretary, was one who warned that a ‘faithful friend’ could easily be made into ‘a formidable enemy’.2 But immense pressure on Britain from the Americans meant that it did not renew the alliance because men like Balfour and

16

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, wanted Britain and America to join together as global policemen after the war. Japan therefore had to be dropped, and wherever Tokyo looked in the immediate post-war years, it seemed to be the victim of slights and insults. This situation was compounded in 1924 when Japanese people were excluded from President Coolidge’s new immigrant quota system. This happened at the same moment that Japanese migrants were prohibited from entering Canada and Australia. The sense that Japan was being discriminated against on racial grounds grew stronger after this latest insult. So strong was the resentment aroused that one Japanese man ritually disembowelled himself in the grounds of the American Embassy in Tokyo. Japan, however, was in no position to right these wrongs in the 1920s. In many respects, it still lagged behind the advanced West. At the end of the decade, a senior Japanese general only earned less than 500 pounds a year, while in greater Tokyo, a tenth of the five million inhabitants earned only seven yen a month (14 shillings).3 Half of Japan’s population lived in the countryside on tiny plots of land. The country also had very little in the way of natural resources, and was heavily reliant on its export markets. The coming of the global Depression in 1929 therefore presented Japan with severe problems. Economic distress also created a seedbed for militarism and aggressive nationalism in Japan in the 1930s. The economic consequences of the Depression in Japan after 1929 were devastating. Farmers who only had an income of 300 yen in 1929 found that their rice crop was only valued at one-third that amount in 1930. Silk exports fell by more than half because of the collapse of the American market and the new-found popularity of rayon in American households. This in turn reduced the incomes of silk-growers and there were stories of people being reduced to bartering goods, so severely did Japan’s rural economy suffer. All this at a time when a demographic explosion, in Japan’s already overcrowded islands, was resulting in four births a minute or nearly one million extra Japanese mouths to feed each year.4 Yet, it was this very agricultural community which the Japanese regarded as the backbone of their nation, and its impoverishment alienated farmers from the democratic system (always ‘sui generis’ in Japan), and also the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) which recruited heavily from farming stock (particularly the tough peasantry from the northern part of Japan). Extreme nationalists like Gondo Seikyo appeared in the youthful junior officer cadres, claiming that they could cleanse the nation by political terror at home and naked aggression abroad.5 In fact nationalism, a minority interest before the First World War, began to be of some significance in Japan after 1919. By the 1930s, in the wake of the Depression, there were over 700 nationalist organizations in Japan. Many of these bodies were transient and unsubstantial, but extreme patriots like Kita Ikki and Okawa Shumei were thinkers who made a considerable impact. Kita told his countrymen and women that ‘The British

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

17

Empire is a millionaire possessing wealth all over the world; and Russia is a great landowner in occupation of the northern half of the globe. Japan with her scattered fringe of islands is one of the proletariat.’6 This theme of grievance was to be heard ever more loudly in Japan as the decade went on. The redress of Japan’s global grievances could be justified by political butchery at home and unscrupulous adventurism abroad. Thus, increasingly, attempted coups and political assassinations became a feature of Japanese society in the years after 1930. A typical example took place in February 1936 when, in an attempted coup, Finance Minister Takahashi was murdered while an assassin apologized to one of the victim’s servants ‘for the annoyance I have caused’.7 Moderate politicians became an endangered species in Japan in the 1930s. Japan’s lack of natural sources provided an impetus for the extreme militarists and nationalists in the period before the Second World War. Japanese eyes, and even those of relatively moderate leaders, looked enviously at British Malaya with its rubber plantations and the Dutch East Indies with its oil wells; and, of course, at French Indochina with its abundant rice harvests and own rubber plantations. Conquest in Korea in 1904–05 provided Japan with copious supplies of timber, and the seizure of Manchuria (Manchukuo) in 1931 ensured that Japan would not be short of coal or grain either. But how was Japan to solve its resources problem without triggering off a war with the Anglo-Saxon democracies? At the London Naval Conference of 1930, the Japanese Prime Minister Hamaguchi achieved what seemed something of a triumph by securing an increase in the ratio agreed at Washington for capital warships. Japan could now build up to 65 per cent of Anglo-American strength, but Hamaguchi turned down the navy’s demand for more. The nationalist Admiral Kato declared that 70 per cent of Anglo-American naval building was ‘the lowest ratio and is a matter of life and death for our navy’.8 Hamaguchi disagreed. He believed that arms limitation, not war, would promote prosperity (and economic recovery in Japan). Hamaguchi paid the Japanese price for moderation a few months later. In November 1930, he was waylaid at Tokyo Station by a nationalist fanatic and seriously wounded. He survived for a few months in power, much weakened by his wound, before dying in the spring of 1931. Significantly, the assassin Sagoya served only three years in prison before an amnesty secured his release. A reluctance to deal with nationalist hotheads became a striking feature of Japanese governments before 1941. They could appear to be initiating policy, while the Tokyo government tagged along reluctantly behind. The Manchurian invasion of 1931 seems to afford a classic example of radical elements in the Army, in this instance, the Kwantung army in Manchuria, precipitating conflict. The major historical controversy linked to the Japanese invasion concerns the role of the God Emperor Hirohito who, in some versions of events, was merely a quiet botanist who was

18

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

forced to endorse acts of Japanese aggression over which he had no control.9 A classic 1971 study suggests, by contrast, that Hirohito was deeply complicit in the process of Japanese aggression throughout the 1930s and indeed in the Japanese decision to launch an attack on French Indochina in 1940.10 It has to be said that more recent revisionist research inclines to give Hirohito the benefit of the doubt, but the very prestige and status accorded to the Emperor underlines the extent to which Japan was a deeply authoritarian and neo-fascist society. The suspicion remains that Hirohito knew more than he was willing to admit in the post-war era, when he posed as a saint-like constitutional monarch deprived of his divine status by the Americans. In 1931, the radical nationalists in the IJA favoured a northern solution to Japan’s problems. One of them was Lieutenant-Colonel Ishiwara Kanji, who believed that Japan’s national situation had reached ‘an impasse, that there is no way of solving the food, population and other important problems, and that the only path left open to us is the development of Manchuria and Mongolia’.11 The Army, according to Ishiwara, was the instrument of Japanese regeneration, but the politicians hesitated about embarking on a war of conquest. Invasion of Mongolia, for example, threatened conflict with the Soviet Union in which the Japanese were to be ultimately worsted in 1939 (though in this instance, ‘incursion’ would be a better explanation for what took place). As is well known, Japan’s annexation of what it liked to call Manchukuo resulted in its condemnation by the League of Nations and the non-recognition of its puppet state by the entire international community. But Japan became increasingly sucked into what its political and military establishment called ‘the China Incident’, culminating in a full-scale invasion in 1937, which saw the seizure of all China’s major cities. In the capital Nanjing, at least 250,000 Chinese were either murdered, tortured or raped by Japanese soldiers in an appalling episode for which successive Japanese governments have never taken full responsibility.12 At the time, Japanese behaviour in China was linked to deeply chauvinistic assumptions about alleged superiority over other Asiatics. The Japanese Prime Minister at the time of the renewal of the China war in July 1937 was Prince Konoe Fumimaro. He favoured a so-called Great Asia Association and agreed with most of the Army’s expansionist aims, even if a tendency to dither exasperated colleagues. One fellow Cabinet member remarked that whenever difficult decisions had to be made, Konoe was wont to remark ‘I want to give up’. Nevertheless, and despite Konoe’s indecisiveness and Hirohito’s supposed remoteness from key decisionmaking, the trend of Japanese policy was towards a shrill assertiveness. Within the prism of rivalry between army and navy, an alternative strategy of seeking redress against the ‘ABCD’ powers (America, Britain, China and the Dutch) by means of territorial expansion southwards began to gain a hold. It was slow-going because, as late as the summer of 1939, army zealots

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

19

still precipitated an incursion into Mongolia during which the Army’s nose was bloodied by Zhukov, a rising star in the Red army (who had fortunately escaped the purge of the Soviet armed forces carried out by Stalin in 1937–38). The attractions of a southern strategy grew because it would allow Japan access to rubber and oil in Malaya, French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, together with the closure of the Burma Road which was being used to sustain the Chinese war effort against Japan. A parallel advantage was that a ‘strike south’ policy would allow Japan ‘to achieve autarky by taking control of a region rich in oil, rubber and tin’.13 By 1940, army leaders were also enthused by the so-called ‘Kiri Project’, a ceasefire with China which would free up Japanese forces for a southward move. In Britain, concern about long-term Japanese intentions had grown since the Manchurian invasion of 1931. In 1934, the Defence Requirements Committee, the key instrument of defence oversight in the British political and military establishment, had identified Japan as posing a potential threat second only to that from Nazi Germany. Yet at the same time, Britain had considerable commercial interests in China, which meant that a fierce debate broke out about whether a pro-Chinese or pro-Japanese policy should be followed, and if appeasement of Japan could be combined with sympathy for China. This debate raged inside the political establishment, and particularly the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service from 1931 onwards. French Indochina was relevant here because, like Burma, it gave access to southern China and provided a route along which supplies could be sent to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang forces. In the Foreign Office, the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Robert Vansittart, had no illusions about the seriousness of the Japanese threat in the Far East, or the nature of British weakness. In July 1935, he wrote that Britain was ‘in no condition to have trouble with Japan’.14 His counterpart at the Treasury, Sir Warren Fisher, strongly supported the policy of accommodation with Tokyo which Neville Chamberlain advocated both as Chancellor of the Exchequer and latterly as Prime Minister from May 1937, as did the British Ambassador in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie, of whom Chamberlain thought highly. Craigie, however, ploughed a lonely furrow as far as the Foreign Office was concerned. Vansittart sided with the Far Eastern Department headed by Charles Orde, which believed that the Chamberlain–Fisher line of seeking accommodation with Tokyo would ‘weaken Russia in the Far East . . . and might lead to further Japanese aggression in South-East Asia’.15 Orde and the influential commercial attache´ in the Tokyo Embassy, Sir George Sansom, also pointed to an additional danger if the Foreign Office adopted a pro-Japanese orientation. It was that an Anglo-Japanese non-aggression pact (which Chamberlain favoured) would result in ‘violent Chinese resentment against us’.16 This in turn would jeopardize Britain’s considerable commercial interests in China. Orde and Sansom also emphasized that an Anglo-Japanese non-aggression pact would alienate the Americans and

20

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

further weaken the prestige of the League of Nations, of which Japan was no longer a member after its Manchurian aggression. At the Treasury, Warren Fisher attacked the Foreign Office view and, in his usual trenchant style, described Orde as ‘a pedantic ass, admirably suited to join the eclectic brotherhood of Oxford or Cambridge’.17 Vansittart (ultimately removed by Chamberlain from his post at the end of 1937) disagreed with Fisher on this issue, although they agreed (as members of the Defence Requirements Committee) on the need for accelerated rearmament to confront the German and Japanese threats. He would not support a non-aggression pact with the Tokyo government as the answer to the problems posed by thinly stretched resources in the Far East. Indeed, he became as irritated by Fisher’s memorandums on the desirability of an Anglo-Japanese pact, as the former was by Orde’s pro-Chinese views. Neither did ‘Van’, as he was commonly known in the corridors of power in Whitehall, share the anti-Soviet prejudices of some of his Foreign Office colleagues. The Soviet Union, he recognized, was an important part of the global jigsaw. The most desirable situation from a British point of view was an ongoing state of simmering hostility between Japan and the USSR. War was undesirable, however, as a decisive victory for either side, like Japan’s in 1905, could have catastrophic consequences for the power balance in the Far East.18 All this put Sir Robert Craigie in Tokyo in a difficult position. As a member of the Diplomatic Service, his immediate allegiance was to the Permanent Under-Secretary in London, although a formal merger between the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service only took place in 1943. This meant that Vansittart was his boss until the end of 1937 and then Sir Alexander Cadogan who, as a former Ambassador to China himself, at least understood the problems in the Far East. Cadogan, like his political master, Lord Halifax (who succeeded Eden as Foreign Secretary in February 1938) followed the Foreign Office line on China and Japan, leaving Craigie ‘in virtual isolation, from the consensus of Foreign Office opinion’.19 Even within his own embassy in Tokyo, Craigie had to deal with those like his military attache´, Major-General Piggott, who were notorious Japanophiles, and this combined with what he felt to be an anti-Japanese bias in the Foreign Office (Sansom returned to the Far Eastern Department from his post as Commercial Attache´) caused Craigie to complain about the Far Eastern Department’s ‘Bourbon-like inability to learn from past events’.20 Chamberlain had no love of for the Foreign Office and he recognized what Craigie was up against. ‘Craigie,’ he wrote admiringly to his sister Hilda in July 1939, ‘always seems to preserve his calm and never to get rattled . . . Only the anti-Japanese bias of the Foreign Office in the past have never given him a chance’.21 Craigie has been identified primarily as a pragmatist who recognized, as did Chamberlain, that if war came, Germany would have to be dealt with before Japan. Conflict with Japan, therefore, should be postponed for as long as possible, not least because of

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

21

the British need to concentrate naval forces in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Unfortunately for him, there were those like Churchill who failed to take the Japanese threat seriously enough or to understand the soundness of Craigie’s thinking in a context where British defences were alarmingly weak. Neither was Churchill in a forgiving mood as Prime Minister. Craigie’s attempt to defend his position in his final report in 1942 was effectively suppressed by Churchill, who limited its circulation outside the Foreign Office to Halifax, by then Ambassador in Washington, and King George VI.22 Craigie’s colleagues in Nanjing did not make matters easier for him: successively, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen (unfortunately strafed by Japanese aircraft in 1937 and obliged to return home early), Sir Alexander Cadogan and Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr, the last named in particular preached the proChiang Kai-shek doctrine to London. Clerk Kerr’s position could wobble as his biographer points out, for in 1940 he spoke of how ‘England [sic] and Japan were ultimately striving for the same objective . . . preservation of our institutions from extraneous and subversive influences.’ Shortly afterwards, on a visit to Shanghai, he was telling newspapermen that he was ‘nauseated with being polite to the little [Japanese] blighters’ and dreamt of being able ‘to go all out in retaliation against the dirty little bastards’.23 Grim reality in China by the summer of 1940 forced Clerk Kerr to be more pragmatic. He allowed British consular officials to establish contact with the Japanese authorities in those parts of China under their control. He also began to have doubts about the notoriously corrupt Kuomintang re´gime.24 What of Britain’s ally France in this scenario? It, like Britain, had finite military resources, although 100,000 troops, mostly Vietnamese, Laotian or Cambodian, were stationed in Indochina by 1939. The French were acutely aware from the early 1930s of the paramount nature of the German threat, but they could not ignore the Japanese threat either. In October 1937, the Secretary General of the Quai d’Orsay, Alexis Le´ger, Vansittart’s opposite number in Paris, told the American Ambassador, William Bullitt, that as long as the present tension existed in Europe it would be impossible for France . . . to take part in any common action in the Far East which might involve or imply at some later stage, the furnishing of armed forces.25 France could in any case do nothing in the Far East without British and American support. This position had already been laid out to the British Ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps, by the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, on 17 June. Days later, Bonnet told the Chamber Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly that he had looked at the state of the French navy in the Far East. ‘It is not enormous,’ he told colleagues. ‘We have one cruiser at Saigon and the other at Shanghai.’26 Just two cruisers represented France’s entire naval deterrent in the defence of Indochina. The

22

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

French were also well aware that Britain could offer little more in the Far Eastern sector either on land, at sea or in the air. Their own air force had been allowed to fall into a state of abject decline since 1919, followed by desperate attempts to revive it after 1936. As it was, French ministers did not want their British ally to risk sending reinforcements to the Far East which would detract from Britain’s naval and aerial capability in Europe. They recognized its military capability to be puny, just four divisions when war broke out in Europe in September 1939. The French still believed that victory in Europe would allow the Allies to ‘make good later on any temporary defect . . . in the Far East’.27 They were also fully aware of Japanese resentment about France’s role in supplying Chiang Kai-shek. France’s support for the Chinese was no secret, and it sent supplies over the Red River railway into Yunnan. In October 1937, the railway was closed following Japanese protests, but when Georges Mandel became Minister for Colonies (he was a noted ‘belliciste’ or hawk), the supplies were resumed once more. In June 1939, Mandel was responsible for sending a French military mission to Nanjing. Only the Nazi– Soviet pact of August 1939 led to some improvement in France–Japanese relations. The process by which Japan began to move towards a ‘strike south’ strategy has already been traced earlier in this chapter. But the decisive factor in bringing about a Japanese attack in South-East Asia was the sudden and unforeseen collapse of the French army in May and June of 1940. This allowed the German army to sweep to victory in the West in just six weeks. Even before this event, Japan was applying pressure on the French colonial authorities in Indochina because the fall of Canton made northern Vietnam the only effective supply route to Chiang Kai-shek – either via the Port of Haiphong, the Red River Valley railway or in China itself, the French-owned railway from Yunnan to Kunming. Indeed, the Japanese launched tactical air strikes against the Yunnan railway to close it down. The French authorities in Indochina were in an acutely vulnerable position, especially as they knew that no assistance could be expected from the British or the Americans. The French Governor-General Catroux was obdurate in refusing to give way to Japanese demands, but the catastrophe in metropolitan France in the summer of 1940 made his position much more difficult. Even before France had asked for and got an armistice on 22 June 1940, the Japanese saw their opportunity. On 19 June, Catroux was ordered to seal off the border with China and to allow Japanese inspectors to monitor the embargo on traffic into China. The French replied on 20 June saying that the border had been closed two days earlier to gasoline and trucks. The French authorities would expand the list of prohibited goods for China, and Japanese inspectors would be allowed into border towns like Langson. A few days later on 29 June, a Japanese military mission arrived

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

23

in Hanoi, and Japanese inspectors fanned out all over northern Tonkin to man checkpoints, which included one in the major port of Haiphong.28 French difficulties were compounded by the Chinese threat to invade Tonkin themselves, placing France in ‘the uncomfortable position of possibly being in the middle of the Sino-Japanese war’.29 When Catroux asked the British for assistance, the Commander-in-Chief Far East, Air Chief Marshal Brooke-Popham sailed up to Saigon to tell Catroux that British resources would not allow this. Later, when Catroux approached President Roosevelt directly for aircraft, he was equally unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the Japanese high command was pondering further the significance of the fall of France. On 27 July 1940, the army and navy staff approved a document entitled ‘Outline of the Main Principles for Coping with the Changing World Situation’. Much of the material was purely speculative but the document did state that ‘If French Indochina should refuse our demands through diplomatic channels, we might resort to force of arms’.30 Evidence suggests that middle-ranking zealots in the IJA were in fact anxious to launch an assault on northern Vietnam to put an end to French foot-dragging and non-cooperation. By August 1940, the Japanese negotiating position had changed to the extent of demanding transit rights for their troops through French Indochina, and the use of air bases there. Lengthy talks were held in Tokyo at the end of August between the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka and the Vichy French Ambassador Charles Arsene-Henry. On 31 August, the French gave way to the Japanese demands. They would allow 5,000 Japanese troops to be stationed at airfields in Tonkin and transit rights for the Japanese army along the Tonkin railway system. French sovereignty in Indochina was thus seriously undermined despite Japan’s promise to recognize it. The colonial authorities continued to delay implementation of the 31 August agreement, but on 4 September their Commander-in-Chief Martin was forced to sign an agreement to straighten out technicalities. At the time, the Japanese military authorities clearly recognized that there were hotheads in the South China Army who wished to invade Tonkin. The then Chief-of-Staff of the Second China Fleet wrote to a colleague on 19 June 1940 noting ‘a strong tendency for our local troops to take the initiative, leaving the Tokyo authorities to approve the fait accompli’.31 This had happened in Manchuria in 1931, in Mongolia in 1939 and was to happen again in Indochina in 1940. It was also true, however, that since the embarrassing defeat of the IJA at Nomonhan in Mongolia in July 1939, the generals had sought reconciliation with the Soviet Union, while at the same time trying to close down the supply routes to Chungking (in the Chinese interior where Chiang Kai-shek had retreated with what was left of his army). Pressure on French Indochina was the linchpin of this strategy, which might hopefully bring a close to ‘the China Incident’. On 22 September 1940, pressure on the French was increased, when local Japanese forces crossed the Indochina border near Langson and attacked French

24

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

units. Eight hundred French troops died in two days’ fighting, before the unauthorized Japanese attack was called off. The American response to this new piece of Japanese aggression was sharp and probably stronger than the Japanese expected. On 26 September, President Roosevelt signed an executive order sanctioning a new loan to China and placing aviation gasoline and high-grade iron and steel scrap under export licence, thus effectively cutting off Japan from such supplies. Britain kept in line with the Americans by reopening the Burma Road, which had been closed in mid-July on Craigie’s suggestion to placate Japan when Britain itself was facing a German invasion. Craigie’s own thinking at the time was demonstrated in a telegram sent to the Foreign Office on 4 July, while advocating the closure of the Burma Road: ‘When we have defeated Germany,’ Craigie argued, ‘we and the United States will be able to teach Japan a lesson which she will never forget.’32 In China, Clerk Kerr thought the closing of the Burma Road a mistake which would antagonize the Chinese and he argued strongly for its reopening. But Britain’s position vis-a`-vis Japan had strengthened by the autumn of 1940. The Battle of Britain had been won, so ensuring that Britain’s colonies would not be bereft in the manner of Indochina and on 27 September, the Japanese signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy which improved the chances of long-term co-operation with the United States. In October 1940, the Burma Road was reopened, but there was no significant Japanese backlash. In late September also, the ‘Kiri Project’ collapsed when Japanese talks with China failed. It has been suggested that at this point the Army leaders became convinced that a ‘strike south’ strategy was inevitable. This line of argument is supported by an army staff memorandum dated 4 November. To end the China war, the memorandum said, and end Japan’s economic dependence on the Anglo-Americans, it must ‘seize an opportunity to take military actions [sic] in southern areas’.33 The following month, an event took place which may have convinced the Japanese that British resolve in Asia was a fac¸ade. This was the sinking of the British steamer Automedon by the German commerce raider Atlantis, which was carrying secret documents to the British Commander-in-Chief, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, in Singapore. The German ship proceeded to Japan, where a key document was handed over to Japanese Intelligence by the German Naval Attache´ Wennecker. It was a memorandum from the British Chiefs of Staff to the War Cabinet dated 8 August 1940 about the British military and naval outlook in South-East Asia. The Chiefs concluded that Britain could not send the fleet to the Far East, and must ‘avoid [an] open clash with Japan’ because in the current situation, we would put up with a Japanese attack on Siam or Indochina without going to war. In [the] event of Japanese attack on the Dutch, and they offered no resistance, no war between us and Japan. But if the Dutch resist, then they would have our full military support.34

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

25

This minimalist British position may well help to explain the more bellicose tone of remarks by Japanese naval leaders from December 1940, where previously they had been at some pains to avoid antagonizing the AngloSaxon democracies. It certainly ties into Japanese behaviour in the ongoing Franco-Thai war with the Automedon incident. For the Japanese, frontier tensions between French Indochina and Thailand presented opportunities for further bullying of the Vichy French in Indochina, who were now led by Admiral Decoux as Governor-General, a prote´ge´ of the collaborationist Admiral Darlan (Catroux had been sacked by Vichy and threw in his lot with de Gaulle’s Free French). The frontier dispute had an ancient history dating back to 1867 when the Siamese had been forced by France to give up their sovereign rights in Cambodia. In 1893, Thailand had further been forced to surrender its vassal states in Laos (it is worth noting that in 1909, Britain also forced Thailand to give up its vassal provinces in Malaya). Thus, the isolation and weakness of French Indochina in 1940 presented the Thais with a supreme opportunity, especially as they had secured Japanese backing. Demands for redress arrived on Decoux’s desk in the autumn of 1940 and were sharply rejected. The French obviously saw the hand of Japan behind Thailand’s demands, as it was in Tokyo’s interest to increase its influence in both Indochina and Thailand. The favourite ploy of the Japanese hereabouts was to pose as the ‘elder brother’ of Asiatic peoples who would look after their interests. Meantime, Japanese military equipment, aircraft and pilots were flooding into Thailand. Japan was in a new and even brasher mood, which was represented in Bangkok by Colonel Saito, a US-educated nationalist zealot who persuaded the Thais to attack the French in late November 1940.35 By early December, the Thai forces had occupied many of the disputed areas, and Thai aircraft had bombed the capital of Laos, Vientiane. The French were disconcerted by the apparent professionalism of the Thai Air Force, and harboured the reasonable suspicion that the aircraft were, in fact, being flown by Japanese airmen. When Foreign Minister Matsuoka offered to ‘mediate’ between Thailand and France, Decoux angrily responded that he would welcome mediation by a neutral state.36 The British were well aware that the Japanese were arming the Thais. They stood aside when 80,000 Thai troops deepened their offensive in January 1941 and French resistance collapsed. Only at sea did the French win any success when their cruiser Lamotte Picquet sank several Thai naval vessels. Decoux was forced to accept Japanese mediation to bring the conflict to a close. But the Japanese also succeeded in cheating the Thais, who only got a quarter of the expected territory in Cambodia, it included the cultural gem of Angkor Wat. This was because, unknown to them, the French had agreed to lease out more airfields to the Japanese this time in Cochin China, an excellent jumping off point for an attack on British Malaya.

26

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

The British attitude to the Franco-Thais was determined in part by military weakness in the area, but also, it seems likely, by the role played by its Minister in Bangkok, Sir Josiah Crosby, who (amazingly) spent 35 out of his 39 years in the Diplomatic Service in Thailand.37 If ever there was a diplomat who seems to have ‘gone native’ it was Sir Josiah (although Sir Percy Loraine in Ankara and Sir Nevile Henderson in Berlin also were contemporaries of Crosby accused of such a tendency). Nevertheless, the Foreign Office continued to value Sir Josiah’s despatches highly. But he may well have been duped by the Thai Prime Minister, Field Marshal Luang Pibul, who had held the post since 1938. Pibul was a dubious character who had been forced to resign in 1937 when he was accused of selling royal lands at greatly undervalued prices. Crosby’s close association with Pibul derived from the fact that in 1934, he had been sent back to Bangkok as Minister after three years in Panama, at the express request of Pibul’s party which had achieved power after the 1932 revolution in Thailand. This was a highly unusual situation, as postings were normally determined by the Permanent Under-Secretary, at this time Vansittart, and one in which the British analyst Dorothy Crisp believed Crosby’s judgement had been affected. Writing in 1943, she noted that ‘there were Englishmen in Malaya and Singapore who were certain that Luang Pibul . . . had been in the hands of the Japanese from 1934 onwards and that he had a pact with them’.38 Given the fact that he had a record of corruption, it is also quite possible that Pibul was in the pay of the Japanese. It is worth noting that the US Minister in Bangkok, Grant, shared Crisp’s assessment of Pibul, as did the US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. Critics of Pibul pointed to the harsh measures he had taken against Thailand’s Chinese minority, which demonstrated a pro-Japanese bias. Immigration from China was banned, Chinese schools were closed and Chinese businesses nationalized.39 Pibul was also an open admirer of German and Italian fascism and spent heavily on Italian and Japanese armaments. A Thai-style Hitler Youth organization was even established. All this suggests either that Sir Josiah Crosby misunderstood Pibul’s real inclinations, and he was also a Thai patriot who wanted to regain the lost territories by whatever means possible, or that Crosby himself may have been complicit in condoning Pibul’s aggression against French Indochina. British Military Intelligence did not share Crosby’s view of the Thai government, or his assessment of his own influence with Field Marshal Pibul. On 23 November 1941, Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie of the British General Staff wrote to the Deputy Director, Military Intelligence, at the War Office in the following terms: This minister is a bachelor and has long been resident in Thailand with the very natural result that he not only takes a very parochial view but, as he himself confirms, regards the Thais as wayward children to whom he would wish to stand in the capacity of a father confessor.40

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

27

The reference to Crosby’s bachelor status is a significant one because he was a homosexual and this fact was known to government and military officials in British Malaya. It has also been suggested that a man as unscrupulous as Pibul may have requested Sir Josiah’s posting in 1934 in the full knowledge of his sexual bias, which the security services would have seen as rendering him open to blackmail. It was also true that in Thailand homosexuality was accepted, whereas in the British Empire, it was still a crime. There is no proof that Crosby betrayed his country, but his despatches were pro-Pibul, and no blackmail would have been necessary because the Thais ‘could safely assume the British minister would be inclined to ensure that, wherever possible, he would grant the administration the benefit of any doubt’. And Grant, the US Minister, believed that Crosby had agreed to Pibul’s invasion of Indochina in 1940. The French themselves believed that the British had covertly supported Thai claims to French territory. All this raises the question of why Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, raised no issues about Crosby’s blatantly pro-Thai bias. After all, as Foreign Secretary in 1937–38, he had protested at Sir Nevile Henderson’s alleged pro-German bias in Berlin;41 As had Vansittart, who was responsible for Henderson’s appointment to Berlin, but soon turned against him. The Eden memoirs say nothing about Crosby or his diplomacy, but it is clear that the Foreign Office was very reluctant to move him (just as ultimately it had left Nevile Henderson in post), while Eden himself may have been content to be told by Crosby that Pibul was pro-British when the evidence suggested otherwise. Crosby’s behaviour can also be justified as a misguided attempt to preserve British influence in Thailand by condoning Thai claims against French Indochina. There was never any question of the British government offering help to the Vichyites in Indochina. Foreign Office procedures can, of course, be criticized for, first, leaving Crosby in Thailand for so long and, second, for not being more watchful about his bias (though individual officials did have concerns). But it needs to be remembered that diplomats could also be strongly biased against their hosts, to a degree which impartial observers might have thought detrimental to the conduct of British foreign policy (a classic example being the British Minister in Prague between 1930 and 1936, Sir Joseph Addison, who was notoriously anti-Czech).42 At worst, it can only be argued that British conduct during the Franco-Thai war may have reinforced Japanese belief that little meaningful resistance would be forthcoming from them to a southward offensive. They also knew that Thai hostility to the French colonial re´gime in Indochina would continue.

3

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

On 1 October 1945, the US State Department sent a memorandum to the French Ambassador in Washington concerning the status of the Indochinese territories obtained by Thailand in 1941. This was a response to a French request on 22 August for clarification of the US position on French sovereignty in Indochina and territories lost in the Franco-Thai War. The State Department stated that the US government did not recognize the validity of the transfer of these territories to Siam [Thailand]; it concurs in the view of the French government that the question of their restoration is not a matter for arbitration; and it believes that these territories should in fact be restored by Siam.1 On the face of it, this was a reassuring statement about French sovereignty. Later in the same statement, however, the State Department appeared to be hedging its bets. ‘The foregoing view,’ the French Ambassador was told, ‘was not to be considered as supporting the merits of the pre-1941 Indochinese Siamese border.’ Furthermore, this US attitude to the Thai annexations was to be ‘without prejudice to any border readjustments or transfers of territory which may be affected by orderly, peaceful processes subsequent to their restoration.’2 This statement was entirely symptomatic of American ambiguity about the restoration of French sovereignty, which followed a lengthy period after 1941 when the Roosevelt administration seemed to be actively hostile to the whole idea of French rule being restored in Indochina (Truman replaced FDR as President in April 1945). This in turn caused severe tensions in the Anglo-American relationship because the British persistently championed the restoration of French sovereignty in Indochina. Roosevelt’s antipathy to French colonial rule in Indochina was well known, but the State Department muddied the waters. On 14 June 1941, for example, some months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Atherton of the State Department had written to the Free French representative Pleven saying, ‘The policy of this government as regards France is based on the maintenance of the integrity of France and of the French

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

29

Empire and on the eventual restoration of the complete independence of all French territories.’3 This statement at least left it to the French to decide when Indochina should be given independence and recognized the territorial integrity of the French Empire. This was not what Roosevelt was saying and the British government and Foreign Office were left to try and interpret what American policy on Indochina really was. The other problem in Britain was that Churchill’s overwhelming preoccupation was the AngloAmerican alliance and maintaining a close, friendly personal relationship with President Roosevelt. And when Roosevelt showed a marked animus and prejudice against General de Gaulle and the Free French, Churchill tended to side with the President and complain bitterly about the French leader. This, despite the somewhat bizarre American tendency to side with the authoritarian, collaborationist Vichy re´gime against de Gaulle. In turn, this made life difficult for the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, and the Foreign Office, who were at least disposed to allow de Gaulle, difficult and prickly though he could be, a fair chance to establish himself as the leader of the Free French and the forces of resistance inside France. Eden had initially, like the Americans, doubted whether the restoration of France as a great power was either desirable or possible.4 But by the summer of 1941, he had come around to a position in line with most Foreign Office thinking about France and its colonial empire. As far as French Indochina was concerned, this was set out in a lengthy Foreign Office memorandum of 19 September 1944, just a year before the arrival of General Gracey and his forces in Cochin China. Under the heading ‘Questions Arising Out of the United States Reactions to Proposals for French Participation in the War in the Far West’, Hudson of the Foreign Office Research Department stated that it could not be ‘legitimately said that France had misruled Indochina’. Whatever criticisms could be aimed at French colonialism, Hudson argued, ‘French rule has preserved Indochina from tyranny and other evils and given peace and political cohesion to a territory which has no geographical or ethnographical unity’. Furthermore, the memorandum argued, the French had developed the economy by building roads, railways and dykes while stimulating agriculture.5 Thus, the Foreign Office lined up solidly behind its colonial cousin as it was to do again. But it faced a major difficulty throughout the years after American entry into the War. For there were two Frances: in Indochina, France was represented by the Vichy government of Admiral Decoux, while increasingly elsewhere (and most importantly in metropolitan France by 1944) the writ of de Gaulle’s Free French ran. Perversely, however, the American administration clung on to the Vichy link, or sponsored inept rivals to de Gaulle, like General Giraud. Eden became increasingly disillusioned with the Americans and noted that his counterpart, Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was even more anti-de Gaulle than President Roosevelt. This had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing Roosevelt’s own anti-Gaullist prejudice.

30

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

Eden wrote in his diary on 4 March 1944 about the President’s ‘absurd and petty dislike of de Gaulle’ and how it blinded him from making any rational assessment of American policy towards France.6 This affected not just policy on Indochina, but also Roosevelt’s views on France’s position in a liberated Europe. This manifested itself most strangely with Roosevelt’s extraordinary plan to truncate the French State by creating a bizarre amalgam to be called ‘Wallonia’, which would include parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, northern France and Alsace-Lorraine (the loss of the latter showing particular insensitivity on Roosevelt’s part given the cession of these provinces both in 1871 and 1940 to Germany). Eden wrote scathingly in his memoirs of how ‘Roosevelt was familiar with the history and geography of Europe. Perhaps his hobby of stampcollecting had helped him to this knowledge, but the academic yet sweeping opinions which he built upon it were alarming in their cheerful fecklessness’.7 This may have been overstating the case, but for a great man, Franklin Roosevelt could sometimes be guilty of alarming myopia.8 How does one account for Roosevelt’s Francophobia? Cordell Hull’s memoirs published in 1948 offer some insight into Roosevelt’s thinking, particularly into his attitude towards French Indochina. That French dependency stuck in his mind as having been the springboard for the Japanese attack on the Philippines, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. He could not but remember the devious conduct of the Vichy government in granting Japan the right to station troops there, without consultation with us but with an effort to make the world believe we approved.9 This passage, which also reflects Hull’s bias, only tells part of the story. Certainly, the Vichy arrangement with Japan did assist the Japanese attack on British Malaya, but Decoux and the Vichy administration had little choice but to meet Tokyo’s demands. Decoux’s predecessor Catroux, had tried and failed to get American military assistance, and Decoux himself was no more successful with the British. Neither power was prepared to assist the French in the Japanese-inspired war with the Thais, and for Hull to describe French behaviour as ‘devious’ shows a degree of self-righteous naivety. The French Governor-General had no option but to try and play the Allied powers and Japan off against each other. And 800 French colonial troops had died in September 1940 trying to resist Japanese incursions into northern Vietnam at a time when ‘consultation’ with Washington would have been useless, as no aid would have been forthcoming. In fact, the key to Roosevelt’s behaviour towards Indochina lay in his anti-imperialism. He regarded even Churchill as a hopelessly reactionary Edwardian imperialist and wanted the British Empire to be broken up, while the American military nicknamed Lord Louis Mountbatten’s SouthEast Asia Command ‘Save England’s Asian Colonies’. Roosevelt’s attitude

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

31

towards the French Empire was even more ferocious and contrasted sharply with that of the British Foreign Office. Roosevelt told Hull that Indochina should be administered by a UN trusteeship and ‘should not go back to France’.10 Yet this had not always been his position because in 1941–42 he had been flirting with Marshal Pe´tain’s government (which obviously sanctioned Decoux’s agreement with the Japanese). Indeed, on 7 December 1941, the very day that the Japanese were sinking American warships at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt sent a message to the Vichy government through Leahy, his Ambassador at the little spa town which now served as the nerve centre of Pe´tain’s administration. The message said that it was one of the President’s ‘greatest wishes to see France reconstituted in the post-war period’. This desire to reconstitute France, which sits oddly with Roosevelt’s bizarre concept of Wallonia in 1944, was, Leahy told Pe´tain, to include France’s colonial empire. It is difficult in this context not to reach the conclusion that Roosevelt was prepared to back the reconstitution of an empire ruled by the collaborationist Vichy re´gime, but not one run by the resistance leader de Gaulle who had fled to London in June 1940 rather than give up the struggle against Nazi Germany. A curious position for a democratic leader to put himself in and one which was very largely the result of personal animus against de Gaulle. It also seems to be the case that Roosevelt’s anti-imperialism, which was markedly absent from Leahy’s message in December 1941, only began to show itself seriously in 1942 and 1943. By 16 December 1943, at the Teheran Conference where he met Churchill and Stalin, Roosevelt was telling a group of Chinese, Turkish, Soviet and British representatives (in the last instance, the British Minister Ronald Campbell, who stood in for the sick Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador in Washington) how he ‘had been working very hard to prevent Indochina being restored to France’. Roosevelt went on to accuse the French colonial administration of doing nothing to improve the lot of the people of Indochina in a hundred years of rule. Yet he still deemed the Indochinese unready for self-rule. They should be put under some type of UN trusteeship and France itself be excluded from any post-war global role. Instead the US, Britain, the USSR and Chiang Kai-shek’s China would act as world policemen. This odd, rambling discourse ended with a curious reference to the French colony of Dakar, which he somehow thought to be a threat to the Western Hemisphere if in weak (presumably French) hands. Further eyewitness testimony about Roosevelt’s strange Dakar fixation is provided in the War Diaries of Harold Macmillan, Britain’s Minister Resident in North Africa, who heard on 5 December 1943 the President’s insistence that it should be ‘under American protection’. At the same time Roosevelt remarked that the French would not be able to recover from their 1940 defeat, and must ‘not be allowed to let the world down a second time’. Thus Indochina must not be returned to them. Roosevelt had his usual sideswipe against de Gaulle, and Macmillan was struck by his paradoxical nature. The famous charm was all too evident,

32

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

Macmillan wrote, and he thought that there was ‘something at once attractive and pathetic in this man – the great torso, the huge and splendid head . . . while the poor withered legs and feet, like those of a cloth doll, are nothing but a mockery’.11 Certainly none of Roosevelt’s conviviality or charm was evident in his dealings with the Free French. It remains a historical curiosity that in December 1941, Roosevelt was prepared to overlook the sins of the French colonialists and return Indochina to them, but that two years later, he was roundly condemning them and their record in Indochina. In Britain, Churchill found himself in a difficult position with regard to Roosevelt and the American alliance. He was not, therefore, as consistent in his support for a restoration of French sovereignty in Europe and Asia as Eden, and at times became irritated by Eden’s pleas on behalf of the French which had the full backing of his Foreign Office officials. In a memorandum dated 5 May 1944, a month before D-Day, Churchill told Eden that the US President had been ‘more outspoken to me on the subject [French Indochina] than on any other colonial matter, and I imagine that it is one of his principal war aims to liberate Indochina from France’. Churchill went on to tell Eden that whenever Roosevelt raised the issue of Indochina, he had reminded him of ‘his pledges about the integrity of the French Empire’ and reserved the British position. ‘Do you really,’ Churchill concluded testily, ‘want to go and stir all this up at such a time as this?’12 For Churchill, the integrity of the Anglo-American alliance was vital and he too was prone to bouts of fierce irritation with General de Gaulle. There was an intense debate between Churchill and Eden about the future of France and the American attitude to it. Between mid-March and mid-June 1944, Eden sent Churchill no less than 41 minutes about France and the tone of the debate sometimes became intemperate. On the very day that Anglo-American troops landed on the Normandy beaches (without de Gaulle having been told in advance), Churchill was telling Eden ‘de Gaulle must go’.13 On another occasion, Churchill mournfully told an aide, ‘everyone has their cross to bear and I have my cross of Lorraine’. Leaving aside personalities, however, and de Gaulle’s notorious sensitivity about anything relating to France’s honour, Churchill’s position was not eased by the contradictory statements coming from Washington. Reference has already been made to the message to Marshal Pe´tain on 7 December 1941, but on 13 April 1942, Acting Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, was telling the French Ambassador Henri-Haye that the United States recognized ‘the sovereign jurisdiction of the people of France over the territory of France, and over French possessions overseas’. And as late as November 1942, the senior State Department official in North Africa, Robert Murphy, had told de Gaulle’s Free French rival Giraud that ‘It is thoroughly understood that French sovereignty will be re-established as soon as possible throughout all the territory, metropolitan and colonial, over which flew the French flag in 1939’. These pledges were clear-cut enough but Churchill, Eden and the

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

33

Foreign Office were thrust into a complex game with the Roosevelt administration, which frequently seemed to be contradicting itself where France and Indochina were concerned. Small wonder that Eden felt more at home in the Kremlin where business management contrasted strongly with the chaotic ad hoc processes in Washington.14 Much Foreign Office time was spent trying to assess exactly what Roosevelt’s current position on Indochina was. Thus in September 1944, the Foreign Office recognized that underlying the question of what role France might play in the Pacific War ‘may be the President’s view that Indochina should not be returned to France’.15 The emphasis here is on the ‘may’, given the fluidity of American policy on anything to do with French Indochina. Meantime, de Gaulle’s Free French Movement was becoming increasingly assertive about the whole issue of a return to Indochina. There were two immediate issues linked with this. Was French Indochina to be part of the so-called ‘China Theatre’ (along with Thailand) which would fall under Sino-American control? Failing this, what was the French role in Lord Louis Mountbatten’s South-East Asia Command, with its headquarters in Ceylon, to be? In January 1943, the British had agreed that the ‘China Theatre’ should include Indochina and Thailand, but in the Foreign Office there was an awareness by the autumn of 1944 that the French could not ‘contemplate with equanimity a supreme command of Chiang-Kai-shek [sic] over allied forces in Indochina’. In part, this was because the French knew that Chiang had been paying subsidies to ‘an Annamite revolutionary organization which is as much anti-French as anti-Japanese’. In the Foreign Office view, the Chinese could be relied upon to use a supreme command in the China Theatre to usurp French authority in Indochina and set up ‘a puppet Annamese re´gime dependent on China’.16 The Foreign Office thought that the appointment of an American deputy to Chiang might make a Chinese supreme command more acceptable to the French (meaning the Free French and not Decoux’s Vichyite re´gime), but this was guesswork. The Americans had already been disillusioned by the Chinese dictator’s insistence that all Kuomintang forces should be under his own authority and not that of the American General Stilwell, who was only allowed command of US Forces in China and Burma. However, the Foreign Office did recognize that SinoAmerican control of the China Theatre posed a ‘potentially serious threat to British and French interests in South-East Asia’.17 Once again, the community of Franco-British interest in the region was signposted by Foreign Office officials. As was the danger that allowing Chinese control of Indochina would antagonize the French, whom Britain wanted to be a major player in a new Europe, as well as the Far East. The French would know, after repeated British assurances, that Britain had no designs on French sovereignty in Indochina. But the Foreign Office rightly feared a situation where it would be ‘impossible to prevent French warships from going to Saigon or Haiphong and there defying an agreement

34

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

between other nations to which no French authority had ever given its consent’.18 The Americans, after all, might remain indifferent to a Chinese takeover in Indochina given Roosevelt’s utterances on the subject. De Gaulle was anxious that France should have a seat at the post-war peace table, and in October 1943, the Free French sent a request to Allied Forces Headquarters to equip an expeditionary force to be ready by the autumn of 1944. At the same time, the French Ambassador in Washington, Henri-Haye, told General Marshall that the Free French military authorities wanted to ask for representation on the Allied Pacific War Council. But American planners ignored these French overtures because it was felt in Washington that de Gaulle had nothing to offer in the Pacific or the Far East. Thus, no decision had been made about any likely French contribution as late as August 1944, which was also a reflection of Anglo-American disagreement about the colonial issue and the role to be played by France in both Europe and the Far East in the post-war era. Roosevelt’s bizarre belief in Wallonia showed how extreme his positions on France could be.19 The question exercising the French leadership outside Indochina was how to bring about a meaningful French resistance to Japanese rule there. In North Africa, the French formed the Corps Le´ger d’Intervention (Light Intervention Force or CLI) which was modelled to a degree on Orde Wingate’s Chindit guerrilla force which caused the Japanese a good deal of trouble in Burma. The CLI came into existence in December 1943 in Algeria and was made up of 1,200 men with different specialisms and Indochinese language skills. The idea was that these men would be dropped into Indochina in small groups to act as a focus for later anti-Japanese resistance.20 De Gaulle realized that if a French resistance movement in Indochina was to be active, then the existing Vichy administration there had to be informed. Otherwise the situation would arise, as it had in North Africa, of Frenchman fighting Frenchman (and indeed, in Dakar the first Free French independent action of the war). As an emissary, de Gaulle chose Franc¸ois de Langlade, a former rubber planter in Malaya who had been working for the Indochina section of Force 136 which was designed to foment resistance in Japanese-occupied Asia. De Langlade made two attempts to get into touch with Decoux, the head of the French administration in Indochina. His first attempt on 5 July 1944 failed and his trip was made immensely more difficult by American obstructionism. The American authorities in Kunming (Stilwell being in charge of non-Chinese operations in China) refused to let de Langlade fly from there, obliging him to go back to India and get on an RAF aircraft which needed eight hours to parachute him into Tonkin (the flight from Kunming was just half an hour). But internal feuds amongst the Vichy colonialists prevented de Langlade from seeing Decoux, and he needed to make a second trip. This time the Americans let him fly from Kunming and de Langlade met the Governor General in Hanoi (ironically he landed at Dien Bien Phu). His brief was to tell Decoux about the planned resistance

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

35

to the Japanese and get him to agree not to interfere in any way. Unfortunately, Decoux chose to meddle, telling the Vichy authorities in France about Free French plans. This was to compromise security. As it was, the resistance movement in Indochina had two main objectives. One was to try and get the sizeable French colonial army in Tonkin out of Indochina and across the Chinese border (the southern garrisons were too far away). The second was to obtain intelligence for the Allies and this was very effective as French intelligence allowed the 14th US Air Force to sink large numbers of Japanese ships (it was based in China). This was contrary to the assertions of Roosevelt and Hull that the French had failed to engage in any useful anti-Japanese operations. At the time, the Americans accused the British of running a clandestine French operation which broke Allied guidelines by not informing the Americans in China, although SEAC approval had been sought.21 Existing documentation shows clearly enough that South-East Asia Command knew about the de Langlade mission. At a meeting convened by the Supreme Allied Commander Lord Mountbatten, on 27 July 1944, Mountbatten himself noted that ‘Major de Langlade had been introduced into French Indochina’ by SOE. It had subsequently been asserted, Mountbatten went on, that de Langlade ‘had carried with him a personal letter in manuscript from General de Gaulle’. But Mountbatten ‘gathered that it was not a letter in a form calculated to rouse the French in Indochina and was apparently an introductory letter’. The reference seems to have been to de Langlade’s second trip into Tonkin but Mountbatten’s colleague, General Maddocks, said that it was ‘impossible to know . . . what instructions Major de Langlade had been given to deliver verbally’. The consensus of the meeting was that the de Langlade mission was a political issue which should be dealt with by the Foreign Office which could then take the matter up with the State Department if need be.22 Lord Louis Mountbatten is a key figure in the story of Britain’s involvement with French Indochina, but he remains a controversial one. His early reputation in the Royal Navy was based on his heroics as Commander of HMS Kelly in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in 1940–41, which led to his appointment as Director of Combined Operations. Mountbatten then presided over the catastrophic raid into Dieppe in 1942 which resulted in terrible losses for the Canadians, but no lessening of Mountbatten’s selfbelief or luck in being promoted to higher commands than his limited experience of leadership really warranted. In fact, Mountbatten’s appointment as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces South-East Asia in 1943 owed something to Churchill’s penchant for royals who served in the Armed Forces, and to his sympathy for Mountbatten because of the treatment of the young man’s father, Prince Louis of Battenburg, in 1914 when he was dismissed from his post as First Sea Lord very largely because he was a German (Battenburg was descended from Queen Victoria via his mother Princess Victoria of Hesse, but that did not save him).

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The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

Louis Mountbatten (his name was un-Germanized by royal decree in 1917) served in the Royal Navy in the First World War and subsequently befriended Edward, Prince of Wales, when they were both at Cambridge University. He used his royal connections adroitly in later years, but it does seem that Churchill was also an admirer of his personal qualities. On 24 August 1943, the day before Mountbatten’s appointment as Supreme Allied Commander was publicly announced, Churchill wrote in the following terms to the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow: After a great deal of consideration, I decided to appoint Lord Louis Mountbatten for this very important post. Mountbatten has unique qualifications in that he is intimately acquainted with all three branches of the Services, and also with amphibious operations . . . I regard this as of great importance on account of the extremely varied character of the South-East Asia front by land and sea. Mountbatten is a fine organizer and a man of great energy and daring.23 The reference to ‘amphibious operations’ is unduly flattering given the Dieppe disaster and there were other better-qualified contenders for the SEAC post, but ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten never lacked self-confidence. And, while controversy continues about his military leadership qualities, his sympathy for the aspirations of Indians, Burmese and indeed Vietnamese in the post-war era was an asset. Mountbatten has been accused by a rightwing critic of urging ‘the French to appease the Viet-Minh in Indochina’ and if he did so it was because this was a sensible strategy which the French would have been well advised to follow, but chose not to.24 Despite his often infuriating capacity for self-aggrandizement, Mountbatten’s instinct that the era of colonialism was over was a right one. From the same perspective, he quite rightly opposed Britain’s Suez adventure in 1956, when serving as First Sea Lord. Whatever criticisms have been made of Mountbatten’s stewardship in South-East Asia Command, he certainly showed a degree of sensitivity about French aspirations to return to Indochina. This was in the teeth of US policy towards France, which veered between non-cooperation and outright hostility. The French were naturally keen to take part in the Pacific War, as a prelude to their return to Indochina. In January 1944, the French Committee of National Liberation, which subsumed all the various French resistance groupings including the communists, appointed General Roger Blaizot as Chief of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East with a brief to lead a mission to SEAC Headquarters in Kandy, Ceylon. The French made two stipulations with regard to Blaizot: he must have immediate contact with Mountbatten as Supreme Allied Commander and French representatives must be accepted into the Chiefs of Staff structure in Washington.25 The British Chiefs of Staff were prepared to support the idea of the Blaizot Mission, as was Mountbatten.

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

37

The Americans as ever were unenthusiastic. Their Chiefs of Staff told their British counterparts on 30 August 1944 that ‘Indochina is in the China Theatre of war, and therefore is an area of United States strategic responsibility’.26 This was a coded way of refusing the French request to play an active role in the Far Eastern War, largely on the grounds that the Americans thought that the French had nothing substantial to offer in the military sphere. The British were also aware that France would have little immediate to offer, but had a much more positive attitude to French involvement. Thus the tone of a meeting held by the Chiefs of Staff Committee of the War Cabinet on 16 March 1944 was pragmatic but open-minded. The RAF representative, Sir Douglas Evill, said that the French contribution ‘to the Air Forces operating in the Far East was unlikely to be large’. But he and his colleagues recognized that if France was to play a part then a French mission would be needed for attachment to South-East Asia Command, in the way the French had suggested in January.27 It was agreed that the Joint Planning Staff would report back on ‘the military value, direct or indirect, of according to the French request for a more active participation in the Far Eastern war’.28 Some three weeks later in early April, the Air Ministry in London sent a measured response to SACSEA about the Chiefs of Staff’s recommendation, which demonstrated British pragmatism and flexibility on the French issue. If, the Ministry reasoned, the French land and air forces were ‘of fighting good value’, they would represent ‘a saving in British manpower and a possible stimulus to resistance to the enemy among the French officials in Indochina’.29 This important second point consistently escaped the White House in its formulation of policy on Indochina. The Air Ministry telegram also said that the establishment of a ‘Corps Le´ger d’Intervention’ in India, albeit only of 500 men, would be of ‘considerable value’ to SOE.30 British support for de Langlade’s mission in July 1944 was to demonstrate their belief in the potential of clandestine French operations against the Japanese in Indochina, which contrasted sharply with American agnosticism. Mountbatten was fully in the picture in Ceylon. On 13 April he told the Chiefs of Staff that he was prepared to ‘accept the French Mission and a corps le´ger’. But he added an important caveat, the Blaizot Mission, he insisted, would be confined ‘to matters concerning Indochina and will not participate in the general strategy of this command’. Thus the French were constricted to a limited role, but even this was in danger of creating AngloAmerican tensions because Washington placed French Indochina into the China Theatre outside the remit of South-East Asia Command. Interestingly, Mountbatten’s acceptance of a French role in SEAC was partly motivated by his fear that if the French were not accommodated, they would ‘concentrate on Chungking because they are determined to get back into FIC, a refusal from us’, he believed, ‘would be met with obstruction by the French in all the pre-occupational work which we need in Indochina’.

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The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

On the face of it, this analysis seems faulty as the French would surely have been wary of allowing Chiang Kai-shek a role in Indochina which might result in a major Chinese troop movement across the frontier into Tonkin. Certainly the Foreign Office regarded Chiang with some wariness, as has been seen. Mountbatten was also being over-optimistic in the same telegram in thinking that talks with the Americans could be confined to the ‘essentially operational and need not involve discussion of the political future of Indochina’.31 Roosevelt and Hull were constantly making statements in 1943–44 which envisaged the permanent disappearance of a French role in Indochina. This was clearly moving from the military to the political sphere as far as Indochina was concerned. Mountbatten was in contact with General Blaizot from the point of his appointment in January 1944. He shared the Frenchman’s extreme frustration with the inability of the Anglo-Americans (largely due to the attitude of the latter) to make a decision about a French military mission. No decision had been made about French participation in the Far Eastern war as late as August 1944. Eventually Blaizot did arrive at Kandy on 26 October 1944, but only with the technical status of a visitor, although ultimately he stayed on. Mountbatten’s able Foreign Office adviser, Esler Dening, noted that the arrival of Blaizot was ‘politically sound even though the Americans may shriek to high heaven at its impropriety’.32 When Blaizot arrived, Mountbatten had him to dinner at Government House in Kandy, along with the new US Commander in the China Theatre, General Wedemeyer, who was known to oppose the sending of the Blaizot Mission (Wedemeyer had replaced Stilwell). Although Blaizot wrote to Mountbatten in effusive terms about Franco-British co-operation, the private view of Blaizot on Mountbatten’s staff was that he was a colourless individual. He was recalled to Paris in December 1945 after writing to Mountbatten to tell him how ‘proud the [French] troops . . . are of being under your command’.33 Blaizot was anxious to show that the French were being pro-active and on 23 November, Blaizot sent Mountbatten a plan of instructions which he proposed to send to the Delegate General of Resistance in French Indochina. Blaizot believed that the minimum that the French should offer the Allied cause was ‘the maintenance of a zone of guerrilla warfare and the destruction of the Japanese system of communications’. Blaizot thought that the only place in Indochina where an air bridgehead could be held was what he called ‘High Laos’ which would be ‘the bastion of the French defence. Every step must therefore be foreseen to retain High Laos in our hands’.34 Mountbatten turned over Blaizot’s memorandum to Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall, his Chief of Staff, for analysis and comment. Pownall was cautious about Blaizot’s scheme. First, he thought that the Supreme Allied Commander should ‘fight shy of this . . . General Blaizot is asking you for your opinion on a matter which he is about to put to his own

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

39

Government’. It would be unwise, Pownall believed, for Mountbatten to be offering advice to any government but his own. Mountbatten, of course, was never worried about offering his own opinions on anything, but in this instance he took Pownall’s advice, not least because Sir Henry’s second objection to Blaizot’s memorandum was that it was ‘extremely obscure’ with a ‘very wonky military plan’. A suitably arcane reply was sent to Blaizot on 29 November 1944, which ruffled no French feathers. Nevertheless, Mountbatten tried to keep Blaizot happy by means of various blandishments. One was to tell him on 12 December that the French flag would now fly alongside the other Allied flags at SEAC Headquarters in Kandy. At the same time, the French flag would be flown in daily rotation on the Supreme Commander’s official car alongside those of the Dutch and the Chinese (the British and American flags being a permanent fixture). This was done to avoid any French complaints, but at the same time Mountbatten reminded Blaizot that SEAC was ‘primarily’ an American and British command. Blaizot was satisfied by the arrangements, telling Mountbatten that he and all the members of the French Military Mission thought them ‘particulie`rment sensibles’.35 Mountbatten’s correspondence with Blaizot in Kandy also reveals that the French in Indochina were playing a useful role in the Allied war effort. On 28 February 1945, Mountbatten was writing to Captain Doignon, Blaizot’s Chief of Staff, to express his ‘great satisfaction; that American airmen who had been shot down near Saigon on 12 January had been given shelter and hospital treatment by the French resistance which had then smuggled them out into China’.36 Mountbatten and Eden would undoubtedly have been gratified to see that such action undermined the claims of Roosevelt and Hull about French inaction. This French achievement had been in the teeth of American obstructionism. It had also occurred in a context of administrative and military confusion inside Indochina. This involved de Langlade, who had been working for both SEAC and SOE in Ceylon. He arrived in Algiers in the spring of 1944 to report on his activities in the Far East to the National Defence Staff and to brief a former colleague, Colonel Tutenges who was in control of all French military missions abroad, about the situation in Indochina. Blaizot, as has been seen, was appointed Commander of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East by de Gaulle, but there also had to be some rationalization of French intelligence services and clandestine operations in Indochina. Thus, Tutenges, an expert on South-East Asia, was to be in charge of Blaizot’s deuxie`me bureau, or intelligence section, based in Ceylon. At the same time, de Langlade accepted the post of Chief of the Direction Ge´ne´rale des Services Speciaux (DGSS). He insisted, however, that he must have absolute control of all clandestine French operations in Indochina.37 Following this, de Gaulle, who agreed to his demands, sent de Langlade on his controversial mission into Tonkin. And although the British

40

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

did not know the exact nature of de Gaulle’s instructions at the time of Mountbatten’s meeting on 27 July 1944, de Langlade had in fact been ordered to make contact with General Mordant (Commander-in-Chief of French Forces in Indochina since 1940). Mordant himself offers a typical example of the divided loyalties syndrome which afflicted Vichy officials and commanders in Indochina. In 1943, he had abandoned Vichy in favour of the Free French and made contact with their provisional government in Algiers. De Gaulle’s instructions, relayed to Mordant by de Langlade, put Mordant in charge of antiJapanese resistance in Indochina and ordered him to prepare for the expected Allied landing in Indochina. Thereafter, de Langlade went to a meeting in Calcutta arranged by the Free French, which obtained British agreement to the parachuting of agents and arms into Indochina. Alas, as a military man Mordant had little talent for clandestine activities and although SOE parachuted agents in, they were not properly used. Lax security on the part of Mordant and his army colleagues in Indochina also meant that the Japanese got wind of what the French resistance were planning. The other problem was that Admiral Decoux was still in post as Governor General in Hanoi, and he still thought that the best way to preserve French sovereignty in Indochina was to work with the Japanese. Mordant’s loudly broadcasted plans and expectations about an Allied landing were, he thought, merely stirring up the dust in Indochina.38 But de Gaulle confirmed that Mordant’s authority superseded Decoux’s. This confusion, and the barely concealed expectation that the Allies would land in Indochina, was to give the Japanese an opportunity to smash French resistance infrastructures and ultimately, the whole colonial administration in Indochina.

4

The Japanese coup of 9 March 1945 and its consequences

From December 1941 to March 1945, the Japanese chose to allow the French tricolour to fly in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for their own reasons. The decision appears to have been taken at the meeting of the Supreme Japanese War Council on 4 November 1941. The Supreme Commander for the Southern Regions, General Terauchi, stated the Japanese policy which was to avoid direct rule in the style used by Japan in China. Instead, Terauchi told his colleagues Japan would ‘make use of existing organizations and show respect for native customs’.1 Such a policy saved Japanese manpower while also providing a base for the forthcoming attacks on Malaya, Burma and the Dutch East Indies. In practice, of course, this Japanese policy had been applied in Indochina since the summer of 1940 without the War Council’s imprint. By the beginning of 1945, however, Japan attitudes were beginning to change with regard to Indochina. The Japanese High Command clearly envisaged the possibility that French Indochina might be invaded from the Philippines by General MacArthur, rather than from the so-called China Theatre in the North. It also, rather paradoxically from the French viewpoint, did not regard Japan as being at war with France at all, as Tokyo did not recognize de Gaulle’s provisional government. Instead, French Indochina was seen as still belonging to the defunct Vichy re´gime (even though its leaders Pe´tain and Laval were effectively prisoners in Germany) with which the Japanese still had agreements. Nevertheless, the Japanese were increasingly aware of French resistance activity in Indochina, such as the example cited above when American airmen were smuggled out into China. This had to be balanced against the way the Vichy French administration under Decoux had suppressed any signs of native Indochinese unrest, yet could not be totally trusted as metropolitan France had been liberated and Decoux’s men might be tempted to defect to the Free French. Amongst the Allies, Indochina remained a fractious issue. In Washington, the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, a former Foreign Secretary who had been exiled by Churchill because of his record as an appeaser, sought unsuccessfully to draw President Roosevelt out on the subject of French Indochina. But the most the gangling Halifax (‘Holy Fox’ as Churchill

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liked to call him) could get out of Roosevelt was a statement that the USA might turn a blind eye if SOE parachuted Frenchmen into Indochina. This hardly amounted to an endorsement of the Anglo-French approach and further problems were created by the attitude of General Wedemeyer, who had not forgiven the British for the de Langlade episode in July 1944. Wedemeyer closed Kunming airfield to Force 136 operations (mounted by SOE) as from 24 January 1945.2 This futile wrangling was put to an end with shattering suddenness on 9 March 1945 when the Japanese seized control in Indochina. The process began on the afternoon of that day when the Japanese Ambassador, Matsumoto, called on Admiral Decoux with a demand for closer French co-operation with Japan in Indochina. His colleague Kono, the Consul General, further demanded a sizeable increase in France’s contribution to the Japanese war effort plus an easing of constraints on the allocation of rice for Japanese officers. Another demand was that the Joint Defence Agreement between Japan and the Vichyites would be adhered to. Decoux, as was his wont, asked for extra time to consult his colleagues in the colonial administration in Hanoi. The Japanese regarded Decoux’s attitude as obstructive. At 6 pm on 9 March, Matsumsoto was back with more demands. The French were required to support the Japanese in Indochina in the event of an AngloAmerican invasion and all French troops and police forces were to be placed under Japanese control. In addition, Japan was to take over control of all transport systems in Indochina, banking and administration. At a stroke, French sovereignty in Indochina was destroyed and Decoux was given only two hours to accept the Japanese demands unconditionally. At 10.15 pm, Decoux sent the Japanese a note saying he needed more time to consider the Japanese demands. Matsumoto’s response was to place Decoux under protective custody and to order the Japanese army to take over throughout Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Matsumoto’s decision was endorsed by a Cabinet Meeting in Tokyo on 10 March 1945. A pretence was made in the usual Japanese style that they were assisting their Vietnamese ‘brothers’ towards independence. This encouraged the Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, to declare his country independent on 11 March and denounce the Franco-Annamite Treaty of 1884. Vietnam was now to join the Greater East Asian Nations and support Japan, relying (with extraordinary naivety on Bao Dai’s part) on the goodwill of the Japanese Empire. Similar declarations were made on 13 March by Prince Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia and a month later by the Laotian King Sisavang Vong. The Japanese were now to be regarded throughout Indochina as friends and allies. They had acted with ruthless efficiency, arresting not only Decoux but also Mordant and Louis Arnoux, the Chief of the Indochinese Police Force who had vainly been trying to track down Ho Chi Minh since 1919. Crucially, the Free French intelligence network was broken up and in Saigon, the senior French military and civil heads, General Lemonnier and

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Resident Auphale, were beheaded after first being made to dig their own graves. This fact is conveniently ignored by the main critic of French behaviour on 9 March (and in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese coup), the OSS agent, Archimedes L.A. Patti. According to Patti, Mordant in particular was guilty of dereliction of duty because he ignored warnings from various sources that the Japanese were about to stage a coup. By contrast, the French Commander in the north, General Sabattier, did heed the warnings and put his troops on alert. But it was too little too late in Patti’s version of events and only 5,000 French troops out of some 95,000 were able to offer any effective resistance. Mordant and his equally negligent colleague, General Ayme´, were both arrested by the Japanese. Patti concedes that some French units at Langson resisted the Japanese heroically (this was the site of the Japanese incursion in 1940) and that the few hundred survivors of the French force were massacred by the Japanese, as was the French garrison in Dang Dong nearby. But he minimizes French resistance in the Citadel in Hanoi and in Emperor Bao Dai’s capital of Hue´ in Annam, whose units of the French Peace Preservations Corps held out until the afternoon of 10 March. The picture is one of uncoordinated and feeble French resistance, yet Patti also refers to the fact that the French had been planning resistance for a year and that their posts were fully manned with well-stocked arsenals.3 This does not smack, one would have thought, of lack of resolve. The explanation for the rapid Japanese success on 9 March probably lies with General Delsuc, the Commander of the French forces in Cochin China, who ignored warnings from Admiral Decoux and evidence inadvertently supplied by a Japanese airfield commander that something was afoot on the night of 9 March. There is a clear difference though between supine defeatism and being taken by surprise. Thus, it matters little whether Mordant or Delsuc was to blame for the disaster. The most salient fact is that the French allowed themselves to be taken by surprise and even Decoux’s behaviour on 9 March cannot open him up to a charge of collusion with the Japanese. In Tonkin, General Sabattier acted with the greatest resolution, moving several battalions into the field ahead of the Japanese coup. Sabattier’s force made desperate appeals for help to SEAC Headquarters in Kandy which were passed on to Mountbatten by General Blaizot on 1 April 1945. On 24 March, Sabattier, who was made Commander-in-Chief of the surviving French forces in Indochina (previously he had commanded the Hanoi–Tonkin sector), referred to the refusal of French troops to surrender and how they had fought ‘pied a pied avec une resolution farouche, le sol d’Indochine contre les aggresseurs japonais [foot by foot with determined resolution the soul of Indochina against the Japanese aggressors]’. Those who collaborated with the Japanese, Sabattier warned, either out of stupidity or self-interest would be punished.4 The RAF tried to supply Sabattier’s force, whereas the USAF in China would do nothing without Washington’s approval, what could correctly be seen as a ‘do nothing’ policy.

