Viet Nam War Basics

The lion share of the books I use for this post were written no later than 1975. I want to show what people knew during the wars in Viet Nam.

INTRODUCTION

Following World War II peoples who had been ruled by the European powers for up to 500 years demanded their independence. When it was denied they revolted. The major opponent of independence was the United States. It had the economic, political and military power to support the colonial empires. It did so even if this meant supporting repressive and fascist governments. (John David Orme, Political Instability and American Foreign Policy: the middle options. 1-2)

Asian and African colonies of European countries argued that they fought for European independence so they should receive independence. Also, since the Japanese defeated the Europeans in World War II, and the Japanese subsequently were defeated by the Americans, Asian countries should become independent.

The Vietnam Wars were politically complex and there are unresolved consequences. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 277) Not since the Crusades, said General Jean de Latter Tassigny in July, 1951, “has France undertaken such disinterested action. This war is the war of Vietnam for Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 278)

The two most important issues to know about the Viet Nam War are: nationalism and land reform. Much was made by the anti-war movement of the long history of Vietnamese nationalism. This was quickly dismissed by pro-war advocates. However, we see nationalism in our endless war in Afghanistan. We see it in Iraq, a country artificially created after World War I but people consider themselves Iraqi. People do not like the US or anyone else for that matter to tell them how to govern or live. Vietnam, it has been argued, had to tell China this for 4,000 years. Later, they would have to convince the Japanese, the French and the Americans.

“The conflict is far more complicated than a simple clash between the competing ideologies of communism and Western liberal democracy. The forces at play in Vietnam are global in scope, involving virtually every kind of trouble that can plague developing lands. They encompass all the problems of countries recently emerged from colonial rule combined with those of peoples undergoing transition from traditional to modern societies under the impact of Western technological civilization. Both North and South Vietnam are hindered by traditional attitudes and customs and shortages of skills and capital needed for modernization. [That’s not the problem. The problem is colonialism. Has nothing to do with traditional or modern.] Both are troubled by factionalism among their elites, the members of which avoid responsibility, a trait inherited from the traditional society and magnified by colonial rule.” (Bain, 1)

was a slow advance that lasted more than eight hundred years, carried out primarily by the sort of peasant soldiering for which the Vietnamese seemed to have developed a special attitude. The Vietnamese peasant turned soldier whenever an enemy approached and reverted to settler once a war ended.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 9-10)

“During its first thousand years, Vietnam was a Chinese province known in Chinese annals as Chiao Chi. The entry of the Chinese into the burning capital of Nam Viet in the year 111 B.C. marks the beginning of the recorded, verifiable of Vietnam.

“In that period, the Chinese not only wrote and dominated Vietnamese history, they also contributed to the making of the Vietnamese people. Vietnamese history must therefore be looked at against the background of Chinese history and civilization.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 25)

“The first annexation of Vietnam by the Chinese was a bloodless affair of little immediate affect. In 207 BC, the founder of Nam Viet had divided Vietnam into two provinces headed by viceroys but under the control of the local lords. After the fall of Nam Viet, in 111 BC, the two viceroys submitted to the victorious Chinese general and pledged allegiance to the Chinese empire.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 27-28)

years thereafter, while continuing to absorb Chinese culture, the Vietnamese maintained their independence both by paying tribute to their great neighbor and by repelling a series of Chinese invasions.” (Bain, 2) Sometimes a renegade Chinese general would take over Vietnam and make himself the king. Chao-To, Trieu Da in Vietnamese, conquered the Vietnamese in 207 BC who at that time occupied “a small part of what is now North Viet-Nam.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 36) China retaliated with embargoes on farming products. As will become the tenor of Vietnamese resistance two thousand years later this only stiffened Vietnamese resistance. China and Vietnam finally reached an agreement whereby Vietnam was recognized as independent but a vassal of China. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 36-37)

Nevertheless, a quarrel developed within Vietnam as to whether or not being a Chinese vassal would benefit Vietnam in the long run. The Chinese finally did overrun Vietnam in 111 BC. “The occupation of Viet-Nam was to last, with a few brief interruptions due to rebellions, for 1050 years, until 939 AD.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 37)

