A HISTORY OF REBELLION

AGAINST FOREIGN INVADERS

 FRANCE:
19TH CENTURY INVADER OF VIETNAM

WHY DID FRANCE COLONIZE?

EXTREME RIVALRY BETWEEN BRITISH AND FRENCH
DEFEAT OF NAPOLEON > FRANCE’S LOSS OF STATUS
AND TERRITORIES
THE BRITISH, DUTCH, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
HAD A FOOTHOLD IN ASIA
THE FRENCH HAD NO COLONIES IN ASIA

WHAT WAS LEFT FOR FRANCE TO TAKE OVER?

 FRANCE:
19TH CENTURY INVADER OF VIETNAM

WHY DID FRANCE COLONIZE?

BRITISH – (MOST OF ASIA) – India, Malaya, Singapore,
Burma, Hong Kong
DUTCH – East Indies (Indonesia)
SPANISH – Phillipines
PORTUGUESE – Macao (a territory attached to China’s
mainland)

WHAT WAS LEFT FOR FRANCE TO TAKE OVER?

(look on your map of the world)
 WHY INDOCHINA?
WHY DID THE FRENCH CHOOSE INDOCHINA AS
THE NEXT AREA TO CONQUER?
WHAT COULD THEY FIND IN INDOCHINA THAT
WOULD MAKE CONQUEST WORTH THE EFFORT?

THINK ABOUT IT!

(. . . and write some answers on the next slide)
 Why colonise Indochina?



By 1850
Culture clash had developed between Vietnamese
(Confucians) and the French (Christians)
Some Vietnamese had converted to Christianity
and a Vietnamese Catholic community had
developed
Some Vietnamese helped France gain a foothold
in Vietnam in exchange for weapons to use
against Vietnamese rivals
The French were threatening and undermining
the position of the Emperor who ruled by divine
right
 THE FRENCH WERE VIOLENT FIRST
The French used ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ to conquer.

What do you think “Gunboat Diplomacy” is?

1. Define the concept

2. Give a modern day example

 THE FRENCH WERE VIOLENT FIRST
1857 – French invade Vietnam

1862 – Treaty of Saigon –French gain more control of

Vietnam
 3 Vietnamese provinces ceded to French
 French control 50% of Vietnam’s rice-growing areas
 French control Poulo Condore - major Vietnamese fishing area
 French control seaports
 European clergy have unlimited access to Vietnam/can’t be persecuted
 French warships control Mekong Delta – linked Vietnam & Cambodia
 Vietnamese traditional govt could not converse with other nations without
French permission
 THE FRENCH WERE VIOLENT FIRST
 July 1885 – French attack Emperor’s Palace
Emperor flees to jungle
Emperor creates Can Vuong movement (guerrilla warfare)
Guerrilla warfare begins

What is guerrilla warfare?

 Worked at night
 Avoided meeting the enemy ‘head on’
 Used cunning, stealth and subversion
 Used psychology
 Harassed the enemy when it least expected it
 Relied on dedicated troops working in small units
 Appealed to the community for help
What would be some of the benefits of using this
kind of warfare against the French?



 1887 – FRENCH INDOCHINA CREATED1887 –
(incl. Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia and in 1893 Laos
 HYPOTHESIS
The Vietnamese responded to the French
invaders with violence because:
The French were violent first
Diplomacy by the Vietnamese had only led
to French dominance and Vietnamese
submission
The Vietnamese feared losing control of
their culture and their lives
 The Vietnamese feared losing control
of their culture and their lives.
Let’s look at some sources to see if this is true!

Read ‘A Warning to the French’

(p. 12, Conflict in Indochina on the next slide)
Then, analyse it!

a. Why might the author be comparing the Chinese and the

French?
b. What might the author mean by the last line of the poem “You
cannot put a western mask on an eastern face.”
c. What kind of warfare is encouraged by the sentence in the
Imperial Edict of Resistance “Come and live in the jungles!”
Describe this kind of warfare in your own words.
ANSWERS
1880s-1918 – French policies & practices that >
Vietnamese resistance

The French imposed their culture, language, religion and values

onto the Vietnamese
The French deliberately divided Vietnamese society into those
who helped the French and those who did not. Vietnamese
who helped the French went to French schools and embraced
French culture – they were called nguoi phan quoc (traitor).
Vietnamese farmers had to give a large amount of their crop to
the French without getting paid for it!
Forced labour was a common practice
There were high taxes on what the Vietnamese bought resulting
in higher product prices
Salt and rice wine could only bought from French outlets at 10
times the usual price (it was illegal for the Vietnamese to
produce them locally).
French introduced conscription – forcing Vietnamese to fight in
the French army
 1930 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
Read pp. 28-9 of Contested Spaces: Conflict in
Indochina

Read pp. 29-30 of CS - The Foundation Address of

the Indochina Communist Party (18-02-1930)

Answer questions 1, 2, 4, 7 on the source

(Write your answers on the next slide)
 1930-1945 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
Role of Japanese occupation (1940-1945)
Ho Chi Minh exploited
 the ‘threat of the Japanese’ &
 the vulnerability of the French due to German occupation of France

1941 – Ho Chi Minh created

 the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh)

 Vietnam’s Army of National Salvation (military arm of Viet Minh)

 Two guerrilla bases @ Cao Bang and Bac Son

1944 – Ho Chi Minh created

 The People’s Army (incl. Soldiers from the Army of National Salvation,
village militia and civilians)
 1930-1945 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
Vietnam’s Army of National Salvation (military arm of Viet Minh)
Objective:
Gain nationwide popular support via armed propaganda =
Policy which reminded people that independence could only be obtained
by active resistance against the Japanese and French