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Churchill became angered by the American attitude to assisting General Sabattier’s men. On 19 March, he wrote to Field-Marshal Wilson, Head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, to express his disillusionment. ‘It will look very bad in history,’ he told Wilson, ‘if we were to let the French force in Indochina be cut to pieces by the Japanese through shortage of ammunition, if there is anything we can do to save them.’5 The next day, he told Mountbatten to do everything he could to assist Sabattier’s battered force, regardless of American attitudes. As it was, the unfortunate French remnants in Tonkin were bombed by the USAF as they tried to fight their way across the Chinese border. This was admitted by the US Consul General at Kunming, who told Washington that the 12,000 strong French force was surrounded by the Japanese and that ‘its artillery ammunition [had] been destroyed, probably by accident, a short while ago by the 14th USAF’.6 In fact, Chennault, the US 14th Air Force Commander, claimed that he wanted to assist the beleaguered French columns. But this assertion, in his 1949 autobiography, seems to have been false as archive material shows Chennault using bad weather and the non-availability of equipment as an excuse for inaction. He also stated that the assistance rendered by RAF B-24s to the French was to be deplored, as people might assume that these American-built aircraft were evidence that the United States itself was trying to help Sabattier’s men.7 Perhaps Chennault developed a post-war conscience about the US failure to assist the Frenchmen. The American assessment of French strength was, in any case, inaccurate. The real figure was around 5,700 men with a core around the extremely tough 5th Infantry Regiment of the celebrated French Foreign Legion. This force made an epic march through the Thai highlands for 51 days, while fighting off the Japanese all the way. It moved over the Chinese frontier in early May 1945. By another historical coincidence, a major rearguard action was fought by the 5th Infantry Regiment on the future battlefield of Dien Bien Phu. The survival of this skeleton French force meant little in the overall scheme of things, although its fighting retreat did cause the Japanese some temporary inconvenience. Much more significant was the devastating blow to French prestige inside Indochina which ultimately made it impossible for the French colonial re´gime to be maintained. As it was, Sabattier’s gallant force was not allowed to take part in further military actions against the Japanese because of Chinese and American objections. The troops were effectively interned by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist troops. At the same time, the complete Japanese takeover in Indochina meant that the invaluable Free French intelligence network, which had been organized from Chungking, was now inoperative. This offered a great opportunity for Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh movement to trade off intelligence to the Allies in exchange for a creeping campaign of communist infiltration in Tonkin and elsewhere in Vietnam. At this point, therefore, it is necessary to refocus on the activities of Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues since 1940.

The Japanese coup and its consequences

45

In November 1940, the communist-inspired uprising in the Bac Son district of Tonkin had been a demonstrable failure, with guerrillas forced to flee into the mountains or over the border into China. But at that very moment, Nguyen Ai Quoc arrived in the Chinese city of Guilin in his quest for eventual Vietnamese independence. In this context, he was concerned by the overtures his nationalist colleagues in the city had made to the Kuomintang General Li Jishen, who had asked them to draw up proposals which would show how indigenous resistance in Indochina would assist the Allied cause. Quoc had to remind his colleagues that the Vietnamese communist party had only two real friends, the Red army in the Soviet Union and the People’s Liberation Army in China.8 The track record of the Kuomintang re´gime, which had been strongly anti-communist since its forces massacred communist cadres in Shanghai in 1927, made this wise advice. Chiang Kai-shek himself, as the American General Stilwell discovered (he nicknamed Chiang ‘Peanut Joe’) was both untrustworthy and unscrupulous. Prior to the Shanghai massacre, Chiang had been pretending to have communist sympathies.9 Later in the 1930s, he seemed more interested in fighting Mao Zedong’s communists than the Japanese. In 1940, however, Quoc had to consider broadening his support by creating an anti-French front which would bring in other non-communist nationalist elements. Nomenclature was important and Quoc considered three alternatives: the ‘Vietnamese Liberation Front’, the ‘Vietnamese AntiImperialist League’ and the ‘League for the Independence of Vietnam’. It was the last named option, Vietnam Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, in Quoc’s native language, which was ultimately chosen with the agreement of his party colleagues. It was known as the Viet Minh Front in a shortened form and co-opted Pham van Dong of the Indochinese Communist Party as vice-chairman. To convince non-communists that the organization was not a communist front, the moderate nationalist Ho Hoc Lam was appointed chairman of the League for the Independence of Vietnam (henceforward to be known as the Viet Minh). This tactic of disguising communist influence in umbrella organizations was to serve Nguyen Ai Quoc and his colleagues well. Inside Vietnam, after the 1940 uprising, the Central Committee of the Communist Party was in a state of chaos. French repression in the wake of the uprising was draconian and the communists found themselves unable to take advantage of popular unrest with French rule, especially in Tonkin. In fact, the Party leaders in the North had opposed the 1940 uprising as being premature, but the regional committee in Cochin China had insisted on going ahead with it. Belatedly, Hoang Van Thu and the Northern leaders approved the limited Bac Son revolt. The revolt in Cochin China broke out on 22 November and was concentrated in the area to the southwest of Saigon and between My Tho and the Plain of Reeds. There were four days of heavy fighting allied with rioting in Saigon itself but the French (whose efficient security apparatus had obtained advance warning of the revolt) put

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down the uprising without too much difficulty. The assumption by the communist leaders that Japanese intervention in Vietnam and Indochina would fatally undermine French resolve proved in this instance to be misplaced. The failure in Cochin China had tragic personal consequences for Quoc. Amongst the hundreds of activists rounded up by the French in the aftermath of the uprising was his former wife, Nguyen Thi Minh Kai. She was shot by a French firing squad, while her second husband, Le Hong Phong, who had been in prison since the summer of 1939, died in one of the notorious French ‘tiger cages’ on the island of Poulo Condore in the South China Sea (almost certainly of torture or deprivation).10 Quoc heard about the failure of the premature uprising while staying in Guilin, as has been seen, and it was during this period that he first began to make use of the name Ho Chi Minh, while passing himself off as a Chinese journalist. He moved on to Jingxi near the Indochinese border with China where he set up training courses for young communist cadres in January 1941. While there, Quoc, as he was still generally known, began receiving reports from the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party in Tonkin. Most importantly, Quoc presided over the decision to hold the 8th Plenum of the Party near the village of Pac Bo, a largely Nung ethnic area. The Nung were one of the Thai linguistic groups which included the Tho and the Lai, located in Tonkin and numbering about 700,000. The Nung were noted for their loyalty to the French and also occupied the coastal area from the beautiful Ha Long Bay northwards to the Chinese frontier. But the Viet Minh were beginning to create strongholds in the areas occupied by these hill peoples. Vietnamese lowlanders had a record of intolerance where the hill peoples were concerned and as recently as the nineteenth century regarded these ‘Moi’ as little better than savages (legend had it that they had eight-inch tails). The Nung would initially therefore regard Quoc and his compatriots with some suspicion.11 Quoc made the 40-mile trip from Jingxi to Pac Bo in January 1941. While there is some dispute about whether the 8th Plenum was held in a large cave near the village or in a temporary structure outside it, it is clear that living conditions were harsh. Quoc, already a man of 51, was obliged to sleep on a mat of branches in a cold, damp cave. In the evenings when the Conference discussions were over, he would revert to his role as an educator, lecturing Party comrades about world revolution and contemporary history. ‘Between the enemy and ourselves,’ Quoc told Party comrades, ‘it is a struggle to the death.’12 Quoc also worked on a newspaper called Independent Vietnam which was distributed in the local area (at a nominal price rather than free so that local people would see it as something of value). The aim was to create a secure Viet Minh base in the area along the Tonkin–China border. During the course of the 8th Plenum, Quoc appealed to the Vietnamese people, shrewdly using ancient Vietnamese heroes or heroines (like the

The Japanese coup and its consequences

47

Trung sisters), in much the same way Joseph Stalin was to summon up the ghosts of Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great during the crisis of the German invasion in 1941–42. A resolution was also passed stating that the task of the Vietnamese people was to free themselves from French colonialism. Quoc abandoned the idea of all Indochina liberation as impractical. Instead, there was to be a federation of free states in Indochina, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In Marxist terms, this meant that the Indochinese Communist Party had given priority to the national struggle over the class struggle. The national revolution could be followed by a second proletarian revolution which would overthrow capitalism in the Indochinese states. In making such decisions, Quoc and his colleagues were looking to the Chinese rather than the Soviet model. Both Quoc and especially the up and coming Vo Nguyen Giap were familiar with the writings of Mao Zedong which stressed that the Chinese Communist Party was like a fish swimming in the peasant sea, waiting to precipitate a ‘people’s war’ against Chiang Kai-shek’s authoritarian, capitalist re´gime. But even Mao had made errors in, for example, stressing the need for urban bases before the Shanghai massacre in 1927, and Quoc was anxious that a small country like Vietnam (the Laotians and Cambodians would find their own way to salvation) should not repeat the mistakes of 1930 and 1940 by taking on a formidable colonial system of repression before it had the military muscle to prevail. Quoc was also clever enough to work behind the scenes. He rejected the post of General Secretary of the ICP, allowing the post to go to Truong Chinh, who had held the position on a temporary basis since 1940. Truong Chinh ought to have been a classic example of a Frenchified mandarin, for he was a graduate of the Lyce´e Albert Saurrat in Hanoi, an unusual achievement for a Vietnamese in a discriminatory education system. Instead, he was a safe pair of hands to front for the Party leadership, while Nguyen Ai Quoc held the real levers of power. It has also been observed that Quoc, who had spent very little time in Vietnam, was ‘the unwitting beneficiary of the thoroughness of the Suˆrete´ which had eliminated all his rivals’.13 It may also be the case, as has been suggested by his latest biographer, that Quoc still saw himself as an agent of the Comintern throughout the whole of South-East Asia with a wider brief than merely stirring up revolution in Vietnam.14 This though raises the question of whether Quoc was primarily a Vietnamese patriot, or an agent of international communism, an issue which can be addressed later. After the Party Conference in January 1942, Quoc moved to the new Viet Minh base at Cao Bang, although he was still in the territory of the Nung. He was adroit enough to encourage his comrades to learn the Nung language and even on occasion to intermarry with this hill people. Such conduct contrasted sharply with traditional Vietnamese prejudice against the Nung and other hill tribes in northern Tonkin. Again, Quoc passed the time as a teacher and inspirer of his Party comrades, but security became a serious issue in Cao Bang as sweeps by French

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The Japanese coup and its consequences

patrols came dangerously close to the new Viet Minh base. By June 1942, the situation had become dangerous enough to force Quoc to return to Pac Bo. There, somewhat incongruously, he posed as a village shaman with black robes, incense sticks and the other equipment associated with healers.15 The stay in Pac Bo was brief. By 13 August 1942, Quoc was back in China and under arrest by the police for having invalid documents. On the face of it, Quoc’s return to China was surprising, but he probably needed to get in touch with the Chinese Communist Party, his most immediate source of support, and Chiang Kai-shek, a possible source of succour, if he could be persuaded that the Viet Minh would be useful in the war against Japan. As it was, the Chinese authorities believed that Quoc was a Japanese agent and he was imprisoned in Jingxi on 29 August 1942. By this time, it is clear Quoc had become known as Ho Chi Minh and he was then sent back to Guilin. By now, poor living conditions, arduous travel and poor diet were starting to take their toll on a man of 54. Ho’s hair had turned grey and several of his teeth fell out. Soon he was sent back to Liuzhou for trial and imprisoned there. Ho’s Chinese links now proved of use as Zhou Enlai became aware of his arrest and petitioned the Kuomintang General Zhang Fakui for his release. His efforts failed but General Zhang allowed Ho a great deal of latitude during his imprisonment. He was allowed contact with Party comrades and even to hold conferences, while also addressing gatherings outside the prison. By July 1944, nearly two years after Ho had been arrested, Zhang clearly believed that Ho Chi Minh would be the most effective leader of an anti-Japanese resistance movement in Vietnam. In late August, Ho was returned to his native land, disguised like his entourage in Kuomintang uniforms. After a period of recovery from his journey and imprisonment, Ho Chi Minh arrived back in Pac Bo on 20 September 1944, more than two years since his return to China. While he had been away, the French had made renewed efforts to smash the rebels in the Viet Bac and the Suˆrete´ were aware of contacts between Vietnamese nationalists and the Chiang Kai-shek government in southern China. Numerous arrests were made in the summer of 1943.16 Nevertheless, in October 1944 on his return to Vietnam, Ho was confident enough to predict that national liberation would be achieved within a timescale of a year to a year and a half. This was on the assumption that the Allies would invade Indochina and would then be persuaded of the rightness of the Viet Minh cause. Fate then intervened to help that same cause. On 11 November 1944, an American reconnaissance plane piloted by Lieutenant Rudolph Shaw developed engine trouble while flying along the Sino-Vietnamese border and was forced to crash-land.17 Shaw narrowly avoided French patrols which had been sent out to find him and ended up in the hands of the Viet Minh. He then met Ho Chi Minh before going back to China, which set in place a series of events which put Ho in contact with US intelligence. Ho

The Japanese coup and its consequences

49

had stated his admiration for the United States and its democratic principles. During his period of rather lax imprisonment in Liuzhou, Ho had been able to use the library of the US Office of War Information to inform himself about American society and attitudes. He was certainly aware of Roosevelt’s opposition to French colonialism. The Americans also knew about Ho, and had done so since the autumn of 1942, long before his release from imprisonment. On 31 December 1942, the US Ambassador in Chungking, Gauss, was telling the US State Department that Ho Chi Minh had been arrested by the Chinese and that he was telling embassy officials to investigate the circumstances (they got little assistance from the Chinese). This was a response to an adroit move by Ho who, with the help of some associates in Liuzhou, had planted an article in the Chungking daily newspaper Ta Kung Pao, which revealed the existence of a so-called provisional government for Indochina, a nationalist grouping known to have Chinese backing. It was the article which triggered off American investigations into the then unidentified Indochinese communist, Ho Chi Minh.18 In fact, there were two distinct non-communist groups in China which claimed to represent Vietnamese and Indochinese national aspirations. One, whose leadership consisted entirely of overseas Chinese (though having Vietnamese soldiers under Kuomintang training), was called the ‘Indochina Revolutionary Alliance’. The second called the ‘Provisional Government of Indochina’ was totally Vietnamese and was led by Wu Fei. It claimed to have some 20,000 guerrillas operating from bases in northern Tonkin (an unlikely claim) and enjoyed Chinese patronage.19 For its part, the Free French mission in Chungking denied the existence of such groupings, repeating the inaccurate mantra that the Vietnamese and the other Indochinese peoples were longing for liberation and the restoration of French rule. The Americans, by contrast, knew about the groups and also about Ho Chi Minh but they were unable to secure his release by the Chinese. The Embassy in Chungking were still inclined to accept Free French assurances that these movements had no significance. Ho himself, Embassy officials reported, was still under suspicion from the Kuomintang because he was (correctly) thought to have communist sympathies. In the meantime, Ho’s Chinese communist allies had lobbied for his release and the OSS in Chungking thought that he could be usefully employed in the Allied cause. This had been the argument used by Zhou Enlai in his approach to the Office of Strategic Service in the summer of 1943. It is not clear how much Ho’s eventual release from captivity in 1944 owed to American representations. But on 18 August 1944, the OSS delivered a letter to the US Consul General Langdon in Kunming about Ho and he agreed to meet a Viet Minh delegation on 8 September. Langdon promised to pass on the OSS letter to the US Ambassador, but at the interview his comments reflected American ambivalence on the whole subject of

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The Japanese coup and its consequences

Indochina. He, first, expressed sympathy with the aspirations of the Indochinese people but then entered a major caveat by saying that they were French citizens and so it ‘would not make sense . . . if America with one hand at great expenditures of life and treasure rescued and delivered France from German slavery, and with the other undermined her Empire’. The leader of the Viet Minh delegation, Pham Viet Tu, assured Langdon (falsely) that his organization had no intention of fighting the French and would only engage with the Japanese.20 But Langdon also referred the Viet Minh back to de Gaulle’s comments when he had visited Washington in July 1944 and endorsed the so-called Brazzaville Declaration of January 1944 which appeared to promise some recognition of Indochinese aspirations, but in practice offered no derogations from French sovereignty in Indochina. It has been fairly observed of de Gaulle’s behaviour in 1944–45 that ‘there was little in his actions as head of the provisional government that suggested the later decolonizer’.21 It is also known that Ho Chi Minh, who was in touch with Pham Viet Tu in Kunming about the 8th of September talks, attempted to obtain a visa to visit the United States in August 1944. But he fell victim to internecine quarrels in the State Department between the Far Eastern desk which favoured a visit and the Western Europe desk which was afraid of annoying the French by allowing it. Why Ho wanted to visit Washington at this particular juncture is unclear, but the tantalizing prospect of Ho Chi Minh charming Franklin Roosevelt in the Oval Office disappeared. It may be that the idea came to Ho while he was still held in China as an alternative strategy for getting back to Vietnam. The plan was aborted, but then Ho and the Viet Minh were assisted by the fortunate arrival of Lieutenant Shaw amongst them. Shaw invited Ho Chi Minh to join him on his return trip to Kunming, the Headquarters of that same 14th Air Force which the French and British were to find so uncooperative in the days after 9 March 1945. As before, local Chinese authorities remained suspicious of Ho. Shaw was allowed to board an aircraft for Kunming, but the elderly Ho was forced to walk, adopting yet another of his ingenious disguises, this time as an inspector on the French-built Hanoi–Kunming railway (which the Japanese regarded as being of such immense strategic value). At times, Ho and his companions were forced to sleep in pigsties or out in the open, which resulted in the 54-year-old Ho becoming unwell. Ho and his two companions eventually arrived in Kunming to find that Shaw had flown back to the United States, but he got in touch with the OSS office there. It was now January 1945 and Ho Chi Minh was obliged to lodge with one of the local Viet Minh representatives in Kunming. He was also in luck as Shaw turned out to have been a flier with the US Air Ground Aid Services (formed to rescue downed American airmen in the China Theatre) which, in the wake of the 9 March coup, had received authorization from Washington to seek out new intelligence sources in Indochina after the collapse of the Free French network.

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In mid-March, days after the 9 March disaster, Marine Lieutenant Charles Fenn heard about Ho Chi Minh from a colleague. Fenn, who unusually was of Irish extraction and a former journalist who spoke Chinese and had considerable knowledge of the Far East, had worked for the OSS and been moved over into AGAS to run something known as the GBT operation. This operation, named after a Canadian called Gordon, an American called Bernard and a Chinese called Tan, had worked out of Saigon and used numerous local intelligence sources, but GBT had been destroyed on 9 March when its operatives were forced to flee from Vietnam (all foreigners were threatened with arrest by the Japanese). A thin line of coincidence thus linked Shaw to the Viet Minh, Ho’s journey to Kunming, the Japanese coup on 9 March and Fenn’s meeting with Ho. This famous meeting took place in Kunming on 17 March 1945 (St Patrick’s Day as Fenn would have doubtless known). Fenn left the following diary account of his impressions of Ho Chi Minh: He came along with a young man called Fam. In the first place he isn’t really ‘old’: his silvery wisp of beard suggests age, but his face is vigorous and his eyes bright and gleaming. We spoke in French. It seems he has already met Hall, Blass and de Sibour [all OSS officers in Kunming] but got nowhere with any of them. I asked him what he wanted of them. He said – only recognition of his group (called Viet Minh League or League of Independence). I had vaguely heard of this as being communist and asked him about it. He said the French call all Annamites communists who want independence. Fenn told Ho about AGAS and its operations and asked whether he could help. Ho was willing to cooperate, but said he and his men had no radio operator or radio equipment. They would also need arms and medicines. Under further cross questioning by Fenn, Ho Chi Minh denied that his organization was anti-French, just as the Viet Minh had done in the interview with Langdon on 8 September 1944. Fenn was impressed by his ‘clear cut talk; Buddha-like composure, except movements with wrinkled brown fingers’.22 A further meeting was arranged between Ho Chi Minh and Charles Fenn a few days later. Thus did the crucial relationship between Ho and his unlikely ally begin. The upshot of these meetings was that Fenn agreed with his AGAS colleagues to send ‘old man Ho’, as the Americans liked to call Ho Chi Minh, back to Vietnam with a radio operator, the Chinese-American Frank Tan, who was part of the old GBT operation in Cochin China. Ho Chi Minh also expressed an interest in meeting General Claire Chennault, the China Theatre Commander. It was agreed beforehand that Ho would make no demands of Chennault, who was never an enthusiast for American involvement in Indochina and there would be no reference to the French or independence.

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Ho handled the Chennault interview with immense subtlety. He said that he would ‘always be glad to help the Americans for whom he had the greatest admiration’. And Ho then asked for a signed photograph of Chennault, which was duly produced. An additional adroit touch was supplied by Ho’s reference to Chennault’s leadership of the so-called ‘Flying Tigers’, American airmen who had flown in the Sino-Japanese war in the 1930s on the Chinese side. This tickled Chennault’s vanity, he wasn’t to know that the signed photograph would soon be used to good effect by Ho to persuade sceptical Vietnamese nationalists that he did indeed have American support.23 Soon Ho was flown to the Chinese border and made his way back to Pac Bo on foot. Fenn was also capable of subtlety of his own. Ho Chi Minh was accompanied on his way back to Tonkin both by the GBT survivor, Frank Tan, and a US radio operator, Macshinn, both of whom were Asian Americans who would attract less attention than Caucasians. The radio operator gave the Viet Minh a vital link with the Americans in Kunming. Vietnam in 1944–45 was a country in considerable economic distress which created favourable conditions for Viet Minh revolutionary activity. Bad weather caused the 1944 harvest to fail, which in turn caused rice hoarding and price inflation. The Japanese then made things worse by sending rice back to Japan and ordering the peasantry in Cochin China to switch production away from rice in the paddy fields to other crops like peanuts, cotton and jute which could not be used to feed the starving (so much for the myth of Japan as Vietnam’s ‘elder brother’). Granaries were guarded by Japanese troops and they refused to allow the transfer of rice from the Red River Delta in the North, where there was less suffering, to the Mekong Delta. Factories were even ordered to burn rice as fuel as part of the Japanese war effort. Peasants were forced to eat weeds or tree bark and swollen corpses were seen floating in the Mekong and along the highways in the South. It has been argued that Admiral Decoux’s Vichyite administration did little to assist in the crisis, but the responsibility for the disaster was primarily Japanese. After the coup of 9 March 1945, it was the turn of Tonkin to suffer when the absence of French technicians meant that the flood control system failed when the monsoon rains arrived early. At least half a million Vietnamese died (more perished in the 1944 disaster) and people were still dying on the pavements of Hanoi when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.24 All the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party saw the opportunity created by the overthrow of the French on 9 March 1945. The General Secretary, Truong Chinh, called for a general insurrection as soon as possible to make use of the favourable post-coup circumstances. He himself told Party comrades that the Japanese takeover marked the end of 87 years of French colonialism. In one of those apt phrases with which he excelled, Ho said, ‘The French wolf was finally devoured by the Japanese fascist hyena.’25 At this point, the focus must fall on another key individual in the events of spring and summer 1945, Archimedes L.A. Patti, who had arrived in

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Kunming to act as deputy to the OSS Station Chief, Colonel Paul Helliwell. Patti was a man ‘of considerable swagger and self confidence’, who brought to his task ‘a strong sense of history and an abiding distrust of the French and their legacy in colonial areas’.26 Before his arrival in Kunming on the evening of 13 April, Patti had spent a lengthy period running the OSS Indochina desk in Washington. He was, therefore, thoroughly well versed about the problems of French Indochina and any potential role the Americans could play there. Patti arrived just a day after the death of President Roosevelt, that great critic of the French colonial record in Indochina. He had also read the OSS files about Ho Chi Minh and wanted to meet him. The situation was complicated by the position adopted by the new American Ambassador in China, Patrick Hurley. Initially, the British had some hope that Hurley might prove to be more sympathetic about Indochina than many of his compatriots. Esler Dening, Mountbatten’s political adviser at SEAC, had been to Washington and reported to Mountbatten on 6 April 1945 that ‘Hurley does not share his President’s views about Indochina [this was days before Roosevelt’s death] but that his main desire is to avoid being personally embroiled in this dispute’.27 This analysis proved to be unduly optimistic, as it soon became clear that Hurley was as unenthusiastic about OSS operations in Indochina as Wedemeyer – whether they be for intelligence gathering or sabotage. Only on 26 April, some two weeks after Roosevelt’s death, did Patti receive a cable from Washington approving OSS operations in Indochina. Even then Patti was warned by the OSS Chief in Chungking, Colonel Richard Heppner, to be careful not to antagonize either the French or the Chinese (a tall order). A meeting with Ho Chi Minh was arranged at the village of Chiu Chou Chieh, near Jingxi, as Ho was on his way back to Vietnam. Patti described how ‘a slender, short man, fifty or sixty years old approached me with a warm smile and extended hand. Perfectly at ease and in English he said, ‘‘Welcome my good friend’’ ’.28 In the course of conversation, Ho referred to the meeting between Langdon and the Viet Minh delegation at Kunming the previous September and how sympathetic the American Consul General was to the Vietnamese cause. This, Patti wrote later, was ‘a great overstatement of the Consul General’s position, as I knew’.29 In the course of the interview, Ho also asked Patti for modern weapons, but the OSS officer made no commitment about assistance. It was after this that Ho Chi Minh returned to Pac Bo with the two American personnel supplied by AGAS. But Patti was clearly impressed by Ho and the Viet Minh and the door was open for future co-operation. Meantime, General Giap’s new Vietnamese Liberation Army operated from a new command post at Kim Lung, well placed across the route from the Red River Delta to the Chinese border. A ‘liberated zone’ was created in the North with eight million inhabitants, in which Ho and his comrades showed that the class struggle had not been completely forgotten. Land was seized from reactionary landowners and handed over to the landless peasants, while

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revolutionary committees were set up in villages. In Kunming, Patti persuaded the OSS to agree to Ho Chi Minh’s offer to provide 1,000 guerrillas for the struggle against the Japanese. Co-operation between the Viet Minh and the OSS now took place in Tonkin. On 16 July 1945, Major Allison Thomas and his so-called ‘Deer’ team parachuted into the area near Tan Trao, although Ho Chi Minh was irritated by the presence of a French national in the group (he was quickly sent back to China). Thomas began military instruction of the Viet Minh in the use of carbines, bazookas and guerrilla-style tactics. He himself was convinced, after initial scepticism, that Ho was a nationalist rather than a communist who merely wished to free his country from colonialism. Ho had already told Patti that he wanted universal suffrage in Vietnam and implementation of the new UN Charter which recognized the right to selfdetermination. This could be achieved, the Viet Minh leader believed, in a timescale of between five and ten years. While the OSS team was in Tonkin, Ho Chi Minh fell seriously ill with tuberculosis and, according to American accounts, was saved from death by a US nurse with appropriate drugs. The truth about this episode is hard to determine, although American analysts have tried to stress the supposed irony about one of their staff saving the life of the man who would become the United States’ arch enemy in the 1960s.30 As it was, Ho recovered and scheduled a Vietnamese national people’s convention for 16 August 1945. Four days before, the Party leaders had agreed that a general uprising throughout Vietnam should be encouraged. A proclamation was issued calling on ‘soldiers and compatriots throughout the country. The hour of general insurrection has sounded’. The irony for the Viet Minh was that when the National People’s Congress began at Tan Trao, many of the delegates did not know who the smiling, slender leader of their movement actually was. It was agreed at the Congress that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam would be set up, but Ho Chi Minh warned his colleagues that a large French invasion, supported by the Anglo-Americans, was to be expected. In this scenario, the Viet Minh would have to try and negotiate with France to achieve independence in five years at the earliest. Ho could not know that internal factors would make the French particularly obdurate about Indochina. Nevertheless, he headed a five-man Liberation Committee which proposed a new Vietnamese flag with a gold star on a red background. The appeal referred to above was signed for the very last time by Nguyen Ai Quoc. All Ho Chi Minh’s predictions about Vietnam’s future had to take into account, however, the scenario created by the Potsdam Conference a month earlier. At Potsdam between 17 July and 2 August, in a devastated Germany, the new American President Truman had met with Churchill, speedily replaced by Attlee after the Conservative Party were routed at the polls, and the Soviet Dictator Stalin. For the ‘Big Three’, Indochina would have

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been a secondary issue, but the decisions made about it were to have profound results, as will be seen. Potsdam followed the usual pattern of Anglo-American wrangling in the weeks beforehand, combined with some obvious blackmail by General de Gaulle. The French leader told the Americans ‘if you are against us in Indochina’, this would cause terrific disappointment in France and might drive France into communist hands. ‘We do not want to become communist,’ de Gaulle warned, ‘but I hope you do not push us into it.’ It was perhaps rather early to play the ‘Red Menace’ card when Japan was still undefeated in the spring of 1945, but de Gaulle would have known that the Europeanists in the State Department were anxious not to alienate France. French blackmail was combined with American doubletalk. Joseph Grew, the former American Ambassador in Tokyo and now acting Secretary of State, told the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in May (presumably with a straight face) that the US record on Indochina was ‘entirely innocent of any official statement of this government questioning, even by implication, French sovereignty over that area’.31 Nothing could have been further from the truth. The British government and Foreign Office floundered between these two unrealistic scenarios. Their exhaustion and irritation can easily be traced through the correspondence between Esler Dening in Washington and Mountbatten thousands of miles away in Kandy. On 9 June, Dening reported bleakly that he had ‘gained the impression from talks in Washington that Great Britain is hardly considered a factor in Far Eastern affairs’. He further reported that the US Chiefs of Staff ‘were exasperated over the Indochina situation and the unexpected friction it had engendered’.32 On 21 June, Dening was still reporting that he thought the Combined Chiefs in Washington would ‘try and get the US Chiefs of Staff to stop Wedemeyer interfering with your operations’. The problem was, Dening told his chief, that the Japanese army in French Indochina was no longer in direct communication with the Japanese in the north, or other Japanese forces in South-East Asia. These forces had, therefore, ‘been abandoned to their fate’. This was important because it invalidated the old argument that Indochina was ‘a land and air reinforcement route to SEAC’. This meant that ‘FIC is not regarded as being at present of primary importance’.33 Poor Dening, who had only just recovered from a prolonged bout of ill health, seemed to be plagued with problems. He deplored the fact that SOE ‘cannot be induced to abandon their backdoor methods’ while in the British Service Departments, there was ‘literally nobody . . . who has a real knowledge of the Far East’. He also found the number of ‘French activities in the Far East a little confusing and it was not clear to us [the Foreign Office] who was responsible for what’.34 The British were hoping that Harry S. Truman’s succession to the Presidency in April 1945 would mark a change in direction where France and

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Indochina were concerned. Truman knew a lot about modern history, but Roosevelt had largely kept him out of the decision-making loop in Washington (as was the case with most vice-presidents). But, importantly, Truman ‘felt no sense of personal crusade against colonialism and found no written directives left by his predecessor’.35 He was left though with old prejudices in the US foreign policy-making machine. ‘Dammit,’ the newly installed President is reported as remarking in exasperation, ‘why doesn’t anybody ever tell me the truth? The State Department has always been telling me de Gaulle is stupid.’36 Nevertheless under Truman, Francophobia in Washington was on the wane. At long last the US Chiefs of Staff agreed that the French Corps Le´ger d’Intervention could move to India in preparation for a return to Indochina (though the whole French intelligence and military infrastructure had been liquidated there by the Japanese on 9 March). Patti and the OSS were given a free hand in Indochina too. At SEAC, Mountbatten still found Wedemeyer obstructive and complained about him bitterly to Eden. He had wrongly assumed that Wedemeyer, who had formerly been on the SEAC staff, would remain loyal when he moved to Chungking but this had not been the case.37 He had been especially disgusted by Wedemeyer’s attitude to the battered remnants of the French forces in Tonkin in March 1945. Subsequently, in May, Wedemeyer complained that he was not getting enough information about clandestine SOE operations in Indochina. Conversely, Mountbatten complained about Wedemeyer’s obtuseness in not understanding that his own ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Chiang Kai-shek in 1943 (which accepted that Indochina could be attacked from either the China Theatre or SEAC) was kept unofficial to prevent Chiang losing face with his own people. Despite his tawdry reputation, which was well merited, Chiang was still a major player in South-East Asia. Potsdam recognized this by agreeing that the Japanese surrender north of the line 16 degrees north in Indochina would be taken by the Chinese, while the British would supervise the surrender in the South. Dening, with his usual prescience, predicted problems in the future. The division of Indochina by the parallel 16 degrees north [he wrote], if persisted in is going to cause a lot of trouble . . . the division is purely arbitrary and divides people of the same race, while raising new and unnecessary problems to divide French civil administration between here and Chungking.38 The agreement was also to give the Chinese the opportunity to indulge in an orgy of looting in the north. At Potsdam, the Combined Chiefs of Staff also accepted the principle that a French force of 62,000 men, commanded by General Jacques Leclerc, who had helped to liberate Paris in August 1944, would be allowed into Indochina on the understanding that initially this force would come

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under American or British command. In theory, this force constituted the French offering to the Pacific Front and Indochina was not actually mentioned, but it was an open secret that the Combined Chiefs’ decision left open the way for the French re-conquest of Indochina. American policy had, therefore, moved on a good deal between April and July 1945, to the relief of their British allies. Equally pleasing for the British was the fact that the Americans had backed away from Roosevelt’s old UN trusteeship idea. On 23 July 1945, Poynton of the Colonial Office told his Foreign Office colleague, Sterndale-Bennett, that when Australia had suggested that ‘the General Assembly [of the UN] could in certain circumstances decide to put people’s colonies under trusteeship whether the colonial power concerned liked it or not. The United States was as firm in its opposition to this as anybody’.39 The way was open for British intervention south of the 16th parallel and for the eventual return of the French.

5

The August Revolution

Even today, Hanoi and Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now officially known) are very different cities. Hanoi still has the languid air of a former French colonial city set around beautiful lakes at the heart of the Red River Delta. Saigon, by contrast, is bustling and entrepreneurial and this was true also in 1945. Indeed, Cochin China as a whole was more affluent than Annam and Tonkin and the centre of French economic interests. This was reflected in the fact that France had always exercised direct rule in Cochin China, while granting protectorate status to Annam and Tonkin (to some extent, a sop to the Nguyen dynasty). Events in Hanoi or even in the imperial city of Hue´ seemed a long way away in the late summer of 1945. But both Hanoi and Saigon were to play key roles in what the Vietnamese came to call the ‘August Revolution’, which gave the Vietnamese people the brief illusion of independence, before foreign intervention, both north and south of the 16th parallel, destroyed nationalist hopes. It was in a real sense, as one analyst has suggested, a ‘tale of two cities’.1 A central figure in the events of August was Emperor Bao Dai, who had declared Vietnam independent of France in March 1945. Bao Dai has remained a controversial figure and is often portrayed as a feckless playboy. But this stereotype does not tell the whole story of the last of the Nguyen. Bao Dai returned to Vietnam in 1932 after four years’ education in France. He was then only 18 years old and the French obviously expected him to be little more than a puppet. However, Bao Dai surprised his colonial masters by trying to change the ultra-traditional atmosphere in the Forbidden City of Hue´ which so aped its Chinese counterpart. The tradition of mandarins prostrating themselves in the imperial presence, for example, was abolished, as was the imperial harem. These were merely symbolic changes, but the young Emperor wanted to do something to improve the wretched condition of his subjects under French colonialism. He was infuriated by the disparity of status between French colons and the Vietnamese, whereby a French traffic policeman in Hanoi was paid as much as the Governor of Quang Nam province. Bao Dai also wanted to put France and Vietnam on an equal standing using the 1884 Treaty to begin a new relationship. The French refused to reciprocate,

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and Bao Dai became more and more disillusioned. After 18 months of trying, and failing, to initiate reform, Bao Dai wrote despairingly, I now believe that the nationalist insurgents were right [a reference to the uprisings in 1930] . . . During a recent trip in Tonkin I was a sovereign stranger. The French have put me in this situation. I live inside my country as a foreign sovereign-in-exile like my predecessors – but exile in my own country, amidst my own people, themselves in exile.2 The only political change Bao Dai was able to secure was to allow a nonmandarin into his cabinet at Hue´ for the first time. It is possible, therefore, to see the evolution of the later roue´ as a result of this profound disillusionment in Bao Dai’s youth. That and the relentless bullying of his mother, the Dowager Empress (whom the French nicknamed ‘the Tigress’), caused the Emperor to have several nervous breakdowns.3 In the month of August 1945, Bao Dai was desperately hanging on to what remained of his power, as the Viet Minh coalition sought control in Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China. But by the time his Viceroy, Nguyen Van Sam, belatedly arrived in Saigon on 19 August, it was too late to preserve his puppet re´gime, dependent as it was on Japanese support. That same day, Bao Dai appealed to the Vietnamese people for support, but entered a significant caveat by saying that he was ‘prepared to sacrifice myself for the purpose of preserving the independence of the Kingdom and the rights and interests of my people’.4 As it was, Bao Dai’s legitimacy was in doubt because the French had ignored his ‘independence’ declaration on 11 March. The following day, 20 August, Bao Dai attempted to strengthen his position by sending messages to President Truman, de Gaulle and Chiang Kai-shek asking for the recognition of his government in Annam and Tonkin. Already, however, students were on the streets of Hanoi demanding the abdication of Bao Dai and the institution of a Viet Minhled government. The puppet Emperor claimed to have no animosity towards the Viet Minh, whom he would have allowed into his government. But it was too late. In Hue´ and Hanoi, ministers were resigning as they sensed the popular mood. On 11 August, Bao Dai cabled Hanoi, but the Viet Minh had already set up a provisional government and were themselves demanding that Bao Dai, now shorn of Japanese support after the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should abdicate (the formal Japanese surrender was on 2 September). On 23 August, a massive demonstration of 100,000 people in Bao Dai’s own imperial city of Hue´ also demanded that he stand aside. The Emperor then received a telegram from Ho Chi Minh’s new National Liberation Committee insisting on his abdication. On 24 August, Bao Dai did as he was asked and his abdication marked the end of the Nguyen dynasty. The fallen Emperor asked for the National Liberation Committee to send a delegation to Hue´ to formalize the transfer of power and on 28 August, this

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duly arrived. For the first time Bao Dai shook hands with commoners in a private audience. The following day, an Act of Abdication was handed to the delegation. The next day, 30 August, the fall of Bao Dai was publicly staged at the Zenith Gate to the Imperial Palace within the Hue´ citadel. Wearing a golden turban with imperial robes, Bao Dai stood on the same battlement where previous Nguyen emperors had watched defeated enemies parade. He read out the deed of abdication and the imperial flag was lowered to be replaced by the new gold-starred flag of the Vietnamese Democratic Republic. The symbols of imperial authority, the gold seal and the gold sword, were handed over to the Hanoi delegation. Bao Dai then became First Citizen Vinh Thuy (he had been known as Prince Vinh Thuy when heir to the throne).5 Few monarchs have been so co-operative in their own demise. No Vietnamese could be in any doubt about the symbolic importance of Bao Dai’s abdication. For in the Sino-Vietnamese tradition, the Emperor held the ‘mandate from heaven’ which gave him ultimate authority and now this mandate had been bestowed upon Ho Chi Minh, General Giap and their colleagues. Bao Dai now had to be content with the title of ‘supreme political adviser’ to the new government, a position which he held until March 1946 when he was allowed to go into exile in Hong Kong, although this was not quite the end of his story. But Bao Dai’s willingness to give up his position on the imperial throne was conditioned by his earlier willingness to believe that Ho Chi Minh had US backing for his demand for independence. It is, therefore, fair to conclude that ‘without the false aura of American backing’, the Viet Minh might never have come to power in Vietnam.6 It was, for the moment, a collection of communists, nationalists and Catholics which was to preside over the attempt to set up the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The role of the last named is worth some further discussion at this point. In the northern part of Vietnam, Catholics made up about ten per cent of the population (one million people) and Ho Chi Minh appears to have tried to appease this sizeable minority by appointing a Catholic named Nguyen Manh He as Minister of Economy in the new cabinet. In August 1945, the Catholic hierarchy supported the new government and continued to do so to the point when Bao Dai left Vietnam in March 1946. He was replaced as Supreme Adviser by Monsignor Le Huu Tu, the Apostolic Vicar of Phat Diem. Only when hostilities broke out in the autumn of 1946 between the Viet Minh and the French did the Church switch its loyalty back to the colonial authorities. Another problem for the Catholic minority was Ho’s avowed intention of setting up a national church which put the Catholics, loyal nationalists at the time of the August Revolution, in a dilemma. A national church would demand giving up Catholic allegiance to the Supreme Pontiff in Rome and this would be unacceptable to the vast majority.7

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When, however, on Sunday 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh made his famous declaration of independence in Hanoi, there were Catholic prelates as well as Buddhist bonzes in their yellow robes amongst the crowd in Ba Dinh Square. By coincidence, 2 September was also Vietnamese Martyrs Day when Catholics remembered those martyred for their faith under earlier Nguyen emperors. The feast day was celebrated with a high mass in the Catholic cathedral during which the sermon given supported the new government. In similar fashion, Independence Day was celebrated in Buddhist temples throughout Hanoi. There were red flags on the rooftops of the city and banners were hung up across it. Written on them in English, French, Chinese and Russian were messages such as ‘Vietnam to the Vietnamese’, ‘Welcome to the Allies’, ‘Support the Provisional Government’ and ‘Independence or Death’. Viet Minh supporters blew whistles, banged drums and sang revolutionary songs and slogans.8 Meantime, Archimedes Patti and his colleagues of the OSS were out on the streets photographing the occasion, as were French representatives led by Major Jean Sainteny (who had come to Hanoi, ostensibly under US command, with Patti and his OSS men). Patti had rejected an offer from Ho Chi Minh (doubtless designed to show the masses that the Americans were supporting him) to stand on the podium alongside him when the Declaration of Independence was made. Sympathetic though he undoubtedly was to the Vietnamese cause, Patti would not risk the wrath of his superiors by making such an overtly pro-nationalist statement. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, as the Hanoi sun beat down at its fiercest; figures began to appear on the podium. All of them had white suits with ties but no hats, with one exception, a slight figure in a high-collared khaki suit (which had been scrounged from a colleague) who was also wearing sandals. This was Ho Chi Minh, in his moment of triumph, a man whom very few people in his vast audience recognized. Giap used the microphone to introduce Ho as the ‘liberator and saviour of the nation’. The crowd chanted ‘Doc-Lap’ (independence) in slow, rhythmic fashion, waiting for the diminutive figure on the rostrum to begin speaking. Then Ho showed that all those hours in American libraries in China had not been wasted. ‘All men are created equal,’ he began. ‘The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free and the right to achieve Happiness.’ He knew, as a few of his fellow countrymen and women did on that day, that this extract was taken from the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. Ever the teacher, Ho ensured that everyone in the crowd heard him ‘distinctly’. Having obtained this assurance, he told his audience that he was quoting from the 1776 Declaration and that ‘All the people have the right to live, to be happy, to be free’.9 Only then did he embarrass the French colonialists by referring to the 1791 Declaration of the Rights of Man, the bedrock of French republicanism which France had not deemed it appropriate to apply to Vietnam or the rest of Indochina.

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Giap, the new Minister of the Interior, spoke after Ho Chi Minh and stressed the need for national unity, while warning that the French were planning to return to Indochina. Should France refuse to negotiate about a post-war settlement, Giap insisted, ‘we shall resort to arms’. He too played the American card to the crowd. The United States, he told them, had stood alongside the Vietnamese ‘against fascist Japan and so the great American Republic is our good ally’.10 The fact that a squadron of US P-38s had flown overhead during the ceremony would only have further confused the Vietnamese audience about real American attitudes towards their country. The caution shown by Patti and the OSS on 2 September has already been commented on. For the French, the events of 2 September would have been alarming. Sainteny was not opposed to the principle of negotiations, but this was not true of the local ‘colons’ in Hanoi who numbered 15,000. Many of these people were armed and a further 5,000 French prisoners (left over from 9 March) were being held in the citadel in the centre of Hanoi. Patti noted that collectively the French were preparing for the return of their compatriots in the near future.11 But they were in a tiny minority. The ceremony in Ba Dinh Square ended with everyone swearing to ‘unfalteringly support the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh’. The crowd went on to swear to protect the independence of Vietnam and to refuse to serve in any French colonial army, sell them any food or supplies or act as guides to their troops. One million voices, reported Giap, shouted ‘We swear’.12 The north Vietnam inherited by Ho and his colleagues was beset with problems. Stocks of rice had virtually run out and much of the population was out of work. Thanks to the thefts of the Japanese from the Vietnamese exchequer, only 1,250,000 piastres (the colonial currency in Indochina) were available to the authorities, much of it in disintegrating coinage and banknotes. And up to 95 per cent of the population were illiterate in a country where pre-colonial literacy was high. Desperate circumstances demanded desperate measures. Ho Chi Minh asked for contributions to bale out the economy and in the so-called ‘Gold Week’ between 16 and 22 September, hundreds of thousands of people handed in rings, earrings, gold chains, watches and valuable gem stones. Giap later estimated that up to 20 million piastres worth of currency was sent in along with 370 kilograms of gold. More remarkably, thanks to a massive literacy campaign which required all Vietnamese to learn to read and write the national script (quoc ngu) within 12 months, two million people were able to attain this standard of literacy by the autumn of 1946.13 Meanwhile, far to the south in Saigon, matters were taking a superficially similar course. In reality though, the position was much more confused with the communists having a much smaller membership, drawn mostly from the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. In Cochin China, French influence

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was stronger and the Party in the South was both less militant than its northern cousin and more prone to ideological schism. Its leadership, which had been less harassed by the dreaded French Suˆrete´, had been able to organize more openly. Alongside the Viet Minh was a complex web of Trotskyites, the proJapanese Phuc Quoc and Dai Viet, plus the influential religious sects, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao. Finally, there was the Advance Youth Guard. In part, these differences reflected the different way the French had administered Cochin China, a device continued by the Japanese. Certainly, the Communist Party in the South remained detached from the Central Committee in Tonkin and lacked guidance from it until the famous Tan Trao Conference of 13 August 1945. Even then, the Viet Minh in the South were slow off the mark in August and it was the nationalist groupings in the so-called UNF (United Nations Front) which took control of Saigon on 16 August (with Japanese collusion). The period of UNF control in the city lasted only a week though, before news came through that the Viet Minh had seized control in Hanoi and Hue´. Thus, the attempt by Bao Dai’s viceroy to impose himself on 19 August was a fiasco. Nguyen Van Sam secured the transfer of a large amount of Japanese arms, so a militia could be set up, but his presence in Cochin China rapidly became an irrelevance. Ho Chi Minh’s old party comrade Tran Van Giau realized that the Viet Minh might be confronted with a well-armed opposition and on 22 August, he asked to be heard at a meeting of the United National Front. In his speech, Tran warned that the UNF might be perceived as being pro-Japanese by the Allies who were, at that moment, landing near Hanoi (this was bluff as no substantial Allied force appeared in Tonkin until the Chinese came in at the beginning of September). Tran then used the well-honed ‘popular front’ strategy to say that the UNF would be welcome to work with the Viet Minh.14 This proved to be unnecessary as while the meeting was still in session, news came through that Ho Chi Minh had been ‘instructed’ by Bao Dai to form a government. On 23 August, the UNF was dissolved and the Provisional Executive Committee for Nam Bo was set up under Tran Van Giau. Its supporters, including the Viet Minh, then took over City Hall in Saigon and the Government Palace. The Provisional Executive Committee (or the Committee for the South as it became known) announced that it was the southern part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In reality, its grip on Cochin China was never as firm as Ho’s in Tonkin and Annam. This was because in Saigon, the Viet Minh were ‘but one of a multiplicity of rival political and religious groups with private armies jockeying for power’.15 Sunday 2 September was meant to be a day of celebration in Saigon too. A great crowd gathered in front of the Norodom Palace in the middle of Saigon, both to celebrate the declaration of independence and to listen to the broadcast of Ho Chi Minh’s speech in Hanoi. The difference in Saigon

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was that the tensions between the Vietnamese and the French colon population were much more acute. The Viet Minh organizers of the celebration had taken great pains to avoid violence, but their efforts were undermined by the insistence of the various political factions that they parade down the rue Catinat in their hundreds of thousands while displaying placards and banners. What happened next has remained a matter of controversy. Shots rang out from the direction of the Catholic Cathedral Notre Dame de Saigon and 4 people were either killed or wounded. One victim was Father Tricoire, a Catholic prison chaplain who was popular with the Vietnamese, who was repeatedly stabbed and then shot to death while standing on the Cathedral steps. According to Patti’s version of events, the shots came from the French clubhouse on the rue Norodom rather than from the Cathedral itself, but news soon spread throughout Saigon that the French were responsible (in fact, the evidence on responsibility is confused and inconclusive). Gangs of Viet Minh or Cao Daist supporters attacked French colons in their homes or beat up French civilians in the street. ‘Black Sunday’, as French journalists called it, saw the local police force arrest several hundred Europeans and pro-French Vietnamese without any proper attempt being made to investigate who was responsible for the shootings. Looting took place at the same time as the physical attacks on the colons, with Chinese businesses also being targeted.16 The whole situation in Saigon was inflamed by the influence of the religious sects, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, who later tended to work with the French. Dai Dao Tam Ky Pho Do (the ‘Third Amnesty of God’), or Cao Dai as it was popularly known, was a somewhat bizarre religious social movement which later evolved into a political movement with a paramilitary force. It was founded by Nguyen Van Chieu in 1919 who believed he was in direct contact with God and then claimed to be the One True God himself. In 1926, he stepped aside in favour of Le Van Trung, who greatly increased the movement’s size and made himself the movement’s first Giao Tong or ‘Pope’. He established his version of a papal holy see at Tay Minh, close to the Cambodian border, with its own ‘cathedral’ which was a mixture of European, Islamic and Buddhist influences. The Cao Dai faith was a strange blend of Vietnamese and other influences with statues of Confucius mixed with those of Jesus, Buddha and the Hindu gods Brahma, Siva and Vishnu all appearing in the Tay Minh Cathedral. Most prominent at Tay Minh was the single great eye, ‘the eye of God’, in the cathedral nave which was the greatest symbol of Cao Daism. But it also claimed as ‘saints’ Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese nationalist, Victor Hugo, the French novelist, and Joan of Arc. The ceremonial of the Cao Dai borrowed heavily from Catholicism, but it was condemned by Catholic leaders in Vietnam as being satanic.17 In the 1930s, Cao Daism fragmented into different groupings and, between 1934 and 1941, it had secret contacts with the Japanese agent in

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Vietnam Matsushita and Prince Cuong De in Japan. Its pro-Japanese orientation prompted the French to close down all the temples and pagodas of the Cao Dai after 1940 and deport the main leaders to their penal colonies at Comore, Madagascar, in August 1941. Forced underground by this French repression, the movement re-emerged after the Japanese coup on 9 March 1945, when it collaborated with them. In Cochin China, the Cao Dai leader Trang Quang Vinh led a sizeable force which was armed by the Japanese and used by them in a law enforcement role. Between 1945 and 1955, the Cao Dai were a significant force in Vietnamese politics and the British were to find them a considerable irritant when they arrived in southern Vietnam in September 1945. The second major religious sect was the Hoa Hao which got its name from the home village of its founder, Huynh Phu So. The movement was founded in 1939 when its founder claimed to have been seized by supernatural powers which cured various personal ailments and inspired him to teach a new modified Buddhist faith to the peasantry. In the Hoa Hao belief system, temples and pagodas were unnecessary as the Supreme Being could be appealed to anywhere at any time. When So began to apply his teachings to political and social matters, the French, who were already having to deal with the Cao Dai, became alarmed. The colonial authorities called Huynh Phu So the ‘mad Bonze’ (monk) while his own adherents believed him to be a living Buddha. He, like the Cao Dai, aligned his movement with the Japanese, who used the Hoa Hao as a vehicle for fostering anti-Western Asian nationalism within the parameters of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. When the Decoux re´gime tired of So’s activities and tried to exile him to Laos (this followed a year in a French mental hospital before he was declared sane), the Japanese moved to protect him in 1942. He lived out the war under the protection of the kempeitai or Japanese military police in Saigon.18 The vacuum created by the collapse of French colonial rule in 1945 created an opportunity for the Hoa Hao, who tried to set up an independent state called Can-thou-Quoc in the south, while demanding a role in Tran Van Giau’s new government. This demand was rejected, and Giau, with Japanese help, crushed the so-called ‘new state’ in September 1945. In 1945–46, the Hoa Hao switched sides and collaborated with the Viet Minh but this situation did not last long. It did, however, coincide with the arrival of Major-General Gracey’s British forces in mid-September. So ultimately fell out with the Viet Minh, and was captured and executed by them in 1947. His supporters then threw in their lot with the French colonialists before the movement finally disintegrated in the mid-1950s. The significance of the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai lay in their possession of armed militias in the autumn and winter of 1945, which made an already complex situation in Cochin China even more confused. That, and their strong anti-communist tendencies (the temporary alliance with the Viet Minh being a reflection of the Hoa Hao’s anti-Westernism).

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But the British were not the first foreign army to enter Vietnam in September 1945. The Potsdam Agreement had stipulated that the Chinese should take the Japanese surrender north of the 16th parallel, and on 9 September, Chinese troops entered Hanoi. Vo Nguyen Giap was less than impressed by what he saw: . . . bands of Chiang’s army straggling in. It was hard to believe that this was a recently victorious army. Their faces were puffy and jaundiced, and they looked bewildered. Their yellow uniforms, the shade of turmeric, were ragged and filthy. They lugged baskets full of junky items on poles. Some groups even brought along women and children.19 In fact, Giap’s comments are misleading. Chiang Kai-shek had originally intended to use crack Kuomintang troops for the occupation of northern Vietnam, but those plans were abandoned (probably because of the impending struggle with Mao Zedong’s communists inside China). Instead, Chiang instructed General Lu Han, a warlord from Yunnan province, to send in units of his First army. Behind the Chinese army, whom Patti described as ‘a squatter’s army’ and ‘aimlessly wandering’,20 came a number of Vietnamese nationalist exiles such as Nguyen Hai Than and Vu Hong Khanh.21 At the Cairo Conference in 1943, Chiang Kai-shek had promised President Roosevelt that China had no designs on Indochina, but Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues had to take into account the possibility that Chiang might try and exercise control through Vietnamese nationalist surrogates like Nguyen Hai Than. Otherwise, the Chinese priority seemed to be plunder. Everything that was not secured was seized down to roof tiles, household furniture and even plumbing fixtures. Lu Han’s advance force consisted of some 50,000 men but ultimately 200,000 Chinese spread across Tonkin like a plague of locusts. Trucks were borrowed by the Chinese to take away their plunder and where these were not available, the Chinese troops used carts with water buffalo. Some merely carried off their illgotten gains on their backs.22 Vietnamese and European women were also under some threat, few dared to venture out at night. Deplorable though the ravages of the Chinese occupation force might be, Ho Chi Minh had to try and appease the Chiang Kai-shek re´gime by making it clear that his government was willing to co-operate with the Chinese authorities. Geography dictated that China might be a greater danger and was, together with Vietnam’s ancient history of Chinese occupation, the origin of Ho’s famous comment ‘it is better to sniff France’s dung than China’s all our lives’. Ho hoped that he might be able to use differences between the United States and China on the one side and France and Britain on the other. For the moment, though, China dominated in the North. General Lu Han arrived in Hanoi on 14 September and symbolically took over the French Governor-General’s Palace where Sainteny and his colleagues had been staying.23

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On 11 September 1945, news reached Hanoi that advance elements of Major-General Douglas Gracey’s 20th Indian Division had arrived in Saigon. So continued a process which was going to mean that by the end of 1945, Vietnam would have more foreign troops on its soil than at any other time in its history. For the Viet Minh, the additional danger to be faced was that in the wake of the British, whom Potsdam had authorized to take the Japanese surrender in the South, would come the French. But the British role at this stage remained unclear. They might, Ho and his colleagues would have hoped, limit themselves to the letter of the Potsdam Agreement, and leave Vietnamese sovereignty untouched south of the 16th parallel. They were not to know that there were differences of nuance between the British government and military commanders on the ground, which ultimately assisted a French reoccupation. Indeed, sometimes the British seemed to be cursed by the most embarrassing ignorance at the highest government level about Indochina. As late as 13 March 1945, Churchill was asking General Ismay for a short note, not more than one page, on what has happened in IndoChina since the beginning of the war. How is it there are French troops and a Governor-General there now? Are they survivors of the Vichy period? Have they not yet joined up with de Gaulle?24 When every allowance is made for Churchill’s daunting responsibilities, this statement, just four days after the Japanese coup on 9 March, is extraordinary, especially in the context of Anglo-American wrangling over Indochina in 1943 and 1944.