“The Vietnamese are justly proud that they of all the Viet tribes regained and kept their independence. They are also proud that while serving as a buffer against Chinese expansion into Southeast Asia, they became an imperial power in their own right. During their nine centuries of independence, the Viet expanded southward from the Red River delta, conquering and absorbing the Indianized kingdom of Champa, colonizing the lower Mekong delta, which they too from Cambodia, and finally, at their maximum power, and annexing much of Laos and becoming suzerain, jointly with Thailand, over the rest of Laos and Cambodia.” (Bain 2)

The Mongols

The Mongols invaded Viet Nam in 1257 in the Red River Valley with 200,000 soldiers. “The Vietnamese, as they would so often do later, abandoned their cities and headed for the hills, leaving their capital to be burned by the invaders. But the Mongols, still unused to the tropics and tropical diseases, were defeated by the environment; after a fruitless pursuit of the Vietnamese, they withdrew. A few years later, Kublai Khan made a second attempt at crushing Viet-Nam, not because he needed the backwater kingdom on the Gulf of Tonkin, but because it blocked the overland route to Champa . . . [the invasion] which took place about 1268 after a landing by sea and left the Vietnamese in the center of a Mongol pincer.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 40)

The Mongols invaded again in 1284, this time much better prepared. The Vietnamese worried, however, “a great military leader stepped forward: Marshal Tran Hung Dao. He withdrew to the mountains, wrote his Essential Summary of Military Arts, and began to train his troops in what we now call guerrilla warfare. His principles could just as well have been written by Mao Tse-tung or Dao’s present-day successor in Hanoi, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dien Bien Phu” The enemy must fight his battles far from his home base for a long time . . . We must further weaken by drawing him into protracted campaigns. Once his initial dash is broken, it will be easier to destroy him.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41)

“And that is exactly what happened. In 1287, after the Vietnamese whittled down the Mongols through protected guerrilla warfare, the latter decided to withdraw. Tran Hung Dao planted thousands of iron-spiked stakes in the Bach-Dang River north of Haiphong through which the Mongol fleet had to pass. The ships arrived at high tide, when the stakes were submerged. A small Vietnamese naval force cleverly decoy the enemy into a fight which looked like an easy victory until the Mongol ships found themselves stranded or gored on the stakes . . . That was the moment Marshal Dao’s infantry chose to attack and defeat the invaders.” Nevertheless, the Vietnamese agreed to pay tribute to the Chinese. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41)

“A last invasion under the Ming emperors, in 1407, was eventually defeated by the same mixture of guerrillas and attrition warfare, and a new dynasty of Vietnamese kings, beginning with Le Loi in 1418, reigned until the end of the eighteenth century.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41)

Kublai Khan wanted “the east coast of Indochina.” He attacked Champa and Cambodia. Then, in 1284, he invaded Vietnam with 500,000 soldiers. With 200,000 soldiers the Vietnamese defeated the Mongols in both 1284 and again in 1287. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 44)

In 1406 the Ming devastated Vietnam and the Vietnamese developed a “burning hatred” of the Chinese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45) By 1427 the Vietnamese “aristocratic landowner” Le Loi drove the Chinese out again. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45)

He then redistributed land to the peasants which had lost land under the Chinese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45)

Although later Vietnamese dynasties unraveled Vietnam, “national unity survived, because of the forces rooted in the Vietnamese village, in the peasant’s way of life, north and south. The Vietnamese soil, bound together what the lords, the mandarins, and the country’s rulers were tearing apart.

“The Vietnamese peasants have to their credit the two most outstanding achievements in the history of Vietnam: territorial expansion and the preservation of national unity.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 53)

NATIONALISM - FRANCE

France conquered Vietnam through colonial wars from 1858 to 1883. Vietnamese nationalists “never accepted the names imposed on their divided country by the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 5)

“The land which in the wake of French political and military intervention became known as Annam (Tongking and Cochinchina were regarded as somehow connected with Annam) was in fact a highly centralized state officially renamed Vietnam back in 1802.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 5)

DOUMER

The Cochinchina Colonial Council was a minority of Cochinchina residents and they exerted an enormous amount of power and took quite a bit of funds from the treasury. This the Governor General Doumer hated. He therefore replaced it with a council he controlled. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 109-110)

Doumer was “ruthless” in his demands that the Vietnamese support French policies. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 112)

Doumer served as governor general from 1897 to 1902.