Method:
 entered villages/volunteered to work for their food/established trust
 exhibited pamphlets, cartoons, posters, pictures, slogans, songs, drama
 focused on struggles of Vietnamese people/blamed French & Japanese
 stressed nationalism, patriotism and independence
 ignored communist principles
 reminded villagers that every Vietnamese was vital to the movement
 Emotionally appealing approach to nationalism
 Created concept of ‘total war’ leading to giai phong (liberation)
 1930-1945 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
August Revolution and Declaration of Independence

On August 13, 1945 (a few days after America dropped atomic

bombs on Japan), Ho Chi Minh declared Armed Insurrection
against the French and Japanese. This ‘August Revolution’
was not a national bloodbath. Instead, Ho Chi Minh’s
Vietnamese supporters (the Viet Minh) confiscated French
property, blocked the retreat routes of Japanese troops, and
urged the Vietnamese to promote chaos, confusion, and
disobedience against the French. On August 20 and August
25, Ho Chi Minh’s People’s Army peacefully entered Hanoi
and Saigon and claimed them for the people of Vietnam.
The Francophile (French-supporting) Emperor Bao Dai
abdicated, asked Ho Chi Minh to form a new government,
and made the government the legitimate ruling body in
Vietnam.
 1930-1945 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
August Revolution and Declaration of Independence
On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh read the
‘Declaration of Independence of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam’ to a large crowd in Hanoi. He
also proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(DRV), a new nation that extended from the Chinese
border to the southern tip of Cochinchina (in other
words all of Vietnam – north, central and south).

But, the French refused to accept this government as

legitimate, thus setting the stage for the First
Indochina War (1946-1954) – Ho Chi Minh versus the
French.
 1930-1945 – Rise of Ho Chi Minh
August Revolution and Declaration of Independence

HYPOTHESIS (Event + reason = Hypothesis):

HO CHI MINH WAS ABLE TO DECLARE VIETNAM

INDEPENDENT IN 1945
BECAUSE HE EXPLOITED THE WEAKNESSES OF THE
FRENCH DURING WWII AND ENCOURAGED
NATIONALISM AND PATRIOTISM AMONGST THE
VIETNAMESE.
 ACTIVITY
Consider the roles of
 the French,
 the Japanese, and
 nationalism
in engendering Vietnamese support for Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic
Republic of Vietnam (DRV).
 First Indochina War
What started it?

Open the PDF file (on Blackboard)

Events that preceded the First Indochina War
The Battle that ended the First Indochina War
 Source: Stephen Kirchoff, Dien Bien Phu (2003) Retrieved from
http://www.campbell.edu/faculty/Slattery/dien_bien_phu.htm

WATCH AND LEARN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7tImvzutc
Sources
Who is the author of your source?
When was your source written? Is it primary or
secondary?
What is the tone of the source (eg biased,
reasonable, emotional etc)?
Was there a purpose in writing it? Who was the
intended audience?
What information can you take from this source?
What can it be used for?
Vo Nguyen Giap talks about Dien Bien Phu:
The Dien Bien Phu campaign is a great and first victory of a feudal colonial nation,
whose agricultural economy is backward, against the great imperialist capitalist
which has a modern industry and a great army. Thus, it means a lot to us, to
people all over the world, and to other countries. This is also how Ho Chi Minh
saw it.

We see the Dien Bien Phu victory as the victory [over] the French army and [over]
the intervention of the Americans --because in the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 80
percent of the war expenditures were spent by the Americans. The Americans had
their hands in it. So the Dien Bien Phu defeat was a defeat for both the French
and the Americans. But whether the Americans had drawn the lessons from that, I
don't think so. That's why the Americans continued in South Vietnam. ...

When we received news of the Dien Bien Phu victory, everyone practically jumped
up in the air, they were so happy about it. But Ho Chi Minh said that this is only
victory of the first step: we have yet to fight the Americans. It was very clear then.

Source: CNN Interview with Vo Nguyen Giap, 1996 (retrieved from

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/11/interviews/giap/
A French Foreign Legionnaire reflects on the war:

The artillery never stopped at night. It was like the

Battle of the Somme in 1916. Every day we saw their
trenchlines coming closer and closer. We could not
shoot them because they were below ground level.
All we saw was soil flying into the air. This condition
made strong men weak; the weak simply broke down.
We knew they were coming and would be on top of
us in maybe two weeks or less.
Source: Historical Services of the French Army, Reports of the French Expeditionary Corps in
the Far East: Dien Bien Phu: Documents, Letters, Correspondence. Report of Sergeant Jean
Claude Casta, Camp Dominique, 4 April 1954
Two French scholars assess the war:

It is not surprising that the French Expeditionary

Force failed to achieve decisive results… After 1947,
they limited themselves to a series of fragmentary
and murderous operations. ‘Hit-and-run’, ‘mopping
up’, ‘raking over’, commando raids – all of these
could never bring victory. On the contrary, by
sowing more and more ruin and hatred and by
constantly increasing the burden of the war upon
the people, such actions turned the peasant masses
against the French and greatly simplified the
psychological and material tasks of the People’s
Army.
Source: Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, End of a War: Indochina, 1954, Pall
Mall, London, 1969.
 GENEVA CONFERENCE
Decisions:
1. Cambodia & Laos now independent nations.
Elections determine new governments by 1955.
2. French troops to depart Tonkin (North
Vietnam) and North Vietnamese troops
(People’s Army) to depart Annam and
Cochinchina within 300 days.
3. Vietnam to be temporarily divided at the 17th
parallel until nationwide election (held by July
1956) determined a new government.
17TH PARALLEL