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The involvement of British forces in Southern Indochina took place in the context of a much wider strategic scenario whose problems stretched back into 1944 and beyond. A flavour of the internal debate about the allocation of resources between Europe and the Far East can be found in the memorandum which Winston Churchill sent to the Chiefs of Staff on 20 March 1944, some two and a half months before the D-Day operation was launched in France. Churchill had been concerned in the first instance about the South West Pacific and whether American operations there ‘would be hampered if we stood out’. But the British now knew, Churchill told his colleagues, that the American operations would not be so hampered and they would not be requiring British assistance ‘barring some catastrophe before the autumn of 1945’. Nevertheless, Churchill accused the Chiefs of being reluctant to meet their American counterparts because of ‘fear of revealing to the United States their differences from me and my Cabinet colleagues’.1 The priority for the next 12 months, the Prime Minister went on, was to pursue a ‘Bay of Bengal Strategy’ so that the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Theatre would remain the ‘centre of gravity’. Preparations should be made for an amphibious operation across the Bay of Bengal to the Malay Peninsula with the ultimate objective being the recapture of Singapore. As part of this strategy, a powerful fleet would be stationed in Ceylon and the East Indian ports. But Churchill ended his memorandum with a substantial caveat. Everything, he warned, was contingent on ‘the priority needs of Overlord and the Mediterranean’ plus the need to feed the British Isles. As the Battle of the Atlantic was effectively won by March 1944, it was obvious that Churchill believed that resources for the Far Eastern Theatre came third on the list behind France and the Mediterranean. The Chiefs of Staff (Brooke, Portal and Cunningham) thought that preparing simultaneously for two theatres would be wasteful and their preference was for the SW Pacific strategy which would shorten the war with the Japanese without delaying the recapture of Malaya by British forces. Their thinking was reflected in a minute responding to Churchill’s thoughts on 20 March, which was sent out on 29 March. This also focused

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on the issue of the availability of assault ships in the Far Eastern Theatre, which was also to dog any plans for the invasion of Indochina. The Chiefs of Staff fairly pointed out that the availability of assault craft depended on whether ‘Overlord’ had secured ‘deep water parts in W. Europe’ (in the event, the use of the artificial Mulberry harbours partly solved this problem).2 Ultimately, the Chiefs of Staff believed it was premature to make a choice between the Bay of Bengal and SW Pacific options as early as March 1944. Beneath the surface, Brooke (later Viscount Alanbrooke) was often intensely frustrated by Churchill’s leadership. Writing to Sir John Dill on 20 March 1944, he commented in rather caustic terms about Mountbatten and the South-East Asia Command. ‘We have Dickie,’ he told Dill, a former Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Brooke then held the post), ‘who is determined to justify his existence . . . His outlook fits in well with that of the PM and they encourage each other by periodic personal wires.’ Brooke thought that trouble might be avoided if it ‘were not for the fact that the PM after creating Dickie and his command is loath to see its wings clipped and reduced to a creature crawling around Burma’.3 Dill’s reply from Washington, where he was on the Joint Staff Mission, showed that Brooke’s frustration with the way Churchill pulled rabbits out of hats (and Mountbatten’s appointment was considered by many to be one of them) was shared by others. Dill thought it ‘a thousand pities that Winston should be so confident that his knowledge of the military art is so profound when in fact he is so lacking in strategical and logistical understanding and judgement’.4 Viscount Alanbrooke’s diaries are full of bitter complaints about Churchill’s mercurial temperament which are mixed with praise for his extraordinary qualities.5 Remarkably, by dint of stamina and standing up to a prime minister who sacked generals with alarming regularity, Brooke was ultimately able to gain ‘a certain ascendancy over his Prime Minister’.6 As it was, and despite his reputation as Churchill’s favourite, Mountbatten did have ‘the wings’ of his command clipped. When Churchill met with Roosevelt at Cairo in November 1943, they were aware that Stalin regarded theatres like Burma and Malaya as sideshows and that he made incessant demands for the opening of a front in Western Europe. With Red army soldiers dying in their hundreds of thousands on the Eastern Front during every month of the war, the two democratic leaders found it hard to resist his pleas (even though Churchill always had anxieties about an amphibious attack on the coast of France). Stalin was told that ‘We have reduced the scale of operations scheduled for March [1944] in the Bay of Bengal to permit the reinforcement of amphibious craft for the operation against southern France’.7 Mountbatten’s plan for ‘Operation Buccaneer’ was cancelled and he was told of this on 9 December 1943. The rebuff was all the more humiliating because the subsidiary operation in southern France, itself a sideshow in 1944, was

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apparently deemed by Churchill and Roosevelt to be more important than Mountbatten’s plans in the Far East. Mountbatten was accused by Churchill, in an intemperate outburst, of wanting to use 50,000 British and Imperial troops against only 5,000 Japanese. Buccaneer had been intended to assault and invade the Andaman Islands off the Burmese coast, while landward thrusts were made down the Arakan and across the Chindwin. In the northern part of the SEAC theatre, there were to be three thrusts to open up a direct route to Chiang Kai-shek’s China, linked to a major attack by Orde Wingate’s Chindits (or Long Range Penetration Force). This added up to seven distinct SEAC offensives. Mountbatten’s hopes of being in Rangoon, the Burmese capital, by midMarch 1944 were thus destroyed at a blow. In this scenario, Indochina was regarded as an even less significant problem, although the Foreign Office in London tried hard to keep it on the Allied agenda (the wretched Blaizot still waited clearance to go to Kandy). Thus, in November 1943, Sir Maurice Petersen wrote that ‘France should be strong and friendly to us in Europe and a friendly French policy should be reflected in the French overseas empire’.8 The problem was that, irrespective of Roosevelt’s anti-French prejudice, the military imperative was dictated by the needs of the European Theatre in 1943–44. In these circumstances, less prickly French leaders than de Gaulle might have become impatient about Indochina. Nevertheless, the Foreign Office continued to defend the French record in Indochina. In February 1944, G.F. Hudson of the Far Eastern Department attacked the whole basis of Roosevelt’s anti-French attitude (he had infuriated the Foreign Office by raising the issue of ‘trusteeship’ in Indochina at Cairo). Were the French [Hudson asked] more ‘hopeless’ in Indochina than we were in Malaya or the Dutch in the East Indies? In what way were they hopeless? When stricken at home, they could not, of course, defend it. But was their peacetime record so bad?9 Roosevelt persisted in his belief that the French record was worse than that of the Dutch (to whom he was notably more friendly) and, as late as 8 February 1945, he was telling Stalin in a private session at the Yalta Conference that the United States did not accept the French demand for a renewal of their sovereignty over Indochina;10 even though the American Chiefs of Staff opposed the whole concept of UN trusteeship because they wanted no constraints on US control of the Pacific islands taken back from Japan (Roosevelt had to back down). Mountbatten himself encapsulated the British position on Indochina shortly after D-Day, when he told Eden that in his view it was vital that the French should liberate Indochina ‘in collaboration with us and that they should be properly grateful for us doing it for and with them’.11 As has been seen, American attitudes changed with the coming of President

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Truman, and Stettinus was more concerned about Europe than Cordell Hull as Secretary of State. Then Potsdam produced a patchwork solution for Indochina with Chinese and British responsibility on either side of the 16th parallel. Mountbatten’s shrewd political adviser, Esler Dening, soon put his finger on the likely problems emerging from what Potsdam had decreed about Indochina. The Japanese surrender following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had left the problem of who was going to exercise sovereignty in Indochina. The French were not in a position to do so in the summer and autumn of 1945 and the Americans wanted Chinese involvement north of the 16th parallel. Potsdam merely provided a patchwork solution by putting responsibility for Southern Vietnam and Cambodia on the British.12 Equally serious in the shorter run was the decision by General Douglas MacArthur, in his role as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in the Far East, to order theatre commanders not to land in Japanese-held territories until his surrender ceremony in Tokyo was complete. This ceremony did not take place until 2 September 1945, which created a dangerous vacuum in Indochina. In fact, the original date scheduled for the surrender in Tokyo Bay was 31 August, with the result that planned moves by SEAC into Penang (in Malaya) and Singapore had to be called off. Mountbatten was furious that what had been expected to be a triumphant return by the British, French and Dutch to Singapore, Saigon and Batavia (now Jakarta), respectively, would be reduced to what has been described as a ‘limping return’.13 At the time when MacArthur (with whom Mountbatten claimed to get on well) was receiving the surrender instruments from a humiliated and crushed Japanese government and high command, SEAC forces were a long way from the key areas they were expected to occupy.14 In Vietnam in particular the two- to three-week power vacuum after Japan’s defeat gave the Viet Minh the opportunity to step into the breach. We can only speculate about how events might have been altered if Gracey’s division had arrived in Vietnam three weeks earlier than it did. As it was, only Operation ‘Zipper’, the retaking of Singapore, could be launched as late as 9 September and British troops only reached the colony on 11 September, ten days after the surrender ceremony (the same day that advance units of Gracey’s force reached Saigon, following the arrival of medical and engineering detachments in very small numbers on 8 September). Douglas Gracey was selected by General Sir William Slim personally for the operation in Indochina. Gracey was the son of a colonial civil servant and a Sandhurst graduate who was highly respected by the troops who had fought with him during the Burma campaign. He had won the Military Cross in the First World War and was mentioned in despatches. He personally raised the 20th Division. But his behaviour as Commander of Land Forces in Indochina and head of the Allied Control Commission in Saigon

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has become a matter of controversy, although most of the criticisms of his role have come from American historians who have accused Gracey of having a narrow colonial mindset which was incapable of showing any sympathy for Vietnamese or wider Indochinese aspirations. Archimedes Patti, for example, has accused Gracey of equating France’s position in Indochina ‘with that of Great Britain in Singapore, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the colonial empire’.15 Another major accusation is that Gracey, though an able soldier, was lacking in the political finesse necessary to deal with a situation where rival French and Vietnamese claims were in conflict. Finally, Gracey has been accused of ignoring the directives given to him before he arrived in Saigon on 13 September 1945 and exceeding his brief, a suggestion which Gracey always strongly refuted, both at the time and in retirement.16 On occasion, the attacks on Gracey have verged on the absurd. To suggest, as one distinguished historian has, that Gracey’s rather brusque dismissal of a Viet Minh delegation when he reached Saigon was ‘indicative of an attitude that was to infiltrate and deeply affect the future [US] endeavor as it developed in Vietnam’ is bizarre. The same writer goes on to attribute the American pejorative terms ‘slopeys’ and ‘gooks’ for the Vietnamese to Gracey’s influence: ‘Foreshadowed in General Gracey’s words, the result was to be a fatal underestimation of the opponent’.17 In fact, Gracey ignored the Viet Minh because the Allied Powers did not recognize the authority of the so-called ‘Southern Committee’ in Cochin China (led by the Viet Minh), not because of any racist motive. Nevertheless, there is a case to answer concerning Gracey’s attitudes and behaviour which must involve a detailed analysis of what exactly he was ordered to do on arrival in Saigon in September 1945. Gracey bore a dual responsibility in Indochina (bearing in mind that Cambodia also fell under his remit, because it was south of the 16th parallel). He wore one hat as the Head of the Allied Control Commission in Saigon (which had been set up in Rangoon before Gracey flew to Saigon) and a second as Commander of ALFFIC (Allied Land Forces French Indochina) – the title hinting at where the Allies thought sovereignty lay. In the first role, he took orders from Mountbatten at SEAC, in the second from Slim as Commander-inChief Land Forces in South-East Asia. This duality was to lead to a degree of confusion for Gracey and his staff. Working to Commander-in-Chief Land Forces French Indochina, Gracey was responsible for clandestine operations in Indochina, securing the headquarters area of the Japanese Southern army under Marshal Terauchi in the Saigon-Cholon area, assisting in the liberation of Allied prisoners of war, disarming the Japanese and (the focus for much subsequent debate) maintaining law and order. Where SEAC was concerned, Gracey was responsible for taking control of Terauchi’s army headquarters, initiating and carrying out negotiations for the Japanese surrender, maintaining liaison with the French and assisting in the liberation and evacuation of Allied prisoners of war. It can be seen at once that these

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multiple tasks, working to different commanders-in-chief, involved a degree of duplication. The situation was then made more complex by Slim’s amendment of Gracey’s instructions (on Mountbatten’s orders) while he was actually in flight between Rangoon and Saigon. The amendment read, Do not assume responsibility for law and order outside key areas [author’s italics], unless requested by the French authorities and only with the approval of the Supreme Allied Commander; further until agreement is concluded between the UK and France on civil administration in Indochina, designate key areas considered essential to carry out responsibility for disarming and repatriating the Japanese forces.18 An additional responsibility laid on Gracey was command of existing French forces in Indochina, until relieved of this task by Slim. But most importantly, Slim’s amendment of Gracey’s orders withdrew his responsibility for law and order outside ‘key areas’ except in narrowly defined circumstances (i.e. at the specific request of SEAC and the French authorities in Saigon). At this point, the role of the French authorities and army and their relationship with Gracey need a more detailed analysis. The preparatory work for a French return to Indochina was underway with the arrival of General Blaizot’s mission to Kandy in November 1944. But Blaizot could do little of real significance while the CLI remained in Algeria. Only when the US attitude to French involvement in the war against Japan changed in May 1945, was the CLI moved to Ceylon, where it arrived on 28 May. By then in fact, its name had been changed from Corps Le´ger d’Intervention to the 5th Re´giment d’Infantrie Coloniale (RIC). This change of name probably represented a recognition that the changed situation in Indochina made it impossible to use the force as some sort of bridgehead ahead of an Allied invasion of Indochina.19 Esler Dening, in his role as Mountbatten’s political adviser, thought the change of name unfortunate, because the already suspicious Americans might see it as evidence that France was only interested in restoring its Far Eastern empire. Realizing that the Americans had been the main obstacle to a projected French return to Indochina, de Gaulle kept up the pressure on Washington by appointing General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc as Commander-in-Chief of French forces in the Far East (this was on 16 August). The Americans were told that a field force of 62,000 could be sent, but problems remained about both equipment and shipping which was in short supply. The appointment of General Jacques Philippe de Hautecloque, who adopted the name Leclerc, was a controversial one. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, opposed Leclerc’s appointment stating that ‘his temperament is not that required for a top commander’. Eisenhower believed that Leclerc had ‘fought well only when the spirit

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moved him’.20 Leclerc was the hero of the liberation of Paris and Strasbourg and the commander of the celebrated Deuxie`me Blinde´e (2nd Armoured Division) in the Free French army, but even in the French forces there was a feeling that Leclerc was de Gaulle’s favourite whose exploits had been exaggerated. His appointment as Commander-in-Chief was paired with that of an even stranger character. For on 17 August, de Gaulle made Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu High Commissioner for Indochina as a replacement for Decoux, an appointment which many came to see as catastrophic. D’Argenlieu was a former Carmelite monk who had joined the Free French Navy in 1940 and risen to the rank of admiral, but unlike the famous Leclerc, he was little known to the public inside or outside France. A French critic wrote that d’Argenlieu had ‘a cold yet intense gaze and the unctuous way in which he rubs his hands together are surely signs of a monkish Machiavellianism’. A member of d’Argenlieu’s own staff thought he possessed ‘the most brilliant mind of the twelfth century’.21 But when d’Argenlieu was appointed, he went through the usual pleasantries with Mountbatten at SEAC. D’Argenlieu wrote to Mountbatten on 17 August of his ‘particulie`re satisfaction d’eˆtre appele´ a` travailler pour mon pays en Indochinie, dans un the´aˆtre relevant militariment de votre Auterite´ Supreˆme’.22 Mountbatten replied in equally effusive manner on 1 September about how he was ‘most honoured that French territory and French forces are in the South-East Asia Command, and shall endeavour to do my best as an Allied commander to look after French interests’.23 In actuality, Mountbatten was to find d’Argenlieu a most difficult customer. Gracey was to work closely with Leclerc, while having little contact with the High Commissioner d’Argenlieu. The other important Frenchman in Cochin China was Jean Ce´dile, who had been parachuted into the Saigon area on 24 August. Ce´dile had been Acting High Commissioner for Cochin China in Kandy and had been in Burma to observe the British military government there after liberation. Unlike d’Argenlieu, Ce´dile had liberal political views, but his arrival in Cochin China took place at an unfortunate moment. He and two companions were found by Vietnamese peasants who had handed them over to the Japanese who then placed them under house arrest (not before subjecting them to harsh treatment). Thereafter, Ce´dile had been negotiating without much success with Giau and his Southern Committee. He had witnessed the bloodshed on 2 September in Saigon with alarm, having escaped from Japanese custody on 1 September, and welcomed the opportunity to work with Gracey for whom he soon developed a high regard.24 The difficulties of inter-Allied communication were demonstrated, however, by the way in which different French officers obtained entirely different impressions of Gracey’s intentions before he got to Saigon. Lieutenant–Colonel Rivier of the 5th RIC, for example, reported to Leclerc on 7 September that he was in daily contact with Gracey with whom he was in ‘perfect accord’, admiring (later on in Saigon) ‘the wisdom of his

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decisions and the energy with which they were executed’. Gracey, he reported, ‘strongly believes that we ought – vis a` vis the Indochinese to avoid all action that could – from the political point of view – be exploited against us by the anti-French elements or whoever’.25 In contrast, Lieutenant Colonel Martin, head of the French mission to the Central Commission, told Leclerc (also on 7 September) that Gracey was both sympathetic to French interests and intending to carry out ‘forceful military action to establish order in the whole of the southern zone’.26 It is most unlikely that Gracey, with such a small force under his command and only days before his arrival in Saigon, had any such ambitious plan which, in any case, exceeded his instructions. It must be remembered also that Gracey had the problem of dealing with the French troops in Cochin China, many of them members of the Foreign Legion, who had been imprisoned by the Japanese on 9 March and were likely to be in belligerent mood on release. But he had other problems with his communications system and once again it was the Americans who caused difficulties when they arbitrarily pulled out a small nine-man signals squad which was due to be sent to Saigon on 28 August. This decision infuriated Mountbatten who could not replace these men for some time, leaving the Control Commission in Saigon without proper signals provision for six weeks. All this contributed to a feeling in SEAC that the Americans were leaving the difficult post-war tasks to the British. American troops and aircraft were on duty only in Japan, the Philippines and the island base of Okinawa. By contrast, the British had to deal with Burma (the easiest area), Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, as well as Malaya. In two of these areas, Britain was not the former colonial power, yet was expected to assist the French and Dutch who, for the moment, lacked the military means to re-impose their authority, and cope with the challenge presented by indigenous revolutionary movements.27 Meanwhile, Gracey had to subsist on such scraps of information about the situation in Saigon and Cochin China as could be scrounged from French and American sources (there was an OSS team in Saigon). These titbits were supplemented by political appreciations coming from Foreign Office advisers in SEAC and newspaper reports coming out of Hanoi.28 He did at least learn from an OSS team that went in to get some US prisoners of war and left on 3 September that Tan Son Nhut airport near Saigon was in serviceable condition and guarded by Japanese troops. The OSS also reported that in Saigon itself the large Continental Palace Hotel was intact and full of French refugees after the disturbances on 2 September. The public services were still working and banners throughout Saigon welcomed the coming of the Allies. The OSS thought that the Japanese were in control of the city, although the team noted that some 1,000 ‘Annamese’ were wandering the streets with a poor selection of small arms. This presented Mountbatten, Gracey and SEAC with another problem, this time relating to the Japanese. They would never take orders from the

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French, whom they regarded with distaste as a defeated nation, but Field Marshal Terauchi had agreed at a meeting in Rangoon on 28 August that the Japanese troops in Southern Indochina would be responsible for law and order until Allied troops were in place. On 2 September, the Japanese had breached this agreement by standing aside in Saigon and some were accused of giving arms to the Viet Minh. The fact that 1,000 armed Vietnamese were still observed to be on the streets of Saigon on 3 September underlined this point. Mountbatten wanted to underwrite the authority of Terauchi in Saigon, but the likely reaction of his subordinates to Gracey’s arrival was still uncertain. Particularly, as Gracey’s initial force was pitifully small. Gracey had to personally remind Terauchi of his responsibility by cable on 4 September before he left for Saigon.29 The initial British intervention force of 750 men was a mixture of Indian and Gurkha troops, all of whom had seen service in Burma. Of those flown in on 11 September, two Companies came from 1/1 Gurkha Rifles and two Companies from 1/19 Hybad (Hyderabad Regiment), along with the 80 brigade headquarters and a tactical headquarters. There were at least 40,000 Japanese troops in Southern Indochina plus some hundreds of others who had defected to the Viet Minh. Neither did matters improve much once the British had got a foothold. Until well into October only the 80th Infantry Brigade of the 20th Indian Division (1,800 men) were available to Gracey. He also had at his disposal a lone squadron of RAF Spitfires.30 The force at Gracey’s disposal needs to be contrasted with his commitments. He was asked to occupy the Saigon-Cholon area: Thu Dau Mot, Mytho, Nha Trang-Ba Ngo, Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, and Dalat, a High Plateau resort for French colons and wealthy Vietnamese. Subsequently, Thu Dau Mot was withdrawn from the list and Bien Hoa added to it. Political advice from the Foreign Office was supposed to be available to Gracey, but his political adviser, H.N. Brain, did not arrive from SEAC until ten days after Gracey himself had reached Saigon. SEAC had designated a number of VPs (vital points) in a document called ‘Force Plan 1’ published ahead of the move to Saigon. These included power plants, navy yards and barge building works together with machine shops in places such as Saigon, Phnom Penh, Cam Ranh Bay and Tan Son Nhut. Saigon Radio was also nominated for seizure. At the same time, the Control Commission was to arrest any members of the infamous Kempeitai or Japanese military police they came across and members of the Hikari Kikan (the Japanese–Indian organization).31 When Gracey arrived at Tan Son Nhut airport on 13 September, he found that the Japanese had ringed it with troops. On disembarking, Gracey, according to eyewitnesses, marched past the welcoming Viet Minh delegation led by Dr Pham Ngoc Thach and Maıˆtre Pham Van Bach to the awaiting Japanese generals who took him on to Saigon as there was no available British transport. In 1953, Gracey himself, while attending a meeting of the Royal Central Asian Society in London about the continuing

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French war in Indochina, recalled the occasion in his usual bluff style: ‘I was welcomed on arrival by the Viet Minh,’ he told his audience, ‘who said ‘‘Welcome’’ and all that sort of thing. It was a very unpleasant situation and I promptly kicked them out. They were obviously communists’.32 In fact, Gracey was almost certainly recalling the wrong occasion and referring to another meeting some ten days later, but his comments do convey accurately his attitude to the Viet Minh at the time. First, as has been suggested above, Gracey had no orders to communicate with the Viet Minh and second, he wanted to carry through his task of securing a Japanese local surrender. He was probably also concerned by information that suggested that French civilians might still be at risk from the Vietnamese in the wake of the events of 2 September. The irony was that the Viet Minh welcoming delegation on 13 September only represented a third of the Southern Committee which was nominally in charge of Saigon. For, on 8 September Tran Van Giau’s appeal to his people to avoid strife and to co-operate with his government had caused him to be attacked by extreme nationalists and on the following day, he was replaced as Chairman of the Southern Committee by the nationalist Pham Van Bach, who was to go to meet Gracey (and be ignored) on 13 September.33 Only four of the 13-strong membership of the Southern Committee were actually communists. But it is unlikely that this knowledge would have altered Douglas Gracey’s attitude. Ahead of Gracey’s arrival, the British had flown in just over a thousand men and 26 tons of stores, while 9,000 prisoners of war were flown out to Bangkok, an important part of Gracey’s brief. But of the men flown into Saigon on 12 and 13 September, only about one-third were infantry, making Gracey even more reliant on the Japanese. On the way to Saigon from the airport, Gracey was briefed on the situation by British officers who had arrived the previous day, although he travelled in Marshal Terauchi’s old Chrysler convertible. En route, the streets were full of cheering French (and some Vietnamese) civilians. Gracey gained the impression that no one was really in charge in Saigon, although the Japanese were thickest on the ground. Since 25 August, Vietnamese police were nominally in charge, but they had proved to be ineffectual on 2 September and armed nationalist mobs were still roaming the streets. An additional complication had been caused on 12 September when some French prisoners of war had been released, armed and given access to alcohol. They took revenge for their imprisonment by the Japanese by assaulting Vietnamese women and looting Chinese and Vietnamese shops and homes. Vengeful French civilians joined in the attacks while, on the other side, nationalists attacked those they deemed to be ‘French lackeys’ (this accusation had even been made against Tran Van Giau in the days before Gracey’s arrival).34 Gracey’s reaction to this lawlessness, rather oddly, was to send Gurkhas to expel the Southern Committee from the Governor-General’s palace and

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disarm the Vietnamese on the streets of Saigon (odd in the sense that it was the French who were responsible for most of the lawbreaking on 12 September). His critics argue that this gave a clear indication of Gracey’s pro-French partiality.35 But the military weakness of his position was shown by the fact that it was the Japanese who did the disarming. The French tricolour was hoisted at the same time on public buildings in Saigon. Gracey’s action has remained controversial and on the face of it, flew in the face of his instruction not to get involved in political issues (the expulsion of the Southern Committee was clearly a political act). On 9 September, after all, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Brooke had written in his diary: ‘The last thing we want is to get Douglas Gracey and his Indian division embroiled . . . before the French reach FIC in sufficient strength to do their own work’.36 Brooke, however, was not on the spot in Saigon in a situation where the British commanding general was reliant on the forces of an ex-enemy which were accused of offering aid and encouragement (rightly in some instances) to a native revolutionary movement. His paramount task was to secure the Japanese surrender, but this task in itself was problematical when the surrender of the Southern Japanese army under Terauchi had not been formally completed and Gracey’s force was heavily outnumbered by the Japanese. Nonetheless, Gracey’s action on 13 September in ejecting Pham Van Bach and his colleagues from the Governor-General’s palace has been castigated and he himself accused of holding views ‘so coloured . . . that he violated the instructions that the British occupation forces were not to interfere in the internal affairs of Indochina’.37 That is that Gracey regarded the Viet Minh as rebels, who had usurped the authority which naturally belonged to the French. It is worth noting in passing that British anxiety about the attitude of the Japanese in Southern Indochina proved to be entirely justified. No fewer than 500 Japanese officers and men opted to join the Viet Minh and were even given Vietnamese names.38 They had a combat role as well as acting as weapons instructors and suffered a high casualty rate. A few Japanese survivors of the campaign against the British and French in 1945–46 returned to Japan in the late 1950s, and as late as 1993 the Vietnamese government returned the bodies of 18 Japanese servicemen who had been killed during this period. It is true that the news that Mountbatten, Slim and Gracey were being obliged to use Japanese troops in Indochina was highly unpopular in Australia and the United States of America. Slim, in particular, was well aware of how unpopular using the Japanese was and how unenthusiastic the Japanese troops were about their law and order role. An additional problem facing Gracey in Saigon was the attitude of the OSS. Just as Patti did in Hanoi, the OSS operatives in Saigon tended to take a pro-Vietnamese and anti-French position. Patti indeed has been described as ‘a virulently anti-Allied, pro-Viet Minh officer’.39 Ostensibly, the OSS brief in Saigon was to help round up war criminals and watch over

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US interests including the property of prisoners of war. In practice, the British and French believed, the OSS meddled in politics and gave encouragement to the Viet Minh. Relations between Gracey and LieutenantColonel, Peter Dewey, the OSS chief (the son of a US diplomat and the nephew of Thomas P. Dewey, the Republican candidate in the 1948 US presidential election) soon collapsed. The assessment of Dewey’s short but spectacular career as an intelligence officer in South Indochina in September 1945 has been determined largely by nationality. Americans, at least those of a ‘liberal’ persuasion, have tended to see him as a heroic young figure tragically killed before the month of September was out. The Anglo-French view of Dewey has been much more jaundiced, while the Viet Minh saw him and his country as a friend. Dewey served with Patti in North Africa and the two men got on well. Patti’s book contains lavish praise of Dewey and attacks Gracey for deleting the OSS operation codenamed ‘Embankment’ from the Allied operation in Southern Indochina. This being intended to send 50 OSS operatives into Indochina as part of ‘Operation Masterdom’ (the British codename for the overall operation). According to Patti, the OSS complained to Mountbatten who reinstated part of its operation by allowing 17 agents to go in advance of Gracey on 2 September, largely to rescue some 200 US prisoners of war. Subsequently, Patti claimed that Dewey’s file was ‘flagged’ as persona non grata by Gracey and his staff in retaliation for the OSS complaint to Mountbatten. When Dewey did go into Saigon on 4 September, he was told to expect (it is alleged) no support from the British.40 Conversely, it is remarkable that although he spoke French fluently and was the son of a former US Ambassador to Paris, Dewey ‘shared the anticolonial predilections of Archimedes Patti in Hanoi’.41 Jean Ce´dile, who got on well with Gracey and his staff, shared his ally’s dislike of both Patti and Dewey. And it was noticed that the OSS staff in Saigon avoided the company of the British and French alike. Dewey further annoyed Ce´dile by failing to advise the French in advance when his aircraft was due after a mission later in September. Although warned about the dangers of travel in Saigon and outside, Dewey ignored the warnings with ultimately tragic consequences. Dewey’s attempts to see Gracey failed initially but when he did see him, the result was a disaster. It was hardly to be expected that the colonial general who had seen service in India, Burma and Malaya and was devoted to his colonial troops would see eye to eye with the much younger anticolonial American. Dewey made matters worse by claiming consular responsibilities when Gracey had been told by the Chiefs of Staff that the only tasks given to the OSS in Saigon were the return of prisoners of war and the possible arrest of war criminals, with a further brief to protect American property. This apparent deception, Esler Dening reported back to the Foreign Office on 20 September, created ‘a very bad impression’

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because any attempt to claim consular responsibilities by a member of the Allied military needed SEAC permission.42 The general feeling in Anglo-French circles in Saigon was that Dewey was an unpleasant man who was not even liked by his own colleagues. The feeling about Patti in Hanoi was similar, one fellow US officer going as far as to describe him as ‘an egotist of almost psychopathic degree’.43 Tensions between personalities in wartime will out, of course, especially between allies, so the antipathy between Gracey and Dewey in Saigon should not surprise. What does surprise, perhaps, is the general loathing of Dewey amongst almost all his colleagues in Saigon.44 His dispute with Gracey even ran to protocol because of his demand that he, though only a Lieutenant Colonel, should be allowed to display an American flag on his jeep or car. Gracey had decreed that only one-star generals and above would have this entitlement and Dewey complained to Gracey’s subordinate, Brigadier M.S.K. Maunsell. Dewey was told that he could not paint a Stars and Stripes on to his car, or fix an American flag across his radiator grille. Subsequently, attempts were made to link Dewey’s death to the absence of an American flag on his vehicle, as will be seen.45 Maunsell, who was Chief of Staff to the Saigon Control Commission, went out into Saigon on 14 September to form an impression about conditions in the city, using Marshal Terauchi’s Chrysler. He thought the Viet Minh claim to control Saigon absurd and observed that daily life was proceeding normally in the city. On 15 September, the Control Commission began to circulate pamphlets amongst the Vietnamese population which warned that in ‘certain localities the Europeans were attacked, killed or wounded by extremists’ and that ‘peace and prosperity cannot be compromised’ by criminals who would be ‘unmasked, tracked and punished. Whoever is responsible in provoking disorder will be severely punished’.46 The pamphlets were translated into Vietnamese and French and also referred to how the Allies had found themselves in ‘liberated Indochina’. The Viet Minh perspective on liberation (from the French and the Japanese) differed sharply from that of the Allied Control Commission. Nonetheless, the circulation of the pamphlets by the Control Commission showed that the Allies had grasped the need to win the hearts and minds of the local population in Cochin China. On 16 September, Slim, who had regarded Gracey’s 20th Indian Division as one of the finest in the British army in Burma, arrived in Saigon to monitor the progress of the Control Commission and British forces. He soon recognized that Gracey was woefully short of men and recommended that he be sent the rest of his Division as speedily as possible. The next day, Gracey himself saw the ailing Field-Marshal Terauchi (who had already had a visit from Maunsell). It was one of the situation’s historic ironies that Terauchi was the son of a former Japanese Ambassador to the Court of St James. Terauchi was suitably compliant and indeed tearful when Gracey stressed the need for him to take personal responsibility for Japanese

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behaviour (given the previous track record of Japanese junior officers since the Manchurian invasion, this was a wise insistence). Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Rivier of the 5th RIC was reporting back to General Leclerc also on 17 September. He thought that in just ‘ten days Saigon had become a French city once more’ but that amongst France’s Vietnamese adversaries ‘the pro-Japanese Cao Daists were the most resolute’, armed as they were by the Japanese (he believed) and led by their officers.47 Rivier was also loud in his praise for Gracey’s leadership qualities. Rivier’s comments about the Cao Dai seem a little surprising, because on 17 September, the Viet Minh proclaimed the establishment of an independent Vietnam. But as far as the south was concerned, the Viet Minh were not in real control and could not prevent attacks on the French colon population in Saigon. In this context, Gracey’s concerns about law and order were justified; and this was why he badly needed reinforcements. His suspicion of the Viet Minh was increased by the decision to call a general strike on 19 September, which Gracey’s greatest historical defender has castigated as a grave error which forced the British Commander to concentrate his attentions on them.48 This may be so, but the decision to hold the general strike was made by Pham Van Bach, who was not a member of the Viet Minh, because the talks with the French representative Ce´dile about possible independence were leading nowhere. Gracey was guilty on occasion of assuming that all his Vietnamese opponents were communists when this was not the case. His response to the general strike was to declare martial law and to release the remaining French prisoners of war (who had not been freed on 12 September) who were then armed. Newspapers were closed down, demonstrations banned and public meetings prohibited. This move, according to a British left-wing critic of Gracey, was ‘a political decision which was to set the guidelines for British policy until their withdrawal’.49 Gracey’s problem, as must be evident, was how to preserve law and order without straying into the political arena in Southern Indochina. His defenders have argued that this distinction was impossible, but Douglas Gracey was to have difficulties in persuading his own Supreme Commander that it was not feasible to avoid military conflict with the Viet Minh, whose units were already being withdrawn to the more secure territory of the countryside. The situation was not assisted by the fact that it took the Foreign Office nearly a month to get the final draft of a directive about the future role of the British in French Indochina to SEAC headquarters.50 Between 20 September and 22 September, therefore, Gracey took over control of Saigon, crushed any signs of Vietnamese dissent and freed 1,400 French troops who had been confined to barracks since the Japanese takeover in March. On the other side, the Viet Minh and other nationalists realized by 17 September that their talks with the French were going nowhere. Ce´dile called off these talks on 19 September and a slide into further violence began, which belied the peaceful impression Brigadier

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Maunsell had got on 14 September. On release from their confinement, the French troops went on the attack, occupying police stations and attacking any Vietnamese they found in the street. By early on 23 September, all the police stations, the Central Post Office and the Suˆrete´ building were back in French hands as was the Town Hall. The only major failure for the French on 23 September was their failure to arrest the Southern Committee members who escaped from Saigon. Gracey was disgusted by the level of French violence on 23 September, although paratroopers under Ce´dile’s control secured the release of innocent Vietnamese from jail the next day. It was true, however, that Gracey had co-operated with the French in staging their coup on 23 September and in the early stages, Gurkhas had been used to occupy the Police Commissariat and the Central Post Office and the Hybads had been used to seize the Treasury. British complicity in the coup against the Southern Committee was therefore undeniable. While it was true that no Vietnamese died during the coup, reports by British journalists on the spot were an embarrassment for Gracey and SEAC. The correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, Christopher Buckley, for example, questioned why women and striplings should be kept seated on the ground with their hands above their heads several hours after the shooting had stopped in the centre of Saigon. This I saw. Such treatment was entirely contrary to the orders issued by Col. Ce´dile and Col. Rivier.51 A partial explanation for French behaviour was that one of the units involved, 11 RIC (the other was 5 RIC), was made up of ex-prisoners of war and had only just been reformed, thus the desire for revenge amongst both of them and French civilians whom Gracey had armed, was strong. It has been suggested that Gracey was duped into staging the coup by Ce´dile, but if this was true, the British Commander proved to be a poor judge of French psychology.52 Brigadier Maunsell later remarked shrewdly that he and Gracey ‘knew how you fought a war, and we knew how you fought a peace, but we didn’t know how you did anything in between’.53 Operation Masterdom was indeed an ‘in between’ operation, which nothing in the Burma campaign prepared Gracey and his colleagues for. 23 September was a key turning point in the history of the British intervention in Vietnam and Cambodia and for Gracey’s critics, the clearest evidence of his pro-French, anti-Vietnamese tendencies. Back at SEAC in Kandy, there was some alarm at the course of events in Saigon and in a note to Mountbatten on 23 September, Major-General H. Pyman, the Chief of Staff ALFSEA (Allied Land Forces South-East Asia) stated that Gracey’s proclamation of 21 September, in which he stated that he was responsible for law and order throughout French Indochina south of the 16th parallel, was ‘not in accordance with instructions he had received’.54

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It was Pyman’s commanding officer Slim, it should be recalled, who had amended Gracey’s instructions on 12 September. On 24 September, Mountbatten convened a meeting at SEAC (which Pyman attended) in which it was decided to send a signal to the Chiefs of Staff about the situation in French Indochina, Gracey’s actions and their consequences and the options open to Mountbatten and SEAC. The first option was to restrict action to guarding Terauchi in Saigon and handing over control of Indochina beneath the 16th parallel to Leclerc, who would be directly responsible to the French government. Pyman notes that Leclerc was ‘naturally most averse to this’ because he did not have enough troops to exercise control over such a large area. The second option put forward by Mountbatten was to restrict SEAC activity in Indochina to a minimum consistent with ‘carrying out our broader responsibilities of guarding Terauchi, disarmament of the Japanese and arresting criminals and safeguarding RAPWI (Repatriation of Allied prisoners of war and Internees)’. The use of force was to be avoided, the meeting concluded, because ‘any display of force would be likely to encourage the French to be truculent’. It was assumed that by 20 October, Leclerc would have enough troops in southern Indochina to take over and the British would be able to withdraw.55 This proved to be a wildly optimistic estimate, but Mountbatten sent a signal to Gracey pointing out that he had exceeded his orders in his martial law proclamation of 21 September. In particular, the signal stressed that Gracey had broken Slim’s revised instruction on 12 September which had defined ‘more closely his restrictions with regard to his powers concerning law and order in FIC’.56 Mountbatten also telegraphed the Chiefs of Staff in London on 24 September about the options available to SEAC. But as has rightly been observed, the option of narrowing Gracey’s responsibilities ‘was not a realistic choice, and Mountbatten must have known that the second option was quite impracticable’.57 Clearly the Chiefs of Staff never took this second option seriously. It was also true that by the time Mountbatten’s meeting was held in Kandy, it was too late to prevent the French becoming ‘truculent’, as the events of 23–24 September in Saigon demonstrated. As far as Gracey and Mountbatten were concerned, the main bone of contention continued to be the phrasing of the first paragraph in the proclamation that had been made by Gracey on 21 September (which was taken before it was posted up around Saigon to the Viet Minh leader, Tran Van Giau, on 19 September). In this first paragraph, Gracey stated that Mountbatten had ‘delegated to me . . . the command of all British, French and Japanese forces, all police forces and armed bodies in French Indochina south of 16 latitude with orders to ensure law and order in this area’.58 In fact, this part of the 21 September proclamation was in line with the ALFSEA directive of 28 August (i.e. from Slim) which had told Gracey to secure ‘the Saigon area’, disarm the Japanese and rescue Allied prisoners and internees while maintaining law and order. Lastly, and this was the key

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phrase, Gracey was to ‘liberate Allied territory in so far as your resources permit’. Obviously under the terms of his 28 August remit, Gracey was fully entitled to say that he had command over all forces south of the 16th parallel and act accordingly. Important figures at SEAC were not happy with the original ALFSEA directive however. One was the Chief Civil Affairs Staff Officer in Kandy, Brigadier E. Gibbons who thought the directive much too sweeping and advised that Gracey’s areas of responsibility should be narrowed and more clearly defined. The other was Esler Dening, Mountbatten’s chief political adviser, who warned the Supreme Commander and the Foreign Office that ‘we shall have to be very careful about the extent to which we commit ourselves for the maintenance of law and order’. Otherwise, Dening argued, there was a danger of ‘laying ourselves open to the accusation that we are assisting the West to suppress the East’.59 As Mountbatten was always anxious not to alienate either international public opinion or indigenous South-East Asian opinion, this phrase would have resonated at SEAC. This double reservation persuaded Mountbatten to order Slim to amend Gracey’s instructions so that he would no longer be responsible for seeking to control the whole of Saigon but only ‘key areas’ necessary to secure the Japanese headquarters, disarming their troops and looking after POWs and internees. Clearly, Gracey did appear to infringe the revised instructions in his proclamation, but there is some doubt about whether he had actually received the revised ALFSEA directive by the time the proclamation was made on 21 September.60 If this was the case, Gracey could only operate on the authority of the 28 August directive and his own assessment of conditions in Saigon and its environs. Slim, in fact, was with the Control Commission in Saigon on the day when the proclamation was made and his assessment of the situation was favourable. Most of the fighting in his view was between the Viet Minh, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao and the only factor which really alarmed him was the strongly anti-Vietnamese attitude of the local colon population. On this basis, Mountbatten agreed to back Gracey’s actions on 21 September telling the Chiefs of Staff that Gracey had acted ‘with courage and determination in an extremely difficult situation together with, as yet, inadequate forces’.61 This comment was made in the same communication to the Chiefs of Staff on 24 September, when Mountbatten had offered them a thoroughly impractical second option of minimizing SEAC activity and assumed that Leclerc would be able to take over control by 20 October. Subsequently, Mountbatten reverted to his tendency to criticize subordinates and cover over mistakes on his part. In Section E of the report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the whole operation in Indochina, the Dutch East Indies and Singapore written in 1947 (though not made available to the general public until 1969, ten years before Mountbatten’s death), the former Supreme Allied Commander wrote as follows:

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I felt that this proclamation – addressed as it was to the whole of Southern French Indo-China and not merely to the key points – was contrary to the policy of His Majesty’s government and since proclamations of this nature may well appear to be initiated by government policy, I warned Major-General Gracey that he should take care to confine operations of British-Indian troops to those limited tasks which he had been set. At the same time, I approved the military measures which he proposed to take.62 There is a sense here that Mountbatten was hedging his bets by accusing Gracey, on the one hand, of exceeding his brief while on the other retrospectively approving his actions, which he had praised in his memorandum to the Chiefs of Staff on 24 September. As has been noted, in any case, doubts exist about whether Gracey ever received the amended instructions sent by ALFSEA on 12 September. In his trenchant defence of Gracey’s actions between 19 and 21 September, Peter M. Dunn argues that Gracey’s loathing of the Japanese made him most reluctant to use them to preserve law and order (he suspected them quite rightly of assisting the Viet Minh and other Vietnamese groupings). He was also reluctant to use the French whose behaviour might be provocative and who lacked troops on the ground.63 This does, however, leave unanswered the question of why Gracey then changed his mind before the night of 23–24 September and did use the French with somewhat alarming consequences. Dunn’s answer, which seems reasonable, is that Gracey had to act to prevent the kidnapping and murder of civilians outside his designated ‘key areas’ in Saigon. The problem was that the Viet Minh responded by organizing a general strike which Gracey saw as a challenge to the authority of the Control Commission and the Allies. He then succumbed to Ce´dile’s pleadings for a British-led coup over the night of 23–24 September. It is open to question whether this response to the general strike was either wise or strictly necessary. But Gracey’s assessment by what Mountbatten called ‘the man on the spot’, was that both French civilians and his own tiny force were in danger and that the release of French troops was, therefore justified. Yet even he acknowledged that the Viet Minh had tried to be conciliatory by writing him a letter in which they said that Gracey’s orders would be obeyed, while pleading for the withdrawal of the ban on newspaper publication. Even Gracey had to consider reinstating the papers in this light, but he still sided openly with the French on 23 September.64 Gracey himself fiercely rejected the accusation that he had exceeded his brief on 21 September in correspondence with the SEAC Recorder, who was responsible for producing the official version of ‘Operation Masterdom’ in October 1946. Gracey stated that it was ‘absolutely untrue’ to say that ‘the proclamation covered the whole of FIC [presumably he meant southern Indochina]’. Neither was it right ‘to talk about key areas at this

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stage. This is most misleading.’ Gracey also correctly pointed out that he had not in his proclamation used the phrase ‘all the weapons at my disposal’, although he did concede that the phrase was used later during the British period in Cochin China.65 It should be added that by then there was a full-scale Viet Minh emergency. There are suggestions that Gracey may have been used by staff at SEAC as a scapegoat for problems in Indochina and it was certainly true that Mountbatten tended to surround himself with flatterers who were known at SEAC headquarters (which was notoriously overstaffed with nearly 8,000 men and women on the payroll) as ‘Dickie Birds’ and tended to tell Mountbatten what he wanted to hear. Conversely, he was sent highly competent Chiefs of Staff in Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pownall and General Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning.66 They survived and did good work, but others (notoriously Sir Oliver Leese in the Burma Command) were arbitrarily sacked for no good reason. The CIGS, Sir Alan Brooke, was later to write that ‘Seldom has a Supreme Commander been more deficient of the main attributes of a Supreme Commander than Dickie Mountbatten’.67 All criticisms of Gracey, therefore, have to be seen in this context. Meanwhile, after the coup of 23 September events were to increase Gracey’s fears about civil disorder and anarchy. According to a French source, it was only the intervention of Leclerc in Kandy which prevented Mountbatten from ‘publicly disavowing the actions of Gracey and from replacing him’.68 Regardless of whether this is true, Mountbatten tried to doctor the official record, although he maintained good personal relations with Gracey at the time.

7

The death of an OSS man

While Douglas Gracey was embattled in Saigon amidst disapproving noises from SEAC, Lord Louis Mountbatten was dealing with an outbreak of French paranoia in Kandy. There the devout Catholic aristocrat General Leclerc suspected the Allies of doing less than justice to the French cause. Leclerc had arrived in Ceylon in mid-August and was anxious to embark for Indochina, but only when he had sufficient troops to be effective. But his sensitivity about the French role precipitated a minor crisis at SEAC. This resulted from an undated letter to Mountbatten (in the latter’s archive and almost certainly written on 18 September) which began in a cordial-enough tone by acknowledging that the British government seemed ‘sympathetic to the idea of France re-establishing herself after the disaster’ [presumably a reference to the 9 March coup], but then became critical. It had become clear to him, Leclerc wrote, ‘that in spite of all the public declarations, diplomatic negotiations etc, there are certain people who desire to kick us out of North Indochina’.1 The only answer to this situation, Leclerc went on, was to move the French 9th Division (that is the 9th Division d’Infanterie Coloniale) to Indochina as speedily as possible. Any delay might deal a fatal blow to French authority there. Thus Mountbatten should make the acquisition of shipping to move the 9th Division from Europe ‘a top priority’.2 Indeed, Leclerc went further by demanding that Mountbatten ‘agitate as energetically as possible in this direction’. Then Leclerc went on to remind Mountbatten of an issue first raised by Blaizot in November 1944. It was that men should be parachuted into regions ‘where guerrilla forces are still resisting against the revolutionaries. I refer to Laos’. The scenario had, of course, changed in ten months. Blaizot had wanted an ‘air bridgehead’ to be maintained in Laos prior to an attack on the Japanese by the Allies, whereas in September 1945, French parachutists would be engaging with the Viet Minh north of the 16th parallel. Leclerc only spoke of 60 Frenchmen being parachuted into Laos, but also spoke acidly of how if he failed in his task of returning Indochina to France ‘all Frenchmen will know the reasons for it’.3 All the divisions of SEAC who had been dealing with the French were angered by the tone of Leclerc’s letter. The tone of their response is exemplified

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by the memo sent by Mountbatten’s Assistant Chief of Staff, MajorGeneral B.C.H. Kimmins, who wrote on 19 September: ‘I do not wish to conceal my indignation at the tone of General Leclerc’s letter . . . [I have] devoted a disproportionally high part of my time to helping the French military authorities in London to create order out of chaos’. Since returning to Kandy from London, Kimmins noted that he had been present at meetings with the French which had been both ‘frequent and cordial’.4 Kimmins was therefore at a loss ‘to understand the discourteous insinuations made in General Leclerc’s letter’. In reality, SEAC staff had certainly misconstrued Leclerc’s letter in which the reference to ‘certain people’ meant Patti and his fellow OSS officers in Hanoi, whose attitude was clearly anti-French. Wedemeyer was, in any case, refusing to sanction such operations in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief China Theatre.5 Mountbatten had in fact replied to Leclerc’s letter the previous day, 18 September. He pointed out correctly that the failure to transport the 9th Division from Europe was in no sense sinister but a result of ‘a grave world shortage’ of shipping. Even if ships had been available, Mountbatten went on, the Saigon base would be unable to accommodate the 9th Division until the end of November at the earliest. And where Leclerc had asked for three Dakota aircraft to drop parachutists over Laos, Mountbatten told him that this would be impossible ‘without the permission of my neighbouring theatre commander, who is responsible for the zone in question’. As has been noted above, Wedemeyer would not grant permission for such an air drop. Mountbatten avoided the rough tones of Kimmins’ memo by expressing sympathy for Leclerc’s desire to return to French Indochina with ‘an adequate force’ and at ‘the earliest possible moment’, and assured the French General that ‘no one wishes for this more than myself’.6 SEAC also pointed out to Leclerc that they believed that the purpose of the 60 parachutists was to protect some 120 internees of the Japanese who had been left unprotected near the Laotian capital Vientiane. But the French had told SEAC on 18 September that the internees had already been evacuated to Thailand. Smoother relations with Leclerc were then restored after Mountbatten’s letter. By the time Mountbatten convened his SAC meeting on 24 September, the French Commander-in-Chief was cautious about being given responsibility for the whole southern area, because of his lack of troops (as MajorGeneral Pyman reported).7 Meanwhile, Gracey’s problems in Southern Vietnam grew worse as a result of an appalling atrocity on the night of 24/25 September. It took place in a context where French civilians were already being abducted and much of the 150,000 strong colon population in Saigon was barricading itself into houses, or taking refuge in the Continental Palace Hotel. On 24 September, Viet Minh guerrillas attacked the airport and also attacked the local prison to release the inmates. Then at dawn on 25 September, a mob of Vietnamese somehow got past Japanese guards in the French-Eurasian Cite´ Heyraud district chanting

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‘Death to the Europeans’. Houses were broken into and some 300 men, women and children were taken hostage. The rampage continued for two hours, while the Japanese failed to intervene and British Gurkha units did not reach the scene until an hour later. The men were killed or tortured and mutilated. Only half the hostages, mostly women and children, were returned and they too had often been abused and mutilated. Two major issues emerged from the Cite´ Heyraud massacre.8 One was the failure, yet again, of the Japanese to intervene in a situation where public order was under threat (the excuse given by the Japanese was that their men feared Vietnamese reprisals if they had acted – not a very convincing one given the Japanese record throughout South-East Asia). The second issue was one of responsibility. Who was the moving spirit behind the Cite´ Heyraud massacre? There are numerous candidates for this title. French intelligence thought that Trotskyite agents had instigated the pogrom which had been carried out by Binh Xuyen gangsters, or possibly the Cao Dai (the Binh Xuyen ran local vice rackets in Saigon). Other scenarios put the Viet Minh forward as organizers of the massacre. In reality, the Binh Xuyen are unlikely culprits. They ran operations for commercial profit and were unlikely to be attracted by such an undertaking. The Cao Dai may well have been involved, but almost certainly under Viet Minh direction. It seems more than a coincidence that the massacre and mass abduction took place while Viet Minh units were attacking the British elsewhere in the Saigon area.9 On 25 September, the Viet Minh attacked and burnt down the Central Market and two more French civilians were kidnapped. In northern Saigon, searches by Gurkhas found no arms, but did locate 31 French women and children in a house. The Viet Minh guards had fled and the hostages were almost certainly survivors of the Cite´ Heyraud massacre. Throughout Saigon that day, the rattle of machine guns continued as the Viet Minh engaged Gurkha units. Fighting was especially severe around the Boulevard Gallieni. While the overall context remains important, the Cite´ Heyraud incident in the opinion of one authority ‘more than any other, may have convinced Gracey that the Vietnamese population was beyond the control of any responsible organization’.10 This judgement sounds convincing, but it has to be recognized that Gracey’s support for the French coup on 23 September sharpened tensions between the British and the Viet Minh (assuming their overall responsibility for what happened in the Cite´ Heyraud). Nevertheless, the massacre of 25 September forced Gracey to release the former French POWs who had been confined to barracks after their disgraceful behaviour on 23 September. He also severely reprimanded Field Marshal Terauchi for the inaction of Japanese guards in the Cite´ Heyraud in an interview on 26 September and threatened him with ‘prosecution as a war criminal’. Saigon was now under the control of a motley collection of British-Indian, French, Japanese, Australian and even Dutch troops (the Australians and

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Dutch had been released from prison camps). The Americans, led by OSS Officer Peter Dewey, were very much the odd ones out, but Dewey’s pro-Viet Minh sympathies would not save him. His death on 26 September has remained the focus of controversy ever since. The bald facts are these. Lieutenant-Colonel Dewey may have been ordered out of Saigon by Gracey who regarded the activities of the OSS team as ‘subversive’.11 Dewey was supposedly declared persona non grata by Gracey for complaining to Ce´dile and himself about French behaviour on 23 September and British collusion in the coup. What is certain is that Dewey arranged to fly out of Saigon for Kandy on a flight leaving at 9.30 am on Wednesday 26 September. He was driven to Tan Son Nhut Airport by an OSS colleague that morning, but found that his flight to Kandy had not yet arrived. He then returned to Saigon, pausing to visit another colleague, Captain Coolidge, who had been shot and wounded in a Viet Minh ambush the previous evening. Dewey returned to the airport at 12.15 and found that the aircraft had still not arrived, so he and his colleague, Major Herbert Bluechel, decided to return to OSS headquarters for lunch. This was only ten minutes’ drive away and the route took Dewey through a Viet Minh roadblock, made of tree branches and brush, some 500 yards from the OSS headquarters. Dewey and Bluechel would have been through this barrier on many occasions and he reduced the speed of his vehicle to eight miles per hour. Suddenly, a light machine gun began to rake the jeep at close range and Dewey was hit in the side of the head and died instantly. According to one version of events, he had seen his attackers and vainly shouted ‘Je suis Americain’. His death was followed by a Viet Minh attack on the OSS headquarters to which Major Bluechel had retreated (despite the fact that the US flag was openly on view).12 Gurkhas then reportedly arrived on the scene after (in the Archimedes Patti version of events) the Vietnamese had called a truce in the OSS siege to enable them to retrieve their wounded and dead. This began at 3 pm and, according to Patti, the Vietnamese had agreed to return Dewey’s body in return for the three dead of their own on the lawn of the OSS building. The Gurkhas then spoilt this arrangement (allegedly) by firing at the Vietnamese, who fled, taking Dewey’s body with them. It was never recovered, although Ce´dile ordered a search for the dead American when Bluechel told him what happened.13 How Dewey came to be shot by the Viet Minh that late September day remained a matter of bitter controversy, both at the time and since. At SEAC on 26 September, Major-General Pyman noted that an ‘Annamite mob’ had murdered Colonel Dewey of the OSS and that his body was ‘never recovered’ (in fact, Dewey was a Lieutenant-Colonel). Gracey himself had sent Mountbatten a cable saying ‘Very much regret to report that Lt Colonel Dewey US army OSS was shot dead by Annamite rebels this afternoon’. He told SEAC next day that the Viet Minh attack on the OSS

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headquarters the previous day had showed ‘all signs of premeditation’ and this made an important point about Dewey’s death.14 Had the Viet Minh merely made an error (perhaps explained by Dewey’s cry that he was ‘an American’ in French?) in shooting the OSS officer, they had no reason to then try and storm the OSS headquarters. This action went on from roughly 12.30 am to 3 pm that afternoon before the Viet Minh asked for a ceasefire, a period of two and a half hours’ fighting which might have been renewed had not the Gurkhas arrived on the scene and driven the Viet Minh away. Even Patti, who was noted for his pro-Viet Minh sympathies, was forced to concede that the OSS report on Dewey’s death stated that Dewey died because of ‘being mistaken of [sic] a nationality other than American’.15 Wild rumours spread by some Americans that Dewey had been the victim of the British SOE or SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) who were jealous of the OSS intelligence role in Indochina were thus totally discredited. It has also been strongly argued that there is no conclusive evidence to back Patti’s assertion that Dewey was ordered out by Gracey, rather that, as the official OSS report stated, Dewey was going to Kandy as a result of arrangements ‘previously made’.16 This official report made no reference to Patti’s point about Dewey being ordered out of Vietnam, which is surprising if the accusation was true. Patti’s case ultimately beggars belief. First of all, we are asked to believe that Dewey was shot by accident by the Viet Minh because they thought he was French. Here, of course, Gracey’s instructions about flag use were used by Bluechel to make the British General somehow responsible for the shooting (in practice, only British and American personnel were allowed through roadblocks by the Viet Minh, the French kept well away from them knowing what their fate would be if they approached one). These claims do not convince, as the Americans did not want their markings on vehicles to avoid association with French and British colonialism. Second, British Gurkha troops are made responsible for the loss of Dewey’s body. This may or may not be true, but much more significantly, Archimedes Patti’s account totally fails to explain why the Viet Minh went on to attack the OSS headquarters for two and a half hours after their supposed ‘error’ in shooting Dewey. Further damage to Patti’s reliability as a witness (and he was, of course, in Hanoi at the time of Dewey’s death) is done in the Gurkha War Diary for 26 September 1945. This reported that the Viet Minh around the OSS building were ‘an irresolute mob’ which they were able to disperse by firing rounds which wounded five of them. The question of returning Dewey’s body according to the Diary was then under negotiation between two American press correspondents called Downs and McGlinty and uniformed ‘Annamite leaders’ (a euphemism for the Viet Minh). It could have been resolved, according to the Diary, by the Gurkhas had not the American journalists tried to argue that the recovery of the body was ‘a matter of great political importance as some relation of his

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[actually Governor Thomas P. Dewey, a future and past Republican presidential candidate] was a notorious politician in the States’. Then the Viet Minh leaders promised to go and get the body and drove off in a truck, never to return.17 Analysts of what really took place on 26 September are therefore left with a conundrum. There is such a discrepancy between the Patti account (reliant on an affidavit given by an OSS officer on 13 October) and the Gurkha War Diary that they seem like accounts of totally different events.18 The only certainty is that in the American version, a skirmish is elevated into a siege and that the Gurkha version, written up on the day, belittles the OSS battle with the Viet Minh. The degree of hyperbole in Patti’s overall account creates the suspicion that material ‘extracted’ from the OSS witness account may have been altered to suit his purpose. But if it was, Patti undermines his own case, as the shooting of Dewey in his version must have been linked with the siege which he subsequently describes. This identifies a predetermined decision to shoot Dewey as part of a wider Viet Minh strategy which is what Gracey had suspected all along. The only other alternative explanation is that Viet Minh discipline was extremely lax and that units were trigger-happy, but Dewey’s colleague had been shot the previous night, which strengthens the suspicion that the action on 26 September was indeed predetermined. There is no doubt, however, that the death of Dewey was gravely embarrassing for Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. He had been writing letters to President Truman, without getting a reply, asking for American support in the battle for Vietnam’s independence. He told Patti that he would write a letter of condolence to President Truman and that, as far as the Dewey shooting was concerned, ‘it would never happen again, except over his dead body’. He did indeed write to Truman on 29 September.19 In this instance, Patti’s version of events rings true. The Dewey killing seems, on the face of it, to be an undermining of what Ho was trying to achieve with the Americans. But the links between Hanoi and the Southern Committee in the South were tenuous because of the severe problems faced in the North. Apart from the 200,000 Chinese under Lu Han, whom Ho tried to appease by providing him with opium, the Viet Minh faced the hostility of the other nationalist parties who resented his influence and control over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.20 Northern volunteers did go south to help Tran Van Giau’s forces, but not in large-enough numbers initially. And Giap was unable to leave for a tour of the south until January 1946, because of the urgency of the difficulties facing the new republic in the North.21 Dewey’s death, then, can be attributed to more militant tactics by the Southern Viet Minh, which would not have been approved by Hanoi. But the end of the OSS officer would not have resulted in much sadness at the Saigon Control Commission. Gracey thought Dewey’s death unnecessary, but many British officials had deplored the American’s reckless behaviour,

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which included taking a villa outside the British ‘key areas’ where he could not be properly protected. Dewey had constantly been at loggerheads with Gracey and clearly thought that the day of colonialism in the whole of Indochina was over. In his last message to Archimedes Patti on the evening of 24 September, Dewey concluded by saying ‘Cochin China is burning [he at least had his geography right] and the British and French are finished here, and we ought to clear out of Southeast Asia’.22 Patti laments the fact that the United States did not take Dewey’s advice, and he was a brave and resourceful officer albeit a wrongheaded one in the eyes of the British and the French. It has been noted that with Dewey’s disappearance from the scene, the OSS team in Saigon ‘confined itself to reporting on the situation rather than involving itself directly in it’, as Patti and the OSS team in Hanoi were accused of doing. (There is at least one dissenting view on how damaging Patti’s role in Hanoi was to the French.)23 The shooting of Dewey could not distract the attention of Gracey and the Control Commission from other pressing matters. One was the behaviour of the Japanese on 25 September and subsequently. For the inertia of the Japanese in the Cite´ Heyraud was only one example of their soldiers’ failing to enforce order, or actively assisting the Viet Minh. On 27 September, the newly arrived Foreign Office adviser, H.N. Brain, reported to Dening at SEAC that when Indian troops had fired at a house in Saigon and then made a follow-up attack, they found six Japanese there with a radio set which they had clearly been using to contact Viet Minh headquarters. Brain was struck by the chaotic nature of Japanese organization whereby ‘the right hand frequently does not know what the left hand is doing’, but that in Saigon this was made worse by the fact that ‘the hand does not appear to know what the fingers are doing’. Officers did not know anything about their units beyond those who were immediately subordinate to them.24 This organizational weakness was compounded by the lack of enthusiasm of many Japanese for their task in Cochin China and, in some instances, by open collusion with the Viet Minh (an additional problem, as has been seen, was the refusal of the Japanese to take French orders without an ‘elaborate network’ of British liaison officers).25 Gracey plainly appreciated Brain’s advice which he later described as ‘invaluable’.26 One can only speculate about whether Gracey would have made his proclamation of 21 September had Brain been in Vietnam at the time. This proclamation was the main point on the agenda when Mountbatten summoned Gracey, Ce´dile and Brain for a meeting with the visiting Labour Secretary of State for War, J.J. Lawson, in Singapore (Lawson was Clement Attlee’s oldest friend in the government, who was forced to resign on health grounds in 1946).27 Mountbatten demanded to know why Gracey had made his martial law proclamation on 21 September, claiming jurisdiction over the whole of Indochina south of the 16th parallel, when the amended ALFSEA directive on 12 September confined his operations to key areas in and around Saigon.

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Gracey mounted a strong defence of his actions, saying that the 12 September directive (which he may not have even received until after 21 September) could not absolve him from responsibility for preserving law and order throughout Southern Indochina and using Japanese troops to do this. Gracey also seized the opportunity to ask Mountbatten why he had not been sent all of his division which he had been promised before he left Rangoon on 13 September. Mountbatten’s explanation for this questionable behaviour was that the extra troops had not been sent because he believed that ‘the only way to avoid the embarrassment of being unable to comply with French demands . . . was to maintain the absolute minimum number of British/Indian troops’.28 A curious rationale for a policy which placed Mountbatten’s subordinate Commander in a most difficult position and made him reliant on unreliable Japanese forces. One result of the meeting in Singapore on 28 September was that Mountbatten changed his mind and agreed to send Gracey the rest of his Division (Gracey claimed that he was saved from the sack only when Slim and Leclerc intervened on his behalf). For his part, Gracey agreed to ease contacts between the French and the Viet Minh and to adhere to the ALFSEA directive of 12 September in respect of operating in ‘key areas’. Outside the key areas, control was to be exercised by the French 5th RIC under Leclerc, the rest of which was expected to arrive in southern Vietnam in early October. Before that happened, however, Gracey was able to secure a ceasefire with the Viet Minh. This was badly needed because the day before the Singapore Conference, Gracey’s forces around Saigon were heavily engaged. A ramshackle force comprising 3/1 Gurkha Rifles, some Japanese and a few freed Dutch prisoners came under intense attack, for example, while in convoy from Lai Thieu to Saigon, some ten miles north of the city. On the journey back to Saigon, the column of trucks was ambushed six times and six Gurkhas were killed. Once again, the Japanese had refused to engage in the action, although one Dutchman was also killed en route. When one adds to these difficulties a hysterical French colon population which H.N. Brain thought should be evacuated from Indochina altogether (their desire for revenge on the Vietnamese owed something to the events of 2 September and 25 September of course), a picture emerges of just how difficult Gracey’s situation was. Even some of the French military thought that the French civilian population should be evacuated, as abductions by the Viet Minh continued. Brain also thought that Ce´dile, the French Governor-General designate of Cochin China, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.29 As far as the rebellious attitude of the Japanese was concerned, Gracey told Mountbatten in Singapore that he wanted authority to have some of their commanders shot and Mountbatten had agreed. Even the Supreme Commander now realized that there was a danger that the Japanese, who were not properly led by Terauchi’s Southern army Command in Saigon, were dangerously out of control.

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But Mountbatten still seemed unable to grasp the problems that Gracey was facing. On 1 October, he agreed to allow Gracey to use his squadron of Spitfires against Viet Minh roadside blockades and bunkers, but such attacks were supposed to be preceded by a leaflet warning the Viet Minh two hours before the action. This had been British practice on India’s North West frontier, but Vietnam was not the North West frontier and the order soon had to be revoked. Gracey was able to convene a first meeting with Viet Minh leaders on 1 October, which was opened by Harry N. Brain, Gracey’s Foreign Office political adviser. Brain tried to emphasize that the British were strictly neutral in any struggle between the Viet Minh and the French. Unable to attend in person to begin with, Gracey had sent a letter asking that the Viet Minh should be prepared to meet the French. The brief given to him by Mountbatten, it should be recalled, was to try and accelerate agreement between the Viet Minh and the French. Gracey then came to the meeting himself and said that his division would soon be up to strength and that the Viet Minh should properly control their units and return Dewey’s body for Christian burial. They should also remove roadblocks and stop harassing Allied nationals. In response, the Viet Minh delegation said that they had expected the British to liberate their country from the Japanese and the French, who had collaborated with the Japanese. They demanded that Pham Van Bach’s Southern Committee be restored to power and said that they would meet the French only if the British ‘acted as arbitrators and would protect their nationals against French aggression’. The 20th Division operational record noted that at the meeting on 1 October, it was agreed that there should be a ceasefire starting at 18:00 on 2 October and that the Viet Minh should meet a French delegation on 3 October.30 The truce was extended to 6 October when there was another meeting with a Viet Minh delegation at which ‘the Annamites put forward extreme claims’ about their right to sovereignty.31 As far as Brain’s Foreign Office superiors were concerned, the risk was that the British might be sucked into a Greek-style intervention (the British had been obliged to intervene in a bloody civil war in Greece in 1944). At SEAC, Esler Dening thought he had put his finger on the problem in a memorandum to the Foreign Office on 19 September: A situation is arising which is even more serious than I had contemplated since objection is being taken at the very outset to the presence of British troops as supporting French imperialism . . . we cannot escape from our duty which is to liquidate the Japanese headquarters at Saigon and Japanese forces in Indo-China south of 16 parallel and to evacuate allied prisoners of war and internees. Dening went on to argue that the best approach was to issue a public statement about what the British objective was, linked to a promise that once it was attained, Gracey’s force would be withdrawn.32

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Dening’s memorandum was somewhat utopian. Certainly by the end of September 1945, the conflicting problems of keeping order and dealing with the Japanese were starting to overlap, not least because Gracey’s force was so thin on the ground and would have been smaller still had not the Cite´ Heyraud massacre forced him to re-release the former French prisoners of war. And what exactly was the United Kingdom’s policy in relation to Indochina? When Brain had met the Viet Minh leaders on 1 October, he had said that Britain was strictly neutral, but two weeks earlier on 17 September, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had told the Chinese Foreign Minister, T.V. Soong, that Britain ‘naturally assumed that Indochina would return to France’.33 This was not neutrality, but a clear expression of pro-French partiality. How then was Douglas Gracey expected to maintain scrupulous neutrality when his political masters were disposed to assist a natural re-imposition of French control over Indochina? This surely demanded levels of political finesse which few generals possessed. It is also important to recognize that if, as his critics have justly suggested, Gracey was in error on 23 September, he was ‘no dyed-in-the-wood imperialist’.34 Alongside Gracey’s attempts to negotiate a ceasefire with the Viet Minh, the other great issue in early October was when French reinforcements under Leclerc would arrive in Southern Vietnam. At the Singapore meeting on 28 September, the Secretary of State for War, J.J. Lawson, promised Leclerc that the 9th DIC would be sent to Vietnam as soon as possible. Leclerc was therefore infuriated at the beginning of October when the British Chiefs of Staff told him that instead of early November (the timescale indicated by Lawson and Mountbatten), the division would not arrive in South-East Asia until the end of December.35 This was because the British deemed that sending in the 9th DIC earlier would disrupt the agreed Python programme for the repatriation of British troops from the Far Eastern theatre, to which both Mountbatten and Labour ministers were fully committed. The British used the time allowed by the truce to bring in the rest of Gracey’s division from Burma. The French also landed what was left of the 5th RIC from the battleship Richelieu, on 3 October. Then came Leclerc himself, landing in a Dakota at Tan Son Nhut airport on 5 October and being met by Gracey and other senior British officers. He now had 1,000 men at his command, but made it clear on arrival that military authority south of the 16th parallel still rested with Gracey and the British. To reach Saigon, Leclerc and the 5th RIC had to break through the Viet Minh blockade around the city. Even though a truce had been negotiated between Gracey and the Viet Minh on 1 October, fighting continued before Leclerc arrived. On 3 October, the Viet Minh seized all the public buildings in the high plateau town of Dalat to the north of Saigon and this time, the Japanese (mindful perhaps that Gracey had threatened to arrest Field Marshal Terauchi as a war criminal, or even to shoot senior officers) did react. By 6 October, they had driven the Viet Minh out of the town in a sharp engagement in which 11 Japanese were killed and some 80 Viet Minh.

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Gracey obeyed his orders to try and bring the French and the Viet Minh closer together in those early October days, but neither at the time or subsequently did he hide his lack of faith in Vietnamese capabilities. He constantly referred to the Southern Committee as ‘the puppet government’ and made reference to their plans for ‘subversive action and hooliganism’. Conversely in his letter to the SEAC Recorder in 1946, in which he tried to set the record straight about the British role in Indochina, Gracey was somewhat indulgent of French excesses. Thus, French behaviour on 23 September was categorized as ‘rough handling’ of the Vietnamese population, while the Viet Minh were accused of ‘acts of barbarity’ and ‘man-handling of French women’. He also believed that at the time of the Japanese coup on 9 March, ‘a very large hooligan element’ had been released which joined the ranks of the Viet Minh. Indeed, Gracey went further and said that this element ‘largely composed the Annamite government army’. Thus, while it is plainly absurd to link Gracey with the racism shown by GIs in the American war, his attitude to the Viet Minh and the Vietnamese generally did mirror to a degree that of the colon population and the more right-wing elements in the French military and civil administration (men like Ce´dile and Sainteny could be excepted from such criticism).36 He did not, though, share the vindictive and vengeful attitude of the colon population (with some honourable exceptions) towards the Vietnamese, which was shown in such disturbing fashion on and before 23 September. This abandonment of orderly behaviour and excessive emotionalism disturbed a man of Gracey’s military training and background. Even after Leclerc’s arrival on 5 October, Gracey was still in overall command of the French reinforcements that came in with him. The British Chiefs of Staff accepted the recommendation of the Joint Planning staff and ordered Mountbatten to emphasize to Leclerc that they attached considerable importance to ‘the earliest acceptance of responsibility by the French’.37 But given the delayed arrival of the 9th DIC, Leclerc was unable to take on such responsibility until the end of December at the earliest. At the same time, the Chiefs instructed Mountbatten to announce that although SEAC was unwilling to interfere in the internal affairs of Indochina, it might be forced to do so if conditions there interfered with the evacuation of Allied prisoners of war and Japanese troops.38 In his report for the Saigon Control Commission covering the period from 13 September to 9 October 1945, Gracey was to foreshadow many of the judgements made in his letter to the SEAC Recorder in 1946. These go some way to explain why the ceasefire with the Viet Minh was allowed to break down on 10 October. The Republic of Southern Vietnam, Gracey opined, was ‘largely without legal writ’ and it was ‘palpably obvious that, in fact it could not be expected to exercise any control if faced with adversity’. The result of its incompetence, Gracey wrote, was that ‘more temperate Annamites [were] frightened to carry on with any of their normal business routine’ which involved contact with the French, because they feared

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reprisals from ‘armed extremist elements’. The native Vietnamese police were also deemed unwilling to deal with daily violence against the French.39 Much of what Gracey wrote may have been true, but it is hard for the reader to avoid the conclusion that Gracey had pre-judged the situation where the Southern Committee was concerned. (Gracey was curiously erratic in his references to the Vietnamese authorities variously describing them as a ‘government’ but then as ‘without legal writ’.) He had, after all, colluded in the expulsion of the Committee from the Governor-General’s Palace and the expulsion of the Viet Minh from public buildings on 23 September (indeed, Gracey had barely arrived in Saigon when he had the Southern Committee expelled from the Palace). Gracey had, nonetheless, to obey the instructions given to him at the Singapore Conference on 28 September to accommodate contact between the French and the Viet Minh. A further meeting, therefore, took place between the two parties on 6 October where the French were represented by Ce´dile and the Viet Minh by Pham Van Bach, Pham Ngoc Thach and Hoang Quoc Viet. This was the occasion when the British felt the ‘Annamites’ were putting forward extremist claims, but Dr Thach disclaimed responsibility for the violence which had occurred since early September by stating that this represented ‘the anger of the people’. Thach also claimed that it was the Vietnamese rather than the French who were victims of violence by French and Indian troops. The Viet Minh delegation also denied any knowledge of hostage taking by their forces (this was a manifest untruth). Ce´dile challenged this assertion and was supported by H.N. Brain, who was representing the Control Commission at the meeting. Thach stated in response that the disembarkation of more French troops would be regarded as a hostile act. Pham Van Bach then said that his delegation was not empowered to discuss political issues, which would have to be referred back to Hanoi, while Ce´dile made a similar claim on behalf of the French with regard to sovereignty.40 At this point, the meeting broke up although the French pressed for a further meeting on 8 October. The situation was becoming increasingly tense and when the British met the Viet Minh on 9 October, Gracey’s subordinate, Brigadier J.N. Hirst (who was in effect command of the 20th Division because of Gracey’s Control Commission duties) was blunt in the extreme so that the Viet Minh might have regarded his tone as threatening. The British troops, Hirst said, were the finest trained troops in the world today – what chance have your half-trained levies against them? You are fools [Hirst went on] if you think your troops can oppose them successfully. The only result will be a lot of needless and useless bloodshed’.41 Hirst demanded that the Viet Minh comply with the terms of the truce and stop all attacks on Allied soldiers.