Doumer built railroads which he believed would help the Cochinchina economy grow. However, there turned out to be little to transport. As a result this turned out to be a boondoggle. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 114-115)

“The final verdict on the Indochinese railroads must state that they benefited neither France nor the Vietnamese people. They were of profit solely for the men who built them, the contractors and engineers, and for the banks that granted the loans for their construction.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 115)

“Institutionalization” of the “white functionary”. Meaning no Vietnamese could become an administrator. Buttinger describes this as an evil. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 115-116)

“Doumer’s unshakable self-confidence and lack of self-criticism nurtured his mistaken belief that the modern infrastructure he created would make Indochina rich even in the absence of a modern economy. He remained stubbornly ignorant of the social and political consequences his fiscal and economic policies were bound to produce.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 116)

“From the time the French troops had first occupied Saigon in 1859 until the arrival of Doumer in 1897, the French presence in Vietnam had meant thirty-eight long and bloody years of pacification.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 30)

Doumer set out to crush any Vietnamese resistance to French rule. He created a “network of communications, with fiscal reforms, and with political centralization.” Now the Vietnamese nationalists had to deal with the overwhelming power of modern technology. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 30)

He was so successful that he could claim that none of his troops had been killed. In addition, Doumer made Indochina economically independent of France. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31)

Nevertheless, the Vietnamese nationalists looked at his accomplishments as “utterly artificial and irrelevant.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.) Much of this had no relevance to the life of the peasants. He did nothing to promote education. He did acknowledge that the French “upset the institutions of a country of ancient civilization.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.)

Doumer did impose “unbearable forced labor, heavy taxes, excessive centralization, notorious cruelty by the colonials - - all that harassed the masses and exacerbated mandarins and scholars. Increasing nationalist agitation was the result.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.)

Paul Beau

Jean Baptiste Paul Beau replaced Doumer in 1902 and served until 1908. “Nationalist agitation grew more overt after Vietnam had suffered three successive disastrous harvest and subsequent devaluation of the piaster.” And this under French rule. Beau “launched his so-called floral conquest.” He instituted reforms in education and medicine. He called for association in Indochina over domination. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32.)

“Beau’s apparent efforts to improve native education impressed a great number of nationalists.” The French had destroyed the traditional Vietnamese educational system. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 41.)

However, the staunch French colonists in Indochina balked. Japan’s victory over Russian in their war in 1905 “awakened dormant national feelings and healed the native’s injured pride at being subdued for years by the West.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32.)

Vietnamese intellectuals now strived for modernization in order to “evict the French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32-33.)

Then there were the “pro-French mandarins who honestly expected benefits for their country from cooperation with France.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 118)

Phan Boi Chau

Phan Boi Chau wrote, “People’s rights derive from their enlightenment. France as a republic, America as a republic, stem from the enlightenment of their subjects; the constitutional regimes of Japan, Britain, Germany are also the result of their peoples’ enlightenment.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.)

The winner of the “competition for scholars and mandarins held every three years at Vinh” was Phan Boi Chau. He refused to become a part of the French government in Vietnam. He wanted to fight “foreign rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 117-118) Chau was the first in a new set of resistance leaders and”he was the author of a pamphlet written “with tears of blood,” dealing with the suffering and humiliation of his people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 118)

“The man who for the next twenty-five years personified the political character of Vietnamese national resistance was Phan Boi Chau. Born in 1867, in the province of Nghe An, a cradle of rebels, Chau began the political career for which he had carefully prepared himself in 1900. . . . Chau was the first prominent Vietnamese nationalist who realized that Asia would continue to be a victim of Western exploitation unless the East added modern Western knowledge and political ideas to its ancient store of knowledge. Between 1900 and 1905, the national movement fell under his spell. . . . he wrote a defiant pamphlet, Letters Written in Blood which was secretly printed and distributes in 1903, tried to form small, armed groups to fight the French, and traveled throughout the country rallying young and old to his cause. “In 1905, Chau went to Japan, where he met and was deeply impressed by exiled Chinese intellectuals who were to play a significant part in the movement led by Sun Yat-sen. Even greater was the impression made on him by Japan’s modern leaders. He was convinced that Japan was destined to play a decisive role in outing the white man from Asia.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 155)

With the wave of nationalism in the early 1900s due to an economic downturn in Indochina Phan Boi Chau “exploited” the moment. He was a

“master in psychological maneuvering. . . . In 1900 with a few other patriots Phan Boi Chau had already founded his New party, which was the embryo of Vietnam’s first modern political party, the Association for the Modernization of Vietnam, which Chau also founded, in 1905.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 33.)