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This warning did not deter the Viet Minh’s more extreme elements who, on 10 October, attacked a British engineer reconnaissance party near Tan Son Nhut airport. So began a new and much more violent phase in the British involvement in southern Indochina (four members of the 20th Indian Division were killed). Gracey’s force were to discover that the ‘halftrained levies’ had considerable nuisance value and even Hirst, who had spoken so roughly to the Viet Minh delegation on 9 October, recognized that they had a case. He wrote to Gracey the following day saying that the British were ‘in fact being used to cover the concentration of large French forces’.42 Impartiality in Indochina was proving to be impossible and the Chiefs of Staff had made this obvious in a new ruling on 1 October, when they authorized Gracey to assist the French in the interior of Vietnam. This meant that Gracey had received official authorization to help the French to maintain law and order outside the key areas specified in his original instructions from Slim.43 A slight caveat was added by the Chiefs to the effect that Gracey must be sure not to prejudice the discharge of his primary duty in the Saigon–Cholon area. He was confident that he and his troops could carry out both roles and merely awaited the arrival of largescale French reinforcements under Leclerc.

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War with the Viet Minh

While the level of violence escalated in and around Saigon in the second week of October, there had long been anxiety and dissatisfaction in Paris about the pace of re-conquest in Southern Indochina. De Gaulle was alarmed to learn that Leclerc had still not arrived in Saigon in late September and Leclerc himself had expressed concern to Mountbatten about the shipping issue, as has been seen. Conversely, the French seemed to their critics to be blinkered in their approach to relations with the Viet Minh and indeed the Vietnamese in general. This manifested itself in both the obscurantism and hostility of the colon population and in the very grand conception of France and its empire which de Gaulle had. Writing as ever in a lordly third person in his memoirs, de Gaulle spoke of how all French people believed, when he resigned as Head of State in January 1946, that ‘the General had taken away with him something primordial, something permanent, something necessary, that he incarnated history in a way the party re´gime could not do’.1 Unfortunately, in this historical incarnation, de Gaulle had already failed to keep abreast of events in Indochina. Nothing demonstrated this more clearly than the Statement of Intent put out (at de Gaulle’s dictation) by the Ministry for Overseas France on 24 March 1945, just after the Japanese coup d’e´tat on 9 March. The statement foresaw the creation of an eventual Indochinese federation comprising Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China under a Frenchnominated Governor-General who would be able to appoint French or Vietnamese ministers. Such a federal style state would never satisfy the Viet Minh or the other nationalist groupings and de Gaulle refused to accept British suggestions that a new political initiative should be taken by the French government when substantial French forces started to arrive in Cochin China. As Acting High Commissioner in Cochin China, Ce´dile was only empowered to refer all political questions back to Paris. Neither did the March Statement of Intent provide any timescale for the limited reform de Gaulle offered. There were certainly those who felt that this was an opportunity missed. One of them was Pierre Messmer, who had been appointed High Commissioner

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designate for Tonkin and had been parachuted into that territory in August 1945 with other French agents (most fell into Viet Minh hands and were killed).2 Messmer was strongly convinced that the Viet Minh were the only Vietnamese group with whom realistic business could be done and he reported in this spirit to Paris from Calcutta in March 1945. Months later, when he next visited Paris, Messmer found his report unread and pigeon holed.3 This despite the fact that accurate knowledge about Indochina was in short supply in Paris, where there was considerable ignorance about the various Vietnamese nationalist groupings. Officials preferred to believe the colon mantra that the Vietnamese would be enthusiastic about the return of the French. Mountbatten, to his credit, was not deceived by this utopianism. He sent his political officer Brigadier E.J.C. Myers, a former Head of Mission to the Greek Resistance, to Saigon to report on the situation. Myers thought the previous Vichyite administration ‘rotten to the core’, while the Gaullists who had come with Ce´dile had alienated the Vietnamese by their arrogant behaviour. He argued that what was needed was a much more progressive French colonial policy in Indochina, together with some involvement by the United Nations (though not the trusteeship which was the pet scheme of the late President Roosevelt).4 On the French side, there appeared to be some justification for impatience with the British Labour Government. Somewhat complacently, Prime Minister Attlee summed up the view of the Cabinet Defence Committee on 5 October by saying that the existing situation did not appear ‘to warrant any precipitate action to alter the present scheduled movements for French forces to Indochina’.5 This was not the view taken by either Mountbatten or Leclerc. This being said, Leclerc was wary of Mountbatten, whom he and his staff deemed to be too political, preferring Slim, whom the French military regarded as a good old-fashioned soldier. Nevertheless, it was Mountbatten and, to some extent, Dening who were putting pressure on the politicians and the Foreign Office to send in the 9th DIC as soon as possible. And Slim’s deputy Pyman, who visited Saigon on 8 October, believed that if the Viet Minh and other nationalists could not control their wilder elements, then the British and French would have no alternative but to use force against them. Pyman’s Diary for that day demonstrates the same hostility to the Southern Committee as Gracey had shown. The ‘Annamite Government ruled in Saigon,’ he wrote, ‘as a subsidiary to the main controlling Annamite Government at Hanoi’, which he believed to have been installed with the full agreement and assistance of the Japanese forces.6 What Pyman was saying also appeared to fly in the face of what the Secretary of State for War J.J. Lawson had said at the Singapore meeting, on 28 September, about British forces not getting involved in nationalist struggles in nonBritish territories, like French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. Increasingly, however, the 20th Division was getting sucked into France’s political war with the Viet Minh, whatever British government ministers

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were saying. Mountbatten was a reluctant eyewitness to this process and continued to insist that warnings should be given (by pamphlet or radio) when the British were about to use force. Gracey wanted to try captured Viet Minh for war crimes, but was told that Britain was not at war and only involved in dealing with civil disobedience. Ahead of the Nuremberg trials in Germany in any case, Gracey’s conception of war crimes would have been deemed revolutionary and the trials themselves showed (as did subsequent developments in the de-nazification process) that the British military were reluctant to see their German counterparts prosecuted. But the point about civil disobedience was an interesting one. The only civil authorities that the Vietnamese could have been disobeying were the French colonial authorities, as the Control Commission did not recognize the authority of the Southern Committee as Gracey speedily demonstrated on arrival on 13 September. British partiality was therefore clear to see. Gracey told Mountbatten’s Chief of Staff at SEAC, Lieutenant General ‘Boy’ Browning, on 14 October that co-operation with Leclerc had become even closer as it had now ‘become inevitable for the proper policy as to key areas only. By doing so,’ Gracey wrote, ‘I inevitably provide considerable assistance to political aims of French in this area’.7 An interesting contrast is offered by studying Gracey’s behaviour in Southern Indochina in relation to that of Lieutenant General Sir Philip Christison, who commanded the British intervention force in the Dutch East Indies. There Christison faced a larger, better armed indigenous revolutionary movement, but unlike Gracey, he immediately opened talks with Sukarno and the Indonesian nationalists, despite Dutch opposition and nervousness at SEAC. Gracey, as has been noted by one of his critics, took no political initiative whatever, merely acting as a support to French authority in Cochin China and warning the Viet Minh off through his surrogate Hirst on 9 October.8 Two British generals therefore contrived to take opposing views of their roles in non-British colonial territories. It can be argued that Gracey ought to have followed Christison’s example, but by mid-October 1945, it was too late for political initiatives (even if talks could subsequently have been opened, as was to occur many times in Britain’s colonial emergencies later on). An escalating level of violence followed the attack on the engineer party on 10 October and the RAF regiment had to be sent to protect the aircraft at Tan Son Nhut airport on that day. The force was strongly attacked by the Viet Minh on 12 October. Gracey, or more probably Hirst, who had taken over many of his military functions, sent units of Brigadier Woodford’s 32 Brigade to invest Gia Dinh, a move which has been described as ‘the first move of the expanding British involvement in Vietnam’.9 It was, though, expected to be unopposed, as Hirst had agreed with the Viet Minh on 9 October that only British–Indian and Japanese troops would be used to effect the occupation of the town. The operation started at 06:30 without opposition (the British units involved were one troop each from 16 Cavalry and 114 Field Regiment Royal Artillery).

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On the very same day, the Viet Minh appeared to make an attempt by letter to divide the British from their French allies. Addressed to ‘the General Commander of the English Army at Gia-Dinh’, it was received by 9/14 Punjab Headquarters and passed on to Woodford (presumably the ‘General Commander’ referred to) in Saigon. The title-head of the letter referred to the ‘Eastern Defending Committee’ and it was dated 11 October. The first point made in the letter was that ‘We, Vietnamese People, have no aim to attack, nor to disturb English Army in its mission to disarm Japanese Army’. A marginal British comment stated that this statement was ‘not born out by what has happened’. The Vietnamese Commander, Hoang Cao Nha, then went on to say that ‘We are always ready to give some help to English Army [sic] in the above mentioned mission’. The kernel of his letter came in its second paragraph, where Hoang stated that their only purpose is to forbid French people or soldiers to get out of the region of Saigon and Cholon. So we beg you not to mixe [sic] in your army any French soldiers, who, after your returning back to your bases, would occupy by force our towns and villages, as they did some days ago in Saigon [a reference presumably to Leclerc’s arrival on 5 October]. Then, very optimistically, Hoang expressed the hope that ‘you will guarantee to US on this notable point’. The letter went on to ask for a fixed time and zone into which British forces would go and disarm the Japanese, so that Hoang Cao Nha could forewarn his men and avoid any incidents. Lastly, Hoang declared himself ‘totally responsible on [sic] everything troublesome happening between your Army and Mine’ (a marginal comment suggested that ‘he should come in and speak to the General’ and another that the Viet Minh should ‘call off the blockade’ of Saigon).10 The British response to this overture was negative, as the marginal comments on the letter suggested it would be. The letter came from LieutenantColonel Ritchie, 20th Division’s Chief of Staff saying that whereas Gracey was willing to listen to any Viet Minh views on law and order, You will remember both now and in the future that General D.D. Gracey speaks as the Commander of the Allied Land Forces in French Indochina south of 16 parallel; I would draw your attention to the word ‘Allied’; the Allied nations include the French nation.11 This letter, which must have been endorsed by Gracey, made it abundantly clear where British loyalties lay. No reply from the Viet Minh Commander has been traced, but his effort to sow Anglo-French division had plainly failed. Mountbatten remained uneasy. On 2 October, he had told the Chiefs of Staff that ‘we shall find it hard to counter the accusations that our forces

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are remaining in the country solely in order to hold the Viet Minh Independence Movement in check’.12 The difference in language between Mountbatten and Gracey, who tended to dismiss the Viet Minh and other nationalists as ‘the Annamite puppet government’ or ‘re´gime’ is striking. Nevertheless, SEAC continued to endorse Gracey’s actions. Interestingly, SEAC’s Assistant Director of Intelligence tended to agree with Mountbatten’s reservations about what was happening in Indochina. He thought it strange that Gracey would not allow contact with the Viet Minh, but also criticized the French for lack of political imagination. He thought that Japanese military intelligence was behind both the Viet Minh and groups like the Cao Dai (an unlikely scenario). But he believed that the key to the situation was a more progressive and humane policy by the French. This may have been unfair as Major-General Pyman’s Diary noted that at the meetings held between 1 October and 8 October, the French delegates had ‘been most patient and have shown great willingness to meet the Annamites more than half way in order to prevent the negotiations from breaking down’.13 The problem lay in Paris. De Gaulle was not willing to devolve sovereignty, however conciliatory Ce´dile and his colleagues might be. As it was, hostilities between the British, French and Japanese on the one side and the Viet Minh and their allies continued. The airport was a particular target for Viet Minh assaults on 13 October and, at one point, their units got to within 300 yards of the control tower. The Viet Minh were only driven back after great efforts by the RAF Regiment and Japanese troops. An ongoing problem faced by Mountbatten and Gracey was the continuing evidence of Japanese collusion with the Viet Minh, which showed that Gracey’s threats to Terauchi had not worked. Brigadier Hirst reported seeing uniformed Japanese assisting the Viet Minh in fighting around Thanh My, and complained about this collusion to General Manaki, the Commander of the 2nd Japanese Division. The French experience was similar; on the morning of 13 October, they captured two Japanese air force officers who were assisting the Viet Minh. They were immediately executed. Conversely, Gracey was also heavily dependent on the Japanese to remove roadblocks, go out on patrol and (increasingly) take part in counter-insurgency operations against the Viet Minh, reluctant though they were to fight against the Vietnamese. The Japanese leadership had, after all, been ‘deliberately encouraging a legacy of Pan-Asian nationalism’ in the last months before their surrender.14 Gracey was fortunate that the British public remained largely unaware of his extensive use of Japanese troops, although much more was known about the controversial British use of Japanese troops in the Dutch East Indies. But there was some good news to report in the second week of October, 32 Brigade was securing bridges in the northern suburbs of Saigon and Mountbatten learnt from the Chiefs of Staff that the sending out of the 9th DIC was being accelerated. He also had problems in Cambodia, however, which lay in the British sphere of control beneath the 16th parallel, whereas

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most of Laos lay to the north of it and was thus regarded as being in the Chinese sphere. The Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk had rejected French authority after 9 March, by making a declaration of independence four days later and rejecting all previous Franco-Cambodian agreements. Japan, of course, remained in charge as it did in Vietnam and Laos, but the Japanese did provide some sort of political umbrella under which Cambodian nationalism could evolve. In particular in May 1945, they allowed Son Ngoc Thanh to return from exile in Japan, which had also harboured anti-French nationalists from Vietnam. Thanh was made Foreign Minister and ultimately Prime Minister when an anti-royalist uprising had failed on 10 August. It has been suggested that Son Ngoc Thanh’s own overthrow on 15 October was due to the Allied perception of him as a pro-Japanese collaborator. But the scenario was more complicated than that. Thanh made serious tactical errors during his premiership, most notably in recognizing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September, which antagonized the Cambodian e´lite which regarded Vietnam as a hereditary enemy. Worse still, from the viewpoint of Cambodian nationalists, Thanh made attempts to co-ordinate resistance to the French return with the DRV. These attempts failed, the stumbling block being the return of the last Cambodian provinces of Travinh and Soc Trang which had become part of Vietnam. But, at the same time, Thanh sought Thai and Chinese aid, Thailand having its own territorial dispute with Vietnam, or more accurately, the French colonialists over the province of Battambang.15 Thanh’s re´gime also showed some of the neo-fascist characteristics of Field Marshal Pibul’s dictatorship in the 1930s, in setting up a paramilitary Green-shirt organization to fight France. The presence of a collaborationist re´gime in Phnom Penh was unsatisfactory as far as SEAC was concerned. Gracey raised the issue of Cambodia with Mountbatten on 28 September and, rather surprisingly (given his consistently hostile attitude to the Viet Minh), stated his belief that the best way to deal with the situation in Cambodia was ‘to condone the past actions of the PM [Son Ngoc Thanh] and to enlist his support: in fact to treat him in the same manner that we had dealt with Aung San in Burma’.16 Gracey’s statement is curious and rather flies in the face of the statements about the Viet Minh associated with him. Aung San’s Burma National Army had originally been set up by the Japanese and he only changed sides in 1943, whereas the Viet Minh, however limited their attacks on the Japanese, had never collaborated with them before the Japanese surrender on 15 August. Equally odd is Gracey’s apparent willingness to work with a nationalist movement which had collaborated with the Japanese in Cambodia, yet Gracey’s line was endorsed by Mountbatten. Initially, it was decided that the French should deal with the situation in Cambodia, to spare Gracey’s slender resources in Indochina from being overstretched. But this plan was dropped in favour of one which made the

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French responsible for the removal of Thanh, while the British were responsible for Japanese surrender in Phnom Penh. The most recent research suggests that Thanh’s demise was mainly a result of how his policies had alienated him from the Khmer population. A nationalist like Pibul would certainly have recognized that attempts to treat with traditional enemies like Vietnam and Thailand would inevitably lead to disaster. Thanh did not, and this oversight caused divisions inside his own cabinet. Fear of Vietnamese communism in a more conservative society than Vietnam may also have played its part. Thus, it was that Thanh’s cabinet colleague Khim Tit who flew to Saigon to talk to SEAC and ask for a return of French colonial rule. Gracey was sufficiently convinced to send a 31-strong British military mission under Acting Brigadier E.D. Murray to Phnom Penh on 9 October. Murray assumed command of all Allied troops in Cambodia with a similar brief to the one Gracey had been given in Saigon. He was to maintain law and order, arrest senior Japanese officers and prevent Viet Minh arms from being smuggled into Phnom Penh. Under his immediate command, Murray had one platoon of the 1st Gurkha Rifles, two companies of French commandos, other released Allied POWs and elements from the 55th Japanese Division.17 The issue of Thanh’s arrest remained. On arrival in Phnom Penh, Murray deemed that if ‘Cambodia was not to be embroiled in serious political disturbances’,18 the arrest should be made as soon as possible, not least, in Murray’s view, because of Thanh’s pro-Japanese behaviour since his return from exile. Two French companies had been specially sent to Cambodia with Murray with the brief of arresting Thanh. But the French failed to make the arrest, leaving Thanh in government for another week before Leclerc himself flew to Phnom Penh on 15 October and made the arrest (during which, not a word was spoken, Leclerc merely giving Thanh a cursory nod). Thanh was flown back to a prison in Saigon, while Brigadier Murray explained his actions to King Sihanouk on 18 October. A complicating factor facing Murray in Phnom Penh was the presence of a sizeable Vietnamese majority in the city, which might offer aid and comfort to the Viet Minh and the Khmer Issarak nationalists. On 23 October, King Sihanouk recognized French authority over Cambodia, while Thanh’s supporters fled to Thailand and Cochin China. The security situation in Cambodia improved rapidly thereafter and by 25 November, Murray was able to commence formal surrender procedures at the Japanese headquarters in Phnom Penh and the investigation of Japanese war criminals started in December. Son Ngo Thanh was replaced as Cambodian Prime Minister by the King’s brother, Prince Monireth. Laos posed different problems, not least because of Chinese authority there and its technical membership of the American China Theatre. French interest in Laos as a base for both anti-Japanese and anti-Viet Minh

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operations had been demonstrated by both Blaizot and Leclerc, but information was also available to SEAC that pro-French individuals were being rounded up and shot there by the local Lao Issara nationalists who were aided by the Viet Minh. The situation was further complicated by the presence of Chinese troops and OSS officers. All this came to a head on 28 September, just two days after Lieutenant Colonel Dewey had been shot down at the Viet Minh roadblock in Saigon. As was the case with the Dewey incident, the circumstances in which the French Lieutenant Klotz was shot by the Viet Minh on the banks of the Mekong are controversial. Major Peter Kemp and Lieutenant Klotz were members of ALFPMO (Allied Land Forces Para-Military Operations created by Mountbatten by using former SOE personnel) who were moving up supplies in northern Thailand to help French DGER (Direction Ge´ne´ral des Etudes et Recherches) agents who were inside Laos. It appears that the ALFPMO party was confronted by a mixed one of OSS and Viet Minh. The latter then demanded that Klotz as a French national should be handed over as the Viet Minh were at war with France. Then, according to one account, Kemp had stood with arms outstretched to try and prevent Klotz from being shot. He failed, and then dragged the Frenchman’s corpse to a boat while the OSS officers withdrew claiming neutrality. Colin MacKenzie of SOE wanted to blame the killing on the OSS for encouraging ‘the Annamites to commit this murder’, and Mountbatten was so outraged that he wanted ALFPMO to arrest the culprits.19 They had long disappeared from the scene, however, which has been pinpointed near to Nakon Phanom in northern Thailand. It has been argued that MacKenzie’s report about the Klotz episode is inaccurate in stating that he and Kemp were only moving up medical supplies to the Mekong, when in fact they were really moving up mortars and other heavy equipment for the French agents inside Laos. This would certainly help to account for the ruthlessness of the Viet Minh response. But the British reaction underlines once more how deep were the suspicions between the OSS and SOE throughout Indochina.20 The French naturally regarded the whole episode as proof of perfidy on the part of OSS, but their faith in Laos as some sort of Allied bridgehead had long proved to be overoptimistic. By November 1945, they faced 2,000 Viet Minh in the country and the DGER chief reported that two of his operatives had been captured, executed and then had their heads displayed in the Laotian capital Vientiane.21 The situation in Laos was further complicated by the attitude of the royal family. King Sisavang Vong and Prince Boun Oun in the South were pro-French, but in the North, Princes Petsarath, Souvanna Phouma and Su Pha Na Vong (nicknamed the ‘Red Prince’) were much less favourably inclined towards France.22 This gave some covert encouragement to Laotian nationalism, which was supported by Viet Minh units operating in Laos. Problems remained also with Franco-Thai relations, a residue from the war of 1940–41. When the new High Commissioner for Indochina, Admiral

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d’Argenlieu, finally reached Kandy en route to Vietnam in October, he complained vigorously to Mountbatten about Thai encouragement of the Viet Minh and unwillingness to restore the lost Indochinese province of Battambang. This province ought to, according to d’Argenlieu, have fallen under General Gracey’s remit rather than that of General Evans, the British Commander-in-Chief in Thailand, following the British government’s own declared efforts to force the Thais to restore France’s lost colonial territories in Cambodia.23 Previously the French had encouraged the Cambodian King Sihanouk to lobby for the return of Battambang and the Vichyite Admiral Decoux had set up a ‘house of Battambang’ in Phnom Penh to remind the Cambodians, Thais and Japanese of France’s claim to sovereignty over the lost province. Young Cambodians from Battambang were schooled in irredentist propaganda about Thai aggression and illegality.24 Once Leclerc had arrested Son Ngoc Thanh on 15 October, however, the French were able to send in a garrison of 200 men from the 5th RIC to control Cambodia and British aircraft were used to fly in French troops to establish a degree of control in Southern Laos in support of the DGER agents already there.25 This was the continuation of a process which was to underpin the arrival of the High Commissioner for Indochina, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu in Saigon on the afternoon of 31 October (while 1,000 men from the 5th DIC were simultaneously disembarked by the cruiser Triomphant). D’Argenlieu has remained a highly controversial figure and was one of de Gaulle’s most unorthodox appointments. But he has his defenders in France. One of them has written of how a ‘black legend’ has grown up about the Admiral which portrays ‘a Leclerc progressive and liberal’ opposed by ‘a d’Argenlieu reactionary and stubborn’.26 Even in Britain, one or two historians have questioned the traditional portrayal of the Admiral as an obscurantist reactionary. Frank Giles, for example, notes that while Leclerc came to think (by December 1945) that ‘the colonial re´gime must disappear’, this was not his original position, which was to maintain the Empire and re-conquer Indochina. Conversely, when d’Argenlieu arrived in Saigon, he was ‘contemplating the vision of independence’ but he eventually set his face against negotiations with the Viet Minh.27 This is made entirely clear by his diary entries and reports back to the government in Paris in the period 1946–47.28 His references to the ‘pseudo government’ in Hanoi are reminiscent of Gracey’s descriptions of the Southern Committee in Saigon in 1945, but he was prepared to consider the possibility of some sort of independence on arrival in Vietnam, according to his defenders. Others disagree. Pierre Messmer, for example, recalled conversations he had with both Leclerc and d’Argenlieu on 10 November 1945 in which he was struck by the different approaches of the two men. D’Argenlieu, he wrote, was trying to ‘enforce a system according to a pre-established plan’, while Leclerc was trying to re-establish French rule in North Vietnam (the South being on the way to occupation), ‘if possible peacefully, or at least

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with the effusion of the minimum of blood while searching for the means to succeed’.29 Messmer’s memory of his talk with d’Argenlieu hints at a degree of inflexibility. His ‘plan’ was nothing more than the implementation of the de Gaulle Statement of Intent of 24 March 1945 which was inadequate when it was announced and irrelevant by the time Messmer spoke to him. Yet d’Argenlieu insisted that it was his duty to impose it in Indochina, although no timescale was given to the Vietnamese, Cambodians or Laotians. It was this sort of blinkered approach which the British criticized, although Gracey continued to believe that the administration of Indochina was a matter for the French. Indeed, d’Argenlieu appears to have backed away from the original plan to allow some limited form of autonomy with the French Union. While Admiral d’Argenlieu tried to build castles in the air about the future of Indochina, the hard business of fighting the Viet Minh was left to Gracey and Leclerc. The private diary of Colonel Edward Cecil Pickard (or ‘Pick’ as he was known to his colleagues), for October to November 1945, gives us a flavour of what the British experience was like. Pickard commanded the 14th Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (14/13 FFR henceforward) which had embarked for Saigon on 9 October and paraded past Gracey in that city on 17 October. On 24 October, Pickard was appointed Commander of Allied troops in Bien Hoa. He had been told that the 2,000 ‘armed Annamites’ had evacuated the town on 22 October. He supervised the Japanese surrender there, but on 25 October noted the problems he was having at nearby Thu Dau Mot. There was much work to ‘get local administration going again as Annamites had destroyed a lot before leaving’. The confidence of the large Chinese population had to be regained ‘plus the local Annamites, Jap [sic] army, navy and naval air forces’. The gratitude of the local Chinese population was demonstrated by the gift of two bronze statues to Pickard on 7 November which had been made in the Bien Hoa School of Art and were presented with a Chinese scroll expressing appreciation for Pickard as ‘Supreme Allied Commander Land Forces in Bien Hoa [something of an overstatement of Pickard’s position] whose virtue and ability protect the whole population’. Skirmishes with the Viet Minh continued, however, on 30 October Pickard had reported a battle with the Viet Minh near Xuan Loc during which casualties were sustained, and many Viet Minh were taken prisoner.30 In fact, Pickard’s colleague, Major L.D. Gates of 14/13 FFR, had been engaged in much heavier fighting as a result of the creation of a formation called ‘Gateforce’ following the arrival of the remnants of Gracey’s Division, some 3,000 men on 26 October, which brought his strength up to 22,190 men. Major Gates was selected to secure the Xuan Loc area (to the north-east of Saigon) and was given a squadron of armoured cars from 16 Cavalry, some Japanese infantry, a company from FFR and an Indian Field Ambulance attachment. In addition, Gates would have a platoon of

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machine gunners, some 3-inch mortars and a detachment from the Royal Engineers. Gates had authority to destroy villages if faced with Viet Minh opposition, a tactic which was designed to deter Vietnamese villagers from harbouring Viet Minh units. Gateforce left Bien Hoa at 09:25 on 29 October (Gracey and Hirst visited Pickard’s headquarters to discuss his battalion’s operational role). The issue of destroying Vietnamese villages was raised by Mountbatten in a letter to Gracey on 31 October. In a postscript to the letter, Mountbatten wrote that he had been ‘most distressed to see you had been burning down houses, in congested areas too!’ He asked, in a somewhat unscrupulous fashion, whether ‘such unsavoury jobs’ could not be given to the French in future.31 Gracey’s reply on 9 November pointed out that it was unwise to let Leclerc’s forces be responsible for house-burning because ‘French measures in such cases know no such minimum force’. Houses were burnt in any case to stop Viet Minh sniping and grenade throwing, because house-tohouse searches were proving ineffective. Gracey claimed that the Viet Minh were hiding arms in houses, so burnings were followed invariably by ‘resounding detonations’.32 In the previous month, there had been reports that the Viet Minh had been using strychnine in poisoned arrows and tear gas bombs, against Allied troops.33 Gracey’s response to Mountbatten, however, concealed the irritation of a commander on the spot, while the Supreme Allied Commander continued to be sensitive about press reports and public opinion in Allied countries. As it was, whatever Mountbatten thought, Gateforce continued to burn down Vietnamese houses. On 30 October, Gates sent a radio message to Pickard at 13:30 saying that Gateforce had been attacked by the Viet Minh at dawn and that he had counter-attacked at 07:00. No British troops were killed and Gates had been able to free some French and French-Vietnamese prisoners from Viet Minh captivity. Sixty Viet Minh were captured and as many as 130 killed. Gateforce then entered Xuan Loc, which was a primary objective of the operation. One soldier from 14/13 FFR was subsequently killed in mopping-up operations around the town.34 The attitudes of British officers and ranks to their task in Southern Vietnam can be traced through eyewitness testimony. Douglas Greenstreet of the 114th Jungle Field Regiment (then a Battery Sergeant Major) was typical of many British troops in having a low opinion of the colonial French units. On his unit’s first night in Saigon, he recalled that they ‘occupied the French Army Barracks’ and then had to spend ‘one week cleaning them fit for our troops’.35 Continuity of service was a striking feature of the British, Indian and Gurkha force in Vietnam. Captain J.B. Wallis, for example, who went to Saigon as Brigade Transport Officer with 100 Infantry Brigade, had been beach-master when the Brigade had made the crucial Irrawaddy River crossing (luckily unopposed by the Japanese) in 1944.36 E.J.E. Stowers was an exception to the general rule amongst BritishIndian forces in Vietnam. He had joined the Royal Navy in 1942 and

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served as a telegraphist in the frigate HMS Bann during the Battle of the Atlantic and then during the Sicily invasion in 1943 in the Mediterranean theatre. He then trained in Japanese radio and was asked to volunteer for duties in Burma and Malaya during British landings. In July 1945, Stowers was ordered to report to Mountbatten’s SEAC headquarters in Kandy, where he was briefed about a possible operation in French Indochina. He became part of the Control Commission in Saigon, was seconded from his naval duties and effectively became part of the 20th Indian Division. Jim Stowers recalls that he was ‘in the first flight of Dakotas to leave Burma with Major-General D.D. Gracey’s staff and around 100 men, to fly to Saigon via Bangkok’.37 On reaching Saigon, the first thing that Stowers noticed was ‘that the Japanese were still armed and appeared to be in total control’, a difficult situation for any member of the British armed forces to adjust to. Like Sergeant Greensmith, Stower’s first night in Saigon was spent in ‘primitive conditions’, in this case in the Police Headquarters. Stowers’ brief was to act as a Control Supervisor at the former Japanese Radio Station some miles outside Saigon, near Cholon. As elsewhere, the shortage of British troops on the ground meant that no less than two Japanese officers and 47 soldiers worked at the Station, disarmed and guarded in turn by Indian and Gurkha troops. Stowers himself was responsible, along with a Japanese lieutenant, for disarming the Japanese troops and keeping an inventory of weapons seized (many of which were French and taken by the Japanese during their coup d’e´tat of 9 March 1945). Stowers personally replaced the Rising Sun flag with the Union Jack, noting in retrospect that the Union flag was ‘raised and lowered each day with respect by the Japanese’. Japanese disrespect for the French was, of course, a feature of their behaviour, but a degree of self-interest must have been a factor in their apparent deference to the British flag. Stowers observed how the situation worsened in September 1945 as the ‘Annamites, distinctive by their black silk, cotton baggy shorts and shirts blocked the roads around Saigon’.38 Ultimately, Jim Stowers was obliged, at Gracey’s order, to rearm the Japanese to protect his radio station and he recalled stories about ‘bodies floating down the river’ (Mekong) and Free French sailors being killed around the Catholic Cathedral in Saigon. A Viet Minh attack one night in September had to be driven off by Gurkhas and several ‘Annamites’ were captured and sent to Saigon for questioning. Stowers’ own unit was cut off in early Viet Minh attacks and supplies were endangered so that Japanese soldiers suffered from malnutrition and beriberi. The two Japanese officers were reduced to catching and cooking frogs and snakes (an offer to share with Stowers was rejected, he preferred to eat with the Gurkhas). Jim Stowers shared his colleagues’ high opinion of General Gracey. He believes, looking back, that Gracey ‘undoubtedly acted on his own initiative, necessarily so as he was on the spot and Lord Louis Mountbatten was

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a long way from the scene, which needed decisive action’. His fellow veteran, John Westlake, shares this high opinion: ‘Douglas Gracey was a soldier’s General. An excellent commander in every way’.39 Plainly, Gracey was a man who attracted his men’s loyalty. British casualties in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia were comparatively light, which made the loss of a valued colleague and Burma veteran all the harder to bear. Stowers writes movingly of the loss of a comrade, ‘who despite surviving as a Chindit in Burma, was shot through the head when his Sten-gun went off whilst killing a bat with the butt’.40 Neither did the British (despite Brigadier Hirst’s comment on 9 October) take the Viet Minh lightly. ‘They knew,’ according to Westlake, ‘the type of war they were going to fight . . . the war was to be fought and won in the jungles and paddy fields.’ As to the politics of the war, Westlake had ‘no political feelings either way. I was there as a soldier and the job I was required to do – I did’. A minority thought otherwise, and one or two even complained to the British authorities about the situation.41 While Stowers and his comrades faced the Viet Minh, the overall situation of the Allies in Southern Vietnam eased greatly in late October. On 19 October, the elderly ship Ville de Strasbourg travelling, it has been said, at the ‘speed of an old bicycle’, reached Saigon after a 38-day voyage from Europe. It brought with it Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Massu’s Groupement de Marche of the 2nd Division Blinde´e (Armoured Division). Massu was a remarkable and formidable warrior. A graduate of the celebrated military academy at Saı´nt Cyr, Massu had been a colonial soldier before, during and after the First World War. In June 1940 when France surrendered, he had been on mission in French South West Africa and immediately joined the Free French. He helped Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division in the Liberation of Paris in August 1944, before pioneering parachute units in the French army after 1945. Massu then became, like many other leading French soldiers, an old sweat of the Indochina campaign. ‘Everything,’ one observer of Massu has written, ‘about the stocky, vital figure . . . bespoke toughness: the growling voice, the vigorous hair en brosse and the downward eyes.’42 Massu’s obedience to de Gaulle was absolute and unquestioning, even when over the issue of Algerian independence he was troubled by the General’s decisions. In a well-known story about the two men, de Gaulle allegedly teased Massu (after he came to power in 1958 and arrived in Algiers). Using the rather coarse language of the barrack room, de Gaulle said, ‘Alors, Massu toujours con’. The unsmiling Massu replied, ‘Oui, mon ge´ne´ral, et toujours gaullistes’ (a polite translation of ‘con’ would be ‘shit’).43 For foreigners like Jim Stowers, Leclerc’s 2nd Division Blinde´e made a remarkable sight. It was [he remembers] like seeing an old French Foreign Legion film with the column of marching soldiers passing through a small village

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near the Radio HQ but most surprising was the presence of women in military uniform and finding out that some of these were German.44 There was nothing old-fashioned about the 2nd Division’s fighting abilities however. As soon as Massu arrived, his ‘marching group’ was involved in Operation ‘Moussac’ on 20 October, a powerful thrust up to the town of Mytho which marked the real beginning of the French military breakout from Saigon and its environs. By 24 October, a joint British, French and Japanese offensive was underway (as usual, the Japanese had a British liaison officer to avoid taking any orders from the French). Leclerc’s instruction to the men of his Division was ‘to strike quickly, strike hard’ and they performed impressively in the battle for Mytho (alongside specialist units like Poncardiers SAS paratroopers). At the beginning of November, the 2nd Division Blinde´e was recalled to Saigon for another task, an attack on the Cao Daiste centre at Tay Ninh (the site of the famous Cathedral) to the north-east of Saigon. Borrowing some British trucks, the Division rapidly captured the town and followed this up by breaking into the High Plateau. The French arrival at Ban Me Thuot (north of Dalat) was a shock for Giap and North Vietnamese leaders and was regarded as ‘a catastrophe for the development of a rebel movement in the South’.45 This capture was effected on 17 November. Two days later, elements of the 9th DIC began to disembark in Saigon to add to the overall strength of Leclerc’s force. Familiar themes re-emerge in the fighting in October and early November. French intelligence pinpointed a 1,000-strong formation of Tonkinese fighters in fighting around Xuan Loc. And a northerner named Hoang Minh Chau, recently departed from Hanoi, was identified as the Viet Minh Commander in Bien Hoa. The Commander of the 1,000 Tonkinese volunteers was a Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto, late of the notorious Japanese Kempeitai. There was plenty of evidence that dumps of Japanese arms in places like Bien Hoa and Mytho had been handed over to the Viet Minh.46 One additional issue between the British and the French was the extent of air support (this also involved the Americans). A French source lists the aircraft available to the CEFEO (Corps Expe´ditionnaire Franc¸ais d’Extreme Orient) in December 1945 as 16 Dakotas, 12 old German Junkers whose reliability in Indochinese conditions was suspect, two squadrons of Spitfires supplied by the British and three Catalina flying boats. This force is described as ‘very feeble’ and there was a good deal of AngloFrench wrangling about air support for Leclerc’s force.47 Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park was in command of all-Allied air forces in SEAC and he appointed Air Commodore W.G. Cheshire as Air Officer Commanding in French Indochina. Leclerc wanted to use French aircraft against the Viet Minh, but the British Commander in Burma, Saunders, did not wish Spitfires to be put under Leclerc’s control, regardless of whether they were manned by British pilots or aircrew. In part, this

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was because a French aircraft had ignored SEAC constraints by bombing a concentration of Viet Minh on 13 November, without the leaflet warning that Mountbatten had insisted on (the French claimed, somewhat dubiously, that they had failed to understand Park’s instructions about air operations over Indochina). Gracey had supported Leclerc’s request only, he said, because he did not want to antagonize the French General. On 23 November, Mountbatten told Park that Gracey had been in touch with him about the issue of air support for the CEFEO in Indochina. Leclerc was claiming that he needed Spitfires and Mountbatten agreed to hand over a squadron of them to him. He told Park, ‘This seems to me the obvious solution’, while seeking his opinion on whether the fighters should be lent or sold to the French. Park replied that he could only transfer RAF aircraft to a foreign country with the permission of the Air Ministry. He disliked the idea of British aircrews servicing Spitfires, which were being flown by French pilots. The Air Ministry disagreed and Park was ordered to hand over the Spitfires to Leclerc (this was finalized at a meeting on 6 December). There were also problems with the Americans, following the troubled history of feuding between Mountbatten and Wedemeyer about air operations over French Indochina. Park advised Mountbatten not to allow more than one US C-47 to use Bangkok airport, but by mid-October, the Americans were flying in as often as they liked, leading to congestion at the airport (just as the OSS allegedly used Nakon Phanom airstrip without Thai permission). They also extended their flights to Saigon without SEAC permission, as they did to Java and Singapore. On 13 October, Park had a meeting with the US Commanding General in the Burma–India Theatre, General Terry, at which Mountbatten was present. He told Terry that the Americans had flown into RAF airfields without permission, or in defiance of such permission being refused. More pertinently, Park argued (and this must have embarrassed the American), the shortage of spare parts caused by the sudden US cancellation of LendLease arrangements meant that the RAF was finding it hard to service US aircraft. Park reported to his colleague Roderick Carr (Air Officer Commanding India) that he thought the point had been taken by Terry.48 Park, who was only sent to SEAC because the original appointee, Leigh-Mallory, was killed in an air crash in Switzerland (en route to India) in November 1944, does not seem to have had the difficulties with Mountbatten that others (like Pyman) reported. His personal beˆte noire was Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese, GOC-in-C Allied Land Forces SouthEast Asia who persisted in asking for aircraft which Park did not have. This is interesting in itself because Mountbatten has been accused of unfairly sacking Leese, who himself was trying to sack Slim who replaced him.49 Inter-service feuding, of course, is always a feature of conflicts, whether (as in the case of ‘Operation Masterdom’) they are categorized as wars or

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not. Relations between Gracey and his air force and naval superiors seem to have been smooth enough. He did though sometimes feel that Leclerc made extravagant demands on the British for transport.50 Such demands probably reflected Leclerc’s anxiety to complete the re-conquest of Southern Vietnam under pressure from d’Argenlieu and his political masters in Paris. But by early November 1945, a scenario was being created whereby authority over Southern Vietnam and Cambodia could be transferred from Gracey to Leclerc and d’Argenlieu in the near future.

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The disappearance of Bao Dai from the imperial Vietnamese throne after the August Revolution did not prevent the French from seeking another royal surrogate for the day when they expected French authority to be restored throughout Vietnam. De Gaulle selected for this position Prince Vinh San, whom he met in Paris on 15 October 1945. Vinh San had been deposed as a 16-year-old boy Emperor of Vietnam under his previous name of Duy Tan in 1916 and then exiled to the island of Re´union for 25 years (along with his wife and mother). He was the last survivor of the authentic Nguyen dynasty (Bao Dai belonged to a cadet line). Vinh San had joined the Free French Navy during the Second World War and was put forward in French propaganda as the Emperor who had never abdicated (this at least was true), but he was completely out of touch with events in Vietnam. Eyewitness testimony about de Gaulle’s plans has been provided by Ge´ne´ral Alain de Boissieu, who was used by de Gaulle as an intermediary with Prince Vinh San when he was brought back to France from Madagascar. Vinh San (who had been deposed for being strongly anti-French) had reputedly made loyal comments about France while in naval service on the Free French warship Le´opard and de Gaulle told de Boissieu that he wanted to re-establish the Vietnamese monarchy as a counterbalance to those in Cambodia (Cambodge) and Laos.1 None of these monarchs, however, would have any meaningful political power, any more than Bao Dai did.2 De Gaulle spoke in vague terms to de Boissieu about an ‘interim period’ before independence was granted to Vietnam, but Vinh San remained unhappy about the terms of the 24 March Declaration, which remained studiously vague about when the day of independence would dawn. De Boissieu tried to allay the Prince’s fears, somewhat disingenuously, by claiming that the 24 March Declaration had been drafted before the Japanese coup on 9 March. Vinh San remained dubious, as the French had failed to acknowledge the existence of a Vietnamese nation and its right to independence. De Gaulle’s aide, Palewski, told de Boissieu that France would retain control of foreign policy and defence within any Indochinese federation.

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After a meeting between de Gaulle and Vinh San on 14 December, it was agreed that the General would accompany Vinh San on his return journey to Vietnam at the beginning of March 1946. When they did, so Prince Vinh San wrote to a French official, the ‘two flags would fly side by side’ in Hanoi, Hue´ and Saigon.3 But, as it turned out, these plans were rendered null and void, first by Vinh San’s tragic death in an air crash on 24 December shortly after he met de Gaulle and, second, by de Gaulle’s resignation on 20 January 1946. Whether the General would have remained in office to fulfil his promise had Vinh San lived must remain a matter for speculation (although de Boissieu claims that de Gaulle told him he would have honoured his promise to the Prince). But it is a measure of Vinh San’s significance in modern Vietnamese history that when his family had his body returned to Vietnam in 1987, it was received with full military honours by the communist premier, Pham Van Dong.4 De Gaulle himself seems to have been profoundly affected by the death of the ex-Emperor, telling de Boissieu that Vinh San’s death had deprived France of ‘une carte maıˆtresse pour l’Indochine’ (a winning card for Indochina).5 Whether the British knew anything of de Gaulle’s plans for Vinh San or Bao Dai remains unclear. Mountbatten would almost certainly not have approved the placing of Vinh San in the position of puppet emperor previously occupied by Bao Dai. The French unsuccessfully repeated this strategy in 1949 by bringing back Bao Dai, when their war with the Viet Minh was at its most intense. In 1945 Bao Dai had rejected the link with France by abdicating and throwing in his lot with Ho Chi Minh. Bao Dai had also collaborated with the Japanese and it might have been expected that the French would have regarded him as a treacherous turncoat. This does not seem to have been the case, however. Bao Dai abdicated on 25 August, but on 28 August, the DGER parachuted six officers into Annam, who landed near Hue´. This mission, codenamed ‘Lambda’ (which remained a secret until 1988), was supposed to make contact with Bao Dai and ask him not to make any final decision before the DGER agents could put him in touch with Paris. Fatally for French hopes, four of the DGER officers were killed and two were imprisoned by the Japanese (they were only released six months later).6 The interesting point about Operation Lambda is that the agents were sent in after the French knew about Bao Dai’s abdication and his appeal on 18 August to de Gaulle to recognize Vietnamese independence. It might be thought that in the mid-August confusion surrounding the Japanese surrender, Bao Dai’s message could have been lost, but this was plainly not the case. On 20 August, the messages to the Vietnamese people, to de Gaulle, Truman and others were broadcast by Hanoi Radio and picked up in Kunming for onward transmission by the Free French to Calcutta, Kandy and Paris.7 A message sent by the interim President Rene´ Pleven (while de Gaulle was visiting the United States) to the Washington Embassy on 26 August

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shows that Pleven and d’Argenlieu, the new High Commissioner for Indochina, agreed that it would probably be wise not to use Bao Dai, but that in the dangerous interim period facing France in Indochina, they might have to. This provides us with a parallel track in French policy to the one of using Vinh San, who may have been activated as a potential ‘winning card’ because de Gaulle, Pleven and d’Argenlieu had lost their trust in Bao Dai. Pleven’s cable was subtle enough to recognize that Bao Dai could not be allowed to entirely ‘lose face’ and that his manoeuvre on 18 August might have been a last desperate throw by a monarch who had been playing the Japanese game.8 Pleven’s cable helps to explain the rationale behind Operation Lambda, carried through just the day before Bao Dai’s ceremonial abdication in the Hidden City at Hue´. The French wanted to maintain links with him. But Gracey meanwhile was able to exchange missions with the Chinese north of the 16th parallel and he sent Lieutenant-Colonel A.G. TrevorWilson of SIS with a team of four men to Hanoi. In the usual SIS fashion, his true identity was disguised under the title of Head of the British Military Mission. Before the war, he had actually been a bank manager in France, which was a useful qualification for the post. He went on to head an SIS counter-intelligence section in Algiers and was one of their first officers to enter liberated Paris in August 1944. Malcolm Muggeridge, who was also a serving SIS officer, described him as the ablest intelligence officer he had come across during the war, which was high praise coming from that quarter. Trevor-Wilson’s brief at General Lu Han’s headquarters in Hanoi was supposed to be purely military and Gracey told him to avoid political and economic issues. He had weekly meetings with Ho Chi Minh and proved to be a valuable conduit of information about the North to Gracey (by now ‘Al’ Patti and his OSS team had been withdrawn).9 Trevor-Wilson did not (unsurprisingly as an SIS officer) limit himself to military matter and developed a sophisticated understanding about the relationship between the Viet Minh and other political groupings like the Dong Minh Hoi. He believed that by December 1945, the Viet Minh had showed itself in its true colours in the North, where he thought it had absolute control. This was characterized, he reported to Gracey, by financial incompetence, terroristic tactics and arbitrary arrests. But he found no clear evidence of orders from Moscow; these policies, he claimed, were evolved solely by the Viet Minh leadership.10 Despite his castigation of the Viet Minh, Trevor-Wilson seems to have developed a remarkably effective relationship with Ho Chi Minh, returning later as Consul-General in Hanoi. One remarkable feat is associated with him when he secured the release of a pro-French minor member of the Cambodian royal family who was in Viet Minh custody. Ho wanted to execute the royal prince as a collaborator, but Trevor-Wilson was able to persuade him that King George VI, who was the Secretary-General of a secret ‘Trade Union of Kings’, would be upset and this might endanger

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good Anglo-Vietnamese relations which Ho wished, at this stage, to preserve.11 This time, it was Ho who was duped, just as he had duped other non-communist Vietnamese about General Chennault’s signed photograph early in 1945. Trevor-Wilson was able to disclose to Gracey and Mountbatten just how serious were the problems facing the new Republic of Vietnam. No remedy [Trevor-Wilson wrote] has been found for the great floods of 1945 as a result of which large parts of Tonkin are still under water; nothing has been done to keep the dykes in repair. Railways, roads and bridges are in a very bad state . . . No measures have been taken to prevent outbreaks of cholera and above all to remedy the almost certain famine conditions which will ravage the country within a few months.12 Such a report would have confirmed Gracey’s own beliefs about the incompetence of Vietnamese authorities and the correctness of his support for the French. But it ignored the complicity of the Japanese and the French colonial authorities in creating such a situation in Tonkin in the first place and it was the Japanese in particular who had bankrupted the Treasury in both the North and the South of Vietnam.13 Ho Chi Minh was undoubtedly under severe political pressure in the North as China’s political surrogates, the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi, fomented trouble. On 12 November, Ho put forward a document to the French representatives, Sainteny and Pignon, concerning what terms would be acceptable to the Viet Minh. They included French recognition of immediate Vietnamese independence, Vietnamese cultural and economic concessions to France and the cessation of all hostilities in Cochin China plus, while talks were in progress, a ban on any French troop movements throughout Indochina. Pignon regarded this document as unacceptable although he forwarded it to Saigon. But the French strategy was to play for time so, Pignon hoped, a pro-French party would appear in the North. Meanwhile, Chinese pressure forced Ho Chi Minh on 19 November to sign an accord with the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi about forming a government of national unity.14 But further overtures from the Viet Minh to the French followed in early December because the pro-Chinese nationalist bloc might still be capable (with Chinese backing) of ejecting the Viet Minh from power by force. At a meeting on 7 December, Pignon offered the Viet Minh independence providing it was compatible with Vietnamese membership of the Indochinese federation, within the French Union. But before a definitive Viet Minh reply could be received, d’Argenlieu was told on 9 December by Pechkoff (the French Ambassador to Nanking) that Chiang Kai-shek would shortly announce the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Vietnam. D’Argenlieu thus concluded that with the Chinese problem almost resolved, no firm

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commitments to the Viet Minh were required. The Admiral also wanted to await the outcome of the Vietnamese elections called for 23 December and 6 January. Where Pignon expected the Viet Minh to gain strength, d’Argenlieu thought they might lose ground to the other parties. Sainteny was instructed to keep in touch with the various Vietnamese parties. On 22 December, the Chinese government confused the situation further by forcing the Vietnamese parties to agree to a government of national union under Ho Chi Minh’s presidency, which was to take office on 12 January and sign various accords with China.15 It was accepted in Hanoi that the British were aligned with France and that no sympathy could be expected from that quarter. In Cochin China, the communist leadership had long recognized this to be the position. America, too, seemed to be a lost cause as far as Ho was concerned. He retained his contacts with Patti and the OSS into the autumn of 1945, but the Truman administration stonewalled his attempts to obtain recognition for the DRV. Sceptics remained in the Far Eastern Department of the State Department. One was John Vincent Carter, the Assistant Secretary for Far East Affairs, who warned Secretary-of-State Dean Acheson on 28 September that the current American policy of non-interference in Indochinese affairs would lead to a full-blown crisis because of the French insistence on a full restoration of sovereignty, before agreeing to open talks with the Viet Minh. Vincent wanted the United States and Britain to establish a commission of inquiry into Indochina and, while it was operative, no French troops should be allowed to land there. Vincent wanted Vietnamese representatives to be allowed on the commission and, although he recognized that the French would vehemently object to such a commission being set up, he believed that it would prevent a nationalist explosion in Vietnam and the rest of Indochina.16 Where he erred was in thinking that his own administration, let alone the British whose pro-French tendency was well set by the autumn of 1945, would go along with such a suggestion. Predictably, the Europeanists in the State Department, who carried more clout, wanted the matter of Indochina to be left to the Anglo-French, fearing that the commission might lead to the expulsion of the French from Indochina (de Gaulle had bluntly expressed such a fear to tickle US sensitivities already). Acheson agreed with the Europeanists. On 20 October, Vincent was directed to make an official statement which repeated US support for French and Dutch sovereignty over their colonies in South-East Asia. The statement did add a rider saying that the United States expected France and the Netherlands to prepare their colonies for independence, but no timescale was given.17 So perished Ho Chi Minh’s hopes that he might find an ally in the United States. The Truman administration was well aware of his communist links. But Ho himself was as yet unaware of the switch in American policy. In this context, the role of Patti can be seen as unhelpful. Since arriving in Hanoi in the heady days of the August Revolution, he had been ‘enjoying his

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role as an amateur plenipotentiary, Patti said too much . . . his Vietnamese listeners, desperately eager for American recognition, heard more than Patti uttered’.18 In fact, Patti’s OSS superiors had swung around behind the French as far back as April 1945, when OSS Chief William Donovan had advised President Truman that the United States should ‘realize . . . its interest in the maintenance of the British, French and Dutch colonial empires’.19 In practice, US–Vietnamese relations between the spring and autumn of 1945 had involved an exercise in shadow boxing. Elements in the OSS sympathized with the Viet Minh’s aspirations, but would make no firm commitment (Patti’s unwillingness to join Ho on the Independence Day podium should be remembered), while Ho tried to dupe his fellow Vietnamese through devices like the Chennault signed photograph about the real American attitude. Ho himself continued to entertain false hopes about the United States. He could not have realized in mid-September that in Washington, Cold War imperatives were starting to dictate. As it was in Washington, General William Donovan had informed the Bureau of the Budget that the OSS was in the process of dismemberment and would give up its wartime function on 31 December 1945 (to be replaced by the Central Intelligence Agency).20 It is clear in the overall context of the OSS role in Indochina that Patti and his colleagues may have raised exaggerated hopes amongst nationalists. It is also true, however, that when Patti informed his superiors in early September that the Viet Minh envisaged independence within a decade, during which time they were prepared to accept a French governor-general as head of state, a window of opportunity was presented to the French. Patti himself left Indochina for good on 30 September, his five weeks in Hanoi having left an imprint which lasted the rest of his life. Unfortunately, when Ho Chi Minh opened talks with the French in Hanoi in mid-September, he was dealing with Le´on Pignon and General Marcel Alessandri rather than Jean Sainteny, who had left for consultations with Admiral d’Argenlieu in India. Ho regarded Sainteny as ‘one of his most conciliatory French adversaries’ while Sainteny thought the Viet Minh less extreme in their nationalism than the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League), and certainly less anti-French (this was true given these organizations’ pro-Chinese orientation).21 Nevertheless, and despite Sainteny’s goodwill, the ultimate decision lay with de Gaulle in Paris and his obdurate messenger Admiral d’Argenlieu would be in Vietnam within six weeks (Sainteny did not meet Ho for the first time until mid-October). It has to be recognized though that Ho’s fellow countrymen were as much of a problem as the French and the Chinese ever were. The Dong Minh Hoi, for example, tried to have the national flag changed, wanted the dropping of the name Viet Minh Front and the inclusion of non-Viet Minh ministers in an entirely new cabinet. The Viet Quoc (VNQDD) were also known to be in the pay of the Chinese government. Under pressure, therefore, from within and without, Ho made a typically subtle change of

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direction on 11 November, dissolving the Indochinese Communist Party and creating in its place the Indochinese Marxist Study Society (Hoi nghi nghien cuu chu nghia Mac o Dong duong). Reminiscent of the Popular Front tactic of the 1930s, the Marxist Study Society was designed to reassure the non-communist Vietnamese nationalists that the nation would be put above class interest. The ploy failed. On 12 November, a dozen people died as the Viet Minh supporters clashed with other nationalists in front of the Municipal Theatre in Hanoi. Neither did the Indochinese Communist Party really disappear. The leopard had only changed its spots and the Party merely became clandestine. Some comrades were disillusioned by the deceit and foreign communists were shocked, but the change did appease the Chinese who had remained suspicious of Ho’s communism.22 The result was the inter-party conference of 19 November (sponsored by the Chinese General Xaio Wen) already referred to, which agreed on the formation of a coalition government. This tactical switch was only a recognition of existing realities, as a resolution of the Party’s Central Committee acknowledged a few days later. The ICP faced a situation where China and the United States had accepted French sovereign rights in Indochina, Britain was assisting the French re-conquest of Cochin China and Cambodia, and powerful pro-Chinese domestic groups were threatening stability in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Appeasement was, therefore, the order of the day, lest worst disasters befall the fledgling republic. Especially as Ho and his colleagues finally recognized that the United States, far from being neutral, was actively assisting France by shipping its troops back to Indochina with American transport and equipment.23 The Central Committee further accepted, some three months after the false dawn in August, that American policy in South-East Asia was now dictated by fear of spreading Soviet influence. The Cold War had come to Indochina. The noisy flaunting of US jeeps, lorries and armoured cars in Saigon by the French was an unwelcome reminder to all Vietnamese that they would be looking to the far west in vain. It was also a warning to the Viet Minh of things to come. Ho Chi Minh might have expected aid and encouragement from the USSR, but it was not forthcoming. Moscow was much more interested in the situation in metropolitan France where the French Communist Party (PCF) under Maurice Thorez was close to coming to power. Thorez and his colleagues had not even bothered to send an observer to Hanoi for the Franco-Viet Minh talks. The French communists might have been expected to support the anti-colonialism struggle, but Thorez wanted to preserve the Indochinese link with France, although he supported the talks with the Viet Minh in September–October 1945. Thorez also hoped in 1945–46 that the communists would achieve power through the ballot box and underplayed any support for the Indochinese cause. Indeed Ho Chi Minh’s old comrades in the French party advised him to avoid resisting the reimposition of colonial rule, because this might obstruct Soviet foreign policy aims – so much for Ho’s French mentors.24

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Stalin recognized that the United States would fight any communist role in French government (just as it did in Italy – CIA funds were used to keep Palmiro Togliatti out of power in the 1948 general election there), but he wished to maintain the popularity of the PCF in France itself, to strengthen the Soviet Union’s position in Europe as a whole. As far as the French communists were concerned, Ho Chi Minh was to have grounds for accusing them of betrayal, as will be seen. In Saigon, Gracey was not concerned with the niceties of party politics in Europe. He was strengthened by the arrival of over 4,000 French troops on 19 November (in two armoured divisions), but the whole 9th DIC did not arrive until the end of December. All 17,000 arrivees were white and race had played a part in the decision-making about Leclerc’s expeditionary force. The French preferred the 9th DIC to the Madagascar Brigade which was largely black (although French officered). This appears to have been a consequence of the French belief that colonialism should be restored by white troops, after the humiliation of March 1945. There were Anglo-French differences too about race. Gracey had long been critical of French indiscipline, the 9th DIC was prone to looting and wild firing off of small arms at night along with careless smoking habits which were likely to set off ammunition dumps (although there were some Vietnamese complaints about looting by Gurkhas too). But he took Leclerc sharply to task about French attitudes to his Indian and Gurkha troops. Our men [he wrote to the French General] of whatever colour are our friends and not considered ‘black men’. They expect and deserve to be treated in every way as first-class soldiers, and their treatment should be, and is exactly the same as that of white troops. There was no more ‘fruitful source of friction between Indian army officers and their men . . . and French troops . . . than when our Indian and Gurkha troops are regarded as ‘‘black’’ by French officers and men’.25 The context of the time needs to be remembered here. In the US forces, blacks were not allowed to donate blood to whites in World War Two and there were separate ‘blood banks’. Writing to Slim a week earlier, Gracey commended the skill shown by Leclerc’s men, but deplored the French use of ‘much unnecessary brutality’ and their tendency to leave ‘a pretty good trail of destruction behind them’. This, in Gracey’s view, would encourage guerrilla resistance and increase ‘sabotage and arson when we leave the country’.26 Leclerc tended to be somewhat permissive where his troops were concerned, putting down excesses to inexperience or unfamiliarity with Vietnamese conditions. For the British, there was another aspect to the issue of race in their armed forces. When Mountbatten met Gracey on 29 November, he was irritated to find that his subordinate had been allowing British officers to command Japanese units. Mountbatten told Gracey that this was ‘a

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potential source of trouble, and I found on my return [to Kandy] a telegram from Lord Halifax saying how incensed American public opinion was at the British use of Japanese troops’.27 Much more worrying for the British government, however, were the protests by Indian nationalists like Jawaharlal Nehru, a future premier, who had rejoiced at the news of the Russian defeat at the hands of Imperial Japan in 1905, seeing it as a crucial blow for Asian nationalism against the European colonial powers. Nehru strongly opposed the use of British Indian troops in Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, against fellow Asian nationalists. In a speech reported by The New York Times on 1 January 1946, Nehru referred to the ‘anger, shame and helplessness’ that his countrymen and women felt at seeing Indian troops ‘doing Britain’s dirty work against our friends’.28 The British had reason to be anxious about Indian attitudes. In 1946, there were mutinies in the Indian Air Force and the loyalty of native Indian forces could no longer be taken for granted by the Crown. Public opinion in India was strongly nationalist. When the British tried to try members of Subhas Bose’s pro-Japanese Indian National Army for treason in October, there was such a strong domestic reaction that the trials had to be abandoned. Many more of the commissioned officers in the sub-continent’s army were now Indian, the proportion of white British officers having fallen from 11,000 in 1939 to 4,000 in 1945.29 Ironically in Hanoi, Trevor-Wilson had been able to effect the arrest of Major-General A.J. Chatterjee, the Deputy Commander of the Indian National Army. In this, he had the co-operation of Ho Chi Minh and his government, who lent Wilson police units to carry out the arrest of Chatterjee, together with other INA Cabinet Ministers and senior officers in exile in Tonkin, while devoting their time to writing anti-British and anti-French propaganda. On arrest, the INA men were sent back to India and locked up in the Red Fort in Delhi. Trevor-Wilson could not lay hands on Bose himself. He reported that the renegade Indian leader had died in an air crash at Taihokual, while attempting to flee to Manchuria. In fact, Trevor-Wilson only just intercepted Chatterjee and his colleagues who were awaiting a plane to take them to the USSR or Manchuria in late December 1945.30 Quite why Ho Chi Minh acted as he did over the INA men must remain something of a mystery, although a possible motive was his desire to preserve good Anglo-Vietnamese relations and show his loyalty to the Allies. But it was a double irony that Ho was involved in the arrest of fellow Asian nationalists, at a time when Nehru was complaining about the use of British Indian troops against the Viet Minh in Cochin China. And then to have a situation where the British were obliged to abandon the trials of Chatterjee and his compatriots because of the state of public opinion in India (this was undoubtedly wise because Indians would have regarded the INA men as martyrs for the nationalist cause). Meanwhile, Mountbatten was complaining to Gracey about the British use of Japanese troops whose

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homeland had given refuge originally to Bose and his cohorts. Such was the complexity of the Far Eastern situation in 1945. Mountbatten at least recognized the potency and relevance of nationalism in Vietnam and elsewhere. The Viet Minh rapidly came to the conclusion that the French leaders from de Gaulle to d’Argenlieu and, to a lesser extent, Leclerc were incapable of doing so. Looking back many years later, Colonel Bui Tin, an 18 year old who joined the Viet Minh in 1945 after taking his baccalaure´at, noted that whereas Bao Dai and the mandarins, landowners and bureaucrats associated with the old colonial re´gime recognized the change the Second World War had wrought in Indochina, the French would not,31 although Bui Tin saluted Leclerc’s personal qualities and his later recognition of the impossibility of re-conquering Vietnam. But the French government ‘remained allergic’ to the word ‘independence’ in his view. This may indeed be regarded as the key factor leading to the catastrophe after Gracey and his troops left Vietnam in 1946. Particularly as the older generation of Vietnamese like Bui Tin still venerated French culture and rejoiced when France was liberated in 1944. The tragedy of the Franco-Vietnamese war of December 1946 lay far off in the closing months of 1945. In Southern Vietnam, the situation seemed to be improving with the arrival of the French reinforcements and Gracey and his staff could begin planning for withdrawal. Fighting between the Anglo-French and the Viet Minh remained intense in December. Near Saigon, Go Vap was a particular centre of Viet Minh activity and on 13 December, both French and Japanese soldiers were killed there. But the Japanese role was starting to wind down. On 6 December, the Viet Minh met with Japanese army representatives to decide on a concentration area for the 60,000 Japanese who were to be evacuated from Cap Saint-Jacques by mid-January. Between 15 August and 4 December, 109 Japanese had been killed in Southern Vietnam, 132 wounded, 72 had disappeared and 478 had deserted. Statistics show that for the Japanese, the highest losses were sustained in the month of September, before tailing off in October and November. By contrast, the level of desertions declined markedly (to just 39), between 31 October and 4 December.32 The crucial role of Japanese forces in the war against the Viet Minh has been emphasized elsewhere. The lessening of the British and Japanese roles corresponded with an increase in French responsibility. Saigon was put totally under French control by mid-December and they took over from 9/14 Punjab in Go Vap on 18 December. Brigadier Woodford’s 32 Brigade was declared non-operational on 20 December, prior to their impending transfer to British North Borneo. Most of the remaining British fighting with the Viet Minh was left to 100 Brigade. The fiercest fighting was around Thu Dau Mot, where 1/1 Gurkhas and 9th Jat Regiment were ambushed by the Viet Minh in an attack which lasted just 90 minutes. Two 9th Jat men were killed and four days later, a big column of British-Indian vehicles was also attacked. In this action, two Gurkhas were killed and 11 other casualties were suffered.33