The Japanese victory over Russia in the 1905 war convinced Vietnamese and other Asian peoples that “the only way for the East to assert itself against the Beast was by acquiring the scientific, technological, and general knowledge of the West.” Phan Boi Chau agreed with this from his exile in Japan. Vietnamese students also traveled to Japan for study. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121)

Japan mesmerized Phan Boi Chau with its Westernization and “remarkable progress.” He encouraged Vietnamese scholars and students to witness Japan’s achievement. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 33.) They “vowed to imitate Japan “ in modernizing Vietnam. They called themselves the “Tokyo group. They emphasized national development and education the latter which the French let decline. They appealed for “mass education” in Vietnam. Kinh Nghia Thuc was there first school and developed into the Dong Minh Free School Movement.” This was short lived as the French crushed it. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 34.)

The school immediately began teaching quoc ngu which had been “invented by European missionaries in the seventeenth century.” This was revolutionary as it had been the standard to teach Chinese characters or French. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 42.)

Nevertheless, Vietnamese nationalists looked at quoc ngu “as a tool for religious propaganda, a sort of memorial of shame, and perhaps a dangerous trap set up by the Western conquerors for the annexation of Vietnam.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 43.)

However, “a few progressive scholars . . . realizing bitterly the weakness of both Chinese and its sister chu nom, had begun to adopt quoc ngu late in the nineteenth century.” It troubled them that this was a western invention, however, other scholars decided to use it as a new language for Viet Nam. In fact, Phan Chau Trinh said “without the overthrow of the Chinese characters we cannot save Vietnam.” A powerful act since Chinese characters had been a part of the Vietnamese language for two thousand years. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 43.) This became an act of modernization. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 44.)

The new Vietnamese scholars “called themselves enlightened.” They “had to break with the past. . . . They regarded themselves as awakening from the deep of an unproductive system of education and rejected the old four the new. . . . they did not hesitate to tear up their old academic degrees; Phan Boi Chau disavowed his enviable degree as number one graduate in a regional contest.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 45.) Thus, French colonization caused Vietnamese modernization and interestingly the overthrow of the French.

The Dong Kinh school referred to Japan as the “eldest yellow brother.” It was believed that Japan would be the “brother-keeper” of the rest of Asia. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 54.)

In addition, the Vietnamese read ancient Greek scholars, Enlightenment figures, and famous political leaders of recent European history. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 54.) The overseas Vietnamese were “shocked at the contrast between stifling tyranny at home and the freedom abroad. . . . Phan Boi Chau sent a number of his students to study in Hongkong, Thailand, and Germany, also.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 55.)

In addition, Vietnamese scholars admired “science and technology for [sic] Europe and America.” They explained this by writing that there is a Congress in charge of politics and a press expressing the “will of the people.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 55-56.)

The Vietnamese scholars reprinted old texts in quoc ngu and those the French might consider revolutionary were surreptitiously printed and distributed. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48.) They also blamed the French for Vietnamese peasant ignorance. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.)

However, Phan Boi Chau remained a monarchist until the overthrow of the Manchus in 1911. He proposed “more competent and patriotic” leaders for Vietnam. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58-59.)

Phan Chau Trinh

Phan Chau Trinh believed that the French educational system caused a moral decline of the Vietnamese. He demanded democracy for Vietnam, “in the image of the French Republic.” He was furious at the working relationship the mandarins developed with the French colonizers.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.)

The most popular book, The Manual of Modern Civilization, became “a sort of manifesto,” contrasts “old Vietnam and contemporary Vietnam, with emphasis on the ignominious decadence of the latter.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48.) The anonymous author describes the decadence as,

“ignorance of the world situation, a tragic rejection of foreign technology, superstitious worship of the Ancients, and a feudal respect for the mandarins at the expense of the common people. . . . the author makes six recommendations for the education of the masses: (1) use of quoc ngu, (2) revision of books to bring them up to date, (3) alteration and improvement of the examination system, (4) promotion of the national elite, (5) development of industry and trade, and (6) promotion of the press.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48-49.)

Westernization was emphasized by the “Dong Kinh group.” This was revolutionary as the recent emperor Tu Duc referred “to Westerners as white demons.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 49.) To the Vietnamese they were nothing more than servants to the French. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 50.)

Nevertheless, the Vietnamese scholars encouraged people to learn French. Even Phan Chau Trinh admired,

“French democracy and French technology in the construction of roads and railroads, the repair of dikes and bridges, and the use of steam power and telecommunications. He advocated a frank and egalitarian collaboration between the French and the natives. Toward this goal, the nationalists were to abandon violence and the French were to carry out necessary reforms.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 50.)

However, the nationalists were stymied by the French refusal to allow “them to import liberal Western thinking.” Even educated Vietnamese did not know “that authors like Montesquieu and Rousseau were French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 51.) Therefore, the Dong Kinh group smuggled materials from China and Japan to out maneuver the French police. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 51-52.) Studying French and other European texts Vietnamese learned for the first time the words, economy, progress, and revolution. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 52.)

Phan Boi Chau and Phan Choi Trinh supported “study groups” in order to discuss the new ideas. “A modern concept of patriotism was developed, based not on a line allegiance to the kings and mandarins, but on national solidarity and unreserved devotion to the nation’s heroes. New mottoes and key ideas replace the old, for example, “the people being the foundation, monarchs and mandarins may go, the nation will remain forever.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 59.)

There were public lectures throughout the country. There were many lecturers in addition to Phan Chau Trinh and Phan Boi Chau. “Phan Chau Trinh was the most successful. A true image maker and breaker, he toured the upcountry from north to south, beating the drum to sir up nationalist enemies; and incessantly harassing the backward and corrupt mandarins with his sarcastic verses.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 60.) Lecture halls overflowed and the French arrested lecturers. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 61.)

Progressive scholars also promoted women’s rights. Emboldened women gave their opinions at these lectures. All cited great European women in history. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 64.)

Cutting a man’s hair became an important issue in creating a new Vietnam. Tradition in Vietnam dictated that only monks could have short hair. However, “lay people were supposed to wear their hair long.” So, after 1900, progressive scholars cut their hair. This begat the “hairbun-murdering-movement.” “Teams of haircutters roamed the roads leading to major market places. Progressive scholars-turned-barbers and their students would stop any man have a pigeon-nest-like hairbun and politely and politely request, I beg you, let me dispose of this bun of backwardness for you. And to prevent the victim from possible protest, the barber set out at once to do his delicate job while singing a moralizing song.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 64.) Similar to the haircut movement earlier in Japan. In the tradition of, or at a similar time as, China, where they cut a man’s hair whether he wanted it cut or not.

Nevertheless, the French cracked down on the progressive scholar movement. They closed schools and banned the lectures. The schools were “searched for seditious material. None was found.” The material had been well secreted by the scholars. The French attempted to bribe the scholars by promoting them within the French government system. The promotions were refused. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 69-70.)

Prior to the French conquest Vietnam had “free and universal higher education.” The French replaced with with their own “rigid” system hoping to turn the Vietnamese into Frenchmen. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 120)

This process was known as assimilation. There was a plan to open schools everywhere but there were no teachers.

“Consequently, after ten years of foreign rule, a formerly literate region with more than 1.5 million inhabitants had fewer than 5,000 primary-school pupils. Higher education had ceased altogether. Assimilation meant preaching “the gospel of French culture to the Vietnamese.”

Opponents of educating the Vietnamese believed it would create more rebels. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 120) There was an attempt to integrate the Chinese based system with France’s western style education. Intelligent students were sent to France for higher education. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121)

“A period of intense educational activity accompanied this awakening of the national spirit under the banner of “modernization.” Study groups formed, patriotic merchants supported the publication of small newspapers that proclaimed eventual freedom for a Westernized Vietnam, traveling lecturers assured their listeners that education was a means of liberation and that Vietnam would rise again if it followed the path chosen by Japan. Poor and rich alike contributed to the cost of this movement which culminated in the creation of the Free School of Tongking in Hanoi in March, 1907, largely under the stimulus of Phan Chau Trinh’s campaign for a modernization of Vietnamese thought. Here the new movement could its organizational center and spiritual home. The subjects taught included the natural sciences, political economy, and national culture. Instruction was in Vietnamese, Chinese, and French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121-122)