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Ostensibly, Anglo-French co-operation was smooth at this point, but there were tensions with Leclerc complaining about lack of transport and Gracey pointing out to him on 12 December that many British vehicles had already been turned over to the French. This debate was part of a longstanding issue about the resources available to the CEFEO in Vietnam (the issue of French Spitfires has already been highlighted). Sometimes French complaints were justified. It was true, for example, that Japanese landing craft had to be used by the French in the Mytho operation, because the Anglo-Americans could not supply them. The CEFEO was therefore obliged to set up purchase missions in India, Manila and Kandy to try and buy up materials from existing American and British stocks. Already in December 1945, the French were thinking ahead to the need for an amphibious landing in the North, which they codenamed Bentre, but Indian nationalists objected to arms sales in their country when the weapons could be used against the Vietnamese.34 The Americans also obstructed French attempts to buy up arms stocks in the Pacific theatre. All requests were referred back to the bureaucratic jungle in Washington. There the French Ambassador, Henri Bonnet, had warned the High Commissioner d’Argenlieu that the US Congress was extremely hostile to the sale, or giving away, of war materials for Indochina.35 In fact, as Gracey pointed out to Leclerc, it was the British who were most accommodating in helping to meet French needs. But shipping remained a desperate problem, so much so that when the ageing Ville de Strasbourg had disembarked the ‘groupement Massu’ on 19 October, Leclerc disobeyed Paris and kept the ship in the Far East for use by the French expeditionary force. In this context, the American attitude was distinctly unhelpful. When a Captain Chatel arrived in Manila on 13 December to attempt the purchase of landing craft, he was unsuccessful, even when he tried to pretend that the craft were for civilian use.36 This was long after Archimedes Patti had returned to his desk in Washington and the US administration had reversed its policy on Indochina. The point was not that some Americans had doubts about supporting French colonialism, but the difference between US principle and practice. Given the disagreement there had been between Park and the Air Ministry about the use of Spitfires by the French, there was some irony in the fact that it was only on 11 December that the RAF was finally used in a combat role in Vietnam. On that day, pilots from 273 Squadron were able to strafe Viet Minh forces around Me Thuot forcing them to abandon their attempt to surround a French unit there. No bombs were dropped, but leaflets of warning were dropped in the approved way. The Squadron log reported that no Viet Minh had actually been seen and soon afterwards, 273 Squadron was broken up and its pilots allocated to other duties.37 Even for the Army, the end was in sight by the third week of December. Preparations for the removal of Woodford’s 32 Brigade were completed by Christmas and on Christmas Day itself, 3/8 Gurkha Rifles embarked on

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board MV Highland Brigade before sailing for Labuan. At the same time, 80 Brigade was winding down its responsibilities in the Cholon area, leaving 100 Brigade with the job of concentrating on the Japanese and confiscating the large amounts of Vietnamese piastres they had made off with. And it still found itself in conflict with the Viet Minh in places around Thu Duc. Gurkha units fought off attacks and noted the increasing number of Tonkinese facing them as Ho’s volunteers streamed south. In some instances, whole villages went to aid their southern countrymen and on 26 September, Ho Chi Minh had broadcast from Hanoi promising the southern population that the Vietnamese nation would join together in search of victory.38 Much of this was bravado, as it became increasingly clear to Hanoi that the newly arrived French armoured forces were driving the Viet Minh out of the towns and cities of Cochin China and back into the jungles and fetid swamp areas. Ho Chi Minh himself knew that he would have to play a long game with the French. Gracey meantime was involved with residual matters affecting his command in Cochin China and Cambodia. On 9 November, he commented in a letter to Mountbatten about the difficulties involved in dealing with the Chinese in Hanoi and Chungking. ‘There appears to be a singular lack of unanimity on the question of who ultimately commands who and why,’ he noted.39 In fact, Chiang Kai-shek was by now anxious to end his involvement in Northern Vietnam, while his troops continued to pillage and steal. A more mundane matter concerned the right of the French to bestow decorations on British servicemen in Indochina. D’Argenlieu wanted to reward Gracey and others, but as technically Britain was not at war in Indochina, there was resistance in Whitehall (the official line was that the British could not accept French decorations after 15 August, the day of the Japanese surrender. This caused resentment in the 20th Division). War or no war, there had been a price to pay. On 9 November, Gracey had told Mountbatten that between 20 September and 8 November, the British had lost 19 men with 68 wounded and four missing. Nearly all these losses, Gracey reported, had been the result of ‘unprovoked attacks’ on his troops.40 Mountbatten had accepted the formal surrender of Marshal Terauchi at a private ceremony in Saigon on 30 November (the Japanese Commander had now been diagnosed as senile by British doctors). Days later on 4 December, he wrote appreciatively to Gracey. While acknowledging that the two men had not always seen ‘eye to eye’, Mountbatten said that Gracey had ‘handled a very difficult job in an extremely skilful and tactful manner’. He did not know of anyone ‘who could have done the job better’.41 Privately, of course, Gracey believed that only the intervention of Leclerc and Slim had saved him from dismissal in September, a view which has been questioned by Mountbatten’s official biographer.42 The official surrender of Terauchi in Saigon was stage-managed by Mountbatten in characteristic fashion (Douglas Greenstreet’s 114th Jungle Field Regiment provided part of the honour-guard).43 He was keenly

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interested in obtaining one of Terauchi’s two ceremonial swords which had been specially flown over from Japan (the other one was given to King George VI). Mountbatten then flew on to Singapore where the 300th Meeting of the Supreme Allied Commander’s Council was held on 6 December with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Brooke, present. Brooke was made aware that senior officers were unhappy about aspects of Mountbatten’s leadership (he shared their anxieties as has been seen). Pyman had written to Sir Alan Brooke about Mountbatten and Brooke took the opportunity to assure Gracey (who was present along with Browning, Park and H.N. Brain’s successor, E.W. Meiklereid of the Foreign Office) that his September proclamation had been entirely proper, despite Mountbatten’s complaints at the time.44 Mountbatten did not share the qualms about his performance. Never a man for self-doubt, he told the Labour MP Tom Driberg that he was ‘rather proud of French Indochina since I think I have succeeded in carrying out the British commitment with more success than any of the prophets forecast’.45 In the sense that the British operation ‘Masterdom’ was less bloody than the equivalent one in the Dutch East Indies (the senior British officer, Brigadier A.W.S. Mallaby was shot dead in Surabaya in October while trying to calm a crowd of Sukarno supporters), this was true.46 Dutch colonial troops were notoriously trigger happy and in May 1946, 60 Indonesians were killed and 40 wounded in an incident in Surabaya. Attlee was incensed, telling the British Chiefs of Staff that ‘Dutch conduct is intolerable’.47 This was one of several incidents involving undisciplined Dutch troops. In Cochin China, the month of December 1945 ended with a last burst of fighting. A Gurkha from 4/10 Gurkha Rifles was killed near Thu Duc and another wounded in an ambush. But the New Year did not end hostilities. Brigadier Rodham’s 100 Brigade launched a series of attacks on the Viet Minh areas of concentration between Thu Dau Mot and Ben Cat, west and southwest of Bung to the north-east of Bien Hoa and around Ben Go. The French mounted an operation around Ben Cat before moving on to take Sadec and Chaudoc. They noted, however, a reappearance of ‘urban terrorism’ in the Saigon-Cholon area. Leclerc had asked the British to hand over responsibility for Cholon.48 At the beginning of 1946 also, the Madagascar brigade began to arrive, while the French plan for a landing in the North was ready. It involved using all of the 9th DIC and the ‘groupement Massu’. The arrival of the 3rd DIC was expected in February, just after the withdrawal of the bulk of Gracey’s force.49 In the event, plans to launch Operation Bentre had to be postponed. The Commander of the 9th DIC, General Valluy (later to be the Commander-in-Chief of all French forces in Indochina), reported that his division was in poor shape and even his troops’ clothes were ‘in a lamentable condition’.50 Some of the division had not benefited from American largesse like later arrivals. In all this, however, the conception of control was a misleading one. Vietnam’s geography made movement a nightmare, even when later the

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whole country was supposedly re-conquered by the French. They had built only one single track railway, there were few tarmac roads and in the South, the million acre Plain of Reeds (Plaine de Joncs) consisted of isolated, malaria-infested islands and scrubland and numerous waterways. This was ideal territory for Viet Minh hideouts and the French could only pursue their enemies in rubber boats or the limited numbers of amphibious tracked vehicles they possessed. As time passed, Leclerc came to realize the gravity of his task in Vietnam. Frustration could sometimes lead to illegality. D’Argenlieu was shocked to learn that French troops had been torturing captured Vietnamese. In his Christmas message to the Vietnamese people the previous month, d’Argenlieu had promised them a new future under the symbol of ‘truth, liberty and prosperity’.51 Although d’Argenlieu may have been shocked by the news of torture (which caused a period of acute tension between himself and Leclerc), he remained a tenacious defender of French rights in Vietnam. He was deeply angered when the correspondent of Paris-Presse, Rene´ Dussart, described atrocities committed by French forces in a despatch of 20 December 1945. Even more so when the Franc-Tirreur quoted information from a French soldier in the CEFEO which compared French behaviour to the notorious SS atrocity at Oradour-sur-Glane (when a French village had been destroyed and its population murdered in a reprisal). D’Argenlieu told the Minister for Colonies, Jacques Soustelle (later to be a major player in the Algerian War), that the impact of such comment on French public opinion could be catastrophic.52 Another of d’Argenlieu’s press beˆtes noires was Nathan Bloch who cabled news of French atrocities to the Australian papers, which was reproduced by the Associated Press. In a press conference, d’Argenlieu reminded Bloch that France was in a war and of the deaths of ‘unarmed adversaries, women and children’ at the hands of the Viet Minh in the Cite´ Heyraud on 24 September.53 The British too had their problems with the press. Mountbatten was on friendly terms with the former Daily Express journalist Tom Driberg and he was always sensitive about public opinion in the United Kingdom and the other Allied countries.54 But Gracey was angered by what he regarded as sensationalist coverage of the Anglo-French coup on 23 September in The Daily Herald, usually regarded as the organ of the Labour Party. The Daily Telegraph was also critical and only The Times refrained from criticism. Gracey was especially angered by American and Australian coverage which was overtly hostile to British involvement in southern Indochina. The pattern continued. As late as January 1946, The Chicago Tribune was comparing a British action in the Dutch East Indies to the Nazi atrocity in the Czech village of Lidice in 1942. Mountbatten himself became so incensed that he referred to the ‘Hearst Press’ taking advantage of the French decorations issue (the ‘yellow press’ owned by W.H. Hearst in the

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United States being a byword for unscrupulous journalism).55 All these press difficulties underlined the delicacy of Britain’s position in southern Vietnam and Cambodia, even with a Supreme Allied Commander as adept at handling the media as Mountbatten, and explains the enthusiasm with which the British looked forward to the end of their onerous commitment in Vietnam.

10 Gracey’s farewell

A key turning point in what was described as Britain’s post-surrender task in southern Indochina came on 1 January 1946 when Mountbatten and d’Argenlieu announced that the French had taken over all responsibility for military operations in Cochin China, southern Annam and Cambodia. There was one small exception only, concerning the area around Cap SaintJacques where the Japanese were being concentrated prior to evacuation to their homeland. Thereafter the pace of British withdrawal picked up, with 28 January fixed as the day when command of all French forces in southern Indochina would pass from Gracey to Leclerc. Gracey would then leave Saigon, leaving behind him just two British-Indian battalions to protect the surviving Inter-Service Mission and oversee the process of Japanese concentration and repatriation. Predictably, the abiding American prejudice against the French showed itself to be still active when Mountbatten wanted to withdraw FIC from SEAC once most of the 20th Indian Division had been withdrawn. The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington were opposed to giving the French co-equal status in the post-surrender period in the Pacific, resurrecting the old Rooseveltian prejudice at a time when it had long ceased to be appropriate to indulge in such a legalistic nicety. It was only on 1 March 1946 that the Americans accepted the reality of the new situation in southern Indochina when British involvement there had virtually ceased. Only then did the Joint Chiefs approve the boundary change, whereby southern Indochina was taken out of SEAC, a command which was, in any case, being wound down. The last British forces left on 26 March, so ending the seven-month intervention in Vietnam and Cambodia. The French were left in charge of the Japanese crowded into the Cap Saint-Jacques area, while Mountbatten had given up responsibility for SEAC on 13 May, leaving the command two weeks later. The British Chiefs of Staff rejected his request for the setting up of new supreme command in the region.1 The process of withdrawal over a three-month period did not come without difficulty or complication. Hostilities continued in the New Year while British-Indian troops were being pulled out. Thus, while ALFSEA

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announced to ALFFIC (Allied Land Forces French Indochina) on 4 January that by noon the next day 32 Brigade would cease to be under the command of 20th Division, Brigadier Rodham’s 100 Brigade was still launching a number of anti-Viet Minh sweeps. On 10 January, the parallel withdrawal process was maintained when the 114th Field Regiment Royal Artillery (the only wholly white British formation in the British army force in Vietnam) was sent off to Malaya. Familiar themes from the intervention period reasserted themselves. One was about the Japanese. Brigadier Gates had to field complaints about slack discipline amongst Japanese units still on guard duty and accusations that they were even sharing houses with the Vietnamese. In other instances, Viet Minh prisoners were allegedly allowed to escape by their Japanese guards. Gates threatened Japanese units with delayed repatriation home unless they performed their duties adequately. The repatriation task was massive as Japanese troops from Burma and Thailand had swelled the post-surrender concentration around Cap SaintJacques to 70,000 men. Most were to be repatriated in April and May of 1946, leaving behind some 600 suspected of war crimes and 728 deserters. In the North, a further 30,000 were evacuated in ten ships in March, leaving behind 189 suspected war criminals and 328 deserters who refused to go back to Japan.2 A remaining problem concerned Japanese civilians, about 1,500 persons in North Vietnam and another 5,500 in the South. Those north of the 16th parallel were repatriated with the military in March 1946, the Southern contingent were imprisoned initially by the British in Chihoa prison (in a suburb of Saigon) and then repatriated in May.3 The British withdrawal from southern Indochina went on throughout January. On 12 January, 16th Light Cavalry pulled out with its armoured cars (although C Squadron stayed). This affected Rodham’s ability to make sweeps around Saigon. Other British officers in the remaining force also had their anxieties. On 16 January, for example, Major D. Wenham, the commander of 14 Battalion FF Rifles, expressed concern about the withdrawal of Japanese guards from the Bien Hoa airfield on 22 January. This action, he believed, might result in ‘considerable destruction and arson’ being carried out ‘by the Annamites unless these dumps have been taken over by the French’.4 Ultimately, in fact, the pressure on the British to leave as speedily as possible, not least from the Labour government in London, caused Gracey to push on with the withdrawal of Japanese guards from such sites, whether or not the French were ready to take over. This was not Gracey’s only frustration. Only on 12 January did he finally learn that his beloved 20th Indian Division would be concentrated in Malaya on evacuation, prior to being sent back to India. The 32 Brigade was to be sent to Borneo and 80 Brigade to Makassar. Only 100 Brigade under Rodham remained as a substantial British presence in southern Indochina and plans for its phased relief by the French was announced.

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First of all, 100 Brigade would co-operate with the French in a sweep between the Saigon and Dong Nai Rivers. And then its headquarters would be moved to Saigon, after the French had relieved 100 Brigade at Bien Hoa. This would create the scenario for Gracey’s departure from Vietnam on 28 January, when he would hand over command of remaining BritishIndian troops to Brigadier Hirst. Brigadier Maunsell would replace Hirst as Commander on 7 February. A ceremonial pipe and drum parade marked the disappearance of 80 Brigade from Saigon on 21 January. On the next day, the Brigade embarked on the Orduna, which sailed off down the Saigon River, only to go aground somewhat farcically on a mud-bank from which it could only be floated off on 23 January. By now it had been agreed between Leclerc and Gracey that two British battalions would remain behind to assist the incoming 5th DIC which was expected in early February. The French still needed help to run the Saigon power station and the docks. Surviving 20th Division stores were to be handed over to the French. All naval forces were to be commanded by Admiral Auboyneau, air forces by General Andrieu and land forces by Leclerc. Gracey’s formal farewell to Vietnam took place at the Hoˆtel de Ville in Saigon on 28 January. The French would have wanted to confer the Le´gion d’Honneur on Gracey as a mark of gratitude to the man whom they believed had saved the French population of Saigon. But Meiklereid of the Foreign Office had to explain that for ‘political reasons’ Gracey could only be offered a personal tribute (the issue of French decorations to Gracey and the 20th Division dragged on long after he had left Saigon).5 Gracey came to the Hoˆtel de Ville with his wife to hear the effusive thanks offered to him by Jean Ce´dile, the former Acting High Commissioner in Cochin China. Ce´dile then presented Gracey with a scroll which created him a Citoyen d’Honneur of Saigon, an honour which had never previously been awarded in the history of the 80-year French presence in Saigon. Gracey replied by thanking those heroic French men and women who had helped Allied escapees (including Americans) and prisoners of war. So ended Douglas Gracey’s association with Vietnam. He left with a clear conscience as far as his personal role was concerned. Writing to Mountbatten from his home in Farnham, Surrey, on 20 April 1946, Gracey asked whether ‘Now that British ‘‘imperialism’’ has, in fact, shown itself to be the opposite’, it might be acknowledged in the shape of French decorations.6 As far as he was concerned, ‘Operation Masterdom’ was a job well done and he left Saigon with shouts of ‘Vive Gracey’ ringing in his ears. Mountbatten had to tell him in July that he had run ‘into a brick wall’ as far as the award of French decorations was concerned.7 But at a meeting held in Singapore on 29 January, he did see fit to praise Gracey’s efforts, even if later Gracey was to take violent exception to the account of the

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operation in Indochina presented by the SEAC Recorder (not least in instances where Mountbatten seemed to take personal credit for decisions made by Gracey). Skirmishes between the British-Indian troops and the Viet Minh went on as late as mid-January, with the 9/14 Punjab killing some 20 Viet Minh in Gia Dinh. In the countryside and the Mekong Delta, it was noted by the British that not only were more Tonkinese in evidence, but that villages were depopulated with only women, children and old men in evidence.8 The Viet Minh had proved to be a doughty and resourceful foe, despite the disparaging description of them as ‘half-trained levies’ by Brigadier Hirst on 9 October. While the British operation in the south moved towards closure, General Leclerc travelled northwards to arrange for the entry of French troops into Tonkin. All should have been well because on 28 February, the French had supposedly reached an agreement with General Lu Han, who had been heavily bribed by both the French and the Viet Minh. Under the terms of the agreement, France was to give up its ancient concessions in cities like Shanghai and allow free port and customs transit for Chinese goods moving through Tonkin. Chinese citizens were also to have special status in French Indochina. In exchange, Chinese troops were to be withdrawn from Tonkin by 15 March, although their generals managed to delay the pull-out for a further six months. When, however, Leclerc and the French fleet entered Haiphong port on 6 March and began to lower landing craft, they were fired on by Chinese troops as Lu Han reneged on the Franco-Chinese agreement. The French replied in kind and from 8.30 am to 11 am, battle raged in the harbour. Several French ships were damaged, while the French scored a direct hit on a Chinese ammunition dump.9 The fighting only stopped through the intervention of the ever-resourceful Trevor-Wilson and his colleague, Royal Marine Officer Simpson-Jones, who used a small boat to negotiate between the two adversaries. For this Trevor-Wilson received the personal thanks of Leclerc (his colleague Peter Simpson-Jones had also been able to negotiate the release of Commandant Roselli and Free French parachutists captured by the Viet Minh in March 1945). Leclerc telegraphed d’Argenlieu in Saigon (where he was based in the French-built Norodom Palace) about the day’s events. He reported that Admiral Auboyneau had actually been in the house of a Chinese general, finalizing arrangements for a French landing when the firing started on the morning of 6 March. French losses, he told d’Argenlieu, had been 20 dead and 40 wounded. The Chinese losses were unknown. The British officer, Peter Simpson-Jones, praised the self-discipline of the French troops when they were attacked by the Chinese (they did not return fire for 15 minutes). He also thought that the majority of the French officials associated with the accords of 6 March, such as Leclerc, Sainteny, Sadouk, Fauchier-Magnan, Repiton-Preneuf and Massu were ‘absolutely remarkable men, of a quality

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which made success possible’. D’Argenlieu himself was, of course, the exception, he had refused to attend the talks with Viet Minh in Hanoi. In discussions with Ho Chi Minh, Simpson-Jones found him optimistic about the long-term prospects for the Franco-Vietnamese accords. This conflict, by coincidence, was the backcloth to further talks between Ho Chi Minh and the French, this time represented by Jean Sainteny. On that very day, Ho Chi Minh agreed (reluctantly) to allow 15,000 French troops to remain in Tonkin in place of the Chinese for a five-year period. In exchange, France would recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state within the French Union with its own government, parliament, army and financial control. France further agreed to hold a referendum on the issue of reunification of the two halves of Vietnam, Ho reportedly remarked to Sainteny that he realized that the Viet Minh ‘could not have everything at once. My consolation is our friendship’.10 He had also insisted that the Franco-Vietnamese accords must accept the reunification of Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China. But the French stuck to their demand that Cochin China must have a special relationship with metropolitan France. When party comrades objected to the agreement with France, Ho rounded on them. ‘You fools,’ he said, ‘Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese stay? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed for one thousand years!’11 Ho also knew that the Viet Quoc and the Dong Minh Hoi might pretend that the Viet Minh were selling out Vietnamese interests to embarrass them. But Ho Chi Minh realized that getting the Chinese out of Tonkin was the first priority and the French could be used to achieve this, even if the Viet Minh’s political enemies might accuse them of betrayal. As it was, Ho became President in a new government which was formed on 24 February. Six portfolios went to VNQDD and DMH ministers and five to the Viet Minh. The first Viet Minh National Congress met on 2 March, while talks with the French continued.12 Meanwhile, the skeleton British force left behind after Gracey’s departure in the South continued with its tasks. There was, too, an assessment of how much ‘Operation Masterdom’ had cost in human lives. Gracey’s estimate was that up to the end of January 1946, 40 British-Indian troops had been killed (three British and 37 Indian or Gurkha). An estimated 3,026 Vietnamese had been killed of whom 1,825 were killed by the French, 550 by the Japanese and 651 by Indian or Gurkha troops.13 This estimate must be questionable because of the Viet Minh habit of removing corpses from the battlefield very rapidly for cultural reasons. This made accurate assessment of their fatalities difficult, as the Americans were also to find in their war with the Viet Cong in the 1960s. British casualties were obviously kept down by the persistent use of Japanese troops in a multiplicity of roles. The British had, therefore, paid a relatively small price for achieving the objective laid down by the head of the Far Eastern Department, J. Sterndale Bennett, as far back as April 1945. Then Sterndale Bennett had written, ‘We want to see French Indochina restored to France, not merely as part

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of our general policy of building up a France friendly to us, but in the interests of stability in the Far East’.14 Right or wrong, British policy towards Indochina had been consistent (although Churchill had tried on occasion to push the issue on to the backburner). This contrasted sharply with the ambiguities of the American position within the State department, the OSS and the military establishment. Sterndale Bennett’s subordinate, Esler Dening, who had held a watching brief over the whole operation in southern Indochina and to whom the above telegram was sent, was to end his link with SEAC under a sizeable cloud. This had nothing to do with Indochina, but did highlight the problems of liaison and co-existence between the Foreign Office and a military command structure in peacetime rather than wartime. The issue involved was the behaviour of Mountbatten’s Publicity and Political Warfare Department and its behaviour in Indonesia, although it was subsumed by the bigger issue of civil–military relations, and a Supreme Allied Commander who was used to having his own way in his own theatre of operations. Dening had already had problems with General Christison in Indonesia whom he thought too sympathetic to Sukarno and the local nationalists (such problems had never arisen with Gracey). He also thought him prone to interfere in areas beyond his competence and was glad when he was removed.15 Mountbatten had initially been effusive about Dening’s appointment, but the Foreign Office official did not fit easily into the rather sycophantic atmosphere surrounding his boss (Mountbatten’s admiring staff at Kandy were nicknamed ‘Dickie Birds’).16 After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, relations between Mountbatten and his chief political adviser worsened as the confused situation facing SEAC created tensions about whether Dening was entitled to offer independent advice to the Foreign Office (as he believed) without clearing this with Mountbatten first. A crisis developed in January 1946 when Dening went to Batavia just as new Dutch–Indonesian talks were about to open. He had wanted to be sent on the special instruction of Attlee or Bevin to ensure that his advice on political matters would be taken. But the Chiefs of Staff objected, fearing that such a remit for Dening would represent a derogation from Mountbatten’s powers as Supreme Allied Commander. By way of riposte, Dening then criticized the Political Warfare Department for being too one-sided in its approach and too pro-nationalist. He told the Foreign Office that the Department had become ‘a political menace’ and stated that if it could not be put under localized Foreign Office control, it ought to be closed down.17 Mountbatten was furious and wrote to Ernest Bevin about how Dening had acted ‘improperly’ by making such comments without clearing them with SEAC first. Mountbatten claimed to be reluctant to complain about Dening, whose advice hitherto had ‘been of the greatest help to me’. But he added ‘senior members of my staff have found him increasingly difficult to deal with’. He therefore wished Dening

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to be removed from his staff and replaced by H.N. Brain (who, as has been seen, had served as Gracey’s adviser in Saigon). Brain, Mountbatten pronounced, had been ‘loyal to me throughout and is popular with my staff’.18 If Mountbatten thought that the threat of dismissal would intimidate Dening, he was wrong. Dening himself wrote to Bevin using very strong language. The Supreme Allied Commander was, in his opinion, making accusations that were ‘a mixture of fiction and malice’. He went on to make scathing comments about Mountbatten’s role in Indonesia, ‘lacking as he was in first hand knowledge of the situation and constantly prone to failing to consult his political advisers or to ignoring their advice when it was tendered’. Dening further accused Mountbatten of never taking him on trips inside the SEAC area, which he only learnt about after the event. Dening wanted Political Advisers to be appointed at ambassadorial level, especially given Mountbatten’s attitude. He was not, he told Bevin in a withering style, prepared to leave his staff at the tender mercy of the Supreme Commander and his HQ which has now attained a standard of inefficiency which makes it a byword . . . My experience . . . convinces me that the Supreme Commander is impressed only by superior rank.19 The unfortunate Bevin was trapped in the middle of this internecine struggle but ‘Uncle Ernie’, as he was admiringly called in the corridors of the Foreign Office, soon dealt with this quarrel. He told Dening that he had exceeded his prerogatives in by-passing Mountbatten and criticizing a branch of SEAC which was under the Supreme Commander’s control. Dening was ordered to apologize by Bevin, who said that ‘he looked to you and the Supreme Allied Commander to settle this incident and to continue to work together as a team’. Bevin finished his telegram with a decisive thrust at a Foreign Office official: ‘It is,’ he told Dening, ‘your duty in the national interest.’20 Mountbatten wrote to tell Bevin that Dening had indeed apologized and he would take him back on to the SEAC staff. Even then, however, he complained about phrases in Dening’s reply which he thought insufficiently deferential. Ostensibly, good relations were restored between the two men and Bevin wrote to Mountbatten on 5 March saying that he quite understood ‘the attitude which you felt bound to adopt’, while being glad that the errant Dening had been taken back on Mountbatten’s staff.21 The quarrel had soon become an irrelevance anyway as Dening left SEAC in April. He wrote to Mountbatten on 2 April saying that ‘we have lived through an eventful period’ and, with tongue in cheek perhaps, thanked Mountbatten ‘for all your many kindnesses’.22 This slightly bizarre episode did actually lead to a revision of Foreign Office procedure along the lines Esler Dening advocated. Just as Dening left SEAC, Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr, a former Ambassador in China and

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the Soviet Union, was sent out to the region to chair Dutch–Indonesian talks. Dening knew of Clerk Kerr (later Lord Inverchapel) by reputation only, but told Mountbatten that he had ‘a reputation for softening the savage breast and it certainly needs softening here’.23 He deemed the Clerk Kerr appointment an excellent idea, but would have been irritated by one which he must have felt should have been his. Dening must have felt even greater annoyance when the Foreign Office sent out yet another political adviser, just as Clerk Kerr arrived in Batavia on 1 February. Lord Killearn (the former Sir Miles Lampson who had been British Minister in Cairo) was made Special Commissioner for South-East Asia. So the Foreign Office now had two political advisers of ambassadorial rank in the SEAC area. Ironically Clerk Kerr was soon accused of being even more pro-Indonesian than Christison. Bevin had been thinking about the Killearn appointment for some months. Killearn was to be heavily involved in the Thai–French dispute about the lost Cambodian provinces, as Dening had been (indeed Mountbatten praised his work in correspondence with Bevin). But Killearn, like Clerk Kerr, someone with extensive experience of China where he had been minister in 1926, made a grotesque misjudgement in saying that the Vichy French in Indochina had allowed Thailand to be ‘over-run’ by the Japanese.24 Apart from being a terminological inaccuracy because the Japanese had allowed Thailand a limited independence, the comment showed a woeful ignorance of what had actually been happening in Indochina and Thailand in 1940–01. Killearn’s comment was made to the Thai Prime Minister, Pridi Banamyang, but in 1946, the boot was on the other foot. Between 13 and 26 May, French troops crossed the River Mekong and attacked Thai forces. Threatened with a French veto against their membership of the United Nations and under some British pressure, the Thais ultimately agreed to return the lost provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap and Stung Treng to French jurisdiction on 17 November. US officials were sent to Battambang to observe the orderly transfer of sovereignty showing how far American foreign policy had travelled since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Mountbatten also supplied British observers.25 The Dening affair had shown Mountbatten to be a stickler for protocol and, in that instance, he had been right.26 But, as he was closing down the British operation in Indochina, he found himself confronted with another stickler for correct observance of rules in Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu. Mountbatten wished to visit the celebrated Khmer historical site of Angkor Wat and sought permission from the new French High Commissioner to do so. But he became irritated when d’Argenlieu insisted that he followed an itinerary which involved flying first to Bangkok and then to Saigon, Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat rather than flying first to Bangkok and then to Angkor Wat and his other two destinations. This, Mountbatten pointed out, would involve a journey of only 480 miles rather than the 980 miles

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which d’Argenlieu’s planned route would involve. This objection was stated in a letter dated 20 February, sent to d’Argenlieu. The next day, the Supreme Allied Commander poured out his frustration to Brigadier Maunsell, still in Saigon as the commander of the skeletal remaining British force. It was, Mountbatten wrote, ‘vastly unreasonable’ to put him and his family (Lady Edwina and his daughter Patricia were coming), through the extra wear and tear the extra miles involved. But Mountbatten told Maunsell that he would ‘give way on this if it would be a matter of embarrassment to him [d’Argenlieu] otherwise’.27 There was to be an official farewell when Mountbatten reached Saigon, but he thought it impertinent for d’Argenlieu to judge what was correct with regard to this as ‘it is he who has been under my command and not vice versa’.28 This Anglo-French fracas would no doubt have been relished by d’Argenlieu’s late master, de Gaulle, who had by now departed the political scene (albeit temporarily). As it was, the wishes of the Supreme Allied Commander were, in this instance, able to prevail over those of the High Commissioner for Indochina. Quite what d’Argenlieu’s motives were in antagonizing Mountbatten about his trip must remain a mystery. His diaries refer merely to receiving Mountbatten and his family in Saigon on 15 March with no reference to the dispute. It may be that d’Argenlieu wished Mountbatten to visit King Norodom Sihanouk in Phnom Penh out of respect prior to visiting the historic temples site. He himself received Sihanouk in Saigon on 19 March, a promised response to his own visit to Cambodia in January (later in the year, d’Argenlieu would present him with bowls containing water, earth and wood – a symbolic recognition of the return of Cambodia’s lost provinces by Thailand, 69,000 kilometres of land).29 The 6 March agreement had been vaguely drafted and had not really addressed the issue of Vietnamese independence. Any legacy the British left in Vietnam must, in any case, be linked to what the French decided to do once Gracey’s force had left. It was ominous for Ho Chi Minh and his supporters that after the signing of 6 March accords, Maurice Thorez told a pro-French Vietnamese politician that he was not anxious to see the Tricolour hauled down in Indochina.30 If party comrades would not support the Viet Minh position, little could be expected from the French political centre and right let alone d’Argenlieu and the colons in Vietnam. Mountbatten remained convinced that had he been free to do so, he could somehow have brought the French and the Viet Minh together. In 1972, Leclerc’s former Aide de Camp, Guy de Valence de Minardie`re, told Mountbatten that he recalled the Supreme Allied Commander telling Leclerc: not to fight but to try and make friends, to establish the same policy as we had in Burma and Malaya, that we had come to liberate them from Japanese occupation and to give them freedom, if that is what they would like, within the Commonwealth.

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Mountbatten, reportedly, went on to say that if France applied such a strategy in Indochina it would mean ‘a great saving of lives, money and ill will’ and strengthen the French position in the region in a manner which a war would make impossible. Leclerc apparently pondered what Mountbatten had said before replying that he ‘was a soldier and he had come to fight, and fight he would’.31 Mountbatten had great self-belief, but his analysis was flawed in a number of ways. He ignored the fact that in Burma, Aung San had actually collaborated with the Japanese until 1943, until a pragmatic realignment took place. Had the Japanese been able to deliver Burmese independence, or ever had any serious intention of doing so, it is reasonable to assume that Aung San would have continued to support them. Even in Malaya, the promise of British-style liberation did not appeal to much of the Chinese minority which supported a communist insurgency which went on for many years. Most pertinently, however, Mountbatten ignored the difference between the French and Dutch experience and that of Britain. The French and Dutch were defeated nations for whom the return to their colonies was tied up with national honour and the defeat of 1940. Both had their metropolitan territory occupied by the Germans. For the French in particular, the honour of the Army was involved in Indochina with an opportunity to avenge the stain of 1940. Indeed, even after the disaster of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French generals embarked on an even more catastrophic colonial war in Algeria, with exactly the same negative outcome and elements in the High Command sponsored domestic terrorism in a desperate attempt to preserve French Algeria. Much of the centre right in French politics was also unwilling to accept that de-colonization was inevitable. In 1945, neither the French nor the Dutch governments had prepared any long-term strategy for self-government in their colonies, which the British had been doing in India since 1935 and before. In Indochina, concessions extracted from the French in 1945–46 were to prove grudging and minimal, emerging from a Gaullist obsession with preserving French sovereignty at all costs. Conversely, the use of examples like Burma and Malaya by Mountbatten was inappropriate. Those countries were not as crucial to the British Empire as India was. Granting it independence had caused intense debate and division in Britain for a generation and the process of securing it was to be bloody and divisive in the subcontinent itself as Mountbatten was to learn from bitter personal experience. Nevertheless, Mountbatten gave up his SEAC position on 30 May with genuine achievements to his credit. One unheralded one was the repatriation of 96,000 prisoners of war and former Japanese internees, 71,000 of whom had been sent back by October 1945. The RAPWI (Repatriation of Allied Prisoners-on-War and Internees) programme has been rightly described as the most successful of Mountbatten’s post-surrenders tasks.32

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But his critics continued to question Mountbatten’s record as Supreme Allied Commander. The principle figures involved in the British occupation of Southern Indochina had thus disappeared from the scene by the spring of 1946. The French were now masters of their own destiny. But as far as the Viet Minh were concerned, the accords of 6 March, although flawed, did have considerable importance. Giap believed that the signature of the accords was significant because it represented the first signature of an agreement by ‘the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with a foreign country’. This view was backed by the Party organ, Cuu Quoc (Save the Motherland), which declared on 9 March that although it was necessary to establish peace after the end of the world war and diplomacy was now needed, ‘our aim remains complete independence’. The newspaper made an historical comparison with Lenin’s signature of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March 1918, which he had been obliged to sign because the Bolsheviks had not been strong enough to continue the war with Imperial Germany.33 The Viet Minh were thus obliged to seek compromise with the French, but only as an interim strategy. The press in the North reflected the divisions in the nationalist ranks. The newspaper Vietnam was the party organ of the Viet Quoc and it adopted a maximalist position. Vietnam should not accept membership of a French Indochinese federation and they were further accused of launching an offensive in Cochin China thus breaking the accords. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s Chinese allies had continued their task by opposing the French landing in Haiphong. French behaviour, the paper argued, had nullified the 6 March accords. The other nationalist paper Cach mang dong minh Hoi, which spoke for the Dong Minh Hoi, agreed with the Viet Minh position. The international importance of the 6 March accords was recognized, while the French problems with resistance in Nam Bo (Cochin China) showed the impossibility of a colonial re-conquest. The Brest Litovsk analogy was also used in the 10 March edition.34 On the same day, Cuu Quoc was confident enough to believe that the domestic situation in France showed that the ‘political parties which opposed the colonial policy and the invasion are more and more strong’.35 By 17 March, the Dong Minh Hoi organ was euphoric, boasting that the ‘peoples of the world and the heroic French people who made the revolution of 1789 support us’. In his office in the Norodom Palace in Saigon, Admiral d’Argenlieu worked stealthily to destroy such illusions, backed by the colon banking and commercial infrastructure which had no intention of loosening its grip on Cochin China. In France itself, the attitude of the French Communist Party was to speedily disillusion Vietnamese nationalists. The newspaper Vietnam was nearer to the mark on 26 March when it speculated about whether the ‘old’ French had been changed into ‘new’ French.36 Soon analogies were being made between Cochin China and Alsace-Lorraine, because of French unwillingness to recognize the southernmost province as an intrinsic part of Vietnam.

11 The slide to disaster

The accords of 6 March 1946 marked the start of a period of lengthy Franco-Vietnamese negotiations which ran in parallel with a period of increasing mistrust, escalating violence and, ultimately in December 1946, all-out war. Preliminary talks at Ha Long Bay in March and at Dalat in April produced little of substance and Ho Chi Minh’s departure for France coincided almost exactly with d’Argenlieu’s announcement on 1 June that a separate, autonomous Republic of Cochin China had been created, much to the fury of Ho and his Viet Minh negotiating team. Thereafter, the lengthy negotiations at the Palace of Fontainebleau dragged on from 6 July to 10 September, to be followed on 14 September by the so-called ‘modus vivendi’ between the two parties. This could not prevent a growing atmosphere of mistrust culminating in a bloody incident at Haiphong on 23 November when the French warship Suffren shelled the city and French troops stormed the Vietnamese quarter, leaving as many as 6,000 Vietnamese dead. The Viet Minh riposte in Hanoi on 19 December, when French personnel and property was attacked leaving 40 dead, was followed almost inevitably by a French counterstroke which culminated in the Viet Minh being driven out of Hanoi and into their bases in the mountains. So began what may rightly be called The Second Vietnam War, which lasted nearly eight years, at a great cost to both France and Vietnam. Part of the story of this slide to disaster concerns the internal dynamics of French politics as will shortly be seen, but Vietnamese reservations about the 6 March accords were plain to see from the earliest days. On 22 March, for example, there was a joint military parade in Hanoi which was supposed to demonstrate mutual goodwill, but the Vietnamese crowd only cheered their own troops and greeted the French with silence. Overhead, in a last manifestation of British involvement in Indochina (four days before the last British soldiers left) flew Spitfires which had been handed over to Leclerc the previous December. Wreaths were laid for the French and Vietnamese dead in what was almost a prophecy of what was to come. Next day, General Leclerc left Hanoi, handing over his command to General Jean-Etienne Valluy (whom Giap regarded as a mediocrity). Valluy thus became Ge´ne´super, Commander-in-Chief of French Land Forces

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Indochina and deputy to Admiral d’Argenlieu. He was one of the chief obstacles to a permanent Franco-Vietnamese settlement.1 Two days later on 24 March, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu welcomed Ho Chi Minh aboard the French warship Emile Bertin amidst the spectacular natural scenery of Ha Long Bay whose limestone islets stretched up to the Chinese border. Ho and his colleagues had been flown in from Hanoi’s Gia Lam airport by Catalina flying boat. In an effort to impress (or intimidate), d’Argenlieu asked Ho to review the French fleet which steamed past the Vietnamese leader later in the day. D’Argenlieu noted in his diary that ‘the sea was calm, with a light easterly breeze’ and, as a former Carmelite monk, also noted that it was the feast of the Annunciation, which he deemed a happy coincidence. Ho Chi Minh was greeted with a 21-gun salute and boarded the Emile Bertin at 9.35 am. D’Argenlieu recorded his adversary’s long history as ‘Un vieux relent d’anticolonialisme’, Moscow-trained and chief of the Indochinese Communist Party. He demanded, according to d’Argenlieu, his departure ‘without delay’ for Paris with his delegation to move the accords of 6 March to a ‘definite conclusion’. D’Argenlieu expressed his surprise that Ho was willing to place himself ‘at such a distance from your government, you, the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’.2 Later, when making a toast to his visitor, d’Argenlieu remarked that the Ha Long Bay meeting provided a useful and good departure point for future discussion. As to the constitutional issues at stake, France had recognized the DRV as a ‘free state, made part of the Indochinese federation and the French Union’. France would address the issue of the Three Ky (reunification) by accepting the decisions of the people of Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China in referendums. He replied by drinking the health of the French Prime Minister, Felix Gouin, and the future of Vietnam and France. After the review of the French fleet, the exchange of views between the two men continued. Two days later on 26 March, Ho sent a letter to d’Argenlieu thanking him for his hospitality and the meeting, which he saw as ‘the prelude to new relations . . . between France and Vietnam’.3 The letter was merely an exercise in diplomatic protocol. More pertinently, Ho told General Salan, who had accompanied his entourage from Hanoi, that the French warships which he had seen in Ha Long Bay would be unable to sail up Vietnam’s rivers (because their draughts were too great).4 The only point of substance which emerged from the Ha Long Bay meeting was that Ho and d’Argenlieu agreed to a further Franco-Vietnamese meeting at Dalat on the High Plateau. But Ho insisted that such a meeting would only be a preliminary to formal talks which he wanted to be in France. The thinking behind this was that such talks would bypass d’Argenlieu and allow Ho to use his charm on the French political establishment and public in the cause of Vietnamese independence. To d’Argenlieu’s annoyance, Leclerc and Sainteny, who were also present at Ha Long Bay,

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agreed to Ho’s request. The Admiral wanted the formal negotiations to take place at Dalat. All he got was agreement that a preliminary meeting should be held at which the DRV would be represented not by Ho Chi Minh, but by Giap. This was supposedly necessary for the French delegates to grasp the key issues involved. In reality, the key issues were obvious. The Vietnamese wanted reunification of the Three Ky, without which independence would be meaningless. The French, as would become increasingly evident, did not. In March 1946 though, the French government was apparently going through the constitutional processes to approve a settlement with Vietnam. On 9 March, Marius Moutet, the Minister for Overseas France (Outre-Mer), who was an old friend of Ho Chi Minh from the days after the First World War, presented the accords of the 6 March to the Council of Ministers in Paris for approval. This was forthcoming and Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault (who was to prove a thorn in the flesh of Vietnamese nationalists), proclaimed them a possible model for other French colonies. Ten days later, 12,000 French troops crossed the Paul Doumer Bridge over the Red River and entered Hanoi. Some Vietnamese found their modern US vehicles and equipment intimidating. But the French colons were jubilant, as a famous photograph showing Leclerc and Sainteny in a jeep on 18 March demonstrates clearly.5 Even more ominous was Moutet’s declaration on 12 March that Cochin China was a ‘free state’ within the French Union, which seemed to make the accords of 6 March null and void. On the same day, d’Argenlieu set up a consultative Council in Saigon, made up of four French and eight Vietnamese representatives.6 Its brief was to apply the Statement of Intent of 24 March 1945, but it was in reality a Trojan horse designed to protect the special status of Cochin China. The Consultative Council soon voiced complaints about the meaning of the word ‘Vietnam’ in the political accord and the failure to consult Cochin Chinese representatives about the clause concerning Cochin China. Clause 3 in particular continued to be an area of dispute.7 There was a history to this wrangling. On 12 February, d’Argenlieu had shown Leclerc the advance text which was supposed to provide the basis for a final Franco-Vietnamese accord. This contained references to ‘the Hanoi government’ which inferred that it had no authority south of the 16th parallel and made the French position on Cochin China apparent. But divisions existed in the French camp. On 18 February, Sainteny announced (and he signed for France on 6 March) that an altered text saying ‘Vietnam’ and not ‘the Hanoi government’ would be included in the Preliminary Convention (this was supplemented on 6 March by a military convention). D’Argenlieu believed that Article 3 in the Preliminary Convention allowed Hanoi the right of interference in Cochin China, whereas the use of the term ‘Vietnam’ should only have been regarded as a courtesy without practical application.8 It remained the case, exclusive of d’Argenlieu’s own agenda, that ambiguities remained both at Dalat and Fontainebleau about Cochin China and the issue

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of unification. D’Argenlieu had deliberately based himself in Saigon rather than Hanoi, the traditional base for the old colonial governors-general, because he wished to secure control over Cochin China as well as purging the old Vichy officials in the French administration (which did not increase his popularity amongst the colons there). In France itself, it has been suggested that the government of Gouin ‘did not give the area the attention the situation demanded’.9 This can be attributed both to problems of post-war reconstruction (which included the evolution of a new republican constitution which caused de Gaulle to quit in disgust) and wishful thinking, which exaggerated the size of the pro-French Vietnamese e´lite vis-a`-vis the hostile nationalist groupings.10 French governments and the Quay d’Orsay made the error of thinking that only intellectuals, university students and politicians were interested in independence. This was not the case and the warnings of people like Sainteny and Messmer about Vietnamese nationalism were not taken seriously. It was easier to assume that the colon hysteria which followed the French re-entry into Hanoi on 18 March represented general Vietnamese sentiment. This myopia was, of course, combined with d’Argenlieu’s absolute determination to sabotage any chance of a free, independent Vietnam being created. Shortly after the 6 March accords, d’Argenlieu had remarked to his ally Valluy, ‘I am amazed General, that it is the only word I can use, amazed that France’s leaders prefer negotiations to action when we have such a magnificent expeditionary force in Indochina’.11 In fact, d’Argenlieu need not have worried. The very day that Leclerc and his troops returned to Hanoi, Marius Moutet told the French National Assembly, ‘What I reprove Amiral d’Argenlieu for is not that he did not follow the directives of his government. I reproach him for having anticipated them’.12 The combination of d’Argenlieu, the military, the so-called ‘Saigon clique’ (businessmen and bankers) and centre right politicians like Bidault was ultimately to prove decisive. Moutet was supposed to be a socialist, but he was a weak minister who colluded with the pro-colonial lobby. In Vietnam in April 1946, the preliminary meeting requested by d’Argenlieu took place in the Lyce´e Yersin in Dalat in Lam Dong province, where the more temperate climate made it a favourite retreat for French colonial officials and rich members of the Vietnamese elite. Giap was the main Vietnamese representative and he was far more anti-French than older nationalists like Ho Chi Minh. Giap called d’Argenlieu a ‘malicious priest who had broken his vow’, while the French recognized his fiery personality by calling him ‘the snow-covered volcano’ (‘nui lua’ in Vietnamese).13 Superficially the atmosphere was friendly with both sides using the ‘tu’ form of address in French, but it could not conceal profound differences of approach. Nothing of substance emerged from the Dalat Conference and Giap left for Hanoi convinced that war was inevitable. At the Conference, Giap and his colleague Nguyen Tuong Tam could not get d’Argenlieu to discuss the current situation in Tonkin and Cochin China, where armed clashes between the

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Viet Minh and the French were common. Present on the French side was Max Andre´, a friend of Bidault, who had lived as a businessman in Vietnam for years, who was as obstructive in his way as d’Argenlieu. The French delegation claimed that its ‘objective was to obtain from the Provisional Government of Vietnam its assent to the integration of Vietnam . . . in the Indochinese federation and the French Union’.14 Giap and his colleague were told that the Vietnamese request for admission to the UN was inadmissible. The French also complained about the journey being made to Chungking by Bao Dai to enlist the support of Chiang Kai-shek. But more interesting was the disclosure that the French knew about a telegram that Ho Chi Minh had sent to Clement Attlee trying to secure British recognition ‘for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state’. The British reply was negative. The British government could make no comment on the status of Vietnam when it was currently the subject of talks ‘between the representatives of France and of Vietnam’.15 The Dalat Conference opened on 18 April and ended on 11 May with an impasse. It remained to be seen whether Ho Chi Minh’s journey to France at the end of May could produce a new impetus in the Franco-Vietnamese negotiations. On 18 May, d’Argenlieu made a visit to Hanoi to talk about the forthcoming peace talks. He was greeted at the airport by Valluy, the Chinese General Lu Han, the American Consul, the DRV Foreign Minister Than and Giap, the Minister of War who was also Vice-President in the Vietnamese government. D’Argenlieu noticed how the local colons were ‘smiling and applauding’ on his route into Hanoi. He met Ho Chi Minh the next day and noted in his diary how Ho pretended to be ignorant of the crimes committed by the Viet Minh in the South against members of the Consultative Council, notably the assassination of Nguyen Van Thach on 3 May. Ho replied by saying that the High Commissioner was constantly accusing the Viet Minh of things for which they were not responsible. D’Argenlieu pointed out that French information came from DRV communications (they had broken Hanoi’s codes), and showed that the revolutionary movement in the South was trying to destabilize the situation. According to d’Argenlieu, Ho was unable to reply to this accusation.16 D’Argenlieu met Colonel Jacques Massu for the first time in Hanoi, whom, despite his intimidating exterior, he found ‘sympathetique’. He was back in Saigon on 25 May, but had failed in his major objective, which was to delay the departure of the Vietnamese delegation for talks in Paris. D’Argenlieu cited the forthcoming French elections in early June as a reason for delay, but Ho Chi Minh insisted on leaving on 30 May. D’Argenlieu trumped this by telling the Vietnamese government that an autonomous state of Cochin China would be created. A large crowd of 50,000 people turned out on the campus of the University of Hanoi to see Ho and his colleagues off.

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While Ho Chi Minh was out of the country, Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vice-President in the DRV administration was the dominant figure in North Vietnam. He seized the opportunity to purge the opposition VNQDD and DMH in a distinctly Leninist manner. Indeed, Giap’s tactic endorsed the warnings given by Trevor-Wilson to Gracey in December 1945 about Viet Minh tactics. As acting president for four months in the absence of Ho, Giap had every opportunity to demonstrate his ruthlessness in the service of the Party. The disappearance of Lu Han’s Chinese army in June removed the main obstacle to an attack on the Viet Minh’s political rivals. These included also the Dai Viets (literally the ‘Greater Vietnamers’), a pro-Japanese group, the Trotskyites, Catholic militants and other Francophobic nationalists. Hundreds of people were executed. In atrocities reminiscent of those perpetrated by Carrier in the French Revolution at Nantes (and Giap had been a history teacher), political foes of the Viet Minh were tied together and thrown into rivers to drown. Sometimes victims reached the open sea before drowning, a process which Giap called ‘crab fishing’.17 The ideological purge also targeted the party organs of the Viet Minh’s rivals, in July, the paper Vietnam, the mouthpiece of the Viet Quoc, was closed down. A week later, a new paper opened which towed the communist party line. A feature of this political terror was the tendency of the Viet Minh to try and blame their political opponents for atrocities carried out by themselves (which fooled foreign historians like Philippe Devilliers). In some instances, corpses were even dug up so they could be displayed as victims of the Viet Quoc or the Dai Viets, when the Viet Minh had been guilty of their murders.18 Meanwhile, in the South, the Viet Minh leader Tran Van Giau (who was replaced by the even more brutal Nguyen Binh in January 1946) was equally ruthless. Areas under the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao were terrorized, ultimately resulting in the execution of the Hoa Hao leader Huynh Phu So, the ‘mad bonze’, in 1947 for refusing to cooperate with the anti-colonialist struggle. Thereafter, these two sects threw in their lot with the French, abandoning their nationalist credentials. In Tonkin, the French reaction to Giap’s reign of terror was puzzling. Incidents had still been taking place between the Viet Minh and the French Expeditionary Force, with what were regarded as French provocations along the road from Hanoi to the border town of Langson. French troops also seized the Governor-General’s residence in Hanoi, where the DRV had been installed since the August revolution. After protests, the new Ge´ne´super General Valluy said the French action had been a mistake and that the building should be jointly guarded by the Expeditionary Force and the Viet Minh. In this atmosphere of tension, it was surprising that the French reacted to Giap’s purge between 11 and 13 July in the way they did (especially as the DRV had responded to provocations by closing all markets in Hanoi, Haiphong and other towns). Instead of perhaps allying themselves with the Viet Minh’s rivals (which might have been possible once the DMH and

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VNQDD had been deserted by their Chinese mentors), the French actually loaned artillery to Giap so he could reduce Dai Viet strongholds. They also condoned Giap’s use of an e´lite Japanese terror squad of 1,500 men who had gone over to the Viet Minh in August 1945, some of whom were ex-members of the notorious Kempeitai who had abused and tortured French colons and officials. All these men were wanted as war criminals by the Allies, but Giap secured false identity papers and Vietnamese citizenship for them.19 Not only was Giap throwing aside the pretence that the Viet Minh were following Allied war aims, but the French were showing that they found it more convenient to deal with one Vietnamese adversary rather than three or four. It is hard to uncover any other motive. In following their own interest, the French actually cooperated in rounding up members of the Dong Minh Hoi in Hong Ay, a mining district.20 This served the interest of the Viet Minh because they viewed the Dong Ming Hoi and the other parties as so anti-French that they could subvert any chance of agreement with them. And there seems to have been some ground for Viet Minh anxiety as the case of the 14 July Bastille Day parade in Hanoi seemed to show. Their intelligence sources allegedly obtained information that the VNQDD were planning a major provocation on the day of France’s national holiday when the French authorities wanted to stage a military parade through Hanoi. The DRV government turned down this request citing security issues, and on the next day, their police raided VNQDD headquarters where they found a torture chamber, several bodies and a number of prisoners. A plan to kidnap French residents of Hanoi (akin to what had happened in the Cite´ Heyraud in Saigon ten months before) was also discovered.21 The Viet Minh were able to use this information to discredit the VNQDD who were certainly capable of such an atrocity, but it remains the case that this ‘discovery’ followed within two days of Giap’s purge of the nationalist parties which had ended on 13 July. It was in the interests of the Viet Minh to discredit the VNQDD (Viet Quoc), which had been accusing it of betrayal ever since the 6 March accords. As it was, Giap had forced the withdrawal of key nationalist figures such as Nguyen Hai Than and Vu Hong Khanh from the DRV government. Giap’s other major problem in the months when Ho Chi Minh was in France concerned the economy. Temporary government intervention had prevented a repetition of the terrible famine of early 1945 and the rice harvest brought in during the month of May 1946 was adequate to meet needs. The DRV government mobilized workers to prevent the dykes of the Red River (which had previously been serviced by French engineers) collapsing, as had been the case in August 1945 resulting in catastrophic flooding. Tax revenue was another problem, as the Viet Minh had abolished several taxes, and in the chaotic situation prevailing in the early months of 1946, others were hard to collect. The French combined promises of economic largesse if the DRV agreed to a settlement and predictions of disaster if it dared to go it alone. They had forgotten ‘Gold Week’ in

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September 1945 when, after Ho Chi Minh’s appeal 370 kilograms of gold and 20 million piastres had flowed into government coffers. The French were to learn about Vietnamese resolve the hard way.22 While Giap imposed Viet Minh control in Northern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and the delegation were ferried across Asia in two Dakota aircraft. There were stopovers in Burma, India (where Ho visited the Taj Mahal), Iraq and Egypt. It was while he was leaving Cairo on 3 June that Ho Chi Minh heard of the Convention setting up the Republic of Cochin China which had been signed by the pro-French President, Dr Nguyen Van Thinh and Jean Ce´dile, who had become the French Commissioner for the Republic. On 30 May, d’Argenlieu had written in his diary that there was no geographical, historical or economic rationale for Vietnamese unity which was the claim of a ‘dangerous and perverse ideology’.23 Although undoubtedly angered by the news of the Convention, Ho Chi Minh was not surprised as he had been forewarned about this development by d’Argenlieu on 19 May when the High Commissioner had visited Hanoi. But at the time, it has been suggested that Ho feigned surprise and remarked to General Salan, who was journeying back to France with Ho and his colleagues, that France must not make Cochin China into a new Alsace-Lorraine.24 Political developments in France now began to take dramatic effect. On 2 June 1946, Gouin’s Socialist-led coalition was defeated at the polls with the Conservative MRP (Mouvement Re´publican Populaire) under Georges Bidault winning 160 seats to the 146 seats won by Thorez’s communists and the 115 of the SFIO (Socialists). It has been justly remarked that the new National Assembly was to show ‘a total indifference to the aspirations of the colonial peoples’.25 But Ho Chi Minh’s old friend Marius Moutet clung on to his post as Minister for Overseas France in the new government. In the short run, there was a delay in starting the Franco-Vietnamese talks ostensibly so the new government could be formed. The delegation (of which Ho Chi Minh was not actually a member) was sent instead to the seaside resort of Biarritz and Jean Sainteny was sent to keep Ho entertained. He paid a visit (in an unlikely scenario) to the Catholic shrine at Lourdes and went fishing with Basque fishermen.26 Only on 22 June, with the Bidault government still in the process of formation, did Ho Chi Minh fly into Le Bourget airport in Paris where he was met by Moutet. From there he was whisked off to the luxurious Royal Monceau Hotel. Sainteny suspected that Ho would have been more comfortable sleeping on the floor than in the bed provided. His new surroundings clashed oddly with his modest, austere lifestyle in Vietnam. On 26 June, the Bidault government took office at last. The peace talks were only scheduled to start at Fontainebleau in early July, so Ho spent the interim visiting old haunts in Paris. He also joined Sainteny on his estate in Normandy and visited the beaches where the Allies had landed only two years before.27 But some problems arose when the newspaper Le Figaro identified Ho as the old Comintern agent Nguyen Ai Quoc, whom the

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Suˆrete´ had spent so many years relentlessly pursuing. This was meat and drink to the Viet Minh’s enemies on the French political right, but Ho spent his time trying to charm politicians of whatever colour and renewing contacts with old acquaintances. A banquet was arranged for Bidault with black ties worn, but Ho characteristically wore his old khaki suit (used when he met Fenn and Patti the previous year) buttoned up to the neck as a gesture to protocol. Present also was Albert Saurrat, the former Governor-General of Indochina, who was Jean Sainteny’s father-in-law. Saurrat asked him whether the Lyce´e Albert Saurrat was still open in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh described him as ‘the only Frenchman who understood the plight of the Annamese and attempted to do something about it’. This was a mite flattering as Saurrat’s projected reforms in the periods between 1911 and 1914 were largely unimplemented. Ho Chi Minh had hoped to meet Charles de Gaulle, ‘le grand Charles’, but was unsuccessful as the latter remained in apparent seclusion at Colombey-les-deux-Eglises (this was misleading as he was free enough with advice to people like Leclerc and d’Argenlieu). More strange though was the unwillingness of General Leclerc to meet Ho. The two men had seemed to get on well in Hanoi and Dalat, but Leclerc had been severely criticized in France for his actions in Indochina and may have been avoiding further involvement in the region’s affairs (although he was persuaded later to go back on a fact-finding mission).28 Leclerc was also to make a decisive intervention during the Fontainebleau talks, as will be seen. Ho carried out the usual acts performed by foreign dignitaries in Paris. A wreath was laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe and a reception laid on for Ho at the Hoˆtel Matignon, the traditional office of French prime ministers which was hosted by Bidault. Visits were also paid to Versailles and Napoleon’s resting place, Les Invalides, before the formal talks began at Fontainebleau on 6 July. From the outset, the omens were not favourable. Bidault had made Max Andre´, the former colon, the head of the French delegation and he already had a reputation as a political reactionary (he had also been involved in the impasse at Dalat). French officials also exhibited a degree of hauteur by absenting themselves from some of the sessions.29 The only thing that could be said in Bidault’s favour was that he rejected d’Argenlieu’s offer to head the French delegation which the Vietnamese would have regarded as the ultimate provocation. The French delegation was comprised of MRP, SFIO and communist members (plus administrative support staff). The head of the Vietnamese delegation was Pham Van Dong. Born as the son of a prominent mandarin in 1906, Pham first met Ho Chi Minh in Canton when he was 20 years of age. He had spent six years imprisoned on the French penal island of Poulo Condore before going to China again, returning to Vietnam only in 1942. Pham was Minister of Finance in Ho’s first 1945 cabinets, before being appointed delegation head.30

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Pham began the Conference by making a sharp attack on French behaviour in Vietnam. Both sides then reverted to their Dalat positions, with the French remaining evasive on the issue of Cochin China and demanding the withdrawal of all Tonkinese troops from the South as a pre-condition of any ceasefire. Article 3 of the 6 March accords remained a stumbling block as the French insisted on a narrow definition of the term ‘free state’. The Vietnamese were incensed by the refusal of the French government to condemn d’Argenlieu’s arbitrary decision to set up the Republic of Cochin China, in the teeth of nationalist objections. Worst of all was the fact that this action had been condoned by the leftist Gouin government. This was, in fact, a warning about socialist and communist attitudes in coming weeks. The Vietnamese had naturally hoped for leftist support, especially when left-wing newspapers had seemed to support Ho Chi Minh’s position when he arrived in Paris. In the background, Ho tried to solicit support, but many communists resented his earlier action in November 1945 of dissolving the Indochinese Communist Party and replacing it with the Marxist Study Society (even though this was only a technicality). Maurice Thorez, whom the British Ambassador Alfred Duff Cooper thought capable of ‘great charm’, had actually condemned the Setif nationalist riots in Algeria in May 1945 (an indication of what was to come) as a fascist conspiracy. He told Sainteny at the time of the Fontainebleau Conference that if the Viet Minh proved obdurate, ‘let guns speak for us if need be’.31 The communists and socialists were caught up in the nationalist spirit which pervaded France in 1946. The attitude of Bidault and the Right was straightforward on the issue of Indochina. Only second-rank civil servants and political figures (like Andre´) were appointed to the French delegation, the exception being Pierre Messmer. But the MRP was also heavily influenced by a secret letter sent by Leclerc on 8 June to Maurice Schuman (whom he had had known since joining the Free French in London in July 1940). Schuman was then the President of the MRP, a strong Gaullist and a future Foreign Minister of France. The document became as controversial in its way as Gracey’s instructions from ALFSEA in August 1945, although it only emerged into the historical literature in 1965.32 In the letter, Leclerc made a series of devastating charges. Ho Chi Minh, he claimed, was a great enemy of France who wished to expel it from Vietnam bag and baggage. The French delegates for the Peace Conference were feeble and irresolute (the letter pre-dated the Conference, of course, by a whole month) and would easily be hoodwinked by the ‘artifices of language . . . which Ho Chi Minh and his team knew how to use . . . to perfection’.33 Leclerc apparently hoped that such contact with his friend Schuman would help to firm up the French position at Fontainebleau. It certainly seems to have influenced the attitude of the MRP, which never took the Vietnamese negotiating position seriously.

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Why did Leclerc adopt such a position? He also claimed in the letter that France had effectively won the war in Vietnam, which was an absurdly premature position for such an experienced soldier to take, and that no concessions should be made to the Vietnamese delegation. As he was supposedly a man of liberal opinion, such views from Leclerc carried a greater weight. They appear to have originated in a belief that Ho Chi Minh had deceived him by sending a message to his comrades in Vietnam to be ready for any eventuality (i.e., war). This information purportedly came from a message to which Leclerc got access, possibly an intelligence intercept.34 One must consider here, of course, the possibility that Leclerc’s liberalism was somewhat superficial. He was a Catholic aristocrat by origin, who had flirted with the fascist ideas of Charles Maurras as a young man (the leader of Action Franc¸aise) and was also a Gaullist by inclination and evolution.35 His military judgement was sound, however, and the comments in the letter of 8 June 1946 are unusually ill-considered for a man of his reputation. They may indeed, and especially those about Ho Chi Minh, have resulted from a perception of personal betrayal. Ho Chi Minh, after all, thought Leclerc and Sainteny the two most trustworthy Frenchmen he had dealings with in 1946. The episode continues to puzzle. When, for example, Jean Ce´dile visited Leclerc on 29 May before he returned to France, the General (according to his aide de camp, Guy de Valence de Minardie`re) testily remarked ‘Come and have a whisky then, it’s a better thing than that rubbishy government of yours’.36 This was a reference to the Republic of Cochin China whose genesis had been known to him since February and which was officially announced to the world on 1 June. If this eyewitness account is true, Leclerc had little faith then in Vietnamese separatism or French connivance at it. Yet only ten days later, he wrote his famous letter to Schuman, a beˆtise which does not accord with his subsequent judgement that a military campaign in Vietnam could not be won. At the time, however, the letter’s impact was considerable and unfortunate. Ironically, Leclerc’s doubts about the Republic of Cochin China seemed to be echoed by d’Argenlieu in Saigon. As early as 17 July, he confided to his diary that the new republic had goodwill, but its members lacked savoir faire. They also had a tendency to be dictatorial and had no rapport with Commissioner Ce´dile. ‘Where,’ asked the Admiral, ‘was Cochin China going?’37 One thing was for certain, it was not going into any union with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Back in Paris, Ho Chi Minh held a press conference on 12 July during which he tried to dampen down speculation about his communism. When an American journalist asked if he was a communist, Ho merely admitted to being a student of Karl Marx. Vietnam, he claimed, lacked the agricultural and industrial base needed to establish a communist system.38 But he insisted that Cochin China was an intrinsic part of Vietnam which could never be surrendered, although he accepted the idea that a united Vietnam should become part of the French Union.

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In faraway Saigon, d’Argenlieu laboured to make unification impossible. His strategy was to exclude the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from any French-sponsored federation in Indochina. On 23 July, news reached Paris that d’Argenlieu was convening another conference at Dalat on 1 August. This would aim to set up a Fe´deration Indochinoise to include Cochin China, Southern Annam, the Central Highlands, Laos and Cambodia. Tonkin was excluded partly, perhaps, in recognition that it was firmly under Viet Minh control. In Paris, Pham Van Dong protested strongly against this unilateral move by d’Argenlieu (he had not sought the permission of the Bidault government). D’Argenlieu subsequently claimed that he had been authorized to set up the Dalat Conference in a telegram sent on 3 April by Marius Moutet.39 Pham Van Dong also accused the French of sending troops to occupy Pleiku and Kontum, as well as seizing the Governor-General’s palace in Hanoi which were breaches of the 6 March accords. D’Argenlieu, for his part, was complaining about the tendency of the press in Paris to take for granted ‘la fusion’ of the Three Ky and to conflate the names ‘Vietnam’ and ‘Viet Minh’.40 He further claimed that the populations of Indochina outside Tonkin resented the way the DRV representatives claimed to speak for all.41 On 3 August, he recorded the representative of Cochin China at the second Dalat Conference, Colonel Nguyen Van Xuan, the Minister for National Defence, as saying that ‘if Siam could exist independently, I think that Cochin China could exist equally independently’. This point of view was supported by the Cambodian representative, Tiou Long. He went on to praise France’s ‘liberal spirit’ in creating an Indochinese federation.42 By the time it closed on 13 August, the Dalat Conference had decided that Dalat itself should be the federal capital, the official language (unsurprisingly) was to be French and a federal assembly was to be set up with each member state having ten native representatives and ten French representatives. The currency of the federation would continue to be the piastre and the armed forces of the member states would join with the army of the French Union in defence of the federation. Lastly, the Conference protested against the seizure by the DRV of cultural property such as universities, archives and libraries which belonged to the whole federation, private bodies like the Institut Pasteur in Hanoi and of France itself, like the French School of the Far East.43 While the Conference at Dalat was going on, hostilities continued between the French and the Viet Minh, despite the 6 March accords. On 3 August, a 40-vehicle French convoy on its way to Bac Ninh (20 kilometres from Hanoi) was attacked by the Viet Minh and d’Argenlieu reported severe losses. In Paris on 8 August, Pham Van Dong told the newspaper Paris-Matin that the reported incident was ‘a new provocation by Admiral d’Argenlieu’. Pham went on to say that French attempts to seize control of Langson, which controlled access to the strategic railway line to China, was not allowed by the 6 March accords and was a breach of those agreements.

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He further called d’Argenlieu ‘ill starred’ (ne´faste), a man who was responsible for a policy which was trying to sabotage Franco-Vietnamese friendship.44 The leader of the French delegation, Max Andre´, considered these remarks an insult to the government and the French army.45 D’Argenlieu saw the danger of a repeat of the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Chamberlain and Daladier had been deceived by Hitler. Increasingly, the atmosphere between the French and Vietnamese delegations demonstrated such a spirit of mistrust. Ho Chi Minh’s personal visit to Fontainebleau on 26 July could do little to improve the situation and Pham Van Dong broke off the negotiations on 1 August in protest at the unauthorized Dalat Conference. D’Argenlieu remained unrebuked for his behaviour, but Ho was ultimately able to get a resumption of the talks in late August. This time, the French delegation refused to formally recognize Vietnamese independence as the DRV delegation demanded, or to agree a date for a referendum in Cochin China as stipulated in the 6 March accords.46 The talks were broken off again on 10 September. Three days afterwards, the Vietnamese delegation, minus Ho Chi Minh, sailed back to Indochina. Ho did not wish to leave Paris empty handed. The French government wanted him to leave (and even stopped paying his considerable hotel bill), but he told Moutet that he needed help to deal with more extreme elements in Vietnam who wished to disavow his agreement with France. In fact, d’Argenlieu’s tactics were in danger of alienating the nationalist bourgeoisie in Vietnam who had rallied to the Viet Minh cause when Ho had sublimated his communist aspirations.47 They came to feel that the Vietnamese delegation at Fontainebleau was being hoodwinked.48 Bereft of his hotel room, Ho Chi Minh moved to the house of a sympathizer, Raymond Aubrac, in the suburb of Soisy-sous-Montgomery. There, on 11 September, Ho gave another press conference at which he compared Franco-Vietnamese differences to a family quarrel. He estimated that agreement could be reached in six months, a somewhat optimistic estimate given the intensity of d’Argenlieu’s machinations in Dalat and Saigon. Ho’s strategy throughout his remaining time in France was to convince French leftists, and anyone else he could bring on board, that he must be supported lest extremists in Vietnam win the day. There was no doubt that younger party comrades like Vo Nguyen Giap were strongly anti-French, more so than Ho himself, but Leclerc’s 8 June letter, however wrong in other respects, had rightly recognized the subtlety of Ho’s tactics.49 The crucial question was this. Was Ho the well-intentioned moderate he claimed to be, or a master strategist who was raising French anxieties about nationalist extremists to win a longer, deeper game with the achievement of unity as its objective? In September 1946, Ho had not even given up on the Americans. After giving his 11 September press conference, Ho visited the American Ambassador in Paris, Jefferson Caffery, who recorded that Ho still hoped to bring the Americans into the struggle he was having with the French

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about Vietnam’s future. His problem was that President Roosevelt had died the previous April (and even his anti-French agenda had been neutered by then) and Cold War imperatives loomed much larger for the Americans. Nevertheless, Ho Chi Minh did his best to convince Caffery that he was not a communist. Caffery did not respond to this olive branch, but reported to the State Department that Ho had conducted himself in a tactful and dignified way. The next day, when Ho spoke to the First Secretary Abbot about Vietnam’s need for economic aid, he added an inducement to secure US agreement. The Americans would be offered the use of Cam Ranh Bay (which would in fact become a huge US base during their intervention in the 1960s and 1970s).50 The offer was not taken up, although staff in the Far East Department of the State Department continued to have anxieties about the direction of American policy and French behaviour in Indochina. The British Foreign Office by contrast was more optimistic. Their Consul General in Saigon, Meiklereid, who had arrived there in the later stages of the British-Indian intervention, believed that the future of the FrancoVietnamese accords was good, even if France was obliged to concede a more liberal settlement than it wanted.51 It can only be imagined that he was not fully aware of d’Argenlieu’s latest stratagems and their overall purpose. On the other hand, there were doubts about Ho’s sincerity in France and why he had opted to remain behind when his colleagues had returned to Vietnam. In Vietnam itself, Ho was under attack for conceding too much to the French, when public opinion opposed making further concessions. This feeling was strengthened after 14 September when Ho and Moutet signed the so-called ‘modus vivendi’, merely a temporary agreement between the DRV and France pending a final agreement. After initially opposing the idea, Ho agreed with Moutet that a Vietnamese representative be empowered to talk to d’Argenlieu about bringing about a ceasefire in Vietnam by 30 October and Indochina as a whole. Although the colons in Saigon and Hanoi were delighted with the modus vivendi, Ho Chi Minh was despondent, remarking that he had got much less than he had hoped for.52 The concept of Vietnamese independence had still not been fully recognized by France, indeed under d’Argenlieu’s influence, the French had backtracked on what Leclerc had been saying in mid-February 1946. Then he had told General Raoul Salan that there was a good opportunity for the French government to make an official declaration which would include ‘the word independence’ (although Leclerc, as has been seen, was not always consistent on matters related to Vietnam). Asked for his opinion, Salan had told Leclerc, ‘I can see no other solution’.53 Ho Chi Minh himself had told a French journalist, Andre´ Blanchet on 12 January, that France would lose no prestige by making a declaration in favour of independence and that he would personally lead a delegation to thank the French President, Vincent Auriol, if such a declaration were made.54 But successive French governments could not be persuaded.

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Ho Chi Minh’s French hosts finally got rid of him on 18 September when he sailed for Vietnam on the French cruiser the Dumont d’Urville, having refused a French offer of an aeroplane. On reaching Marseilles, Ho was greeted with shouts of ‘traitor’ by some Vietnamese students studying there, a demonstration if one were needed of the strength of feeling about the modus vivendi. Speculation on why Ho chose such a slow means of transport has continued ever since. The most likely explanation, perhaps, is the one put forward by Jean Sainteny that Ho feared for his life if he went by air (he remembered, perhaps, the fate of Vinh San in December 1945).55 Various other explanations include the suggestions that Ho wanted Giap to have enough time to root out dissent, or that he wanted emotions to settle after the controversy over the modus vivendi.56 It was certainly true that senior members of the Party, such as Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap, questioned Ho’s conciliatory attitude in France, even if they did not publicly criticize him. Ho could rely, nonetheless, on the unquestioning support of most of the people of north Vietnam who still associated him with the heady days of the August Revolution. In the short run, Ho had to decide whether a ceasefire by 30 October was viable and how to counter nationalist dissent, which remained a factor even after Giap’s draconian purge in July. On board the cruiser Dumont d’Urville, Ho amazed the captain and crew by his ascetic lifestyle, which continued into great old age. He did his own washing, which was an uncomplicated task as he only had one change of clothes.57 The long sea voyage ended when the Dumont d’Urville sailed into Cam Rahn Bay on 18 October. There, Ho Chi Minh was met by his old rival d’Argenlieu and General Louis Morlie`re, a jolly but fair-minded extrovert who had temporarily replaced Sainteny as Commissioner for Tonkin. D’Argenlieu was in combative mood. On 1 October, he had telegraphed the Interministerial Committee on Indochina in Paris (Cominindo) complaining that the Vietnamese press had been ‘aggressive as far as we are concerned’ concentrating on those parts of the modus vivendi which most favoured France. ‘There were no attacks on Ho Chi Minh,’ noted the Admiral.58 D’Argenlieu also stated (unconvincingly) that the ‘major part of the population [showed a] great hostility to the dictatorial and communist regime of the Viet Minh’.59 Ho Chi Minh came across to the cruiser Suffren (soon to be notorious in Vietnamese history) from the Dumont d’Urville to meet d’Argenlieu. The latter thought the key issue was whether Ho was prepared to join the struggle ‘against terrorism’ and re-establish friendly relations.60 In fact, the Cam Ranh Bay meeting went off relatively well. Some agreement was reached about major issues with d’Argenlieu accepting the need for a Vietnamese representative to work on the implementation of a ceasefire and Ho Chi Minh affirming that he did not support terrorist activity in Cochin China. Ho would not agree to the withdrawal of Tonkinese troops from the South. Two days later, the Dumont d’Urville sailed into the Cua Cam River and

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into Haiphong port, where Ho was met by party colleagues. Shrewdly, Ho insisted that the ‘Marseillaise’ be sung alongside the anthem of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The next day, a special train took Ho to Hanoi where he made a triumphant entry.61 Although the atmosphere at Cam Ranh Bay between Ho and d’Argenlieu had seemed reasonably friendly, the general context for Franco-Vietnamese relations was negative. The Army led by Valluy would not let the Viet Minh get away with what it regarded as ‘provocations’ and the young Vietnamese government has been described as ‘touchy about questions of face’. Vietnamese intelligence certainly believed that the French expeditionary force was about to attack in Tonkin.62 Constant reports about ambushes and Viet Minh attacks on French forces together with others about rapes, murders and thefts produced shoals of angry letters and telegrams from angry colons throughout Indochina demanding that the authorities take a tougher line.63 Conversely, one French historian has remarked that the attitude of the French army in Vietnam was conditioned, not by a desire to re-conquer the country, but by ‘an excessive and elusive conception of the Army’s Honour, as if it were an end in itself’.64 Another problem was that the vast distance between Paris and Vietnam allowed d’Argenlieu a degree of autonomy (exercised when he set up the second Dalat Conference), which he might not otherwise have had. He personally interpreted and executed many of the directives he received from the French government. It is worth noting that in France, the specialists on Indochina in the Colonial Ministry (known as the Ministry for Overseas France from 1 January 1946) had been in favour of concessions, even to the point of agreeing to unification if this would secure a small but viable French position in Vietnam. D’Argenlieu followed the dictates of his mentor Charles de Gaulle; concessions were only to be considered when the French were in a position of dominant military strength. Cominindo (the Inter-ministerial committee for Indochina in Paris) had sided with de Gaulle against the Colonial Ministry.65 It would have had little choice under a government headed by a man who reportedly refused to let cabinet colleagues smoke without his permission. In addition, the ‘liberal’ Director of Political Affairs in the Colonial Ministry, Henri Laurentie, was passed over for the High Commissioner’s job in Indochina by the General in favour of his much less qualified prote´ge´ d’Argenlieu.66 Ho Chi Minh certainly needed liberals in the French government, the Colonial Ministry (by autumn 1946 France Outre´ Mer) and the French armed forces to help deal with the indigenous forces inside Vietnam itself. In the South, the ruthless one-eyed Nguyen Binh was ignoring his instructions to lessen Viet Minh violence and broaden the base of his movement. This was to be shown by the assassination of the ‘mad bonze’ Huynh Phu So, the previously nationalist Hoa Hao leader, in 1947. Instead, Binh retreated with his men into the remote depths of the Plain of Reeds and the U Minh Forest from where violence was orchestrated. It was precisely such

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outrages that d’Argenlieu was complaining about on the Dumont d’Urville on 18 October.67 In Hanoi, Ho had to prepare for the calling of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 28 October. Even at this stage, the arrest of 200 oppositionists in the days before showed that, despite Giap’s brutal purge in July, problems with the Viet Quoc and the Dong Minh Hoi remained. As it was only 37 out of 70 nationalists attended the meeting of the Assembly and by the end, this number had fallen to two as a result of Viet Minh intimidation. A motion of confidence in Ho Chi Minh was passed by a large majority in the Assembly. He told the delegates that he supported the modus vivendi and (not entirely accurately) that most French people supported Vietnamese independence. On the other hand, Ho Chi Minh, who had ordered Nguyen Binh to broaden the base of his movement, went back on a promise to French officials at Fontainebleau that he would broaden the base of his own government. Only two members of Ho’s cabinet were not supporters of the Viet Minh and the key portfolios of national defence and economics were held by Giap and Pham Van Dong respectively. Much power was also centred in Ho’s hands. He retained the presidency, but was also Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. The government had thus moved sharply to the left and the permanent committee or inner cabinet retained all the levers of power. The National Assembly broke up on 14 November 1946. It did not meet again until December 1953, months before Giap’s great victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu.68 Before its dissolution, however, the National Assembly made a crucial declaration in favour of total Vietnamese independence. No reference to the Indochinese federation or the French Union was made, thus scuppering d’Argenlieu’s further attempts to fragment Vietnam by creating the separate republics of Nun-Thai and Thai-Ky inside Tonkin.69 Even in this commanding position, Ho was not safe from criticism from radicals who accused him of being too conciliatory towards the French. One was Truong Chinh, who criticized Ho’s cautious movement towards total independence in a newspaper shortly after the National Assembly broke up.70 Ho had also come back into an atmosphere of simmering tensions in Tonkin. Throughout August, there had been incidents between the Viet Minh and the French and the strategically vital port of Haiphong became a particular flashpoint. The French resented the way Haiphong was being used as an access point for Chinese arms smuggled by the Viet Minh, but they disliked even more the manner in which the Viet Minh controlled the collection of duties on imports. This tension erupted finally on the evening of 29 August when the French sent tanks and armoured cars to encircle the post office, the police station and the customs office, throwing out the Viet Minh who were operating there. Then, as the French were seizing merchandise throughout the port, Viet Minh troops arrived and an impasse was created. Both sides

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fired on each other, but the Viet Minh were unable to expel the French from the port facilities.71 Only two weeks later did the French withdraw and only personal intervention by General Molie`re and Giap prevented escalation of the problem. The French did, however, send an ultimatum: the Viet Minh were required to turn over control of customs to them by 15 October.72 Six weeks were therefore allowed between the original French incursion on 29 August and the deadline for transfer of customs control. The ground had shifted from the central issue of independence and unification, but the consequences of an economic stand off were potentially catastrophic. Complaints by the DRV to Paris about French action produced no response.

12 A Rubicon crossed

Almost four months passed between the French seizure of the Haiphong customs posts on 29 August and the outbreak of open warfare in Hanoi on 19 December. In some ways, the final conflict seems inevitable, but it remains true that there were moderate forces on both sides which were trying to circumvent the outbreak of hostilities. For those like Giap and Valluy, conflict probably did feel inevitable, but the situation was not assisted by the chronic political instability thousands of miles away in metropolitan France. Shortly after the second major Haiphong incident on 23 November, Le´on Blum, arguably the most humane and sensitive French politician of the Third and Fourth Republics, replaced Bidault as Prime Minister and he was known to be sympathetic to the cause of Vietnamese independence. But even Blum was ultimately unable to prevent disaster, because the delicate French parliamentary balance and the nationalist attitude of the communists made this impossible. Blum himself also adopted a fatal strategy of insisting on a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of order before negotiations with the Viet Minh could be resumed. This ‘Blum formula’ arguably destroyed any real chance of agreement. Yet there were moments of hope. The modus vivendi of 14 September had allowed for a ceasefire to become operative on 30 October and, surprisingly, Nguyen Binh and the Viet Minh did enforce it in Cochin China. This demonstrated how disciplined the Viet Minh in the south were but within days, the Cochin China council was reporting violations of the ceasefire. On the French side, a serious blow was dealt to the whole concept of separatism in Cochin China when the President of the new Cochin China government, Dr Nguyen Van Thinh, committed suicide at his home on 10 November. In his diary, d’Argenlieu wrote that ‘for an Annamite, suicide is a supreme protest against injustice’ and noted his belief that the unfortunate Thinh had been maltreated ‘by his northern compatriots, by Hanoi . . . and the partisans of French marxism’.1 But in reality, Thinh had been sidelined by the growing loss of interest by the Paris government in Cochin China’s separate administration and the evidence that Nguyen Binh and his followers were claiming real authority in Cochin China.2 Thinh was, therefore, in an impossible position. He was replaced by his main Vietnamese

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critic, Le Van Hoach, on 13 November, whose appointment was approved just before d’Argenlieu went to Paris.3 By an unfortunate irony, Nguyen Van Thinh’s death coincided with the French parliamentary elections which gave Thorez and the communists the largest share of the vote (28.6 per cent), with the MRP vote down to 26.3 and the Socialists (SFIO) taking only 17.9 per cent. This meant that political protocol dictated that first Thorez, as the leader of the largest party, and then Bidault would have their chance to form an administration. In the event, neither was able to do so and it was Blum who formed a government for the third time in his long career. As the parliamentary left had polled over 46 per cent of the vote, it might have been assumed that the Vietnamese national cause would be advantaged. This did not prove to be the case. Thorez and the communists appeared to have forgotten their allegiance to the anti-colonial cause when offered new posts in the Blum government and Blum hamstrung himself by insisting that law and order must be restored throughout Vietnam before negotiations with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh could be resumed. This blinkered formula was thus added to the original impasse about the reunification of the country (though it took Blum five weeks to cobble together a government). Before this imbroglio developed, an economic war was being waged over the port of Haiphong. Famously described by Paul Mus as ‘the lungs of Tonkin’, the city port was at the heart of the events which were ultimately going to lead to war in December 1946.4 The August crisis left the issue of arms inspection and customs duties unresolved, and on 10 September, General Molie`re, the Acting Commissioner for Tonkin, ordered a special agency to be created to control the ban which Admiral d’Argenlieu had placed on Tonkinese rice exports which could be exchanged for Chinese arms. At the same time, a monopoly on fuel imports into Haiphong was offered to Western companies and this had serious ramifications for the DRV government. It was also true that import taxes made up a large percentage of the administration’s revenue in French Indochina and the right to collect such taxes was now in dispute between the DRV and the French. The French now began to stop vessels at sea to look for illicit arms or fuel supplies and on 14 September (the day Ho was signing the modus vivendi with Moutet in Paris), Molie`re was ordered to seize control of the customs infrastructure as soon as possible. Molie`re then set his own deadline of 15 October for resolution of the customs issue (causing Giap to slyly nickname him ‘the general of ultimatums’).5 He at least was trying to achieve a peaceful solution. The ultimate French aim was to re-integrate Tonkin into the Indochinese economic system, but the pressure on Haiphong was also designed to stop the flow of arms to the Viet Minh. Conversely, the French Suˆrete´ had also learnt that the DRV was planning an economic offensive against the French which involved printing its own currency. Rumours were spreading

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in Hanoi that the French were about to attack Vietnamese positions in the city, and by the end of the month of October, the trigger-happy local French Commander, Colonel De`bes, had received orders from Valluy concerning the use of tanks and artillery in any confrontation with Giap’s forces. In mid-November, d’Argenlieu had ordered the Ge´ne´super Valluy to strike swiftly if talks with Ho Chi Minh broke down.6 This followed French action in early November when they occupied the customs post in Haiphong again and expelled the Vietnamese administrators. Matters came to a head on 20 November when the French seized a Chinese junk which was carrying a cargo of illicit gasoline meant for the DRV armed forces. As they towed the junk into harbour, the Vietnamese militia (the Tu Ve) in Haiphong opened fire, which the French returned. By the evening of 20 November, the French had seized control of the strategic points in the city at the cost of only seven lives. Both sides blamed the other for the incident, and this time there was no Trevor-Wilson or SimpsonJones to act as mediators as there had been in March when the French clashed with the Chinese. Eventually, a ceasefire was arranged by the Franco-Vietnamese Joint Commission (Commission Mixte), a body which had been set by the modus vivendi. The ceasefire was broken when the Vietnamese refused to evacuate the Chinese quarter which they had occupied (a protest had been received by the French about this from the Chinese Consul General), or to give up strong points they had established at the post office and the theatre.7 The French also demanded that the Vietnamese forces evacuate the French quarters in Haiphong and the nearby village of Lac Vien. When the conditions were not met by 9.00 am on 23 November, the ultimatum was extended to 9.45, a Vietnamese refusal to comply was received at 9.50 and the French forces opened fire at 10.05. The Viet Minh had also kidnapped three French soldiers before erecting barricades (abitis) in the French and Chinese quarters.8 In authorizing this attack, De`bes had gone against Molie`re’s orders and a bloodbath ensued. The Chinese quarter was shelled by French artillery, tanks and the cruiser Suffren for a period of two days, a bombardment which reduced the Vietnamese quarter to rubble as well. Spitfires were also used to strafe fleeing Vietnamese refugees, an action which would have appalled Keith Park and seemed to vindicate Douglas Gracey’s earlier warnings about the French capacity for brutality. Not satisfied with destroying Haiphong, the French used their cruiser Savorgnan de Brazza to shell the village of Kien An where many refugees had been sent. This bloody act had a heavy cost in human lives, but debate has continued about how many Vietnamese were killed in the French assault. At one end of the scale, Valluy claimed that only 300 Vietnamese had been killed while Viet Minh propaganda put the figure as high as 60,000. Abbott Low Moffat, a US diplomat who arrived a few days later in Hanoi, put the figure for the dead at 2,000 while Ho Chi Minh told Le´on Blum that 3,000

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had died. The most common figure given is 6,000.9 In the event, the Viet Minh continued to resist fiercely for some days and only on 28 November were their last units finally driven out of Haiphong. There was also fighting in the strategic border town of Langson where the French were fired on while exhuming the bodies of the victims of the Japanese massacre of March 1945. Attempts at negotiation failed and the French stormed the town. In his diary entry for 2 December, d’Argenlieu recorded the fact that only ‘twenty seven officers and French soldiers’ had been killed in Haiphong and Langson, figures which demonstrated the degree to which the Viet Minh were outgunned by the French in 1946.10 He further noted that in Cochin China and southern Annam, the level of killings by the Viet Minh (which included various local ‘notables’) had not abated since the ceasefire of 30 October.11 The major incident at Haiphong has been seen as a decisive turning point in Franco-Vietnamese relations whereby ‘the basis for rational policy making was fast disappearing’.12 A month later, France was at war with the Viet Minh and it is understandable that historians have sought to see whether the conflict was inevitable or the result of opportunities missed. One thing is certain. The laborious process involved in forming French governments under the Fourth Republic did not assist wise decision making. Between 10 November and 15 December, French politicians were trying to form a new government, before Blum succeeded. As far as the French military were concerned, it has been persuasively argued that the only senior officer to emerge with any credit from the Haiphong incident was General Molie`re. De`bes had ignored Molie`re’s order to seek a peaceful solution to the Haiphong imbroglio and Molie`re had also warned the Ge´ne´super Valluy that bombarding Haiphong could only be justified to avoid heavy French casualties. Such an assault, however, would break the 6 March accords and the modus vivendi, while also escalating the conflict across Tonkin. It was Valluy who cabled De`bes on 22 November encouraging an attack in belligerent terms. ‘The moment has arrived,’ Valluy told his subordinate, ‘to teach a hard lesson to those who have so treacherously attacked us.’13 A strange feature of the situation was a Kafkaesque use of technology which only allowed Paris to get copies of Valluy’s orders and made it impossible to communicate directly with Molie`re, the Commissioner for Tonkin in Hanoi (one is reminded here of the equally bizarre set-up in General Gamelin’s headquarters in Vincennes in 1940, when no wireless was used and communication with the outside was achieved only by sending out motorcyclists on the hour). This meant that the Ministry for Overseas France was not aware of the tensions between Valluy and Molie`re about taking military action in Haiphong. Moutet only learnt the truth six weeks later when he visited Vietnam. As is often the case with bureaucracies, Molie`re was not rewarded for being right. In January 1947, Molie`re was sacked and replaced by De`bes, whom the Vietnamese had grounds for regarding as the butcher of Haiphong.

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De`bes also received the Le´gion d’Honneur as a reward for his action, which Jean Sainteny called ‘extremely brilliant but extremely brutal’ (he arrived back in Hanoi on the evening of 23 November).14 The leading hawk in the French colonial administration was back in Paris having consultations on 23 November. In a masterly piece of ambiguity, d’Argenlieu damned Molie`re with faint praise when he was relieved of his position on 30 January 1947. Noting that Valluy had been critical of Molie`re for not being quick enough in dealing with the situation in Haiphong, the Admiral judged that ‘given the complexity of the events, it would be consistent with Molie`re’s extremely conciliatory methods that he should be overzealous in this way’. The tragedy was that it was d’Argenlieu, and not Molie`re, who was in Paris advising the metropolitan authorities about Indochina and helping to determine policy. The historian S. Tønneson has pointed out that because of the Byzantine French communications system, Valluy’s order to Colonel De`bes on 22 November was decoded only after the meeting of the interministerial committee (Cominindo) was underway. Thus d’Argenlieu was not challenged properly about what was happening in Haiphong and got away with a vague reference to ‘recent incidents’ (in his diary, he refers to minor episodes like the detention by the Viet Minh of the wife of a French chef with her child).15 D’Argenlieu appears to have approved Valluy’s actions on 24 November in a telegram by referring to an instruction from Bidault, when the Prime Minister was talking about Cochin China and not Haiphong at all (Bidault had argued that French law could be applied directly by the High Commissioner in Cochin China and that neither Cominindo nor even the council of ministers in Paris had any right to interfere).16 Speculation continues about whether the Haiphong episode would have taken place had Moutet and the Overseas France Ministry been fully in touch with events in Tonkin. Moutet’s subsequent behaviour suggests otherwise and, during the entire period of Bidault’s Premiership, French policy towards Indochina seems to have been Saigon-driven. Hence, Moutet’s celebrated retrospective endorsement of d’Argenlieu’s actions in the National Assembly in March. As far as Haiphong was concerned, Valluy and De`bes were merely d’Argenlieu’s surrogates, despite his oddly ambiguous verdict on Molie`re’s role on 2 December. Indeed, d’Argenlieu’s behaviour both before and after the Haiphong incident can be deemed insubordinate. It has been noted that the Haiphong incident came as a shock for the Truman administration which had shown scant interest in Indochinese affairs (other than to reject Ho Chi Minh’s desperate appeals for help). Their Consul in Hanoi, O’Sullivan, blamed the Vietnamese for firing first, but said that French arrogance had provoked hostilities (this was hard on Molie`re, but just as far as Valluy and De`bes were concerned). The American Ambassador in Paris, Caffrey, was told to make clear their anxieties about the episode, but the US administration and the State Department

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were much more concerned about the Marxist complexion of Ho Chi Minh’s government than the loss of life caused by Valluy’s gunboat tactics.17 As far as France was concerned, the month after the Haiphong episode did see an attempt by the forces of moderation to seek some sort of compromise with Ho and the DRV. Blum was a natural moderate on Indochina but he did not take office until 15 December, leaving the battle for reconciliation to be waged by a small group of men in Saigon, Hanoi and Paris. In Vietnam, the forces of moderation were represented by Molie`re and Sainteny (though his position seemed to harden before and after 19 December). They faced d’Argenlieu, Valluy and Pignon. In Paris, Admiral Barjot (who had taken part in the Fontainebleau Conference) sat on Cominindo as Acting Chief of the Defence Staff, and was resolutely sceptical about the hard-line military policy in Indochina. He was supported by General Humbert, the head of Bidault’s military office. Leclerc, despite his celebrated letter to Maurice Schuman in June, also belonged increasingly to the ranks of the sceptics and de Laurentie in the Overseas France Ministry (although he also wobbled) was generally on the side of a negotiated settlement, rather than a military solution. Barjot was the leading sceptic who made the running on Cominindo. On 29 November, he disputed the assumption of the d’Argenlieu–Pignon clique in Saigon that Tonkin should be the key to French security in Vietnam rather than Cochin China. Barjot expressed his scepticism bluntly: ‘We cannot,’ he wrote in his report on the Haiphong and Langson incidents, ‘maintain a general presence and occupy every point in strength. We must exercise choice, and the choice is obvious: the keystone of our presence in Indochina is Cochin China. That is where our forces should be concentrated.’18 Barjot further opposed the transfer of troops from Cochin China to Tonkin and argued that Valluy’s estimate that only 10–15,000 men would be needed to reconquer Vietnam was a gross underestimate. In the Admiral’s view, this would need a force of 250,000 and this would weaken France’s reserves if there were any more colonial uprisings (there was to be a native uprising in Madagascar in 1947). General Humbert supported this assessment, remarking that Vietnam could become a bottomless pit for the French army (as indeed it did for the Americans a generation later).19 Writing in 1963, the celebrated French military historian, Bernard Fall, wrote of the French forces in Indochina that they were ‘too strong for France to resist the temptation of using them: yet not strong enough to keep the Viet Minh from trying to solve the political problem by throwing the French into the sea’.20 The second half of this commentary is probably true, but a significant caveat needs to be entered here because it was d’Argenlieu and his circle who were seduced by the idea of a military solution, while French generals at home, like Humbert, were anxious about French strategy (although Admiral Barjot must be placed with the domestic

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military sceptics). As far as d’Argenlieu was concerned, Fall almost paraphrases his notorious comment to Valluy about the need to use France’s ‘splendid’ Expeditionary Force. And yet . . . . Even Valluy, as Ge´ne´super and Acting High Commissioner while d’Argenlieu was in Paris (he did not return until Christmas Day after the outbreak of fighting in Hanoi on 19 December), appeared to want to keep a diplomatic track open. He also advised Sainteny not to try and reoccupy the Governor-General’s palace in Hanoi as this might provoke Giap’s forces. Pignon also concurred with this view, showing that even hardliners in Saigon were capable of moments of moderation. A crucial difference, though, between the two groupings was the way the d’Argenlieu– Valluy–Pignon clique consistently under-estimated the task involved in re-conquering the Three Ky in a manner which Leclerc (his strange brainstorm on 8 June apart) never did. Inside Vietnam, Sainteny still had a high reputation and he was trusted by Ho Chi Minh if not by Giap. His brief on returning to Hanoi was to support Ho Chi Minh and the supposed moderates in the Viet Minh front. The difficulty was in determining who the moderates were and how much influence they really had. Or indeed, the degree to which Ho Chi Minh himself could be perceived as a moderate. It seems clear that although Valluy was prepared to encourage Sainteny’s mission in Hanoi, he was secretly preparing to confront Giap and the DRV forces.21 Ho Chi Minh was still desperately trying to obtain American support for Vietnamese independence and the head of their State Department Far Eastern Department, Abbott Low Moffat, visited Hanoi just after the Haiphong bombardment in November. Abbott was the last American to talk to Ho and Giap for many years, but he did not have enough clout to change US policy which was becoming more and more pro-French. Giap was notoriously anti-French, but he tried to be conciliatory by sending most of his forces to Bac Kan, Tuyen Quang and Thai Nguyen (the southern part of the old liberated zone in the days before the August Revolution). Nevertheless, some Viet Minh units had covertly returned to Haiphong after their withdrawal on 28 November.22 In Paris, anxiety was not the pre-requisite of the armed forces, as the outgoing government of Georges Bidault was concerned about Valluy’s increasingly wild telegrams about Vietnamese provocations which were not consistent with previous communications. At the Cominindo meeting on 10 December, both Bidault and Marius Moutet advised against a showdown with the DRV, while the incoming Premier Blum made a strong statement in the newspaper Le Populaire. Blum said that decisions on Vietnam and Indochina should ‘belong not to military authorities or settlers in Indochina, but to the Government in Paris, not to an inter-ministerial committee [Cominindo], but to a responsible cabinet and minister’.23 Blum had put his finger on the major French problem, the isolation of successive administrations (his own included, as events were to show) from events in Vietnam

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and how the Saigon administration had taken advantage of this. In one sense, Blum was stating the obvious, but the record suggests that, despite their comments on 10 December, both Bidault and Moutet condoned d’Argenlieu’s personal agenda in Vietnam. D’Argenlieu himself was in Paris (he was in constant correspondence with de Gaulle who acted as a sort of eminence grise throughout the events described in this chapter) throughout this period and he met Blum on 15 December. His diary entry refers to Blum’s article in Le Populaire and how the socialist leader favoured ‘negotiation accompanied by a declaration in favour of independence’ rather than military re-conquest. Blum had also, d’Argenlieu recorded, criticized the use of Cominindo but he told the new Prime Minister of his belief that the Hanoi government (the DRV) wanted ‘the total eviction of France from Indochina’.24 In an interesting addition to the entry, d’Argenlieu stated his belief that Mme Blum was in league with the socialists Rosenfeld and Labrouque`re to secure his recall from Saigon.25 Rene´ Pleven and Mayer (the Minister of the Interior) were supposed to be candidates for the post. Did d’Argenlieu’s fear of replacement hasten events in Tonkin in December 1946? This is a hard question to answer because Valluy had his own military agenda which was to complete the re-conquest of Tonkin as soon as possible. He seemed prepared to use complaints about alleged Viet Minh activity in Hanoi and along the supply routes between Hanoi and Haiphong to ratchet up the tension before 19 December. In complete contrast, Leclerc, back in Paris, expressed severe doubts about what was happening in Tonkin in a memorandum. As France lacked the means ‘to break the back of Vietnamese nationalism by force of arms, France was obliged to seek every means to bring about the coincidence of French and Vietnamese interests’.26 The French would have been spared the loss of much blood and treasure had this advice been heeded. As it was, Moutet sent no new instructions to Valluy, which heightened the danger of a total breakdown of relations between the French colonial administration and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Moutet retained his post in the new left-wing government under Blum (one of just four to do so), while Thorez’s communists got the portfolios in Education, Public Works, Transport and Reconstruction and Labour and Social Security. But events in Vietnam were now sliding out of control, with Pignon recommending action against the Viet Minh in Tonkin and Valluy holding what appears to have been a war council on 16 December with Sainteny, Molie`re and De`bes.27 The next day, 17 December, Valluy ordered the Viet Minh to dismantle the abitis (barricades) put up by Giap’s forces in Hanoi. Although intelligence suggested a Viet Minh attack at 19:00 hours on 19 December, Molie`re intervened to stand down the French troops in Hanoi. This followed an afternoon meeting with Giap to try and prevent fighting. No attack came at 19:00 hours, causing the French to assume that the Viet Minh attack had been postponed.

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The focus must now switch to the Vietnamese side, where eyewitness testimony describes how hostilities broke out. The head of the Committee for the Defence of Hanoi, Vuong Thua Vu, recalled that at 14:00 on 19 December, he went to the Ministry of War to receive his orders from Giap to be told by the Minister that ‘the hour of combat has arrived . . . our government has rejected the enemy ultimatum’. Vuong went back to the front line at 16:00 near Bach Mai airport.28 Then at ‘3 minutes past eight all the electricity in the city was cut off’, Vu claiming that the workers at the Yen Phu Central Power Station had sabotaged the turbines. Immediately afterwards, firing started on both sides (other versions of events have the Tu Ve militia, sponsored by the DRV, as responsible for the power blackout).29 Another significant player in the events around 19 December was Vu Ky who was Ho Chi Minh’s Private Secretary from August 1945 until Ho’s death in 1969. Vu Ky reported in his memoirs that ‘Hanoi was a powder barrel waiting to explode’. On 26 November, after the Haiphong incident, the Politburo of the Communist Party decided that ‘Uncle’ (Ho) should be moved out of Hanoi by car, and thereafter he was moved to various locations, such as Canh (where he arrived disguised as an ‘old notable’) and Trang Dang Ninh.30 Ho ended up in Van Phuc, ten kilometres from Hanoi where ‘l’Oncle’ was regularly visited by Giap, Le Duc Tho and Trang Dang Ninh (at this time, Pham Van Dong was on a mission in the south). Ho received a message from Molie`re on 18 December saying that the French would take in hand the maintenance of law and order in Hanoi on 20 December. Vu wrote that this ‘was without doubt an ultimatum. Uncle’s face looked thoughtful’. Vu himself returned from Hanoi after midnight on 18 December to report to Ho that Sainteny was looking for ways to hold off talks (a dramatic change in attitude). On the morning of 19 December, Vu reports that at 05:30 Ho Chi Minh dictated a letter to Le´on Blum (this was a reply to Blum’s letter to him of 15 December) which was taken to Giap in the Villa des Saules near Cau Moi.31 A third French ultimatum about barricades and the need to withdraw was received that morning. In response to this, the Party Central Committee sent out a warning by telegram to all the provincial party secretaries and the commanders of the dozen strategic zones in the country that the French would attack in 24 hours. Ho then talked with Giap and Le Duc Tho before saying that he had come to the conclusion that the situation made it impossible to make more concessions ‘faced with a French conspiracy of reconquest, we had . . . to resist throughout the country’. The meeting ended at 15:15, Ho Chi Minh put away his papers and said to Vu, ‘Get ready to go, this evening we’re taking a journey. It was 18h 45 on 19 December 1946’.32 It was a journey that was not really to end until Giap’s tanks battered down the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon in April 1975. A Rubicon (or a Mekong perhaps for Vietnamese nationalists) was crossed on 19 December.

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The meeting gave Giap the task of ‘solemnly reading’ the appeal to his army to fight and the start time (according to Vu) was to be 19:20. This conflicts with other accounts. Ho had already drafted a call for a national uprising on the morning of 20 December demanding that Vietnamese ‘fight to the last drop of blood, and whatever the cost, to refuse re-enslavement’. Giap asked the armed forces to hold out for just 15 days to allow the Politburo time to reach the northern mountains with troops from the rest of Tonkin. In the event, the Viet Minh held out for two months and not until 17 February 1947 did the last of Giap’s men leave Hanoi.33 In the countryside of Tonkin, guerrilla warfare now became a constant reality for the French to combat, as tunnels were dug (just as they had been in Hanoi) and traps set for the unwary soldier (the most unlucky were found impaled on snake and punji stakes). Villages were fortified and named after national heroes like Le Loi and Trang Huong Dao. The French were able to seize control of the urban centres in Tonkin and northern Annam, while they already held the towns of Cochin China. This might have deceived Valluy or d’Argenlieu about French prospects, but the countryside between the Tonkinese towns belonged to Giap and the Viet Minh, secure in their old base in the Viet Bac, the so-called ‘Greenhouse’ where their activities were shrouded in the fog and mists of a wet season which lasted from May to November (when three quarters of the annual rainfall of 80 inches of rain fell, making it impossible for the French to undertake much in the way of military operations). Anyone who wanted to understand soldiering in Vietnam had to be aware of these climatic constraints. They were combined with physical barriers, with the Viet Minh hiding amongst mountains of up to 4,000 feet in height.34 Amongst the French, Jean Sainteny was a major victim of the fighting in Hanoi on 19 December. He knew about the possibility of an attack that evening, but when 19:30 passed, he assumed, like others, that it must have been postponed and got into a car to take him home. The story can now be taken up by his office director, Philippe Quennoeulle, who was waiting outside Sainteny’s house ‘when the eighth stroke of the clock sounded’ (Sainteny’s house faced Hanoi Cathedral). Sainteny arrived just as explosions from mortars and French 75-metre artillery began in response to Viet Minh attacks. Quennoeulle remarked later that he was reminded of the Japanese coup on 9 March, but he and Sainteny went into the house. After about an hour, two armoured cars arrived, which had been sent by Molie`re to take Sainteny and his wife to the Hanoi citadel where he had his military headquarters. The first armoured car left carrying Madame Sainteny, followed by the second with Sainteny and four others. But it struck a mine in the rue Borgnis-Desbordes as the vehicle was pulling into the place Neyret. One man was killed and three injured including Sainteny himself ‘who was wounded for a second time by a grenade’. After lying amidst the dead and wounded for almost half an hour, Quennoeulle reported, the Commissioner for Tonkin was ‘saved by a half track and an armoured car

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sent from the citadel to help him’. Quennoeulle remained in the Sainteny house, Petit Lac, but at ‘two o’clock in the morning the Viet Minh attacked in Japanese style, that is to say with frightening cries’.35 They were driven off by the guards in a post outside the house. The Viet Minh had, therefore, immobilized one of the two Frenchmen (Leclerc being the other) trusted by Ho Chi Minh. This in itself was a judgement on the worsening state of Franco-Vietnamese relations and to call the events of 19 December some sort of Rubicon is to recognize how difficult it would be to end hostilities thereafter (although Sainteny survived). Debate continues about responsibility for the outbreak of fighting on 19 December. A variety of culprits have been suggested including provocateurs from the ultra nationalist Viet Quoc (VNQDD) and the French Suˆrete´ itself. Other possibilities include hardliners in the DRV army who ignored Giap’s orders to hold back while he and Molie`re tried to find a solution. But Giap’s fiery anti-French sentiment leaves him as a leader who might have initiated action unilaterally.36 The Vietnamese eyewitness testimony cited, however, suggests that Giap and Ho were working in conjunction. In one sense it matters not who escalated the tensions because maintaining the peace had become increasingly difficult between 23 November and 19 December. Technical infractions of ceasefires must be seen in the wider context of French and Viet Minh strategy. And here the most convincing villain is General Valluy and his aggressive forward policy in Tonkin, who had let De`bes loose in Haiphong with all that this action entailed. There is no doubt that Blum was shocked about what happened in Hanoi on 19 December. All his life he had been a man of peace.37 He would also have regarded Ho Chi Minh as a socialist comrade and showed his anticolonial credentials again in a second meeting with d’Argenlieu on 19 December. When d’Argenlieu boasted about French achievements in Indochina (universities, schools and hospitals), Blum remarked, ‘Oh! So little’.38 He continued to try and achieve agreement by cabling Ho on 20 December (whose cable congratulating him on becoming Prime Minister had mysteriously only been deciphered in Paris on that same day). Orders were sent to Valluy that he should stop hostilities unless French interests were compromised. This was not a message that the Ge´ne´super wished to hear; as far as he was concerned, the DRV was the aggressor on 19 December and any peace initiative should come from them. Valluy also flatly refused to broadcast Blum’s message on Saigon Radio on the grounds that it would lower the morale of French troops and civilians. But Blum’s message did get through to Ho, who replied in a similar vein. In his efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement, Le´on Blum announced to the National Assembly that Moutet and Leclerc would be sent out to Indochina (the latter’s advice about the inappropriateness of a purely military solution had impressed him). In his speech, Blum also stated that he wanted a free Vietnam inside the French Union.39 The atmosphere in France, however, was against Blum. The press, which had played down the

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Haiphong episode, presented the DRV as the clear aggressor on 19 December and, when Moutet arrived in Vietnam, he was shown photographs of corpses of women and children murdered and mutilated by the Viet Minh (presumably in the Cite´ Heyraud). Moutet thus became convinced during his stay in Vietnam (he arrived in Saigon on 25 December, the day that d’Argenlieu also returned) that the Vietnamese were guilty of aggression. The High Commissioner’s attitude was predictable. On 2 January 1947, he told the correspondent of Paris Soir that it was now impossible for us to deal with Ho Chi Minh . . . We will find other people in this country with whom we can deal, who will doubtless be nationalists also, but those other ones [the Viet Minh or DRV] have disqualified themselves.40 Moutet’s brief also contained a fatal caveat stating that only when ‘the army has re-established order (author’s italics), will it again be possible to look at political problems’.41 Leclerc arrived in Hanoi on 28 December but had moved on to Haiphong and Da Nang (Tourane in French), when Moutet arrived there on 2 January. He spent just 30 hours in the Tonkinese capital and refused to meet Ho Chi Minh, having apparently made up his mind that the Vietnamese side were the aggressors. D’Argenlieu rejoiced (La Populaire had declared on 19 December that Moutet would meet Ho) in a letter to his mentor, de Gaulle, on 14 January. ‘Thank God,’ he wrote, ‘M. Moutet had no personal contact with Ho Chi Minh’s team. A point to mark up in our favour.’42 French flirting with Bao Dai, which started in September 1946, was acknowledged in this letter also. ‘Between us,’ d’Argenlieu told de Gaulle, ‘I can tell you that Bao Dai is now supporting his restoration.’43 The fallen Emperor was plainly one of ‘the other people’ d’Argenlieu referred to in his interview with Paris Soir. D’Argenlieu prefigured a French march-up another blind alley. Leclerc’s perspective was quite different. He was now convinced that Vietnam was essentially a political problem which might be solved if the French Expeditionary Force could hold out. This represented a negotiating position from strength, which did not preclude the opening of talks while hostilities continued. Leclerc had wanted to see Ho, but could not do so without the permission of Moutet. Leclerc was able to visit the badly wounded Sainteny and General Molie`re. Leclerc had already said in early December that he regarded Ho Chi Minh as ‘a great patriot’ and regarded the animosity of the High Commissioner towards Ho as a major contributory factor in the Franco-Vietnamese impasse. Blum then sent Moutet to Vietnam, supposedly to ‘re-establish a friendly atmosphere’. The Minister for Overseas France’s subsequent performance was wittily described by the British Consul-General Meiklereid, ‘Moutet venit, Moutet vidit, d’Argenlieu vicit [Moutet came, Moutet saw, d’Argenlieu conquered]’.44

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When Leclerc returned to France, he made his feelings about the Vietnam situation clear in a final report. ‘In 1947,’ he predicted, ‘France will no longer put down by force a grouping of 24 million inhabitants which is assuming unity and in which there exists a xenophobia and perhaps a national ideal . . . The main problem now is political.’45 This level-headed analysis did not find favour in Paris. Blum still wanted to talk to Ho Chi Minh (he resigned as Prime Minister on 16 January) as did his socialist successor Paul Ramadier who did eventually secure the recall of d’Argenlieu and his replacement as High Commissioner by Emile Bollaert. But the assumption was, in many quarters, that the Viet Minh were guilty of flagrant aggression and that a military victory could be secured (not least amongst the colons). Ultimately Maurice Thorez and the French Communist Party did, in March 1947, vote to withhold credits for military operations in Indochina, but within two months, the communists had been ejected from the government. Their conversion had come too late to preserve peace between the Fourth Republic and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. And the element of hysteria about the issue of French control in Vietnam and Indochina as a whole was exemplified by the appeal made by Vincent Auriol, the first President of the new republic, to Thorez. He reminded the communist leader in ‘a voice choked with real emotion’ that it was the Viet Minh Front (which still contained even more aggressive nationalists than the communists) who were the aggressors and that to withhold credits would be to ‘hand over our compatriots held hostage there to massacre’.46 For successive French governments, the years that followed involved a war of illusions. There were occasions when it seemed that the French Expeditionary Force might prevail. In 1947, for example, Ho Chi Minh was almost captured by paratroopers in Bac Can province. While Bernard Fall, writing in 1963, believed that ‘Operation Lea’, a combination of audacious paratroop drops (one of which nearly captured Ho, as mentioned above) and deep thrusts into Tonkin by French armour, could have succeeded. It did not, Fall believed, because of a nationalist uprising in the island of Madagascar 5,000 miles away which temporarily ‘absorbed the reinforcements destined for the Indochina theatre’.47 Such optimism does not convince. The Indochina war was always highly unpopular in France, which was consistently reluctant to commit more troops and, by the fiscal year 1953–54, 78 per cent of the war was being paid for by the United States.48 Neither did the ‘Bao Dai’ solution of bringing back the ex-Emperor as head of state for Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China in 1949 provide the solution the French sought. Catastrophic military defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 brought about the complete eviction of France from Indochina, which Thierry d’Argenlieu had so feared between 1945 and 1947. France’s partner in the return to Indochina in 1945 watched the events of 1946 from the sidelines. Britain’s Labour government had its own problems

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of de-colonization in 1946 and 1947 and a horrendous winter which occasioned the joke ‘starve with Strachey and shiver with Shinwell’ (Ministers for Food and Power respectively). Churchill made his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Fulton Missouri in 1946 and Attlee and Bevin were increasingly concerned with the threat from the USSR in Europe.49 In March 1947, Britain abdicated from its responsibilities in the Near East in favour of the United States. In this context, Vietnam was a distant memory. Nevertheless, as would be expected, the Foreign Office kept a watching brief over developments in Vietnam. Thus, by December 1946, the British Consul-General E.W. Meiklereid, who had been optimistic about prospects in October, did not believe that France could maintain its position in Tonkin. A secret report from British Intelligence in November 1947 also cast doubts on the ability of the French army to succeed in a war against Giap’s forces. There were stronger critics too. The Times correspondent, M. Morrison, wrote a remarkable series of articles from the beginning of 1947 which so aggravated d’Argenlieu that he did not want him to go to Indochina. Morrison told Lord Killearn, the Foreign Office Special Commissioner in South-East Asia since February 1946, that, in his view, communism was more strongly entrenched in Vietnam than in the rest of the region.50 When Blum visited London on 13 January 1947 in one of the last formal acts of his Premiership, the Foreign Office had prepared a document about Indochina in case the subject arose. But as Blum never raised the subject of Vietnam, the document disappeared into the Foreign Office archives. A note by the new Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Orme Sargent, shows, however, that the Foreign Office feared that the French did not fully realize how delicate and precarious the situation there was.51 The important point was that the British government would never join with the Chinese and the Americans (and here, the hand of Abbot Low Moffat can be detected) in any diplomatic de´marche about French policy in Tonkin. The British also assisted the movement of French aircraft to Indochina via Burma and the passage of the steamship Iˆle de France with 6,000 French troops aboard through the Suez Canal and via Ceylon. Suspicions that the British might have assisted in the transfer of arms to the Viet Minh through Hong Kong caused a commission of inquiry to be set up which was critical of Molie`re, Valluy and d’Argenlieu, but nothing of substance emerged.52 Britain was committed to its alliance with France (1947 was the year of the Dunkirk Treaty, a precursor of NATO), its key ally in Europe. There was, in fact, a tailpiece to the British involvement in Vietnam after Douglas Gracey’s departure from Saigon and it continued for as long as a year after his arrival in September 1945. The very last British troops, B Company of 2/8 Punjab, left Vietnam only as late as 16 May after the Inter-Service Mission in Saigon was dismantled, although RAF elements remained at Tan Son Nhut airport. Meiklereid was a key figure in this wind

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down of the British presence and he was told by Simpson-Jones, the hero of Haiphong, that Ho Chi Minh was worried that the French might retreat into Cochin China (just as Admiral Barjot had been suggesting on Cominindo) and write off Tonkin. The very last British casualties in what can accurately be called the First Vietnam War were caused by what was an episode of really bad luck on 10 June 1946. As a British truck was travelling near Baria, it passed a convoy of French vehicles which was ambushed and so was mixed up in the fighting. Six of the ten British were killed in the ambush, which was probably the work of Japanese deserters, a persistent thorn in the flesh of the British and French alike. On 11 September 1946, a year to the day since the first units in Gracey’s division had arrived in Saigon, Meiklereid was holding his weekly meeting with the four remaining officer representatives of the Army, the RAF and the Royal Navy. Retrospective justice was also meted out that day when the six Vietnamese found guilty of the Cite´ Heyraud massacre on 24 September 1945 were executed by the French.53 The purpose of the last two chapters has been to follow the chain of events which occurred after Major-General Gracey left Vietnam on 28 March 1946 down to the hostilities in Haiphong and Hanoi in November and December of that year. If we accept the argument put forward by Archimedes Patti in his polemic against Anglo-French (and indeed American) imperialism that the process of mistrust and military clashes really started with ‘Ce´dile’s coup in Saigon’ in September 1945 (which was of course backed by Gracey), then British culpability is clear.54 More accurately, this collusion can be traced back to 13 September when Gracey threw the representatives of what he liked to call the ‘puppet government’ out of the Governor-General’s palace. The anti-Gracey thesis is seductive, but it ignores the really formidable difficulties with which he was confronted. Leaving aside the controversy about his ALFSEA instructions, which meant that he might not have been properly briefed until after Ce´dile’s coup, Gracey had been deliberately left with an under-strength division by Mountbatten, which obliged him to use both the Japanese and the colonial French troops to try and preserve law and order. In retrospect, of course, it is easy to criticize Gracey’s imperialist language about the Vietnamese, but even here the objective critic might find the case not proven. It was Gracey, after all, who remarked that: ‘If only the French would promise progressive sovereignty . . . say in two or three years and the Annamites would be equally ready to meet them’.55 Gracey ignored here the concession Ho Chi Minh made to the French about a fiveyear timescale for independence, but his thinking is more positive than that on display in the French statement of 24 March 1945, with its vaguest of references to the future. Gracey also had to deal with the notoriously thin-skinned sensitivities of the French about anything to do with their return to Vietnam and it would

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be fairer to look at the role of Mountbatten and the British government. The latter were fully committed to restoring French sovereignty in Indochina, as ultimately were the Americans, but it must be recognized that even after Potsdam if the British had refused to play a role south of the 16th parallel, the French would ultimately (probably in 1946) have tried to force a re-entry into Cochin China. So strong was the pro-reconquest lobby in the MRP, the military, the French colon community in Saigon and even initially in the French Communist Party. In practice the presence of the British prevented French and Vietnamese excesses (as it did in Syria in 1946 when the British Commander, General Paget, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the Levant was obliged to restrict French troops to their barracks under pain of being fired upon – just as Gracey did after the French had behaved so wildly in Saigon on 23 September).56 The argument remains, of course, that Gracey could, and should, have engaged with the Viet Minh in Cochin China, just as Christison had done in the Dutch East Indies with Sukarno’s nationalists. But Christison’s behaviour had antagonized Dening, Mountbatten’s senior Foreign Office adviser, and in March 1947, the Indonesian version of the March accords in Vietnam signed by the Dutch Lieutenant Governor-General, the British High Commissioner (Clark-Kerr) and the Prime Minister of Indonesia was to lead nowhere. Within two months, it had collapsed. Thus the political sophistication which Gracey was deemed to lack did not lead necessarily to meaningful settlements. In contrast, too, Dening did not complain vociferously about Gracey’s behaviour in Vietnam. Gracey was ultimately the servant of British diplomatic and military strategy. This did not envisage allowing perceived communists to take over control of Cochin China and southern Annam (or Cambodia). If Ho and his supporters are deemed to have been in the first instance nationalists, and this is a tenable argument, then the British policy of supporting French reconquest of Vietnam can be seen as misconceived. Ho Chi Minh might, perhaps, have been a Vietnamese Tito and he certainly tried hard enough to win American and British support for Vietnamese independence. It needs to be remembered, however, that north of the 16th parallel, it was the Chinese writ that ran and once they had withdrawn in 1946, a French attempt to reconquer Tonkin was almost inevitable (despite the criticisms of such a strategy within the French military hierarchy). Over such matters, Gracey, Mountbatten and the British government had no control whatever. Neither, the critics of British policy would argue, did Britain exert itself to protest about Valluy’s militaristic policy in Tonkin. This degree of detachment on the part of Britain is understandable, especially when France itself could accurately be called semi-detached where Vietnam was concerned. Nowhere does this show more clearly than in the organization and disposition of the French Expeditionary Force after 1946. After 1948, the force was composed entirely of volunteers as French commitments to NATO prevented conscripts being sent, before and after

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1948, a leavening of professionals was used. By 1953, out of some 174,000 men, only 52,000 were Frenchmen, the rest being made up of North Africans, men from the Foreign Legion, West Africans and 53,000 Vietnamese. There were in addition some 55,000 local auxiliaries (autochtones as the French would call them), to bring a grand total of 228,000 men.57 Successive French governments could not be blamed for the weight of their NATO commitments, which forced the Expeditionary Force to compete for resources (it invariably came second). But they were responsible for the way Indochina veterans were made to feel like military lepers. The official military gazette omitted any reference to any gallantry decorations won in Indochina after 1948, and it was even announced that blood donated by the public would not be used for wounded Indochina veterans.58 The status of war veterans was granted in 1952 to men who had served in Indochina (they included the current French President Jacques Chirac), but the ruling was not applied until after France had been defeated in 1954. A sense of being rejected by French society grew amongst Indochina ‘sweats’ between 1946 and 1954, embarking troops were booed and returning veterans felt ostracized by their fellow countrymen and women. The former paratroop officer Jean Larte´guy, later the author of novels on military subjects, summed up this feeling when he wrote of those returning from Viet Minh prison camps: ‘They dreamed of another paradise that all of them were thinking of. They were not suffering sons who were returning home to have their wounds cleaned but strangers. Bitterness mounted within them.’59 If Slim’s 14th Army was Burma’s ‘forgotten army’, Indochina was France’s forgotten war.

13 Conclusion

The principle figures involved in the story of British involvement in Vietnam moved on to other tasks in 1946 and for some, Vietnam was but a chapter in distinguished careers in politics, the armed forces and diplomacy. The story of Britain’s involvement in Indochina, if we include Cambodia as well as Vietnam, slipped into the historical shadows where it has remained (a spasm of interest in the 1980s apart) ever since, subsumed into the story of the French war in Vietnam and, to an even larger degree, the American war. This is not in itself surprising. The French Expeditionary Force in Indochina lost 92,000 men killed, missing or taken prisoner and the United States lost 58,000 men killed in Vietnam. By contrast, the British-Indian force sent to Vietnam in September 1945 lost just 40 men, all but three of whom were Indian or Gurkha. All these figures pale into insignificance, of course, when compared with the millions of Vietnamese killed, displaced or disfigured by napalm and other biological agents (at the dawn of the twenty-first century, maimed war survivors were still a common sight in Vietnamese towns and cities). Nevertheless, some historians have invested the British presence in Vietnam with considerable significance and deemed it a turning point in the context of what followed. The validity of this claim will be discussed later in this chapter. But central to it is the personality and record of Major-General Douglas Gracey who would certainly have regarded Burma as his most important military campaign. For him, Vietnam proved to be a stepping stone in a distinguished military career. Disagreement with Mountbatten did not hold Gracey back. He went on to command 15 Corps and then became the first Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan army and has been credited with talking the Pakistan government out of engaging in a war with India over Kashmir in 1948. Gracey died in 1964, remaining a tenacious defender of his actions in Vietnam to the last.1 Lord Louis Mountbatten, Gracey’s Commander-in-Chief, went on to become Britain’s last Viceroy in India and presided over the coming to statehood of both India and Pakistan albeit in controversial circumstances in August 1947. He subsequently became First Sea Lord and was critical of the 1956 Suez operation, annoying the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden.

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Mountbatten also came to believe that the American involvement in Vietnam was a catastrophic blunder. He died in County Donegal in 1979 when his yacht Shadow V was blown up by the Provisional IRA. There is some evidence that Mountbatten ignored Irish police warnings about security and that would have been in character. His biographer, Philip Ziegler, wrote that Mountbatten, who was killed instantly, died ‘not with a whimper but a bang that reverberated around the world – that truly was the fate he would have chosen for himself’.2 Esler Dening survived his dramatic row with Mountbatten to become head of the Far Eastern Department in the Foreign Office. As an expert on Japan, it was doubly appropriate that Dening should have become Ambassador to Japan in the 1950s and the author of a well-known text about it.3 His spat with Mountbatten underlined the problems associated with operations (in this instance, in the Dutch East Indies) which were not classified as wars yet demanded close co-operation between the Foreign Office and military authorities. That the latter had reservations about Mountbatten’s performance was demonstrated by the refusal of the British Chiefs of Staff to re-create the post of Supreme Allied Commander in South-East Asia, despite Mountbatten’s lobbying. As for the politicians who were involved in authorizing British intervention in Vietnam, Clement Attlee was speedily involved in weightier decisions involving India and Palestine.4 His able lieutenant, Ernest Bevin, besmirched his reputation before the withdrawal from the latter, so that the Labour politician R.H.S. Crossman declared that ‘By 1947, British policy in Palestine was largely motivated by one man’s determination at almost any cost to teach the Jews a lesson’.5 In this instance, Bevin seemed to lose that sureness of touch which allowed him to adjudicate so effectively in the dispute between Mountbatten and Dening. Bevin died, exhausted by the burdens of office, in 1951 while Attlee lived on until 1967. On the Conservative side, Winston Churchill had, as he put it with a typical vividness of phrase, received ‘the order of the boot from the British people’ in July 1945, right in the middle of the Potsdam Conference which made Britain responsible for taking the Japanese surrender south of the 16th parallel. By contrast, Anthony Eden (Lord Avon as he became) achieved one of his greatest triumphs with the 1954 Indochina settlement at Geneva, which gave independence to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia while allowing two years for the French to withdraw. The Geneva Accords, however, only partitioned Vietnam while calling for joint elections on reunification by 1956. They followed the devastating French defeat at the hands of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. Writing of this in the second volume of his memoirs in 1960, Eden stated that ‘massive intervention in the conflict by France’s allies could not have been justified, a limited one would have only made matters worse’.6 But he himself was to intervene directly in Egypt in November 1956 with ruinous consequences for his career as premier. Eden died in 1977.

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On the French side, Vietnam was to prove tragic for General Leclerc. Before dying in a plane crash in 1947, Leclerc had lost his son in Vietnam before concluding an on-the-spot report in January 1947 with that celebrated phrase, ‘the Indochina problem is above all a political problem’.7 Leclerc was appointed Inspector-General of the French Land Forces in North Africa, where he died. He was posthumously created a Marshal of France in 1952. The day after his death on 27 November 1947, de Gaulle told his wife that he was ‘a great commander’ who had given everything for his country.8 Leclerc’s colleague and rival, Thierry d’Argenlieu, returned to France in 1947, where he resumed his life as a Carmelite monk in the monastery of Carmes d’Avon Fontainebleau. At the request of General de Gaulle and with the permission of his religious superiors, d’Argenlieu became Chancellor of the Order of Liberation, a post he retained until 1958. D’Argenlieu, or Louis of the Trinity as he was known in his religious house, died in September 1964. Always a Gaullist, d’Argenlieu had returned to France in 1947 in an aircraft called 18 juin 1940. Jean Sainteny, having nearly died in Hanoi in December 1946, retained his position as Commissioner for Tonkin and northern Annam until 1947. He then held the position of Delegate General to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam until 1954. Sainteny represented France at Ho Chi Minh’s funeral. He died in 1978. Leclerc, d’Argenlieu and Sainteny were all Gaullists and the General was always in the background at Colombey-les-deux Eglises to offer advice (it was he who advised Leclerc not to take back his command in Indochina when Blum offered it at the end of 1946). De Gaulle waited for 12 years for ‘the call’ to come in 1958. And it was a colonial crisis over Algeria which gave him his opportunity, the politicians of the Fourth Republic failing to deal with an Algerian crisis as they had with an Indochinese one. De Gaulle seized the opportunity to create an executive presidency for the Fifth Republic, he had been contemptuous of the presidents of the Fourth as toothless ciphers who only opened flower shows, but also had to impose a policy of de-colonization in Algeria and elsewhere in the French Union. When he visited Algiers and famously said, ‘I have understood you’ to a crowd of hysterical colons, the statement was really a coded recognition that French Algeria could not be sustained. De Gaulle accepted that the pied noir in Algeria would lead France down the same disastrous path as their cousins in Indochina. A settlement was achieved with considerable difficulty in 1962 and de Gaulle concentrated on securing French leadership in Western Europe and a special independent world role for France. He had a long memory however. What ‘the Anglo-Saxons’ had done over Indochina could be expected elsewhere and they were not to be trusted. Two British attempts to enter the European Economic Community were vetoed by de Gaulle in 1963 and 1967, and de Gaulle’s fundamental antiAmericanism also took France out of NATO in 1966. Thus did ‘le grand

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Charles’ implement the vision he had had for France in 1945. Others thought his vision absurd and pompous, but the General had no doubts. He was brought down in strange circumstances in 1969 when, having relied on referenda to circumvent the despised political party system, he challenged the French people again to vote ‘oui’ or ‘non’ on a relatively trivial issue of regional reform. He lost and had to honour his promise to resign if he did so. Charles de Gaulle died in 1970. On the Vietnamese side, Ho Chi Minh lived to see the signing of the Geneva Accords and the American war in Vietnam. He did not survive to see the unification of his country when South Vietnam collapsed suddenly in April 1975 and North Vietnamese tanks broke down the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon. After his death on 3 September 1969, Ho attained almost divine status in Vietnam and his body was placed in a mausoleum in Hanoi, where all Vietnamese were expected to show their respects. Vo Nguyen Giap continued to serve the Party as Minister for National Defence (1947–80), as a member of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo and the National Defence Council. He masterminded the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Emperor Bao Dai lived on in exile for many years after his pro-French regime failed after 1949. After the partition of Vietnam by the Geneva Accords in 1954, Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as Premier of South Vietnam and left the country after Diem used a referendum to remove him in 1955. In 1972, Bao Dai issued a public statement in France calling on all Vietnamese to seek national reconciliation. He publicly condemned the presence of US troops in Vietnam and criticized the regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam (Diem had been assassinated in 1963). Bao Dai, the 13th and last of the Nguyen dynasty, died in Paris in 1997 and was buried in the Cimitie`re de Passy.9 Archimedes ‘Al’ Patti left Vietnam at the end of September 1945, but his memories of Vietnam lived on notably in his polemic Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross which was published in 1980. His behaviour in Hanoi and his Viet Minh sympathies left his army career in the doldrums and at least one American historian believes he was lucky not to have been condemned during the McCarthyite anti-communist witch hunt in the USA in the early 1950s.10 Patti retired from the US army in 1957 and then spent 13 years working for the Office of Emergency Planning in Washington. He died in Winter Park Florida in 1998, leaving his archive to the University of Central Florida. We are left with an outstanding question. Was there a causal link between British intervention and the subsequent wars between the DRV and the French and Americans? The evidence from the last two chapters makes it hard to establish one between Gracey’s role in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia and what followed in 1946. Fateful decisions were made by the French colonial authorities on the spot which were arguably avoidable, but certainly contributed to a disastrous decline in Franco-Vietnamese relations. There were, of course, pro-French elements in the Vietnamese

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population, notably in Cochin China, but also among the large Catholic minority in Tonkin, but it is reasonable to equate ‘Vietnamese’ with the nationalist majority here. The strongly Gaullist nationalist posture of the Saigon administration was then unfortunately combined with weak and frequently ill-informed leadership from metropolitan France. The most that the British can be accused of in Vietnam is collusion. This pro-French leaning can be traced very easily in Foreign Office files back in 1944. Thus in November 1944, the then Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan, minuted that in view of ‘the well-known American attitude towards the restoration of colonies there is much to be said for the colonial powers sticking together in the Far East’.11 Cadogan’s thinking emerged seamlessly from what the Post Hostilities Planning Committee of the Foreign Office had said in a paper about the need for a ‘friendly and prosperous France . . . [as a] necessity to the Empire and Commonwealth . . . To deprive her of her economic stake in French Indochina would weaken her’.12 Britain, therefore, did stick together with France and the Netherlands in 1945–46 and continued to do so. Whatever Gracey and his colleagues may have thought about French military indiscipline or racist attitudes amongst the colons, they knew that Britain was committed to the restoration of French sovereignty. Mountbatten knew this, too, however much he tried to ensure that the most unpleasant colonial policing tasks in Vietnam were left to the French and the Japanese. British Cabinet minutes also reveal that Attlee, Bevin and Lawson were directing this policy which was designed to assist the French reconquest and secure the removal of Gracey’s force from Southern Vietnam and Cambodia as quickly and painlessly as could be arranged. The British Chiefs of Staff, with overstretched resources, were equally anxious to leave the French in charge as quickly as possible. To emerge from Southern Indochina having lost only 40 men was a distinct bonus for them. Continuity, therefore, is the major characteristic of British policy towards Indochina in the period 1944 to 1946 (this despite Churchill’s anxieties). By contrast, American attitudes swung wildly from the obsessive anti-French paranoia of Franklin Roosevelt and the pro-Viet Minh sympathies of Archimedes Patti, to the Cold War pragmatism of the Europeanists in the State Department. As the Cold War in Europe spread its tentacles into the Far East, President Truman and his Secretary of State, George Marshall, saw the attractions of reimposing non-communist (the problem with the French communists disappeared in May 1947), French colonial rule in Indochina, especially when the American ‘paper tiger’ in the Far East, the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek, came crashing down in 1949. Words and phrases like ‘containment’ and ‘the domino theory’ were the currency of the day in Washington, most strongly so when John Foster Dulles replaced Acheson as Secretary of State in the new Eisenhower administration in January 1953. America sulked at Geneva in 1954 and Dulles refused to endorse the Accords.

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There were still heretics though in the US establishment. One was Charles Yost, the political officer in Bangkok and a later American Ambassador at the United Nations who believed that US failure to support the Vietnamese nationalist movement did ‘not seem likely to contribute to long-term stability in South-East Asia’. Force, Yost believed, was not the answer in the region.13 Another was Abbott Low Moffat, the last American diplomat to talk to Ho and Giap in October 1946. When Dean Acheson, the Under-Secretary of State (until his later promotion) in the State Department, warned about Ho Chi Minh’s communist background (which the French were constantly reminding the Americans about), Moffat’s response was acerbic. ‘Perhaps,’ he observed after reporting Ho Chi Minh’s denial that he was a communist, ‘fifty years from now the United States will be Communist and then Vietnam can be also.’ Moffat believed that the DRV was ‘at this stage, nationalist first’ and that national independence must precede a communist stage.14 Unfortunately for Moffat, both Acheson and his superior as Secretary of State remained fixated by Ho’s communist antecedents and the assumption that he must be taking orders from Moscow. This assumption was entirely wrong, as Ho and his colleagues had been out of touch with the Soviet leadership since the start of the Second World War and learnt about Soviet attitudes only from contacts in the Chinese Communist Party. Moffat’s belief that there were ‘moderates’ in the Indochinese Party (who ought to be supported by the USA) and ‘hardliners’ was also ignored by his State Department bosses who declined to make any such distinction. Moffat’s own recognition in his October 1946 report that the DRV government was communist led, worked against him. Marshall and Acheson chose to warn all US overseas missions about the communist nature of Ho’s regime. It followed the State Department circular stating that the preservation of French sovereignty was all important not only to counteract Soviet influence in the region ‘but to protect Vietnam and Southeast Asia from future Chinese imperialism’. Here, in December 1946, was the domino theory in action, even before the fall of the Kuomintang regime.15 As time passed, two clear strands emerged in American policy. One was to support the French ‘Bao Dai solution’ on the basis that Bao Dai was anti-communist (this ignored that the fact that Bao Dai was a nationalist himself). The other was to fund the French war effort lavishly. In a situation where France increasingly lacked the military and political will to pursue the Indochina war, its resolution was strengthened by a constant flow of US dollars and war material. The situation in Europe influenced American thinking about Indochina. The Marshal Plan of 1947 spawned the European Recovery Programme (ERP), but it was administered by the European Cooperation Administration (ECA). Such funding found its way to Indochina and the Griffin Mission, sent to Indochina in 1950 noted that ‘In the last analysis, of course, the French financial contribution to the area has been made possible by ECA

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and the balance-of-payments deficit of this area has been taken into account in calculating France’s need for ECA aid’.16 At the same time, the Americans recognized that ending France’s colonial war in Indochina would redound to the advantage of US political and military objectives in Europe. In the 1951 foreign aid hearings, the US Defence Department recognized that ‘The sooner Indochina can be stabilized, the sooner these French divisions, which are the backbone of European land defence, can be brought to full effectiveness by the return of sorely needed professional officers, non-commissioned officers and technicians’.17 While it was true that France tried hard to avoid sending white conscripts to Indochina, the point was well made. Scepticism about French viability in Vietnam and Indochina remained even when the United States had supported the restoration of Bao Dai, not as emperor, but as Head of State (Quoc Truong). Robert Blum of the American Technical and Economic Mission to Vietnam reported that Bao Dai’s government ‘gives little promise of developing competence or winning the loyalty of the population’. Neither could he see any prospect of a decisive French military victory. He did not believe assertions that France ‘had no selfish interests in Indochina’. Instead, Blum wrote that he had found ‘numerous examples of the deliberate continuation of French controls, the interference in major policy matters, the profiteering and the constant bickering and ill feeling over the transfer of powers and the issue of independence’.18 A disillusioned Blum went back to the United States in 1952, but his analysis was endorsed by the junior senator from Massachusetts John F. Kennedy, who visited Vietnam in November 1951. Kennedy stated that ‘we have allied ourselves to the desperate effort of the French regime to hang on to the remnants of empire. There is no broad general support of the native Vietnam government [Bao Dai] among the people of that area’.19 It might be argued, to paraphrase Consul-General Meiklereid (pace Julius Caesar), that a decade later Kennedy had forgotten the lesson of 1951 and that it was to be a case of ‘Kennedy venit, Kennedy vidit and Giap vicit’.20 The French might have scoffed at Bao Dai as ‘l’empereur de boıˆtes de nuit’ (the playboy emperor), but the new titular Head of State for Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China had the sagacity to see that the alternative French strategy of ‘Vietnamization’ of the war (tried equally unsuccessfully by the Americans between 1972 and 1975) would not work either. General Lattre de Tassigny, sent out in December 1950 as High Commissioner and Ge´ne´super, a unique dual role, had hoped his fortified line north of Hanoi (which stretched for 45 miles) would defend the Red River delta, but he lacked the manpower to man it properly. Hence the attraction of a Vietnamese national army. But Bao Dai feared it would defect en masse to the Viet Minh. The future Marshal of France lost his own son Bernard de Lattre before returning in December 1951. The French were reduced to petitioning Washington for more money to secure the much heralded ‘dramatic victory’.

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Conclusion

Bao Dai’s anxieties about native forces were exaggerated, but ‘Vietnamization’ was not the answer in the French war, any more than it was to be in the American one. The French were, however, skilful in blackmailing the Americans about their involvement in the nascent European Defence Community. The French argument was that their military commitment in Indochina made it almost impossible to consider a scale of German rearmament which would leave the new Bundeswehr larger than French forces in Europe (in the event the French used British refusal to join EDC as an excuse to reject membership). As it was, the French spent, it has been estimated, as much as $11 billion on the war in Indochina.21 American figures showed that between June 1950 and May 1954, Washington supplied France with $3.6 billion, equivalent to 80 per cent of the war’s overall cost (slightly higher than some other estimates). After the French collapse in 1954, successive American administrations seemed intent on repeating their mistakes to an even higher degree. Leclerc had said that 500,000 men would not secure the re-conquest of Indochina and the Americans proved him right. They had that number of combat troops on the ground by 1968, by which time the war (as had been the case in France) was under attack from the political left and President Lyndon Baines Johnson was forced to stand down as Democratic presidential candidate in March. The Americans had also tried their version of the Bao Dai solution, their candidate as a non-communist Vietnamese leader being Ngo Dinh Diem, a ferociously anti-French Catholic northerner, who had been Governor of Quang Nam province in the 1930s but then spent years in exile after 1950 in the United States canvassing influential American politicians (one was John F. Kennedy). His attraction was that he was a militant anti-communist (although the French distrusted him). Diem had also served as Minister of the Interior under Bao Dai before resigning in protest against the cancellation of proposed reforms. But he determined to get rid of the ex-Emperor in 1955 and did so by means of a referendum in which the South Vietnamese had to choose between Diem and Bao Dai as president. Diem obtained 98 per cent of the vote, a result which underlined the corrupt nature of South Vietnamese politics. In Saigon, Diem supposedly got 605,025 votes. This was one-third more than the total number of 450,000 registered voters.22 Diem had also refused to take part in all-Vietnam elections scheduled for 1956 under the Geneva Accords. His American backers knew that Diem could never win such a national election and the CIA Chief, Allen Dulles, realized full well that unification would be the result of such elections. He told Eisenhower as much in a report. A technical excuse was, therefore, found for Diem’s non-participation in the elections. His government was not a party to the 1954 Accords and was thus not bound by them.23 By contrast, the British accepted the likelihood of a victory for Ho Chi Minh and the communists in 1956. Eden wrote later that ‘there was never a national determination against the Viet-Minh in Indochina’.24 Neither

Conclusion

185

had Britain been willing to back ill-conceived US plans to intervene at Dien Bien Phu. The US experiment with domestic dictators in South Vietnam continued after the assassination of Diem in November 1963 (with the full knowledge and complicity of the CIA) by generals in the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). Matters did not improve thereafter. The corrupt and nepotistic Diem (his brother Nhu was killed alongside him) was succeeded by the equally corrupt military dictatorships of General Nguyen Khanh, Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyen Van Thieu in the years between 1963 and 1975, for the last three of these years, the ARVN was left to its own devices as US combat troops pulled out. The US involvement ended in defeat and humiliation on an April day in Saigon, with Embassy staff rescued from the roof of the American Embassy by helicopter and desperate members of the Saigon population banging on the Embassy gates in search of rescue. The leading US analyst of American foreign policy, Steven Ambrose, has asked, ‘Why had the Americans not needed their own warnings?’ There had certainly been enough of them since 1945. He answered his own question thus, ‘Because they were cocky, overconfident, sure of themselves, certain they could win at bearable cost and that in the process they would turn back the communist tide in Asia’.25 This statement is hard on the Pattis, Deweys, Moffats, Blums and many others in the American military and diplomatic service, but it has the germ of truth in it. American leaders chose to ignore the French experience and also the record of Vietnamese history which indicated that Vietnam was a country with a fierce spirit of nationalism. They also made the crucial error of seeing Vietnamese communism as part of a monolithic communist conspiracy to achieve world domination. A presumption that was already under severe challenge with the Sino-Soviet split of 1959–60 (which was to see a frontier war between the two communist giants within a decade), and was to be totally discredited by the end of the 1970s. Thailand and Burma did not turn communist just because Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia did so. And traditional rivalry between the Khmers and the Vietnamese meant that it was ultimately Hanoi which intervened to destroy the odious regime of Pol Pot, which had been supported by both the United States and Ho Chi Minh’s former Chinese communist mentors. In his seminal study, The First Vietnam War, Peter M. Dunn wrote still from a Cold War perspective. He noted how the Vietnamese had seen off Englishmen (though very few as has been seen), Frenchmen, the Chinese and the Americans plus a motley collection of Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders and Filipinos who had been sent to Vietnam to fight. Then Dunn observed that ‘the last out of Vietnam were the common Vietnamese themselves in vast numbers exceeding their former colonizers and occupiers’.26 This was a reference to the so-called ‘Boat People’ who began their exodus in 1979 to escape the vengeance of the North Vietnamese because of

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Conclusion

their pro-American or former South Vietnamese regime associations. Many finished up in wretched camps in Hong Kong before being shipped off. Writing as he did in 1985, Dunn’s comments contained some validity although he was understating already the extent to which the new communist regime, without ‘Uncle Ho’ (Bac Ho), would champion Vietnamese sovereignty. Having taken on Pol Pot, the Vietnamese communists resisted Chinese border incursions by force in 1978 – so much for monolithic world communism. Dunn also wrote that in the ‘last years before 1975, few South Vietnamese knew of Douglas Gracey and how he had influenced their history’. The same comment could have been applied to the British with even more accuracy in that year. Dunn went on: ‘That was a pity, both deserved better’.27 The context of Douglas Gracey’s historical legacy has changed utterly however. It was 30 years after Gracey had arrived at Tan Son Nhut airport that Americans in Saigon were told to meet at pre-arranged pick-up points on 29 April 1975 after (bizarrely) they had heard Bing Crosby singing I’m dreaming of a White Christmas on the radio as a prelude to evacuation.28 Another 30 years have now passed and a very different Vietnam has emerged from the communist model of the 1970s. In 1986, the Vietnamese Communist Party abandoned the Soviet-style centralized economy in favour of ‘doi moi’ (economic renovation), showing a pragmatism of which Uncle Ho would have been proud. Private enterprise was to be encouraged and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Vietnamese, so long a feature of Saigon (now rechristened Ho Chi Minh City) liberated. The result has been spectacular. Vietnam is now, with its 80 million population, an Asian Tiger and the Party governs with a lighter touch. There is no obvious personality cult (although it is true that when Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, his corpse was rushed to a farming town 30 miles from Hanoi where it was embalmed Lenin-style by Soviet technicians) and no monuments to the war or to Vo Nguyen Giap. The People’s Army has been cut back to 600,000 men and visitors see few men in uniform. Neither are they subjected to the kind of irritating security and surveillance that was such a feature of the old Soviet Empire. Increasing numbers of American war veterans return to their old haunts, while posses of French tourists can be encountered visiting what the old colons regarded as ‘the pearl’ of their empire. But most significantly, thousands of Vietnamese from the diaspora of the 1970s have returned to work or invest in their country. Whether market capitalism and modified communism are in the long run compatible remains to be seen. The Party remains in overall control. One question though hangs in the air. Was 30 years of unrelenting conflict and bloodshed necessary to get Vietnam where it is today? Looking back from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, it seems clear that opportunities were missed by all the great powers who affected Vietnam’s fate. The British did not have to assist the French reconquest, yet they

Conclusion

187

chose to do so for their own reasons while remaining critical of French reluctance to discuss real independence. The French in turn confused national honour and economic advantage with their country’s true interests, but there is a case for saying that intransigence was a feature on both sides. But only after another hard bitter colonial war in Algeria did France, now led by an aged de Gaulle, come to recognize the inevitability of a de-colonization strategy pre-figured in a shadowy form at Brazzaville early in 1944. In 1945, however, the desire to avenge, or avoid, the humiliation of 1940 seemed to often dominate French policy.29 Lastly, America held the key to the solution of the Vietnamese, and indeed Indochinese problem. Obsessed with the communist threat, the Americans repeated most of the mistakes of the French, while adding a few of their own. The French might look back to Haiphong and Hanoi in 1946 as key turning points. For the United States, there was the bogus Tonkin Incident used by the Johnson administration to precipitate the Congress into war in 1964, what has been fairly described as ‘Not a Fort Sumter or a Pearl Harbor [but] no less significant’.30 Or the conspiring of the US Embassy in Saigon against General Duong Van Minh, popularly known as ‘Big Minh’, who had brought down Diem, and was rumoured to be considering contact with the Viet Minh’s successors, the Viet Cong, at the end of 1963. ‘Big Minh’ fell and with him the possible chance of an opening to the North.31 In the end, Major-General Gracey’s occupation of Southern Vietnam in 1945–46 was a prelude to disaster, but only in the strictly chronological sense. The responsibility for the 30 years of conflict which followed lay elsewhere and it was the Vietnamese people who paid the heaviest price. Gracey was profoundly wrong about some things. His comments about the ‘incompetence’ of the Viet Minh seem strange in the light of subsequent history. As does his reply to a question about the quality of Viet Minh officers when Gracey deemed that ‘if the Viet Minh had had decent officers, they would have had possession of French Indochina long ago’.32 The Viet Minh were a guerrilla force in inception, later transformed into a regular force of considerable quality. Their Commander-in-Chief Giap was an ex-history teacher with no formal military training (unlike the trail of graduates from St Cyr and Westpoint whom he faced), who worsted both the French and the Americans. A study of the Dien Bien Phu campaign alone demonstrates Giap’s capacity for logistics and his resourcefulness which proved to be too much for General Navarre, probably the most intellectually able of all France’s generals in Indochina.33 Gracey’s greatest error was to underestimate the capacity of the Viet Minh in terms of morale and learning capacity, but he was not alone in that. Many other French and American commanders made the same error, so that one of them, Curtis Le May, was obliged to fall back on the ultimate strategical crudity of seeking victory by bombing North Vietnam ‘into the Stone Age’.34 The attempt did not succeed, but the fact that it was

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attempted says much about where 30 years of military solutions in Vietnam (and Cambodia – which was tragically sucked into the American war) had led. Leclerc’s view that the struggle in Indochina required a political solution was totally vindicated.

Annex 1: British appeal to the Vietnamese population in Saigon, September 1945

Annamites In certain localities, the Europeans were attacked or wounded by the extremists. The Allied Forces, after having destroyed the Japanese armies in [sic] all fronts, found themselves in liberated Indochina. We desire peace and prosperity for the amnesty people. This peace and prosperity cannot be compromised by crimes committed by certain irresponsibles. Make no mistake, criminals will be unmasked, tracked and punished. Whoever is responsible in provoking disorder will be severely punished. Source: E.P. (Jim) Stowers, RN., QPM.

Annex 2: Disarmament of Japanese southern army wireless HQ, 11:00 hrs 19 Nov 1945

Rifles Infantry Cavalry French Rifles Ammo

6 25 17

Japanese French Revolver Ammo Automatic Ammo Pouches

393 540 1 6 1 6

Japanese French Taken By

30 17

Lt. Y. HIRAO (Jap: Army) Checked by J. Stowers (Com. Ops) Source: E.P. (Jim) Stowers, RN., QPM.

Annex 3: Amendment to Gracey’s instructions, 12 September 1945

Para Five ALFSEA OP Directive Number Twelve dated 28 August is being amended in view of a memorandum defining adm[inistrative] and jurisdictional questions connected with the presence of Allied Forces in FIC. Memorandum still in draft stage pending approval by War Office, SACSEA and French authorities. Amendment will not be issued until paper finally approved . . . Your primary task as defined by SEAC directive to you dated 30 August is by controlling HQ Japanese Southern Army to enforce the surrender and disarmament of all Japanese Forces. You will report earliest possible the areas you require to occupy to ensure this control and any other area necessary to ensure release of RAPWI [Repatriation of Allied Prisoners-of-War and Internees]. This need not necessarily include all of Saigon as indicated in para Five of ALFSEA Directive Number Twelve. Source: Gracey Papers, National Archives War Office 203/5644.

Annex 4: The accords signed at Hanoi on 6 March 1946 (Abridged version)

Preliminary Convention 1.

The French government recognises the Republic of Vietnam as a free state having its own Government, parliament, army and finances making it part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. In matters concerning the reunion of the three ‘Ky’, the French Government promises to abide by the decisions taken by the populations consulted by referendum.

2.

The Vietnamese Government declares itself ready to welcome amicably the French army when, conforming to the international accords, it relieves the Chinese army. An annexe added to the present preliminary Convention will fix the arrangements in accordance with the means needed to carry out the relief. The stipulations so formulated will be entered into immediately with vigour. Immediately after the exchange of signatures the high contracting parties will take all measures necessary to make hostilities cease, keep their troops in their respective positions and create the favourable climate necessary to open immediate, friendly and frank negotiations. These negotiations will focus on: a. the diplomatic relations between Vietnam and foreign states, b. the future status of Indochina, c. French economic and cultural interests in Vietnam.

3.

Hanoi, Saigon or Paris can be chosen as the venue of the Conference [the later Fontainebleau Conference]. Done at Hanoi, 6 March 1946. Signed Ho Chi Minh and Vu Hong Khanh.

Signed Sainteny.

Notes

Introduction 1 E. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955, Stanford, 1955; J. Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History, vol. I, New York, 1963. 2 B. Tuchmann, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 300. 3 A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980. 4 G. Rosie, The British in Vietnam, London, 1970. 5 J. Saville, The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government, 1945–46, London, 1993. 6 F.S.W. Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943–6, London, 1956; D.J. Duncanson, Government and Revolution in Vietnam, Oxford and London, 1968 and ‘General Gracey and the Viet Minh’, Royal Central Asian Journal, 55, 3 (October 1968), pp. 288–97. 7 P.M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985. 8 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, London, 1987. 9 P. Ziegler, Mountbatten: The Official Biography, London, 1985. 10 J. Springall, ‘Kicking Out the Viet Minh. How Britain Allowed France to Reoccupy South Indochina, 1945–6’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 1 (January 2005), pp. 41–54. 11 T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine 1945–7, Paris, 1985. 12 J. Sainteny, Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnam: A Personal Memoir, Chicago, 1972; Histoire d’une paix manque´e: Indochine, 1945–47, Paris, 1953. 13 G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992. 14 M. Shipway, The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944–7, Oxford, 1996. 15 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000. 16 D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995; Vo Nguyen Giap, Unforgettable Months and Years, Hanoi, 1972; Bao Dai, Le Dragon d’Annam, Paris, 1980. 17 T.O. Smith, ‘Britain and Cambodia, September 1945–November 1946: A Reappraisal’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17 (March 2006), pp. 73–91. 18 R.J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, 2000.

Prologue 1 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, p. 33. 2 Quoted in a letter from Captain D. Greensmith, RA (retd) to author, 1/9/2000. 3 E.J.E. Stowers, QPM, letter to author, 27/5/2004.

194

1 1 2 3 4

Notes

A jewel in France’s crown

23 24 25 26 27 28

K.W. Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam, Berkeley, 1983, p. 3. Ibid, pp. 37–39. J. Macmillan, Napoleon III, London, 1991, pp. 148–49. M. Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, London, 2004, p. 70. R.L. Sansom, The Economics of Insurgency in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, Cambridge, MA, 1970, pp. 18–52. T. Zeldin, France 1848–1945, vol. II, Oxford, 1977, p. 937. FPA, Foreign Affairs Committee, Chambre des De´pute´s, 12 e`me legislature 25/2/21. Ibid. P. Kolb (ed.), M. Proust, Correspondance XVIII, 1919, Paris, 1990. W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, p. 107. Ibid. P. Monet, Franc¸ais et Annamites: Entre deux feux, Paris, 1928, p. 40. Quoted in L. Rouband, Vietnam: La trage´die indochinoise, Paris, 1931, p. 261. P. Marnham, The Man Who Wasn’t Maigret: A Portrait of Georges Simenon, New York, 1993, p. 152. E. Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s, London, 1995, p. 180. There are some doubts about Quoc’s account of his time in the United States. See Duiker, op.cit., pp. 50–51. Ibid., pp. 198–99. Ibid., p. 120. A. Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe, 1914–40, London, 1995, p. 147. P. Mus, Viet-nam: Sociologie d’une guerre, Paris, 1952, pp. 134–35. Howard Smith (Foreign Office) to Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office 28/7/31, CO 129/539/1, National Archives; see also D. Duncanson, ‘Ho Chi Minh in Hong Kong 1931–32’, China Quarterly, 57 (Jan–March 1974), p. 73. Notes by Calder 14/8 and 17/8/31 in CO 129/539/2, National Archives and also Ransom 4/8/31 in dossier called ‘Arrest of Nguyen Ai Quoc’ (also in National Archives). Duiker, op.cit., p. 208. Sir O. O’Malley, The Phantom Caravan, London, 1954, p.118. Ibid., p. 120. Ibid. Thirty Years Struggle for the Party, Hanoi, 1960, p. 36. Duiker, op.cit., p. 233.

2

Japan, Britain and French Indochina

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

1 A.J. Crozier, The Causes of the Second World War, London, 1997, p. 47. 2 J.E. Hunter, The Emergence of Modern Japan: An Introductory History Since 1853, London, 1989, p. 4. 3 P. Brendon, The Dark Valley, London, 2000, p. 174. 4 The New York Times 7/6/31. 5 T.R. Havens, Farm and Nation in Modern Japan, Princeton, NJ, 1974, p. 114. 6 R. Storry, The Double Patriots, Westport, 1973, p. 21. 7 Quoted in E. Behr, Hirohito: Behind the Myth, Harmondsworth, 1989, p. 14. 8 J.W. Morley (ed.), Japan Erupts: The London Naval Conference and the Manchurian Incident, 1928–31, New York, 1984, p. 29.

Notes

195

9 See, for example, G. Large, Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan, London, 1992, pp. 88–89; another distinguished study of Japanese foreign policy only has one reference to Hirohito in the index, and that to his time as Crown Prince, I. Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy, 1869–1942, London, 1977. 10 D. Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, London, 1971; E. Behr’s 1989 biography of Hirohito takes the same line. 11 Duus (ed.), Cambridge History of Japan VI, Cambridge, p. 628. 12 Described in horrifying and graphic detail in I. Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, London, 1998. 13 A. Best, ‘Imperial Japan’ in The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues, London, 2003, p. 64. 14 Minute by Vansittart 28/7/35, FO 371/19287/F4811, National Archives (Public Record Office). 15 Memorandum by Orde 4/9/34, Documents on British Foreign Policy, Second Series, vol. VIII, no. 15. 16 Ibid. 17 Fisher memorandum 28/7/35, FO 371/19287/F4811, NA (PRO). 18 For an analysis of Foreign Office and government attitudes to the USSR, see M. Carley, ‘A Fearful Concatenation of Circumstances: the Anglo-Soviet Rapprochement 1934–36’, Contemporary European History, 1996, 5, I. 19 Wm. Roger Louis, ‘The Road to Singapore: British Imperialism in the Far East 1932–42’ in W. Mommsen and L. Kettenacker (eds), The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, London, 1983, p. 386. 20 Craigie to Ronald 30/6/39, FO 371/23485/F8556, NA (PRO); see also D. Cameron Watt, ‘Chamberlain’s Ambassadors’ in Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1950, Cambridge, 1996, for a sympathetic assessment of Craigie’s work in Tokyo. pp. 164–68. 21 Neville Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain 15/3/39, Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1107. 22 Watt, op.cit., p. 162. 23 J. Bertram, The Shadow of A War, London, 1979, p. 79; see also H. Abend, My Life in China, 1926–41, London, 1944. 24 D. Gillies, Radical Diplomat: The Life of Archibald Clerk-Kerr, Lord Inverchapel, 1882–1951, London, 1999, p. 109. 25 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1937, vol. I, p. 422. 26 Phipps to Foreign Office, DBFP, vol. IX, no. 23; French Parliamentary Archives, Chamber Foreign Affairs Committee, Minutes 21/6/39. 27 DBFP, vol. V, nos. 106, 115. 28 P.M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 53. 29 Ibid. 30 M. Toshio (ed.), Recollections of the Vice-Chief of the Army Staff Sawada Shigeru, Tokyo, 1982, pp. 172–73. 31 Telegram from the Chief-of-Staff 2nd China Fleet to Vice-Chief of the Navy General Staff 19/6/40 in ‘Circumstances relating to French Indochina’, vol. I, War History Department, Japanese Self Defence Agency Archives. 32 Craigie to the Foreign Office 4/7/40, FO 371/24666. 33 Navy General Staff Memorandum 4/11/40, ‘Files Relating to the Settlement of the China Incident 1940’, Part I, JDA Archives. 34 On the Automedon incident, see J. Rusbridger, ‘The Sinking of the ‘‘Automedon’’, the Capture of the ‘‘Nankin’’ ’, Encounter, LV, May 1985, p. 10; J.W.N. Chapman (ed.), The Price of Admiralty: The War Diary of The German Naval Attache´ in Japan, 1939–43, vols. II and III, East Sussex, 1984, pp. 333–34; see also, J. Rusbridger and E. Nava, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor, London, 1992.

196

Notes

35 P. Elphick, Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress, London, 1995, pp. 99–100. I have relied heavily on the excellent account of the Franco-Thai war in this book. Chapter Six refers. 36 Ibid., p. 100. 37 Sir Josiah Crosby 1880–1958, OBE 1918, KBE 1928, interned by Japanese in December 1941. Part of an exchange of diplomatic personnel at Lourence Marques, August 1942. Author of Siam: The Crossroads, Oxford pamphlets, no. 26. 38 D. Crisp, Why We Lost Singapore, London, 1943. 39 Elphick, op.cit., p. 103. 40 WO 193/917, NA (PRO). 41 For details, see P. Neville, Appeasing Hitler: The Diplomacy of Sir Nevile Henderson, 1937–9, London, 2000, pp. 20–23. 42 The vehemence of Addison’s anti-Czech prejudice was well known in the Foreign Office, yet some colleagues still put his name forward as a potential mediator in the Czech Sudetenland in August 1938.

3

The Anglo-American alliance and Indochina

1 Department of State to the French Embassy 1/10/45, Mountbatten Archive MB1/C10/12, University of Southampton. 2 Ibid. 3 Atherton to Pleven 14/6/41, quoted in FO 371/41720/4348, National Archives (Public Record Office). 4 D. Dutton, Anthony Eden: A Reputation and A Life, London, 1997, p. 154. 5 FO 371/41720/4348, NA (PRO). 6 Avon Diary 4/3/44, University of Birmingham 10/1/24; Eden was created by Earl of Avon in 1961. 7 Lord Avon, The Reckoning, London, 1965, p. 374. 8 D.R. Thorpe, Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897–1977, London, 2003, p. 282. 9 The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 vols, London, 1948, p. 1595. 10 Ibid. 11 FO 371/41723, NA (PRO); H. Macmillan, War Diaries: The Mediterranean, 1943–45, 5/12/43. London, 1984, p. 318. 12 Churchill to Eden 21/5/44, FO 371/41723/F2502, NA (PRO). 13 Eden Diary 6/6/44, Avon Papers, 20/1/24, University of Birmingham. 14 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, vol. 2, p. 561; FRUS, 2, p. 561. 15 Foreign Office memorandum, 19/9/44, FO 371/41720/4348. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, p. 18. 20 P.M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 28. 21 The two accounts of the de Langlade affair on which the author has relied give strikingly different accounts of what took place. See Dunn, ibid., pp. 28–30 and Patti, op.cit., pp. 30–31. In the Patti version of events, there is no reference to US noncooperation at Kunming, but only to an operation mounted by ‘British Clandestine Services’, presumably SOE, which was not cleared with General Chennault, Commander of the China-based US 14th Air Force. I have preferred the Dunn version. 22 Record of Meeting held by Supreme Commander 24/7/44, Mountbatten Archive, MB1/C84. 23 Quoted in R. Gough, Mountbatten. Hero of Our Time, London, 1980, p. 198.

Notes

197

24 A. Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, London, 1994, p. 76. 25 Dunn, op.cit., p. 30. 26 C. Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, Oxford, 1979, p. 161; Dunn, op.cit., p. 79. 27 Meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee of the War Cabinet 16/3/44, COS (44) 88, NA (PRO). 28 Ibid. 29 4/4/44, Air Ministry telegram to SACSEA, FO 371/4348 F1716, NA (PRO). 30 Ibid. 31 Mountbatten to Chiefs of Staff 13/4/44, SEACOS 136, FO 371/4348/F 1911, NA (PRO). 32 Dening to Sterndale Bennett 26/10/44, WO 203/5610, NA (PRO). 33 Blaizot to Mountbatten 17/8/45, MB1/C28. 34 Ibid., 23/11/44, MB1/C28. 35 Mountbatten to Blaizot 12/12/44 and Blaizot reply (undated); the charm offensive continued, on 6 March 1945 Mountbatten was writing to Blaizot thanking him for the ‘beaux fromages que deux fois vous avez eu la gentilesse de m’envoyer’ [beautiful cheeses which you have kindly sent me on two occasions]. These had been distributed amongst ‘les gourmets de mon entourage’. 36 Mountbatten to Doignon 28/2/45. MB1/C28. 37 Patti, op.cit., p. 37. 38 Ibid., p. 38; according to Dunn, Decoux, who resented Mordant’s appointment as de Gaulle’s representative in Indochina, placed him on the retired list to prevent him exercising his authority. Mordant had to get clarification from de Gaulle that he was in charge, and Decoux’s position was only symbolic. Dunn, op.cit., p. 32.

4

The Japanese coup of 9 March 1945 and its consequences

1 D. Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, London, 1971, p. 812. 2 P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 92. 3 A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, pp. 74–75; M. Windrow, The Last Valley, London, 2004, p. 81. 4 Declaration by General Sabattier 24/3/45 in Blaizot to Mountbatten 1/4/45, MB1/C28/17/3. 5 Churchill to Wilson 19/3/45, Prem 3/178–3, National Archives (Public Record Office). 6 OSS Report 13/3/45, RG 226/125233, National Archives, Washington, DC. 7 General C. Chennault, Way of a Fighter, New York, 1949, p. 342; Chennault to Marshal 30/3/45, Prem 3/178–3, NA (PRO). Repeated Joint Staff Mission to British Chiefs of Staff. 8 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, p. 245. 9 Jung Chiang and J. Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story, London, 2005, pp. 45– 46; the biography is spoilt by its overtly anti-Mao bias. 10 For more detail on the insurrection in Cochin China, see R. Baucher, Rafales sur l’Indochine, Paris, 1946, and P. Devilliers, Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 a` 1952, Paris, 1952. 11 Windrow, op.cit., pp. 74–75. 12 Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh, p. 188. 13 Duiker, op.cit., p. 256. 14 Ibid. 15 Le Quang Ba, ‘Bac ve tham lai Pac Bo’ in Uang nuoc ngo nguon, Hanoi, 1973, p. 153.

198

Notes

16 Devilliers, op.cit., pp. 107–8. 17 There is some confusion about Shaw’s movements. In Why Vietnam? Patti states that Shaw (referred to as ‘a downed American pilot’) had been shot down around Saigon, well to the south, see pp. 56–57. This doesn’t seem to make sense unless the French organization for smuggling US pilots had somehow moved Shaw northwards. How otherwise did Shaw travel north to eventually meet Ho? Shaw’s own unpublished account is cited in Duiker, op.cit., p. 283. 18 Patti, ibid., p. 47. 19 Ibid., p. 48. 20 Langdon to Secretary of State 8/9/44, ‘Memorandum of Conversation’, Patti Collection. 21 J. Jackson, De Gaulle, London, 1990, p. 35. 22 C. Fenn, Ho Chi Minh – A Biographical Introduction, New York, 1973, p. 76. 23 Patti, op.cit., p. 58; Fenn, ibid., pp. 78–79; Duiker, op.cit., pp. 289–91. 24 Windrow, op.cit., p. 83. 25 S. Tønneson, The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World at War, London, 1991, p. 238. 26 Duiker, op.cit., p. 292. 27 Dening to Mountbatten 6/4/45, Mountbatten Archive, Hartley Library, Southampton University, MB/C84. 28 Patti, op.cit., pp. 83–84. 29 Ibid., p. 84. 30 See for example, B. Tuchmann, The March of Folly. From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 296. 31 Ibid., p. 294. 32 Dening to Mountbatten 9/6/45, MB/C84. 33 Ibid., 21/6/45. 34 Dening to Mountbatten 30/3/45 and 21/6/45. 35 Tuchmann, op.cit., p. 297. 36 P. Galante, The General, London, 1969, p. 124. 37 Dunn, op.cit., p. 107. 38 Ibid., p. 112. 39 Poynton to Sterndale-Bennett 23/7/45. FO 371/46323, NA (PRO).

5

The August Revolution

1 A.L.A. Patti calls Chapter 19 of his book Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, ‘The Tale of Two Cities’. 2 Bao Dai, Le Dragon d’Annam: Memoirs de S[erene] M[ajesty] Bao Dai, Paris, 1979, pp. 69, 71. 3 C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, p. 30. 4 Patti, op.cit., p. 185. 5 N. Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, London, 1989, p. 165. 6 Patti, op.cit., p. 188. 7 Currey, op.cit., p. 104. 8 Ibid., pp. 103–04; Patti, op.cit., Ch. 26; W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, pp. 322–23. 9 Vo Nguyen Giap, Unforgettable Months and Years, Hanoi, 1972, pp. 27–28; Ba Dinh Square had formerly been named after a French bishop and was renamed in honour of three villages which had fiercely resisted the French conquest in the nineteenth century (Duiker, ibid., p. 635, fn. 16). 10 Currey, op.cit., p. 105.

Notes 11 12 13 14 15

199

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Patti, op.cit., p. 250. Giap, op.cit., p. 27; other estimates place the crowd at 400,000. Currey, op.cit., p. 106; Duiker, op.cit., p. 325. Patti, op.cit., pp. 186–87; Duiker, ibid., pp. 314–15. J. Springall, ‘Kicking Out the Viet Minh. How Britain Allowed France to Reoccupy South Indochina 1945–46’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 1 (Jan 2005), p. 117. Patti, op.cit., p. 253; for other assessments of responsibility for ‘Black Sunday’, see P. Dunn, op.cit., p. 22 and P. Devilliers, Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 a` 1952, Paris, 1952, p. 154. Patti, ibid., p. 501; Duiker, op.cit., p. xv; the 1950s Hollywood film of Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American features the Tay Minh Cathedral. Patti, ibid., p. 507; Duiker, op.cit., p. xv. Giap, op.cit., p. 23. Patti, op.cit., p. 284. Duiker, op.cit., p. 327. Currey, op.cit., p. 104; Giap, op.cit., p. 30. Duiker, op.cit., p. 329. Quoted in P.M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 94.

6

The coming of the British

16 17

1 Churchill memorandum to Chiefs of Staff 20/3/44, Alanbrooke Papers, 6/3/8, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London. 2 Chiefs of Staff minute to Churchill 29/3/44, Alanbrooke Papers, 6/3/8. 3 Brooke to Dill 20/3/44. Alanbrooke Papers. 4 Dill to Brooke 30/3/44. Alanbrooke Papers. 5 A. Bryant (ed.), The Alanbrooke War Diaries, London, 1952; 1969. 6 N. Rose, Churchill: An Unruly Life, London, 1994, p. 295. 7 M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. V, London, 1971, p. 365. 8 Minute by Sir Maurice Petersen 3/11/43, FO 371/4719/1294, National Archive (Public Record Office), Kew. 9 Minute by G.F. Hudson 2/2/44, FO 371/41723, NA (PRO). 10 Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. I, Washington, 1945, p. 124. 11 Mountbatten to Eden 16/8/44, FO 371/41719/3948, NA (PRO). 12 Quoted in P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 112. 13 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, Manchester, 1987, p. 14; see also Dunn, ibid., p. 112. 14 For Mountbatten’s comments on MacArthur, see R. Hough, Mountbatten. Hero of Our Time, London, 1980, p. 228. 15 A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, p. 308. 16 For criticisms of Gracey’s behaviour, see Patti, ibid., pp. 307–08; W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, New York, 2000, pp. 333–34; E. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955, Stanford, 1955, p. 115. 17 B. Tuchmann, The March of Folly. From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 300, a strange distortion coming from a double Pulitzer Prize winner. 18 Quoted in Patti, op.cit., p. 308. 19 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, Manchester, 1987, p. 30. 20 Quoted in Dennis, ibid., p. 234. 21 J. Dumaine, Quai d’Orsay, London, 1958, p. 94; quoted in B. Fall, The Two Vietnams, London, 1963, p. 72.

200

Notes

22 D’Argenlieu to Mountbatten 17/8/45, Mountbatten Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, MB1/C10. 23 Mountbatten to d’Argenlieu 1/9/45, MB1/C10. 24 There is some confusion about the numbers of Frenchmen parachuted in with Ce´dile on 24 August and even the date. Dennis cites a date of 24 August with 24 men parachuted in, Patti refers to a team of three with three more (one being a future French Prime Minister, Pierre Messmer) being sent into Tonkin near Hanoi on 22 August. Dennis has Ce´dile escaping Japanese custody on 1 September. Dunn, who interviewed Ce´dile in 1977, gives a figure of 21 men being dropped all over Cochin China and Annam. He has Ce´dile and his men under Japanese house arrest until 1 September also. See Patti, op.cit., p. 260; Dennis, op.cit., p. 35; Dunn, op.cit., pp. 45–47. 25 Rivier to Leclerc 7/9/45, 10 H Dossier ‘Septembre 1945’ Service Historique de l’Arme´e de Terre; Rivier to Leclerc 17/9/45. MB1/C129. 26 Martin to Leclerc 7/9/45, 10 H 161 Dossier 4, SHAT. 27 Dunn, op.cit., pp. 135–36. 28 Ibid., pp. 134–35. 29 Gracey to Terauchi 4/9/45. WO 203/5608/5644, NA (PRO). 30 J. Springall, ‘How Britain Allowed France to Reoccupy South Indochina 1945–46’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 1 (Jan 2005); Dunn, op.cit., p. 149. 31 The Japanese had worked hard to subvert Indian nationalists and had a major success when the Congress Party leader, Subhas Bose, defected to them with his followers (who wished to ally with Japan against Britain). 32 On the 1953 meeting, see Col. C. Hall ‘Aspects of the Present Situation in IndoChina’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, 40, 3 & 4 (July–October 1953), p. 213; D.J. Duncanson, ‘General Gracey and the Viet Minh’, Royal Central Asian Society Journal, 55, 3 (October 1968), pp. 288–97 offers a defence of Gracey’s behaviour in Saigon. 33 There is some confusion about Pham Van Bach’s allegiances. J. Springall (op.cit., p. 118) describes Pham as a ‘second rank’ Viet Minh; Duiker (op.cit., p. 334) has him as a nationalist replacing Tran Van Giau. 34 Patti, op.cit., p. 309. 35 See, for example, Patti, ibid., p. 309; the French prisoners of war appear to have been released by members of the Free French advance guard that came with the British contingent that landed on 12 September. The French came from the 5th RIC. 36 A. Bryant, The Alanbrooke War Diaries, 9/9/45, London, 1952. 37 J. Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History, London, 1969, p. 221; Buttinger being one of a number of US historians like Duiker, Hammer and Tuchmann who have been strongly critical of Gracey’s role in Saigon and Southern Indochina. 38 Springall in ‘How Britain Allowed France to Reoccupy Southern Indochina’ puts the number of Japanese who defeated to the Viet Minh at the rather higher figure of ‘nearly 2,000’, p. 119. 39 Dunn, op.cit., p. 22. 40 The Canadian scholar, Peter Dennis, calls Patti’s book ‘tendentious and self serving’; see op.cit., p. 256, fn. 24. 41 Duiker, op.cit., p. 335. A telling remark as it comes (unusually) from the US biographer of Ho. 42 Dening to the Foreign Office 20/9/45, FO 371/46308, NA (PRO). 43 Cpt Phelan, Field Mission into FIC 17/0/45, Department of State Records 851G.00/10-1745, Record Group, National Archive, Washington, DC. 44 Dunn, op.cit., p. 156. 45 Ibid., p. 153, fn. 23.

Notes

201

46 Photocopies of these documents kindly supplied to the author by Quartermaster Jim Stowers QPM; see also Dunn, op.cit., pp. 154–55 where there are variations in translation. 47 Rivier to Leclerc 17/9/45 (author’s translation), MB1/C158, Leclerc file. 48 Dunn, op.cit., p. 159. 49 J. Saville, ‘The British Intervention in Indo-China’, The Price of Continuity, London, 1993, p. 193. 50 F.S.V. Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943–6, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1956, p. 405. 51 The Daily Telegraph 24/9/45. 52 Dunn, op.cit., p. 193. 53 Quoted in Dunn, ibid., p. 197. 54 Pyman to Mountbatten 23/9/45, Papers of Major-General H. Pyman, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London University. 55 SAC Conference 24/9/45, Papers of Major-General Pyman. 56 Ibid.; the relevant signal was ALFSEA signal 15/4 OPS 12/9. 57 Saville, op.cit., p. 194. 58 Gracey to Mountbatten 20/9/45, WO 172/17184, NA (PRO). 59 E. Gibbons, memorandum 7/9, WO 203/4020; Dening to Foreign Office 10/9/ 45, FO 371/46308 R 6636/11/61, NA (PRO). 60 Dennis, op.cit., p. 40. 61 Mountbatten to COS. SEACOS 490, 24/9/45, CAB 105/162, NA (PRO). 62 Mountbatten, Post-Surrender Tasks: Section E of the Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia 1943–45, HMSO, London, 1969; para 26 reprinted in A.W. Cameron (ed.), Vietnam Crisis: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 1940–56, New York, 1971. 63 Dunn, op.cit., p. 173. 64 Ibid., pp. 173–74. 65 Gracey to SEAC Recorder 3/10/46, Gracey Papers 4/8, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. 66 R. Gough, Mountbatten. Hero of Our Time, London, 1981, p. 226; A. Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, London, 1994, p. 74. 67 Bryant (ed.), op.cit., 7/8/45, London, 1952. 68 A. Dansette, Leclerc, Paris, 1952, p. 187.

7

The death of an OSS man

1 Leclerc to Mountbatten 18/9/45, Mountbatten Archive MB1/C158, Hartley Library, University of Southampton. Mountbatten’s reply on 18 September referring to ‘your letter of 18 September’ determines the chronology here. 2 Ibid., MB1/C28. 3 Ibid.; see also Blaizot to Mountbatten 23/11/44, MB1/C28. 4 Kimmins memorandum to Mountbatten 19/9/45, MB1/C158. 5 P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 180. 6 Mountbatten to Leclerc 18/9/45, MB1/C158. 7 SAC Conference 24/9/45, Papers of Major-General H. Pyman, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London University. 8 Oddly, A.L.A. Patti refers to the ‘Cite´ Heyraud’ district, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, p. 319. 9 On the issue of responsibility for the killings and abductions, see variously Dunn, op.cit., pp. 203–04; J. Springall, ‘Kicking out the Vietminh’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 1 (January 2005), p. 123; P. Dennis, Troubled Days

202

10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Notes of Peace, Manchester, 1987, p. 49; W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, New York, 2000, pp. 335–36; Patti, ibid., p. 319. Dunn, ibid., p. 203. In Archimedes Patti’s version of events, this is stated as a fact, but the proGracey, Peter Dunn, writes that ‘it seems likely that had Gracey ordered Dewey out, it would have been mentioned in [OSS] reports’. See Patti, op.cit., p. 317 and Dunn, ibid., p. 215. For Major Bluechel’s account of the incident, see Report by J. Herbert Bluechel 30/9/45 in US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Causes, Origins and Lessons of the Vietnam War, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session, 1972, pp. 283–84; see also Dunn, ibid., p. 215. Patti, op.cit., pp. 320–21; this version needs to be compared with P. Dunn’s more detailed analysis in The First Vietnam War, see Chapter 9, pp. 203–20. Papers of Major-General H. Pyman 27/9/45. Pyman also referred to the fact that the OSS headquarters was ‘besieged by Annamites’; Dunn, ibid., p. 216. Ibid., p. 322. By Dunn in Chapter 9 of The First Vietnam War; ‘Causes, Origins and Lessons of the Vietnam War’, Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 9–11 May 1972, p. 286. War Diary 1/1 Gurkhas 26/9/45, WO 172/7769, National Archives (Public Record Office); R.J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, 2000, p. 348. Patti footnotes the affidavit given by a Captain White on 13 October, see op.cit., p. 564, footnote 17. Another analyst who takes the view that the shooting was deliberate is Aldrich in ibid., p. 348. Ibid., p. 355. W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, London, 2000, pp. 337–38. C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, p. 114. Patti, op.cit., p. 355. Dennis, op.cit., p. 213; see Aldrich, op.cit., p. 346. H.N. Brain to E. Dening, FO 371/46309, NA (PRO); as an expert on Japan himself, Dening would have been well aware of Japanese characteristics. D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, p. 542. Gracey Papers 4/8, Liddell Hart Archive for Military History, King’s College, University of London. K. Harris, Attlee, London, 1982, p. 330; the two men’s friendship stretched back to 1922 when they were both Parliamentary Private Secretaries to Ramsay MacDonald. Minutes of SAC 286th Meeting 28/9/45, Singapore. WO 203/5068 28/9/45, NA (PRO). 20th Division Operational Record, Mountbatten Archive. Ibid. Dening to Foreign Office 19/9/45, FO 371/46308, NA (PRO). Bevin to Seymour 17/9/45, FP 800/461. Dennis, op.cit., p. 51. Chiefs of Staff to Mountbatten 1/10/45, Chiefs of Staff, South-East Asia, CAB 105/165, NA (PRO). Gracey to SEAC Recorder 3/10/45, Gracey Papers 4/8; I refer again here to the opinion expressed by the late Barbara Tuchmann in her polemic against US policy in Vietnam in the book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 300.

Notes

203

37 Joint Planning Staff, ‘French Indo-China – Measures for Responsibility for Internal Security by SACSEA’, 30 September 1945, JP (45) 258 (final), CAB 84/75, NA (PRO). 38 Chiefs of Staff to Mountbatten 1/10/45, CAB 106/165, NA (PRO). 39 Report by the Saigon Control Commission, ‘Political Report 13/9/45 to 9/10/45, Gracey Papers, 4/8. 40 Dunn, op.cit., pp. 250–51. 41 History of the 20th Indian Division, p. 18, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth. 42 Hirst to Gracey 10/10/45, Gracey Papers, 4/8. 43 P. Kaiserman, ‘Saigon 45. With the Japs in Vietnam’, Journal of Unconventional History, 9, 2 (Winter 1998), pp. 12–13.

8

War with the Viet Minh

1 Charles de Gaulle, Me´moires de Guerre, vol. III, Le Salut, 1944–46, Paris, 1970, p. 287; the French intellectual, J.P. Revel, accused de Gaulle of capitalizing ‘General’ for himself but not for other generals. 2 P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 39. 3 J.M. de Gorce, Naissance de la France Moderne, Vol. I, L’Apre´s Guerre, 1944– 52, Paris, 1979, p. 247. 4 Myers to Mountbatten 31/10/45, WO 172/1786, National Archives (Public Record Office). 5 Defence Committee Meeting 5/10/45, CAB 69/7, NA (PRO). 6 Pyman Diary 8/10/45, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, University of London. 7 Gracey to Browning 14/10/45, WO 203/4273. 8 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, London, 1987, p. 169; for detailed analysis of the British rule in the Dutch East Indies, see Dennis, Chapters 4, 6, 7 and 9, and for the intelligence role, R. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 354– 56. 9 Dunn, op.cit., p. 260. 10 Hoang Cao Nha to ‘General Commander British Army’, Gia Dinh 11/10/45. Gracey Papers, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. 11 Ritchie to Hoang Cao Nha 14/10/45, Gracey Papers, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. 12 R. Ziegler, Mountbatten: The Official Biography, London, 1985, p. 332. 13 Diary of Major-General Pyman 1/10/45 to 8/10/45, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. 14 Aldrich, op.cit., p. 354; a Japanese source gives the number of desertions in South Vietnam as 728. See M. Shiraishi, ‘Presences japonaises’ in G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992, p. 50. 15 On the issue of Britain and Cambodia, see T.O. Smith, ‘Britain and Cambodia, September 1945–November 1946: A Reappraisal’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17(March 2006), pp. 74–78. 16 Supreme Allied Commander 31st Misc Meeting Minutes 28/9/45, WO 203/5644. 17 T.O. Smith, op.cit., p. 77; Dunn, op.cit., pp. 252–53. 18 Saigon Control Commission, Report No. 1, Gracey Papers, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. 19 MacKenzie to Dening 29/9/45, WO 203/5568, NA (PRO); for differing accounts of what happened to Klotz, see Aldrich, op.cit., p. 353 and Dunn, op.cit., p. 221, n. 267–68.

204

Notes

20 Writing as late as 1985, Dunn (who is constantly critical of the OSS), stated that Klotz was ‘murdered under the complacent gaze of the OSS’, ibid., p. viiii; for a French assessment, see W.M. Wainright, ‘Contradictions Americaines’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 56–64. 21 Aldrich, op.cit., p. 354; Dunn, op.cit., p. 310. 22 P. Brocheux, ‘Courantes Nationalistes au Vietnam’ in Leclerc and L’Indochine, Paris, 1992 p. 76; Amiral T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine, 1945–7, Paris, 1985, p. 84. 23 D’Argenlieu to Mountbatten 17/11/45, Mountbatten Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, MBI/C10. D’Argenlieu’s arrival precipitated an incident within SEAC when the Admiral claimed to have been told by the French Ambassador in London that Mountbatten was ‘extremely surprised and dissatisfied’ when he arrived in Kandy with an entourage of ‘60 officers without my [Mountbatten] having been given previous warning’. Mountbatten denied having ever spoken in such terms. See Mountbatten to d’Argenlieu 23/10/45, MB1/C10. 24 P. Brocheux, ‘Courantes nationalistes’ in Leclerc and L’Indochine, p. 76. 25 Ge´ne´ral J. Delmas, ‘Les Moyens Militaires’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 103. 26 A. Michel, Foreword to Chronique d’Indochine 1945–7 by Amiral T. d’Argenlieu, Paris, 1985, p. 12 (author’s translation); d’Argenlieu had a remarkable career. Born in 1889, he served as a marine officer in the First World War, before becoming a Carmelite monk in 1920. Rising to the position of provincial superior by 1939, he enlisted and was taken prisoner in 1940 before escaping and joining the Free French navy. He was promoted as admiral (amiral) before being appointed (with papal approval) High Commissioner in Indochina. Returning to France in 1947, d’Argenlieu re-entered the Carmelite monastery as R.P. Louis de la Trinite´. He died in 1964. 27 F. Giles, The Locust Years: The Story of the Fourth French Republic, 1946– 1958, London, 1991, p. 50; see also Dennis, op.cit., p. 176. 28 D’Argenlieu became convinced that Ho Chi Minh wished to expel the French not merely from Annam and Tonkin, but from the whole of Indochina. See d’Argenlieu, op.cit., Annex 14, p. 452 where he writes of ‘l’eviction complete de Franc¸ais d’Indochine, je dis d’Indochine et non pas seulement de Tonkin et d’Annam [the complete eviction of the French from Indochina and not only from Tonkin and Annam]’. 29 P. Messmer, ‘Souvenirs et reflections’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 327 (author’s translation). 30 The Diary of Colonel Edward Cecil Pickard, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, 25/10/45 to 7/11/45’ the 14th Battalion went back to India on 9 February 1946. Pickard died in 1993, aged 84. 31 Mountbatten to Gracey 31/10/45. Gracey Papers, 4/13. 32 Gracey to Mountbatten 9/11/45, Gracey Papers, 4/13. 33 Memorandum from 20th Indian Division headquarters 24/10/45, Gracey Papers, 4/13. 34 Dunn, op.cit., p. 282. 35 Captain D.D. Greenstreet to author 1/9/2000. 36 Captain J.B. Wallis, MC to author 3/9/2000. 37 E.J.E. Stowers, QPM to author 1/9/2000. 38 Ibid.; see Annex II for list of weapons. 39 J. Westlake to author 8/10/2000. 40 E.J.E. Stowers, QPM to author 1/9/2000. 41 J. Westlake to author 8/10/2000; for those in British ranks who were outraged by what they saw in Indochina, see F0 371/46310/F1185 17/12/45 and FO 371/ 46310/F11326 18/11/45, all at NA (PRO).

Notes

205

42 A. Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–62, London, 1977, p. 188. 43 Ibid., p. 189; Massu was made a general in 1955 and led the French paratroopers in the ill-fated Suez operation in 1956. In Algeria, he became notorious for the use of ruthless tactics (including torture) in the Battle of Algiers. During ‘the events’ of May 1967 in France, it was Massu who is said to have steeled de Gaulle’s resolve at a crucial moment of indecision. His account of the Indochina war can be found in Sept Ans avec Leclerc, Paris, 1974. 44 E.J.P. Stowers to author 1/9/2000. 45 Ge´ne´ral J. Delmas, op.cit., p. 103 (author’s translation). 46 Dunn, op.cit., p. 271. 47 Delmas, op.cit., p. 102; in fact, the ageing Ju 52 aircraft proved to be a reliable workhorse for the French right up to 1954. 48 Air Ministry files 23/2376; 23/2377; 23/2327; 23/2376 and 23/2326, NA (PRO); see also Dunn, op.cit., pp. 267–68 on Nakon Phanom airfield. 49 Park’s biographer cites no evidence of tensions with Mountbatten. On Leese, see V. Orange, Park. The Biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, London, 2001, pp. 205–07 and A. Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, London, 1994, pp. 74–75. 50 Gracey to Slim 5/11/45. Gracey Papers, 4/8.

9

The last phase

1 D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, p. 547; Ge´ne´ral A. de Boissieu, ‘Le ge´ne´ral de Gaulle et le proble`me, indochinois’ in G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992, p. 331, ‘Vinh’ in Vietnamese means prince. 2 De Boissieu, ibid., p. 332. 3 Prince Vinh San to M.E.P. The´bault (undated but presumably December 1945) quoted in A. de Boissieu, Pour Combattre avec de Gaulle, Paris, 1982, p. 334. 4 De Boissieu, op.cit., p. 336; rumours persisted in Vietnam after December 1945 that Vinh San had been assassinated by the French. This seems implausible. 5 Ibid., p. 335. 6 P. Devilliers, ‘Le choix de la voie ne´gocie´e’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 148. 7 Ibid., p. 149. 8 Pleven to French Embassy, Washington, 26 August 1945, Service historique de l’Arme´e de Terre, 239 K4. 9 P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 312; 10 R.J. Aldrich, Intelligence and War Against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 347–48; M. Muggeridge, The Infernal Grove, Vol. II of Chronicles of Wasted Time, London, 1973, pp. 192–94; Report by Trevor-Wilson 28/12/45, WO 203/5563, National Archives (Public Record Office)’. 11 Aldrich, ibid., pp. 350–51; King George VI and not George V as Aldrich suggests. 12 Trevor-Wilson to Gracey 28/12/45, WO 203/5563, NA (PRO). 13 For detail on Japanese manipulation of the Indochinese currency, the piastre, see in particular Dunn, op.cit., Ch. 17. 14 P. Devilliers, op.cit., p. 158. 15 Ibid., pp. 159–60. 16 Memo from FE (Vincent) to U (Acheson) 28/9/45, in Record Group 59, UPA. 17 Bonbright to Matthews 2/10/1945, RG59, UPA. 18 D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, p. 486.

206

Notes

19 R.J. Aldrich, ‘Imperial Rivalry. British and American Intelligence in Asia, 1942–46’, Intelligence and National Security, 3, 1 (Jan 1988), pp. 45–46. 20 A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, p. 280. 21 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York, 2000, p. 637, fn. 36; P. Devilliers, Paris–Saigon–Hanoi, Les Archives de la guerre, 1944–7, Paris, 1988, p. 98. Sainteny told Patti that the Vietnamese could not understand the true meaning of the word ‘independence’, but were seduced by its symbolic meaning, see Patti, ibid., p. 299. 22 Hoang Van Hoan, A Drop in the Ocean: Hoang Van Hoan’s Revolutionary Reminiscences, Beijing, 1988, p. 224; see also P. Devilliers, ibid., p. 108; it is clear also that Amiral d’Argenlieu saw through this subterfuge and the use of ‘le hom e´quivoque’, Chronique d’Indochine, p. 116. 23 Although the repatriation of Anglo-American troops remained a higher priority, the Americans provided nine troopships to transport the 9th DIC. See Marr, op.cit., p. 545 on this, and also B. Tuchmann, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 300. 24 Although attempts have been made to defend French Communist strategy on Indochina. See, for example, F. Giles, The Locust Years: The Story of the Fourth French Republic, 1946–1958, London, 1991, p. 57. 25 Gracey to Leclerc 12/12/45, Gracey Papers, 4/11, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College University of London; the 8,000 men of the Madagascar Brigade were encamped at Grande-Ile, J. Delmas, ‘Les moyens militaries’, Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 98. 26 Gracey to Slim 4/12/45. Gracey Papers, 4/11, on the point about practice in the US Armed Forces, see M.A. Jones, The Limits of Liberty: American History, 1607–1992, Oxford, 1982, p. 504. The irony here was that Dr Charles Drew who had invented the process for storing blood plasma was black himself. 27 Mountbatten to Gracey 4/12/45, MB1/C84, Mountbatten Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton. 28 The New York Times 1/1/46. 29 B. Lapping, End of Empire, Manchester, 1985, p. 63. 30 Dunn, op.cit., p. 354; Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan, p. 350; Trevor-Wilson to Saigon Control Commission, no. 1, 28/12/45, WO 203/5563, NA (PRO). Bose’s full name was Subhas Chandra (some texts like Aldrich and Dunn refer to him only as Chandra Bose). 31 Colonel Bui Tin, ‘Un combattant vietnamien s’explique’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 343–47; Bui Tin served in the Vietnamese People’s Army for 30 years and received the surrender of the South Vietnamese authorities in Saigon in 1975. He went on to become deputy editor-in-chief of the Communist Party paper Nhan Dan (meaning ‘The People’) before falling out with the Vietnamese government in 1990. According to Bui Tin, when the news of the liberation of Paris came through, nationalist students cried ‘Vive la France libere´e’, ‘Vive de Gaulle’. 32 The source for the statistics here is M. Shiraishi, ‘Pre´sences japonaises’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 50. 33 War Diary, 100 Indian Infantry Brigade 22/12/45, WO 172/7135, NA (PRO). 34 SHAT, 10H, 601, 10H, 162. 35 Ibid. 36 Delmas, op.cit., p. 101. 37 273 Squadron Log 11/12/45, Air 27/1583, NA (PRO). 38 Duiker, op.cit., p. 337. 39 Mountbatten to Gracey 9/11/45, MB1/C113, Mountbatten Archive. 40 Gracey to Mountbatten 9/11/45, ibid.

Notes

207

41 Mountbatten to Gracey 4/12/45, ibid. 42 Philip Ziegler states that although Mountbatten was surprised by Gracey’s behaviour in acting (as he saw it) beyond the ALFSEA brief, he defended Gracey at the Singapore Conference. See Mountbatten: The Official Biography, London, 1985, pp. 331–32. 43 Captain T. Greenstreet to author 1/9/2000 and 5/2/2001; a ceremonial sword was eventually secured for Attlee too. 44 Dunn, op.cit., p. 318, n. 5. 45 Mountbatten to Driberg 17/12/45, MB1/C91; Driberg (a journalist and later Labour MP) was a predatory homosexual. Mountbatten had a number of gay friends including Noel Coward and Peter Murphy. Philip Ziegler dismisses suggestions that he himself had homosexual tendencies, Mountbatten, p. 52. 46 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, Manchester, 1987, p. 124. 47 Chiefs of Staff to Mountbatten 8/5/46 quoting a minute by Attlee, CAB 105/ 166, NA (PRO). 48 Dunn, op.cit., pp. 330–31; Delmas, op.cit., p. 104. 49 Delmas, ibid., p. 104. 50 Ibid., p. 105; on Valluy, see M. Windrow, The Last Valley, London, 2004, pp. 93–95. 51 Amiral T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine 1945–47, A. Michel (ed.), Paris, 1985, p. 92. 52 D’Argenlieu, ibid., p. 91. 53 Ibid., p. 92. 54 Driberg became an MP when he won a by-election in 1943, before that he had worked for The Daily Express for many years writing the ‘William Hickey’ column. Lord Beaverbrook’s biographers suggest that the press baron used his influence to keep Driberg’s homosexual escapades out of the newspapers in Britain. See A. Chisholm and M. Davie, Beaverbrook: A Life, London, 1992, pp. 363–66. Driberg came out to visit the Far East in 1945. 55 Mountbatten to Gracey 18/1/46, Gracey Papers, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives.

10 Gracey’s farewell 1 P. Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace, Manchester, 1987, p. 179. 2 P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, pp. 337–38; M. Shiraishi, ‘Pre´sences japonaises’ in G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992, p. 45. 3 Ibid. 4 Major D. Wenham to Gracey 16/1/45, Gracey Papers 4/2, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, University of London. 5 Meiklereid to the Foreign Office 1/2/46, F371/53959, National Archives (Public Record Office). 6 Gracey to Mountbatten 20/4/46, Mountbatten Archive, MB1/C113, Hartley Library University of Southampton. 7 Mountbatten to Gracey 17/7/46, ibid. 8 Dunn, op.cit., p. 340. 9 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, New York, 2000, p. 363; Dunn, ibid., p. 353. 10 Vo Nguyen Giap, Unforgettable Days and Months, Hanoi, 1972, pp. 176–77; J. Sainteny, Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam: A Personal Memoir, Chicago, 1972, pp. 62–64; T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine, Paris, 1985, p. 187; P. Simpson-Jones, ‘Ho Chi Minh optimiste’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 227.

208

Notes

11 Vo Nguyen Giap, Unforgettable Months and Years, Huu Moi (ed.), Hanoi, 1972, p. 90. 12 C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, p. 118; P. Simpson-Jones, ‘Ho Chi Minh optimiste’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 227. 13 French losses were 106 and Japanese 110. See ‘List of casualties inflicted and incurred in the occupation of Southern Indochina up to 27 January 1946’, Gracey Papers 4/8; J. Saville, The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government, 1945–46, London, 1993, p. 199; Foreign Office Documents on British Involvement in the Indo-China Conflict, 1945–46, London, 1946, p. xviiii. 14 Sterndale Bennett to Dening 14/4/45, FO 371/46304/F1269/11G. 15 Dennis, op.cit., p. 184. 16 A. Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, London, 1994, p. 72. 17 Dening to Sterndale Bennett 19/1/46, FO 371/53772/F/1086/1/61. 18 Mountbatten to Bevin (undated), Mountbatten Archive, MB1/C30. 19 Dening to Bevin 29/1/46, FO 800/461. 20 Bevin to Dening 29/1/46, ibid. 21 Bevin to Mountbatten 5/3/46, MB1/C30. 22 Dening to Mountbatten 2/4/46, MB1/C84. 23 Ibid. 24 Lampson 6/2, p. 125, 1/5/46, Papers of Sir Miles Lampson, Lord Killearn (Lampson), St Anthony’s College, Middle East Archive, Oxford University. 25 T.O. Smith, ‘Britain and Cambodia, September 1945 – November 1946’, in Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17, pp. 73–91, March 2006. 26 Sometimes to an absurd degree. Mountbatten even complained about ‘the tone and wording . . . [of War Office signals] as coming from a department of the War Office’ to him as Supreme Allied Commander. The Chiefs of Staff rejected the complaint. See Dennis, op.cit., p. 252, fn. 12. 27 Mountbatten to d’Argenlieu 20/2/46, MB1/C10. 28 Mountbatten to Maunsell 21/2/46, ibid. 29 Amiral T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine 1945–7, Paris, 1985, p. 199; the book includes a photograph of the ceremony (between pages 160 and 161); the text is not always entirely reliable, a footnote on p. 59 describes Lieutenant Colonel Dewey as a ‘friend of France’, not a description that Ce´dile and his colleagues in Saigon would have recognized! 30 P. Devilliers, Histoire de Vietnam de l940 a` 1952, Paris, 1952, p. 242. 31 P. Ziegler, Mountbatten: The Official Biography, London, 1985, p. 333. 32 Dennis, op.cit., p. 227. 33 Vo Nguyen Giap, Nhung chang tuong lich su, Hanoi, 1977, p. 376; Cuu Quoc 9/3/46. 34 Vietnam 14/3/46; Cach mang dong minh Hoi 10/3/46. 35 Cach mang dong minh Hoi 17/3/46 (author’s translation from French). 36 Vietnam 26/3/46; P. Brocheux, ‘De´ception et me´fiances vietnamiennes’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 228–44.

11 The slide to disaster 1 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, p. 367; C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, p. 127. 2 Amiral T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine, Paris, 1985, 24/3/46, p. 127. 3 Ibid., pp. 230–33.

Notes

209

4 Duiker, op.cit., p. 367; Salan was another French general (like Massu) to feature prominently in the Algerian War. He also acted as the godfather for the anti-gaullist, terrorist OAS. 5 See photograph following p. 302 in G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992. 6 J. de Folin, ‘Surprises et inquie´tudes a` Saigon et a` Paris’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 212. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., p. 213. 9 A.G. Marsot, ‘The Crucial Year: Indochina 1946’, Journal of Contemporary History, 19, 2 (1984), p. 338. 10 D. Bruce Marshall, The French Colonial Myth and the Constitution Making in the Fourth Republic, New Haven, 1973, p. 4. 11 Quoted in P. Devilliers, Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 a` 1952, Paris, 1952, p. 242. 12 Quoted in F. Giles, The Locust Years: The Story of the Fourth French Republic, 1946–1958, London, 1991, p. 58. 13 Vo Nguyen Giap, Unforgettable Months and Years, Hanoi, 1972, p. 58; Devilliers, op.cit., pp. 263–64; E. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955, Stanford, 1955, pp. 165–74. 14 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., p. 257. 15 Ibid., p. 258, fn. 3. 16 Ibid., 18/5/46 and also 3/5/46, pp. 279–80; Duiker, op.cit., p. 368. 17 Carrier got rid of Vende´an prisoners by putting them on barges on the Loire, which were then scuttled, see N. Hampson, A Social History of the French Revolution, London, 1963, p. 217; Currey, op.cit., p. 351, fn. 40. 18 Devilliers, op.cit., p. 197; Nguyen Duy Thanh, My Four Years with the Viet Minh, Democratic Research Service, p. 4; R.F. Turner, Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development, Stanford, 1975, pp. 58–59. 19 Currey, op.cit., p. 126. 20 Ibid.; Duiker, op.cit., pp. 383–84; Giap, op.cit., pp. 283–86. 21 Duiker, ibid., p. 384. 22 D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 551–52; Currey, op.cit., p. 106; A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980, pp. 337–38. There is some dispute about exactly how much ‘Gold Week’ brought in. Patti gives the amount as 129 kilograms of gold and 1.5 million piastres. 23 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 30/5/46, pp. 283–84, author’s translation. 24 Duiker, op.cit., p. 369. 25 Marsot, op.cit., p. 340. 26 J. Sainteny, Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam: A Personal Memoir, Chicago, 1972, pp. 74–75. 27 Ibid., pp. 76–78. 28 Duiker, op.cit., pp. 372–73. 29 Currey, op.cit., p. 374. 30 Patti, op.cit., Appendix II, p. 481. 31 Sainteny, op.cit., p. 71; A. Ruscio, Les Communistes Franc¸ais et la guerre d’Indochine, 1944–54, Paris, 1985, p. 109. 32 The letter appeared for the first time in Georgette Elgey’s, La Re´publique des illusions, Paris, 1965, pp. 161–62. 33 Ibid., author’s translation. 34 For discussion about Leclerc’s letter and his motivation, see Giles, op.cit., p. 53; Duiker, op.cit., p. 372; Sainteny, op.cit., pp. 81–82; G. de Valance de Minardie`re, ‘Leclerc en reserve. Un audacieux magnifique?’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 416, fn. 4.

210

Notes

35 A. Martel, ‘Leclerc face a` son temps’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, ibid., pp. 311–12. The French military were not alone in having fascist tendencies. Major-General J.F.C. Fuller was a leading supporter of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (see S. Dorril, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism, London, 2006), and both General W. Edmund Ironside, onetime Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Fuller’s fellow military theorist, Basil Liddell Hart, flirted with Mosleyism. Leclerc at least had drifted back to support the respectable centre right. 36 De Minardie`re, op.cit., p. 277. 37 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 17/7/46. p. 286. 38 Ruscio, op.cit., p. 131. 39 Moutet to d’Argenlieu 3/4/46, Telegram 370/CI1146, Comite´ interministerial d’Indochine (Cominindo). 40 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 17/7/46, pp. 302–3. 41 High Commissioner d’Argenlieu to Cominindo 30/7/46, No. 1149F. 42 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., p. 305; author’s translation. 43 Compte rendu de la Conference, ibid., p. 306. 44 Ibid., p. 311. 45 Andre´ to d’Argenlieu 8/8/46, Telegram 1998, C126 CP. 46 The complete French delegation was as follows: Andre´, d’Arcy, Bourgoin, Gonen, Messmer, Pignon, Torel and Salan had Indochinese experience. Three were parliamentarians: Juglas (MRP) Lozeray (PCF) and Rivet (SFIO). The rest were technical experts: Admiral Barjot, Boudet and Gayet. 47 P. Devilliers, Paris–Saigon–Hanoi, Les Archives de la guerre, 1944–7, Paris, 1988, pp. 208–12. 48 Marsot, op.cit., p. 342. 49 Devilliers, op.cit., p. 118. 50 Caffrey to Burns 11/9/46 and 12/9/46 in RG59, UPA. 51 D. Johnson, ‘L’Empire britannique en question’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 54. 52 Sainteny, op.cit., pp. 88–89. 53 R. Salan, ‘Memoires’, vol. I of Fin d’un Empire, Paris, 1970, pp. 293–94, author’s translation. 54 Resistance 12/1/46. 55 Sainteny, op.cit., p. 90; for a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the death of Prince Van San, see d’Argenlieu, op.cit., Annex 10, pp. 437–38. 56 S. Tønneson, The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World at War, London, 1991, p. 41. 57 Mai Van Bo, I Studied Diplomacy with Uncle Ho, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), 1998, pp. 337–40. 58 D’Argenlieu to Cominindo 1/10/46, author’s translation. 59 Ibid. 60 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 18/10/46, p. 335. 61 Giap, op.cit., pp. 342–46. 62 Elgey, op.cit., p. 165. 63 Marshall, op.cit., p. 205, 303. 64 G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets de la de´colonisation, Paris, 1967, vol. I, p. 61. 65 Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 366–67. 66 M. Shipway, The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944–7, Oxford, 1996, p. 145. 67 D’Argenlieu appended to a memorandum of 23 November a statistical table showing the number of kidnappings, woundings, desertions (from the French Union forces under Viet Minh pressure) and murders between 8 November and

Notes

68 69 70 71 72

211

20 November 1946., op.cit., p. 333 (the table covered Cochin China, Southern Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia). Duiker, op.cit., pp. 383–88; Currey, op.cit., pp. 131–32. Currey, ibid., p. 130. Truong Chinh, The August Revolution: Selected Writings, Hanoi, 1977, pp. 62–63. Giap, op.cit., p. 62. R. O’Neill, General Giap: Politician and Strategist, New York, 1989, p. 46.

12 A Rubicon crossed 1 S. Tønneson, 1946: De´clenchement de la Guerre d’Indochine, Paris, 1987, p. 57. 2 T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine 1945–7, Paris, 1985, p. 288. 3 M. Shipway, The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944–7, Oxford, 1996, p. 239; Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 60–61. 4 P. Mus, Viet-nam: Sociologie d’une guerre, Paris, 1952, p. 73; Mus acted as a political adviser to Leclerc in 1945 at SEAC headquarters in Ceylon. 5 W.J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, New York, 2000, p. 389; Shipway, op.cit., p. 241. 6 Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 84–85, 89–91; Shipway, ibid., p. 241; Duiker, ibid., pp. 388–89. 7 T. d’Argenlieu, Chronique d’Indochine, Paris, 1985, pp. 352–55. 8 Ibid., p. 355; C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, p. 133. 9 For various assessments, see Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 104–6; D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, p. 548; J. Sainteny, Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnam: A Personal Memoir, Chicago, 1972, p. 91; J. de Folin, Indochine, 1940–5. La Fin d’un Reˆve, Paris, 1993, p. 179. 10 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 2/12/46, p. 358; he gave no figure for the Vietnamese dead. 11 Ibid. 12 Shipway, op.cit., p. 246. 13 Ibid., p. 243; quoted in Tønneson, op.cit., p. 98. 14 Shipway, ibid., pp. 243–44; Quoted in Tønneson, ibid., p. 103; there is a parallel between the whitewashing of De`bes and the treatment of General Dyer who massacred hundreds of Indian men, women and children at Amritsar in 1919. Though initially under investigation, Dyer escaped punishment and subsequently benefited from a large sum of money collected by right-wing imperialists and neo-fascists (such as Major-General J.F.C. Fuller). 15 Tønneson, ibid., pp. 114–15; Tønneson also suggests that because the Communist Air Minister Charles Tillon was present at the meeting, the officials and MRP and Socialist representatives deliberately covered up the facts (d’Argenlieu makes him Armaments Minister, op.cit., p. 358). 16 Cominindo meeting 23/11/46 in d’Argenlieu, op.cit., p. 345; the relevant telegram was No. 20/DC 24/11/46, p. 358 refers. 17 Duiker, op.cit., p. 390. 18 ‘Report on the incidents in Haiphong and Langson of 20 to 28 November 1946’, quoted in Tønneson, op.cit., p. 139. 19 Fiche 6645, Cab.mil. 30/11/46 in P. Devilliers, Paris–Saigon–Hanoi, Les Archives de la guerre, 1944–7, Paris, 1988, pp. 257–58. 20 B. Fall, Street Without Joy, London, 1963, p. 27. 21 Shipway, op.cit., pp. 254–55. 22 Currey, op.cit., p. 134. 23 Tønneson, op.cit., p. 137; Le Populaire 10/12/46; A.G. Marsot, ‘The Crucial Year: Indochina 1946’, Journal of Contemporary History, 19, 2 (1984), p. 347.

212

Notes

24 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 15/12/46, p. 366. 25 Ibid. 26 Note de Ge´ne´ral Leclerc 5/12/46, Commandant G. Bodinier (ed.), Retour de la France en Indochine, 1945–6, Vincennes, 1987, pp. 339–41. 27 Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 187–88. 28 ‘Memories du Ge´ne´ral Vuong Thua Vu. Forge´ dans la lutte’, in G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992, pp. 290–96. 29 Ibid., p. 291; see also the following account by Vu Ky and A.L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross, Berkeley and London, 1980; Patti makes the Tu Ve militia responsible for the sabotage rather than the power workers, p. 381 refers. 30 Vu Ky, Revue d’Histoire militaire, 12, 36 (1988), pp. 72–82. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 R. Stetler (ed.), Giap, The Military Art of People’s War. Selected Writings of Vo Nguyen Giap, New York, 1970, p. 86. 34 Currey, op.cit., pp. 135–36. 35 P. Quennoeulle, ‘Jean Sainteny, acteur et victime. Le coup du 19 de´cembre 1946. Te´moignage’, in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., p. 285; Sainteny, op.cit., pp. 97–98. There are some slight variations in the accounts given, according to Duiker, op.cit., Sainteny lay in the street wounded for two hours and the grenade is not mentioned, op.cit., p. 397 refers. 36 Tønneson, op.cit., pp. 232–33; Shipway, op.cit., p. 263. 37 Although it is wrong to describe him as a pacifist, as Shipway does, ibid. As Prime Minister of the Popular Front Government of 1936–37, Blum presided over the biggest rearmament programme in French history. 38 D’Argenlieu, op.cit., 19/12/46, p. 369. 39 Journal Officiel, Assemble´e Nationale, Debats parliamentaires 24/12/46, p. 320. 40 D’Argenlieu interview with Paris Soir 2/1/47. 41 Quoted in J.M. Gorce, Naissance de la France moderne, vol. I, l’Apres Guerre, 1944–1952, Paris, 1979, p. 267. 42 D’Argenlieu op.cit., 14/1/47, p. 386. 43 Ibid. 44 Archives nationale, Section Outre-Mer, Papiers Moutet, PA 228 cartons de te´le´grammes, no. 9; J. Valette, ‘Recours a` Leclerc: la mission du ge´ne´ral Leclerc en Indochine de´cembre 1946–janvier 1947’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 297–305; Meiklereid to Foreign Office, no. 10, 17/1/47, FO/371/63432. 45 Project de Rapport du Ge´ne´ral Leclerc 7/1/47, G. Bodinier (ed.), op.cit., pp. 382–91. 46 V. Auriol, Journal du Septennat, vol. II, Paris, 1970, pp. 157–58; Auriol was elected President on 16 January, the day of Blum’s resignation. 47 Fall, op.cit., p. 28. 48 Marr, op.cit., p. 546; as the United States recognized the Associated States in 1949 (that is Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China, Cambodia and Laos), Vietnam qualified for aid under the Mutual Defence Act of that year (although the French insisted that all funds and material had to flow through them). 49 For a discussion of all the issues involved, see P. Hennessey, Never Again, London, 1992, but predictably the Vietnam intervention is not mentioned. 50 D. Johnson, ‘L’Empire britannique en question’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 51–55. 51 Sargent was Permanent Under-Secretary from 1946 to 1949. He was best known for his opposition to appeasement in the 1930s. Colleagues nicknamed him ‘Moley’ on this account.

Notes

213

52 Johnson, op.cit., p. 55; the source for the allegation about Hong Kong was captaine de fre´gate Jean Recher. 53 P.M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, pp. 357–58. 54 Patti, op.cit., p. 383. 55 Shipway, op.cit., p. 73. 56 Ibid., p. 73; A. Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization, London, 1994, pp. 28–33. 57 The exact figures for the non-French troops are North Africans 30,000, Foreign Legion 19,000 and West Africans 18,000, M. Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, London, 2004, p. 170; see also M. Bodin, ‘Le ge´ne´ral Leclerc et l’utilisation des autochtones indochinois’ in Leclerc et l’Indochine, op.cit., pp. 386–90. 58 Windrow, ibid., p. 172. 59 J. Larte´guy, Les Centurions, Paris, 1960, p. 96.

13 Conclusion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

P. Dunn, The First Vietnam War, London, 1985, p. 363. P. Ziegler, Mountbatten: The Official Biography, London, 1985, p. 700. See M.E. Dening, Japan, London, 1960. It is significant that the best-known biography of Attlee does not even mention Vietnam. See K. Harris, Attlee, London, 1982. Quoted in D. Leitch, ‘Explosion at the King David Hotel’ in M. Sissons and P. French (eds), Age of Austerity 1945–51, London, 1963, p. 83. Anthony Eden, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden, Full Circle, London, 1960, p. 142. Eden was being somewhat disingenuous as the Americans were paying for France’s Indochina war in its last years. Project de Rapport du Ge´ne´ral Leclerc 7/1/47, G. Bodinier (ed.) Retour de la France en Indochine, 1945–1946, Vincennes, 1987, pp. 382–91. G. Pedroncini and P. Duplay (eds), Leclerc et l’Indochine, 1945–7. Quand se noua le destin d’un empire, Paris, 1992, p. 11. Bao Dai’s redundant title of emperor of Annam passed to his eldest son, Bao Long. It is not clear whether Bao Dai sought, like Vin Sanh, to be buried in his native Vietnam but he spent 42 years in continuous exile (this excludes the period 1946 to 1949 spent in exile in Hong Kong and China). D.G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley, 1995, p. 546. Prem 3/18/7, National Archives. Post Hostilities Planning Committee, Foreign Office Paper Approved by the Cabinet, February 1944, WP (44) 111 CAB 66/47; Cabinet Minutes 24/2/44, CAB 65/41, National Archives. Yost memorandum 13/12/45, Pentagon Papers, United States Department of Defense, vol. I; The United States and Vietnam 1945–67, Washington, DC, 1972. Moffat, in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Causes, Origins and Lessons of the Vietnam War, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 190–91. See also ibid., Appendix 2, pp. 41–42. Ibid., pp. 190–91. S.P. Heyes (ed.), The Beginning of American Aid to Southeast Asia: The Griffin Mission of 1950, Lexington, MA, 1971, p. 98. Mutual Security Program Appropriations for 1952, hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House Record, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, p. 750. United States-Vietnam Relations 1945–67, Part II, p. A-27.

214

Notes

19 Ibid., A-26. 20 The author is, of course, aware that debate continues on what Kennedy’s Vietnam strategy would have been had he not died in November 1963. 21 In his book The Two Vietnams (London, 1963), Bernard Fall makes the distinction between American funds allocated to France under NATO and the mutual security programme ($4 billion), funds voted by Congress for Indochina ($1.4 billion) and monies actually spent before the 1954 ceasefire ($954 million). 22 C.B. Currey, ‘Edward G. Lansdale: LIC and the ‘‘Ugly American’’ ’, Military Review 67, 5 (May 1988, pp. 44–56; and C.B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, Boston, 1988, p. 180. 23 J. Olsen and R. Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990, New York, 1991, pp. 63–64. 24 Eden, op.cit., p. 142. Eden made the comparison with British Malaya, where a communist insurgency was defeated. 25 S. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, New York and London, 1985, p. 219. 26 Dunn, op.cit., p. 370. 27 Ibid. 28 D. Lamb, Vietnam Now, New York, 2002, p. 75; David Lamb was the correspondent of The Los Angeles Times in Saigon in 1975. 29 For an excellent discussion of the philosophy behind post-war French colonial policy, see M. Shipway, The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944–7, Oxford, 1996, Ch. 1. 30 B. Tuchmann, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, London, 1984, p. 394. 31 J. Lacouture, Vietnam: Between Two Truces, London, 1966, p. 170. 32 Colonel M. Hall, ‘Aspects of the Present situation in Indo-China’, Royal Central Asian Society Journal, vol. xl, parts iii and iv, July–October, 1953, pp. 213–14. 33 For an assessment of Giap’s abilities as a general, see C.B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap, London and Washington, 1997, Ch. 23. 34 Quoted in N. Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, London, 1990, p. 380.

Bibliography

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Private papers General Sir Douglas Gracey (Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives). Major-General H.E. Pyman (Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives). Viscount Alanbrooke (Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives). Lord Louis Mountbatten (Mountbatten Archive, Special Collections Division, Hartley Library, University of Southampton).

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The United States US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, vol. ii, Washington, 1959. US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, vol. vii, Washington, 1969. Causes, Origins and Lessons of the Vietnam War. Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 9–11 May 1972.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam Thirty Years of Struggle of the Party, Hanoi, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960. History of the August Revolution, Hanoi, FLPH, 1972.

France G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets de la de´colonisation, vol. I, Paris, 1967. G. Bodinier (ed.), Retour de la France en Indochine, 1945–46, Vincennes, 1987.

Printed sources Books Abend, H., My Life in China 1926–41, London, 1944. Adamthwaite, A., Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe, 1914–40, London, 1995. Aldrich, R.J., Intelligence and the War Against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge, 2000. Ambrose, S., Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, New York and London, 1985. d’Argenlieu, Amiral T., Chronique d’Indochine, 1945–7, Paris, 1985. Avon, Lord (Anthony Eden), Full Circle, London, 1960. ——The Reckoning, London, 1965. Bao Dai, Le Dragon d’Annam, Paris, 1979. Baucher, R., Rafales sur l’Indochine, Paris, 1946. Behr, E., Hirohito: Behind the Myth, Harmondsworth, 1989. Bergamini, D., Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, London, 1971. Bertram, J., The Shadow of A War, London, 1979. Best, A., ‘Imperial Japan’ in R. Boyce and J. Maiolo (eds), The Origins of World War Two. The Debate Continues, London, 2003. Bodinier, G. (ed.), Retour de la France en Indochine, 1945–1946, Vincennes, 1987. Brendon, P., The Dark Valley, London, 2000.

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Index

1/1 Gurkha Rifless 76, 125 1/19 Hybad (Hyderabad Regiment) 76, 82 1st Gurkha Rifles 106 2/8 Punjab 173 2nd Division Blinde´e (Armoured Division) 112–13 2nd Japanese Division 104 3/1 Gurkha Rifles 94 3/8 Gurkha Rifles 126 3rd DIC 128 4/10 Gurkha Rifles 128 5th Re´giment d’Infantrie Coloniale (RIC) 34, 37, 44, 73, 74, 81, 82, 94, 96, 108 8th Plenum (1941) 46–47 9/14 Punjab 103, 125 9th Division (9th Division d’Infanterie Coloniale) 87, 88, 96, 97, 101, 104, 113, 123, 128 9th Jat Regiment 125 11 RIC 82 14th Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (14/13 FFR) 109, 110, 132 14th US Air Force 35, 44, 50 16th Light Cavalry 102, 109, 132 16th parallel 56, 58, 71, 72, 82, 83, 87, 93, 104, 132, 175, 178 20th Indian Division 71, 80, 95, 98, 99, 101, 103, 111, 127, 131, 132, 133 32 Brigade 102, 125, 126, 132 55th Japanese Division 106 80th Infantry Brigade (of 20th Indian Division) 76, 132 100 Infantry Brigade 110, 127, 128, 133 114th Field Regiment Royal Artillery 102, 110, 127, 132 273 Squadron 126

ABCD powers (America, Britain, China, the Dutch) 18 Abyssinia 6 Acheson, Dean 120, 181, 182 Addison, Sir Joseph 27 Advance Youth Guard 63 AGAS 51, 53 Alessandri, General Marcel 121 Algeria 34, 73, 140, 151, 179 Algiers 39, 40, 118 Allied Control Commission 80 Allied Forces Headquarters 34 Allied Land Forces French Indochina (ALFFIC) 72, 132 Allied Land Forces Para-Military Operations (ALFPMO) 107 Allied Land Forces South-East Asia (ALFSEA) 82, 83, 84, 85, 93, 94, 131–32, 151, 174 Allied Pacific War Council 34 Alsace-Lorraine 30, 141 Ambrose, Steven 185 American China Theatre 106–7 Andaman Islands 70 Andre´, Max 146, 150, 154 Andrieu, General 133 Angkor Wat 25, 138 Anglo-American alliance 28–30, 32, 34 Anglo-Japanese alliance 15, 19, 20 Ankara 26 Annam, see Vietnam Arakan 70 Arnoux, Louis 42 Arsene-Henry, Charles 23 Atherton, State Department official 28 Atlantic 35 Atlantis 24 Attlee, Clement 54, 93, 101, 128, 136, 146, 173, 178, 181

Index Auboyneau, Admiral 133, 134 Aubrac, Raymond 154 Aung San 105, 140 Auphale, Resident 43 Auriol, Vincent 155 Australia 16, 78 Automedon 24, 25 Ayme´, General 43 B-24s 44 Bac Bo, see Tonkin Bac Can province 172 Bac Kan 166 Bac Son 45 Bach Mai airport 168 Balfour, Lord Arthur 15 Ban Me Thuot 113 Bangkok 26, 77, 111, 114 Bao Dai, Emperor 42, 58–60, 116, 117, 118, 125, 146, 171, 180 Bao Dai solution 182–84 Baria 174 Barjot, Admiral 165–66, 174 Batavia, see Jakarta Battambang 105, 108, 138 Battle of Britain (1940) 24 Battle of the Atlantic 68, 111 Bay of Bengal 69 ‘Bay of Bengal Strategy’ 68 Be´haine, Pigneau de 3 Beijing 2 Belgium 30 Ben Cat 128 Ben Go 128 Benedict XIII, Pope 7 Bennett, J. Sterndale 135, 136 Berlin 26, 27 Bevin, Ernest 96, 136, 137, 138, 173, 178, 181 Biarritz 149 Bidault, Georges 55, 144, 146, 149, 150, 160, 161, 164, 166–67 Bien Hoa 76, 109, 110, 113, 128, 132 Binh Xuyen 89 ‘Black Sunday’ (1945) 64 Blaizot, General Roger 36, 38–39, 43, 70, 73, 87, 107 Blaizot Mission 36–37, 38–39 Blanchet, Andre´ 155 Bloch, Nathan 129 Bluechel, Major Herbert 90 Blum, Le´on 13, 160–63, 165–68, 170–73, 179

221

Blum, Robert 183 Boat People 185–86 Boissieu, Ge´ne´ral Alain de 116 Bollaert, Emile 172 Bolsheviks 141 Bonnet, Georges 21 Bonnet, Henri 126 Borneo 132 Bose, Subhas 124 Boston 9 Boun Oun, Prince 107 Brain, Harry N. 76, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 128, 137 Brazzaville Declaration (1944) 50 British Joint Staff Mission 44 British Military Intelligence 26, 173 British Secret Service 10 Brooke-Popham, Sir Robert 23, 24 Brooke, Sir Alan, Viscount Alanbrooke 68, 69, 78, 86, 128 Browning, General Frederick ‘Boy’ 86, 102, 128 Buckley, Christopher 82 Buddhism 1, 65 Bui Tin, Colonel 125 Bullitt, William 21 Bung 128 Burma 19, 33, 34, 41, 69, 75, 79, 111, 112, 113, 139–40, 185 Burma Command 86 Burma-India Theatre 114 Burma National Army 105 Burma Road 19, 24 Ca Mau 5 Cabinet Defence Committee 101 Cach mang dong minh Hoi newspaper 141 Cadogan, Sir Alexander 20, 181 Caffery, Jefferson 154–55, 164 Cairo 138 Cairo Conference (1943) 66, 69, 70 Calcutta 40, 101, 117 Calder 11 Cam Ranh Bay 76, 155, 156, 157 Cambodia 3, 4, 6, 12, 14, 25, 41, 42, 47, 71, 72, 82, 100, 104, 105, 108, 112, 115, 116, 122, 127, 130, 131, 139, 153, 175, 178, 180, 181, 185 Cambridge University 36 Campbell, Ronald 31 Can-thou-Quoc 65 Canada, Canadians 16, 35 Canh 168

222

Index

Canton 8, 9 Cao Bang 47 Cao Dai 63, 64–65, 81, 84, 104, 113, 147, 890 Cap Saint-Jacques 131, 132 Carr, Roderick 114 Carter, John Vincent 120 Catholics 3, 4 Catroux, French GovernorGeneral 14, 22, 23, 25, 30 Cau Moi 168 Ce´dile, Jean 74, 79, 81, 85, 90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 101, 104, 133, 149, 152, 174 Central Commission 75 Central Committee 63, 122 Central Committee of the Communist Party 45, 46 Central Highlands 12, 153 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 121, 123, 184, 185 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 33, 37, 39, 68, 73, 87, 173 Chamberlain, Neville 19, 20, 154 Chams, Kingdom of 2 Chandoc 128 Chatel, Captain 126 Chatterjee, Major-General A.J. 124 Chennault, General Claire 44, 51–52 Cheshire, Air Commodore W.G. 113 Chiang Kai-shek 19, 22, 23, 31, 33, 38, 44, 45, 47, 48, 56, 59, 66, 70, 119, 127, 146, 181 The Chicago Tribune 129 China 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 33, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 66, 105, 134 China Incident 18, 23 China Theatre 33, 37, 38, 41, 50, 56, 88 Chindits 34, 70, 112 Chindwin 70 Chinese Communist Party 47, 48 Chiu Chou Chieh 53 Cholon 111, 127 Christison, Lieutenant General Sir Philip 102, 136 Chungking 23, 37, 44, 49, 53, 56, 127, 146 Churchill, Sir Winston 21, 29–33, 36, 41, 44, 54, 67–70, 136, 173, 178 CIGS 86 Cite´ Heyraud 88–89, 93, 129, 148, 171, 174

Citroe¨n 8 Clerk-Kerr, Sir Archibald 21, 24, 137–38, 175 Co Ben (pavillon noirs, Black Flags) 4 Cochin China 4, 5, 25, 43, 45–46, 51, 58, 59, 62–63, 74, 93, 100, 102, 106, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131, 135, 143, 144, 146, 149, 153, 154, 160, 163, 164, 169, 172, 174, 175, 181 Cochin China (Nam Bo) 141 Cold War 121, 122, 155, 181, 185 Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises 150, 179 Colonial Exhibition (1931) 8 Colonial Ministry, see Ministry of Overseas France Colonial Office 11, 12, 57 Comintern 9, 10, 13, 14, 47, 149 Committee for the South 63 communism 106, 173, 181 Communist Party 63 Comore 65 Confucianism 1, 2, 8, 64 Control Commission 76, 80, 84, 93, 102, 111 Coolidge, Calvin 16 Coolidge, Captain 90 Corps Expe´ditionnaire Franc¸ais d’Extreme Orient (CEFFO) 113, 114 Corps Le´ger d’Intervention (CLI), see 5th Re´giment d’Infantrie Coloniale (RIC) Craigie, Sir Robert 19, 20–21, 24 Cripps, Stafford 12 Crisp, Dorothy 26 Crosby, Sir Josiah 26–27 Crossman, Richard H.S. 178 Cua Cam River 156 Cunningham 68 Cuong de, Prince 65 Curzon, Lord 16 Cuu Quoc newspaper 141 D-Day (1944) 32, 68, 70 d’Argenlieu, Admiral Georges Thierry 74, 107–9, 115, 118–21, 125, 126, 129, 134, 138–39, 141, 143, 145–46, 149–58, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169–73, 172, 179 Da` Nang 3, 171 Dai Dao Tam Ky Pho Do, see Cao Dai Dai Viet 63, 147, 148 Daily Express 129 The Daily Herald 129

Index The Daily Telegraph 82, 129 Dakar 31, 34 Dakotas 88, 96, 111, 113, 149 Daladier, Edouard 154 Dalat 76, 96, 142, 143–44, 144, 150, 151 Dalat Conferences (1946) 145–46, 153, 154, 157 Dang Dong 43 Darlon, Admiral 25 de Gaulle, Charles 25, 29–32, 34, 35, 39–41, 50, 55, 59, 70, 73, 74, 100, 104, 108, 109, 112, 116–18, 120, 121, 125, 150, 157, 171, 179–80 De`bes, Colonel 162–64, 167, 170 Decoux, Admiral 25, 29, 31, 34–35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 52, 65, 74, 108 Defence Requirements Committee 19, 20 Delhi 124 Delsuc, General 43 Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) 54, 60, 62, 63, 92, 105, 122, 135, 141, 143, 144, 146, 148, 152–55, 157, 159, 161, 165–67, 170–71, 172, 179, 182 Dening, Esler 38, 53, 55, 71, 73, 79–80, 84, 93, 95–96, 101, 136–38, 175, 178 Depression 8, 16 Deuxie`me Blinde´e (2nd Armoured division) 74 Devilliers, Philippe 147 Dewey, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter 79–80, 90–93, 95, 107 Dewey, Thomas P. 92 DGER agents 107, 108, 117 Dien Bien Phu 10, 13, 34, 44, 140, 158, 172, 178, 180, 185, 187 Dieppe 35, 36 Dill, Chief of Imperial General Staff 69 Diplomatic Service 19, 20, 26 Direction Ge´ne´rale des Services Speciaux (DGSS) 39 DMH 135, 147 Doignon, Captain 39 Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League) 118, 119, 121, 135, 141, 148, 158 Dong Nai River 133 Donovan, William 121 Downs, US press correspondent 91 Driberg, Tom 128, 129 DRVN 105, 120

223

Duff Cooper, Alfred 151 Dulles, Allen 184 Dulles, John Foster 181 Dumont d’Urville 156–57 Dunkirk Treaty (1947) 173 Dunn, Peter M. 85, 185–86 Duong Van Minh 187 Dussart, Rene´ 129 Dutch 3, 140 Dutch East Indies 17, 19, 30, 41, 75, 84, 101, 104, 124, 128, 175, 178 Eastern Defending Committee 103 Eastern Front 69 Eden, Anthony 20, 27, 29–30, 32–33, 56, 177, 178, 184 Edward, Prince of Wales 36 Egypt 149, 178 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 73, 184 Emile Bertin 143 European Economic Community (ECC) 179 European Recovery Programme (ERP) 182 European Theatre 70 Evans, General 108 Evill, Sir Douglas 37 Fall, Bernard 172 Far East 19, 22, 24, 33, 36, 55, 126 Far Eastern Theatre 68–69, 96 Far Eastern War 37, 38 Fauchier-Magnan 134 Fe´deration Indochinoise 153 Fenn, Marine Lieutenant Charles 51 First Vietnam War 174 Fisher, Sir Warren 19–20 Flying Tigers 52 Fontainebleau 144 Fontainebleau Conference (1946) 149–52, 154 Force 136 operations 42 ‘Force Plan 1’ 76 Foreign Office 11, 12, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 35, 38, 57, 70, 76, 79, 81, 95, 128, 136, 137, 138, 155, 173, 178, 181 Franc-Tirreur 129 France 21–22, 23 arrival in Vietnam 3–8 and build-up to hostilities 142–59 grateful thanks given to Gracey 133 and Haiphong incident 161–65

224

Index

France (Continued ) and honour of army in Indochina 140 and outbreak of war 160, 167–72 political debates on Indochina 166–67 political developments in 149–50 and post-war re-establishment of colonial rule 28–29, 31, 32–34, 36 and race 123 resistance movement in Indochina 34–35, 37, 40–45 return to Indochina 73–75 and sovereignty in Indochina 55 and threat of becoming communist 55 torture of captured Vietnamese 129 US antipathy towards 28–32 visit of Ho Chi Minh to 146, 148, 149–56 and wish to be part of SEAC 36, 37–40 Franco-Annamite Treaty (1884) 42, 58 Franco-Thai war 25–27, 28 Franco-Vietnamese accords (March 1946) 134–35, 142–44, 151, 153–55, 163, 175 Franco-Vietnamese Joint Commission 162 Franco-Vietnamese war (1946) 125 Free French 25, 28, 29, 33, 34, 40, 42, 44, 50, 74, 111, 112, 116, 117, 134, 151 French Committee of National Liberation 36 French Communist Party (PCF) 9, 122, 123, 141, 172, 175 French Expeditionary Force 36, 39, 147, 171, 172, 177 French Foreign Legion 13, 44, 75, 176 French Indochina (FIC) 9, 12, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 27, 33, 35, 41, 55, 78, 83, 85, 88, 101 French Military Mission 39 French Peace Preservation Corps 43 Front Populaire 8 Gamelin, General 163 Gandhi, Mahatma 11 Gateforce 109–10 Gates, Brigadier L.D. 109–10, 132 Gauss, Ambassador 49 Geneva Accords (1954) 178, 180, 181, 184

George VI, King 21, 118, 128 Germany 30 Gia Dinh 102, 103, 134 Gia Lam airport 143 Gia Long, see Nguyen Anh, Prince Giap, see Vo Nguyen Giap Gibbons, Brigadier E. 84 Giles, Frank 108 Giraud, General 29, 32 Go Vap 125 Gondo Seikyo 16 Gouin, Fe´lix 143, 145, 149, 151 Gracey, Major-General Douglas D. 65, 67, 71–86, 87–99, 102–6, 108–12, 114, 115, 118, 123, 124, 126–29, 131–34, 135, 139, 147, 151, 162, 173–75, 177, 181, 186–88 Grant, US Minister in Bangkok 26, 27 Great Asia Association 18 Great Britain 15, 19–21, 24–25 attempts to enter Common market 179 and confusion over Far East issues 55–56 and French aspirations in Indochina 29, 36–40 increased involvement in Vietnam 100–115 involvement in Indochina 68–86, 173–75, 177–78, 181 policy toward Indochina 96–99 relationship with US 29–30, 32 responsible for South Vietnam 68–86 and use of Japanese troops 123–25, 135 withdrawal from Vietnam and Cambodia 131–41 Great War 6, 7, 15, 36 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 65 Greater East Asian Nations 42 Greece 95 Greensmith, Sergeant 111 Greenstreet, Douglas 110, 127 Griffin Mission 182 Guilin 45, 46, 48 Gurkhas 76, 77, 82, 90, 91, 110, 111, 123, 125, 127, 128, 135, 177 Ha Long Bay 1, 46, 142, 143 Haiphong 5, 22, 33, 134, 141, 147, 157, 158, 160, 167, 171, 174

Index Haiphong incident (Nov 1946) 161–65, 166, 168, 170, 171 Hale´vy, Daniel 6 Halifax, Lord 20, 21, 31, 41–42 Hamaguchi, Prime Minister 17 Hanoi 4, 5, 7, 23, 34, 42, 43, 52, 58, 59, 63, 66, 75, 88, 91, 93, 101, 113, 117, 118, 120, 122, 124, 127, 135, 144, 145, 147–50, 153, 158, 160, 162, 165–67, 169, 171, 174, 179, 180, 185 Hanoi-Kunming railway 50 Hearst, William Randolph 129–30 Helliwell, Colonel Paul 53 Henderson, Sir Nevile 26, 27 Henri-Haye, French Ambassador 32, 34 Heppner, Colonel Richard 53 High Laos 38 Hikari Kikau 76 Hindu 2, 64 Hirohito, Emperor 17–18 Hiroshima 71 Hirst, Brigadier J.N. 98, 102, 104, 110, 112, 133, 134 Hitler, Adolf 154 Hitler Youth 26 HMS Bann 111 HMS Kelly 35 Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Ai Quoc) 1, 8–12, 13, 44, 45–47, 48–54, 60–63, 66, 92, 117–24, 127, 135, 139, 142–52, 154–58, 161, 162, 164–65, 166, 168–72, 174, 175, 179, 180, 182, 184, 186 Ho Hoc Lam 45 Hoa Hao 63, 64, 65, 84, 147, 157 Hoang Cao Nha 103 Hoang Minh Chau 113 Hoang Quoc Viet 98 Hoang Van Thu 45 Hoi An 3 Hong Ay 148 Hong Kong 10–11, 12, 60, 72, 173, 186 Hong River 1 Hudson, G.F. 29, 70 Hue´ 2, 4, 7, 43, 59–60, 63, 117, 118 Hugo, Victor 64 Hull, Cordell 26, 29, 30, 31, 35, 38, 71 Humbert, General 165 Hung King 1 Hurley, Patrick 53 Huynh Phu So 65, 147, 157 Iˆle de France 173 Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) 16, 18, 23

225

INA 124 India 5, 10, 11, 36, 37, 79, 121, 126, 140, 149, 177 Indian Air Force 124 Indian National Army 124 Indian troops 123–24, 135, 177 Indochina 4, 14, 21, 22, 23, 27 Anglo-French-US debates on 54–57 British involvement in 173–75 French aspirations in 36–40 Japanese coup d’e´tat in 42–43, 50, 67, 81, 87, 97, 100, 111, 116 and UN trusteeship of 70 Indochina Revolutionary Alliance 49 Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) 13, 14, 45, 47, 122, 151 Indochinese Democratic Front 14 Indochinese Marxist Study Society 122 Indochinese Nationalist Party (Quoc Dan Dang Dong Duong) 9 Indochinese Union 4 Indonesia 136, 137 Inter-Service Mission 131 Interministerial Committee on Indochina (Cominindo) 156, 157, 164–67, 174 Iraq 149 Irrawaddy River 110 Ishiwara Kanji 18 Jakarta (Batavia) 71, 136 Japan 6, 14, 70, 75, 178 aggressive stance of 23–25 and Anglo-Japanese alliance 15–16 and assumptions of superiority 18 British concerns over 19–21, 24–25 coup d’e´tat (9th March, 1945) 42–43, 50, 67, 81, 87, 97, 100, 111, 116 death and desertions of troops 125 as dissatisfied power 15 economic consequences of Depression in 16 French position 21–24, 25 and lack of natural resources 16, 17 and Manchurian invasion 17–18 and nationalist tendencies 16–18 organizational weakness 93 and proposed surrender of Indochina 56 rebellious attitude of 94 repatriation of troops 131, 132, 140 seizes control in Indochina 42–43 strike south strategy 19, 22

226

Index

Japan (Continued ) support for Viet Minh 78 surrender of 71, 78, 106, 127, 136, 178 and territorial expansion 18–19 and the Thais 25–27 troops in Southern Vietnam 76 use of terror squads by Viet Minh 148 Vichy arrangement with 30 view of the French 75–76 Western anxieties over 15 Japanese High Command 41 Java 114 Jesuits 3 Jingxi 46, 53 Joan of Arc 7, 64 Johnson, Lyndon Baines 184, 187 Joint Defence Agreement (JapanVichy) 42 Joint Planning Staff 37 Junkers 113, 114 Kampuchea 2 Kandy (Ceylon) 36, 38, 39, 43, 55, 70, 73, 74, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87–88, 91, 108, 117, 126, 136 Kashmir 177 Kato, Admiral 17 Kemp, Major Peter 107 Kempeitai 76, 113, 148 Kennedy, John F. 183, 184 Khim Tit 106 Khmer 2, 12, 106, 138, 185 Khmer Issarak 106 Kim Lung 53 Kimmins, General B.C.H. 88 Kiri Project 19, 24 Kita Ikki 16 Klotz, Lieutenant 107 Knatchbull-Hugessen, Sir Hughe 21 Kono, Consul General 42 Konoe Fumimaro, Prince 18 Kontum 153 Korea 17 Kremlin 9 Ku Klux Klan 9 Kunming 22, 34, 42, 44, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 117 Kuomintang 19, 21, 33, 45, 48, 181 Kwantung 17 L’Afrique vous parle (film) 8 La Lutte newspaper 13

La Populaire newspaper 171 Lac Vien 162 Lai 46 Lai Thieu 94 Lam Dong province 145 Lamotte Picquet 25 Lampson, Sir Miles, Lord Killearn 138, 173 Langdon, US Consul General 49–50, 51, 53 Langlade, Franc¸ois de 34–35, 37, 39–40 Langson 22, 23, 43, 147, 153, 163, 165 Laos 4, 6, 14, 25, 41, 42, 47, 65, 87, 88, 100, 105, 106–7, 116, 153, 178, 185 Larte´guy, Jean 176 Late Le 2 Lattre, Bernard de 183 Laurentie, Henri de 157, 165 Laval, Pierre 41 Lawson, J.J. 93, 96, 101, 181 Le Bourget airport 149 Le Duc Tho 168 Le Figaro 149–50 Le Hong Phong 14, 46 Le Huu Tu, Monsignor 60 Le Loi 2, 169 Le May, Curtis 187 Le Populaire newspaper 166, 167 Le Van Hoach 161 Le Van Trung 64 League for the Independence of Vietnam, see Viet Minh League of Nations 15, 18, 20 Leahy, Ambassador 31 Leclerc, General Jacques-Philippe 56–57, 73–75, 81, 83, 84, 86–88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 106–10, 113–15, 123, 125–29, 133, 134, 139–40, 142–44, 150–2, 154, 155, 165, 166, 170–72, 179 Leese, Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver 86, 114 Le´ger, Alexis 21 Leigh-Mallory, Sir Trafford 114 Lemonnier, General 42–43 Le´opard 116 Li Jishen, General 45 Liberation Committee 54 Lidice 129 Linlithgow, Lord 36 Liuzhou 48 London 9, 88, 132, 173

Index London Naval Conference (1930) 17 Loraine, Sir Percy 26 Loseby, British lawyer 11, 12 Louis of Battenburg, Prince 35 Louis XVI 3 Louisiana Purchase (1804) 3 Lourdes 149 Lu Han, General 66, 92, 118, 134, 146, 147 Luang Pibul, Field Marshal 26–27 Luxembourg 30 Lyce´e Albert Saurrat (Hanoi) 47 MacArthur, General Douglas 41, 71 McGlinty, US press correspondent 91 MacKenzie, Colin 107 Mackenzie, Lieutenant-Colonel 26 Macmillan, Harold 31–32 Macshinn, US radio operator 52 Madagascar 65, 116, 165, 172 Madagascar Brigade 123, 128 Maddocks, General 35 Makassar 132 Malaya 17, 19, 25, 27, 30, 34, 41, 68, 69, 71, 75, 79, 111, 132, 139, 140 Mallaby, Brigadier A.W.S. 128 Manaki, General 104 Manchu dynasty 2, 4, 7 Manchuria 17–18, 23, 124 Mandel, Georges 22 Mandelstam, Osip 8 Manila 126 Mao Zedong 7, 45, 47, 66 Marshall, George 34, 181, 182 Marshall Plan (1947) 182 Martin, Lieutenant Colonel 23, 75 Marxism 9 Marxist Study Society 151 Massu, Lieutenant Colonel Jacques 112–13, 134, 146 Matsumoto, Ambassador 42 Matsuoka, Foreign Minister 23, 25 Maunsell, Brigadier M.S.K. 80, 81–82, 133, 139 Maurras, Charles 152 Mayer, Minister of the Interior 167 Me-linh 1 Mediterranean 35, 68, 111 Meiklereid, E.W. 128, 133, 155, 171, 173–74, 183 Mekong 107, 111 Mekong Delta 1, 5, 52, 134 Merlin, Martial 8, 9

227

Messmer, Pierre 100–101, 108–9, 145, 151 Minardie`re, Guy de Valence de 139 Ming dynasty 2 Minh Mang 4 Ministry for Overseas France 100, 157, 163, 164, 165 missionaries 2–3 Moffat, Abbott Low 162, 166, 173, 182 Molie`re, General 159, 161–65, 167–71, 173 Monet, Paul 7–8, 10 Mongolia 18, 19, 23 Monireth, Prince 106 Mordant, General 40, 42, 43 Morlie`re, General Louis 156 Morrison, M. 173 Moscow 13, 14, 118, 122, 182 Mountbatten, Lord Louis 30, 35–39, 43, 44, 53, 55, 56, 69–75, 79, 82–88, 93–97, 100–105, 107, 108, 110–12, 114, 117, 123–29, 131, 133–34, 136–41, 174, 175, 177–78, 181 Moutet 154, 155, 161, 163, 164, 171 Moutet, Marius 144, 145, 149, 153, 166–67 MRP 151 Muggeridge, Malcolm 118 Munich Agreement (1938) 154 Murphy, Robert 32 Murray, Acting Brigadier E.D. 106 Mus, Paul 10, 161 MV Highland Brigade 127 My Tho 45 Myers, Brigadier E.J.C. 101 Mytho 76, 113 Nagasaki 71 Nakon Phanom 107, 114 Nam Bo 63 Nam Viet, see Vietnam Nanjing 18, 21 Napoleon III, Emperor 4 Napoleonic Wars 3 National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1946) 158 National Liberation Committee 59 National People’s Congress (1945) 54 Nazi Germany 19, 31 Nazi-Soviet pact (1939) 14, 22 Nehru, Jawaharlal 11, 124 The New York Times 124 Ngo Dinh Diem 180, 184 Nguyen Ai Quoc, see Ho Chi Minh

228

Index

Nguyen Anh, Prince (Gia Long) 3, 4 Nguyen Binh 147, 157, 158, 160 Nguyen Cao Ky 185 Nguyen dynasty 2, 3, 4, 58, 116, 180 Nguyen Hai Than 66, 148 Nguyen Khanh 185 Nguyen Manh He 60 Nguyen Sinh Cung, see Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Sac 9 Nguyen Tat Thanh, see Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Thi Minh Kai 9, 46 Nguyen Trai 2 Nguyen Tuong Tam 145 Nguyen Van Chieu 64 Nguyen Van Sam 59, 63 Nguyen Van Thach 146 Nguyen Van Thieu 180, 185 Nguyen Van Thinh 149, 160–61 Nguyen Van Xuan, Colonel 153 Nha Trang-Ba Ngo 76 Nomonhan 23 Normandy 32, 149 North Africa 34 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 173, 175–76, 179 North Vietnam 147, 180 atrocities in 147 Catholics in 60–61 Chinese in 134–35 Chinese involvement in 56, 66–67 declaration of independence in 61–62 economic problems in 62 French return to 134 independence declared in 61–62 promises support for the South 127 and re-establishment of French rule in 108–9 Notre Dame de Saigon (Catholic Cathedral) 64 Nun-Thai 158 Nung 46, 47 Nuremberg 102 O’Malley, Sir Owen 12–13 O’Sullivan, Consul 164 Office of Strategic Service (OSS) 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 61, 62, 75, 78–79, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 107, 114, 118, 120, 121, 136 Okawa Shumei 16 Okinawa 75 ‘Open Diplomacy’ 15

Operation Bentre 126, 128 Operation Buccaneer 69 Operation Embankment 79 Operation GBT 51, 52 Operation Lambda 117–18 Operation Lea 172 Operation Masterdom 79, 82, 114, 128, 133, 135 Operation Moussac 113 Operation Overlord 68, 69 Orde, Charles 19–20 Orduna 133 ‘Outline of the Main Principles for Coping with the Changing World Situation’ (1940) 23 P-38s 62 Pac Bo 46, 48, 52 Pacific 6 Pacific Front 57 Pacific Theatre 126 Pacific War 33, 36 Paget, General 175 Pakistan 177 Palewski 116 Panama 26 Paris 9, 38, 56, 100, 101, 104, 112, 115, 116, 118, 121, 126, 143, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 157, 161, 163–66, 170 Paris-Matin 153 Paris-Presse 129 Paris Soir 171 Park, Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith 113, 128, 162 Party Central Committee 168 Patti, Archimedes L.A. 43, 52–54, 61, 62, 64, 66, 72, 78–80, 88, 90–93, 118, 120–21, 126, 174, 180 Paul Doumer Bridge 144 Pearl Harbor 28, 31, 187 Pearl River 8 Pechkoff, French Ambassador 119 Penang 71 People’s Liberation Army 45 Pe´tain, Marshal 31, 32, 41 Petersen, Sir Maurice 70 Petsarath, Princes 107 Pham Hong Thai 8, 9 Pham Ngoc Thach, Dr 76, 98 Pham Van Bach 76, 77, 78, 81, 95, 98 Pham Van Dong 45, 117, 150–51, 153, 154, 156, 158 Pham Viet Tu 50 Phan Boi Chau 7, 8, 9

Index Phan Chu Trinh 7 Phat Diem 60 Philippines 30, 41, 75 Phipps, Sir Eric 21 Phnom Penh 76, 105, 106, 108, 138, 139 Phuc Quoc 63 Pibul, Field Marshal 105, 106 Pickard, Colonel Edward Cecil 109, 110 Piggott, Major-General 20 Pignon, Le´on 119, 121, 165, 166 Plain of Reeds 45, 129, 157 Pleiku 153 Pleven, Rene´ 28, 117–18, 167 Pol Pot 186 Political Warfare Department 136 Poncardiers SAS paratroopers 113 Popular Front 13 Portal, Charles 68 Portuguese 2–3 Potsdam Conference (1945) 54–56, 66, 67, 71, 175, 178 Poulo Condore 46 Pownall, Lieutenant General Sir Henry 38, 86 Poynton, Foreign Office official 57 Prague 27 Preliminary Convention 144 Pridi Banamyang 138 Pritt, D.N. 12 Privy Council 12 Proust, Marcel 6 Provisional Government of Indochina 49 Provisional IRA 178 Publicity and Political Warfare department 136 Pyman, Major-General H. 82–83, 88, 90, 101, 104, 128 Python programme 96 Quang Nam province 58, 184 Quang Trung 3 Quennoeulle, Philippe 169–70 quoc ngu 3, 62 Quoc Truong 183 Ramadier, Paul 172 Rangoon 70, 72, 94 Red army 19, 45, 69 Red River 5, 22, 144, 148 Red River Delta 4, 52, 53, 58, 183 Red River Valley 22

229

Repatriation of Allied Prisoners-of-War and Internees (RAPWI) 83, 140–41 Repiton-Preneuf 134 Republic of Cochin China 142, 149, 151, 152 Republic of Southern Vietnam 97 Re´union 116 Rhodes, Alexandre de 3 Richelieu 96 Ritchie, Lieutenant-Colonel 103 Rivier, Lieutenant-Colonel 4, 74, 81 Rodham, Brigadier 128, 131–32 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 23, 24, 28–35, 38, 41–42, 50, 53, 56, 66, 69–70, 101, 155, 181 Roselli, Commandant 134 Royal Air Force (RAF) 37, 43, 44, 76, 102, 104, 114, 126, 173, 174 Royal Central Asian Society (London) 76–77 Royal Engineers 110 Royal Navy 35, 36, 110–11, 174 Russia 15, 19 Sabattier, General 43–44 SACSEA 37 Sadec 128 Sadouk 134 Sagoya, assassin 17 Saigon Control Commission 80, 92, 97 Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) 3, 4, 7, 14, 21, 23, 33, 39, 45, 58, 59, 62–64, 72, 74, 77–78, 81–82, 83, 84, 88–90, 93, 94, 98, 100, 101, 104, 106–8, 111, 113, 117, 123, 125, 133, 134, 141, 144, 145, 153, 154, 165, 168, 173, 185 Saigon Radio 76 Saigon River 133 Sainteny, Major Jean 61, 62, 66, 97, 119, 121, 134, 143–45, 149, 151, 152, 156, 166–69, 171, 179 Saito, Colonel 25 Sakamoto, Lieutenant Colonel 113 Salan, General Raoul 143, 149, 155 Sansom, Sir George 19 Sargent, Sir Orme 173 Saunders, Commander in Burma 113 Saurrat, Albert 8, 150 Savorgnan de Brazza 162 Schuman, Maurice 151, 152, 165 Second Vietnam War 142

230

Index

Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) 91, 118 Seine 9 Setif riots (1945) 151 Shadow V 178 Shanghai 21, 45, 134 Shaw, Lieutenant Rudolph 48, 50, 51 Siam 25, 153 Sicily 111 Siem Reap 138 Sihanouk, King Norodom 42, 105, 106, 108, 139 Simenon, Georges 8 Simpson-Jones, Royal Marine Officer Peter 134, 174 Singapore 12, 26, 72, 84, 93, 114, 128, 133 Singapore Conference (1945) 94, 98, 101 Sino-Japanese war 23, 52 Sisavang Vong, King 42, 107 Slim, General Sir William 71, 72, 73, 78, 80, 83, 84, 99, 101, 114, 123, 127 Soc Trang province 105 Somme 7 Son Ngoc Thanh 105–6, 108 Song Mau Cho, see Ho Chi Minh Soong, T.V. 96 Soustelle, Jacques 129 South China 9 South China Army 23 South China Sea 46 South-East Asia 19, 22, 24, 47, 120, 122 South-East Asia Command (SEAC) 30, 33, 35–37, 39, 43, 53, 56, 70–74, 76, 81, 83–84, 86, 87–88, 90, 93, 95, 97, 104, 106, 107, 111, 114, 131, 134, 136–37 South Vietnam 180, 181 British involvement in 56, 68–86 confused situation in 62–64 French violence in 81–82 general strike in 85 increased violence in 100 promised support from the North 127 rival political/religious groups in 63–65 and war with Viet Minh 101–15 Southern Annam 153 Southern Committee 74, 77, 82, 92, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102 Souvanna Phouma, Prince 107

Soviet Union 8–9, 13, 18, 20, 45 Special Operations Executive (SOE) 35, 39, 40, 42, 55, 91, 107 Spitfires 76, 113, 126, 142 Stalin, Joseph 14, 19, 31, 54, 69, 70, 123 Stettinus 71 Stilwell, General 33, 34, 38, 45 Stowers, E.J.E. 110–11 Stung Treng 138 Su Pha Na Vong, Prince 107 Suez (1956) 36, 177 Suez Canal 5, 173 Suffren 142, 156, 162 Sukarno, President 102, 128, 136, 175 Sun Yat-sen 7, 64 Supreme Japanese War Council 41 Surabaya 128 Syria 175 Ta Kung Pao 49 Taihokual 124 Takahashi, Finance Minister 17 Tam Tam Xa (Association of Like Minds) 8, 9 Tan Son Nhut airport 75, 76, 90, 96, 99, 102, 173, 186 Tan Trao 54 Tan Trao Conference (1945) 63 Tan, Frank 51, 52 Taoism 1 Tassigny, General Lattre de 183 Tay Minh 64, 113 Tay Son brothers 3 Teheran Conference (1943) 31 Terauchi, Field Marshal 41, 72, 76, 77, 80–81, 83, 89, 94, 96, 104, 127–28 Terry, General 114 Tet offensive (1788) 3 Tha Thu Thau 13 Thai-Ky 158 Thai Nguyen 166 Thailand 25–27, 28, 30, 33, 44, 105, 106, 107–8, 138, 139, 185 Than 146 Thanh My 104 Thieu Tri 4 Tho 46 Thomas, Major Allison 54 Thorez, Maurice 14, 122, 139, 149, 151, 161, 167, 172 Three Ky 5, 143, 144, 166 Thu Dau Mot 76, 109, 125, 128 Thu Duc 127, 128

Index The Times 173 Tiou Long 153 Togliatti, Palmiro 123 Toilers of the East, University of 13 Tokyo 16, 17, 19, 25, 30, 41, 71 Tonkin (Bac Bo) 4, 5, 10, 23, 34, 35, 38, 39, 43–47, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 100, 119, 124, 134, 135, 143, 147, 153, 156–58, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 170, 172–75, 179, 181 Tønneson, S. 164 Tran Duc Thao 10 Tran Van Giau 13, 63, 65, 74, 77, 83, 92, 147 Trang Dang Ninh 168 Trang Huong Dao 169 Trang Quang Vinh 65 Travinh province 105 Treaty of Brest Litovsk (1918) 141 Trevor-Wilson, Lieutenant-Colonel A.G. 118–19, 124, 134, 147 Tricoire, Father 64 Trinh 2, 3 Triomphant 108 Tripartite Pact (Japan, Germany, Italy) (1940) 24 Trotskyites 13, 63, 89, 147 Truman, Harry S. 28, 54, 55–56, 59, 71, 92, 120–21, 181 Trung Nhi 1–2, 47 Trung Trac 1–2, 47 Truong Chinh 47, 52, 158 Tu Duc 4 Tu Ve militia 168 Tutenges, Colonel 39 Tuyen Quang 166 Tuyet Minh 9 TV Wong, see Ho Chi Minh U Minh Forest 157 United Nations (UN) 31, 101, 146 United Nations Front (UNF) 63 United States 9, 24, 78, 172 approach made by Ho Chi Minh 154–55 British disillusionment with 29–30 considers Japan as potential enemy 15 and the Depression 16 and ending of French colonial war in Vietnam 181–83 and Franco-Thai territories 28 Francophobia 28–32, 70, 131

231

Ho Chi Minh’s representations to 166 naval building programme 15 relationship with Vietnam 120–21 softening of attitude towards the French 56 and support for the French 126 Vietnamese policy 181–85 US Air Force (USAF) 43, 44 US Air Ground Aid Services 50 US C-47 114 US Intelligence 48–49 US Office of War Information 49 Valence de Minardie`re, Guy de 152 Valluy, General Jean-Etienne 128, 142, 145, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 173, 175 Van Phuc 168 Vansittart, Sir Robert 19–20, 27 Verdun 7 Versailles 150 Versailles Conference (1919) 3, 9, 15 Vichy government 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 40, 41, 52, 101, 138, 145 Victoria of Hesse, Princess 35 Victoria, Queen 35 Vientiane 88, 107 Viet Bac 169 Viet Cong 135, 187 Viet Minh 36, 44–48, 50, 53, 59, 63–64, 67, 71, 76, 77, 81, 84, 85, 87–92, 94–115, 117, 119–20, 122, 125, 126, 132, 134, 135, 141, 147, 153, 154, 157–63, 165, 167, 169–73, 175, 176, 180, 183, 187 Viet Minh Independence Movement 104 Viet Minh National Congress 135 Viet Quoc (VNQDD) 10, 119, 121, 135, 141, 147, 148, 158, 170 Vietnam, allied debates on 54–57 American involvement in 51–54, 187–88 arrival of European missionaries 2–3 as Asian Tiger 186 August Revolution 58, 60 beauty of 1 British involvement in 11–13, 177–78 build-up of hostilities with the French 142–49 canal and road-building in 4

232

Index

Vietnam, allied debates on (Continued ) Chinese occupation of 1–2, 66 and collapse of French colonial rule 65 communist involvement 8–9, 13–14 creation of ‘liberated zone’ in 53–54 and decline of scholar-gentry class 7–8 earliest recorded event 1 economic distress 52 and French imperialism 3–8 French reoccupation of 67 geography of 5, 128–29 ‘Gold Week’ 62, 148–49 Japanese incursions into 30, 43–44, 52 nationalist sentiments in 8–11 and onset of war 14 opportunities and solutions 186–88 and outbreak of war in 160, 167–72 and overthrow of the French 52 partitioning of 178, 180 proposed division of 56 railway in 6, 129 rebellions and unrest in 1–2, 3, 10, 13 and right to self-determination 54 and rise of middle class 7–8 state of chaos in 45–46 and struggle for independence 46–48 and suggested UN trusteeship of 31, 57 trade 6 US policy towards 181–85 wish for reunification 144–45 withdrawal of British from 131–41, see also North Vietnam South Vietnam Vietnam newspaper 141, 147 Vietnamese Communist Party 52 Vietnamese Democratic Republic 59 Vietnamese Liberation Army 53 Vietnamese Martyrs Day 60 Vietnamese National Party, see Viet Quoc (VNQDD) Villa des Gobelins (Paris) 9

Ville de Strasbourg 112, 126 Vinh San, Prince 116–18, 156 Vinh Thuy, First Citizen, see Bao Dai, Emperor VNQDD, see Viet Quoc Vo Nguyen Giap 47, 53, 60, 61, 62, 66, 92, 113, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 166, 167, 168–69, 170, 180, 182 Vu Hong Khanh 66, 148 Vu Ky 168 Vuong Thua Vu 168 Wallis, Captain J.B. 110 Wallonia 30, 31, 34 War Cabinet 24, 37 Washington 37, 43, 44, 53, 55, 56, 126, 181, 183 Washington Naval Treaty (1922) 15 Wedemeyer, General 38, 42, 53, 55, 56, 88, 114 Welles, Sumner 32 Wenham, Major D. 132 Wennecker, German Naval Attache´ 24 Westlake 112 White Terror 13 Wilson, Field-Marshal 44 Wilson, Woodrow 15 Wingate, Orde 34, 70 Woodford, Brigadier 102–3, 125 Wu Fei 49 Xaio Wen, General 122 Xuan Loc 109, 110, 113 Yalta Conference (1945) 70 Yen Bay mutiny (1930) 10 Yen Phu Central Power Station Yost, Charles 182 Yuan Shi-Kai 7 Yunnan province 4, 22, 66 Zhang Fakui, General Zhou Enlai 49 Zhukov, Marshal 19 Ziegler, Philip 178

48

168