The French were furious and found these actions “subversive.” This included reading classic political philosophers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau. Nevertheless, the project continued. The French referred to Vietnamese traveling to Japan to study as the “exodus to the East” and considered it “subversive.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122) Students and teachers were arrested. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122)

In 1908,

“When the peasants of Annam . . . demonstrated openly against high taxes and the thinly disguised forced labor, the blame was placed on the actives of the Vietnamese educators. Hundreds of nationalists were arrested and death sentences pronounced against the leading members of the movement to create a new national elite.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122)

Some executions were carried out other scholars “were sent to Poulo Condore, an island 50 miles off the southern coast of Vietnam, which the French transformed into a concentration camp.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122-123) These actions set the tone for French rule in Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 123)

The demonstration against the French had heavy peasant involvement. They were upset at high taxes on, among other things, “salt, alcohol, and opium monopolies.” The French [in Vietnam] paid almost no taxes. “The flagrant injustice of the colonial taxation system, which favored the rich at the expense of the poor, the Europeans at the expense of the native population, was one of the chief reasons for Vietnamese discontent.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 123)

The French established monopolies that only French citizens could benefit from. The monopoly on salt affected the entire Vietnamese population and their diet. Salt had to be purchased at extremely high prices. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 124-125)

The French in Vietnam complained of “laxity of the prosecution of Vietnamese nationalists.” There were no standard criminal court procedures just the whim of the French residents. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) The French concentrated on police and military power to crush rebellion. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) The local French press constantly complained of guerrillas and “educated natives” as a “menace to French rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) Continued conflict between the Vietnamese and the French. This caused problems for the home government in Paris. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 128)

The French complained of “hardships and frustrations of life in Indochina.” They became particularly upset when their corruption was exposed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 129) The French colonials who did not do very well in Vietnam were the ones who particularly complained that their economic projects were not supported by Paris. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130) Criticism of French rule in Vietnam made its way to Paris. Especially concerning was “the brutal treatment and ruthless exploitation of the natives.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130)

“Social conditions in the colony and the failure of French policy to win Vietnamese cooperation were as forcefully condemned in these official reports as in the books by the many writers who had visited Indochina and had returned filled with indignation against the colonial regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130)

One writer “found no agricultural prosperity in the colony, at least none created by the French, and he showed that commerce, after forty years of the French “presence,” was still insignificant and industry nonexistent. . . . [another visitor to Indochina] a passionate observer more familiar with native misery . . . the Vietnamese people were forced to pay for Doumer’s economically questionable achievements. . . . nothing was being done to improve improve conditions, while the harsh measures designed to secure the monopolies financial success added to the misery of the people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131)

“White man’s assumption of racial superiority could corrupt normally decent men.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131)

One writer “described the public works as “ill-disguised deportation,” called the salt tax “a permanent crime of lese-humanite,” [roughly, inhuman] and commented that the enforced sale of alcohol was ruled not by the law of supply and demand but by “the arbitrariness of an administrator who bets his future on the rise of consumption in his regional territory.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131) There were warnings of “much greater troubles” in Vietnam if the French did not change their behavior. Also, critics of French policy in Vietnam warned of “profound repercussions” over the Japanese defeat of the Russians in 1905. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131)

There were reports “about the denial of justice suffered by the native populations at the hands of the colonial society drew the attention of the entire country.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131-132)

The French declared a belief in “assimilation.” In reality it was “cultural imperialism.” The French called it, “mission civilatrice.” This is other wise called, the “white-man’s burden.” The idea was that the non-whites, the little brownies, would become the equals of the colonialists. The idea was spread that the whites and non-whites had a fraternal relationship. This was balderdash. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 132)

Practically, French culture and policies replaced Vietnamese. No Vietnamese held important positions in the government. In reality, assimilation was a joke. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 132-133)

Assimilation was replaced by association. “Cooperation was to be achieved through concessions to the native populations that would make them ready to work with the foreign masters of their country. Assimilation was rejected not only as unrealistic, but also because respect for native cultures and institutions was seen as an important condition of cooperation between colonial governments and their subjects.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 135)

Association became a military topic after the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1905. It was even then believed that Japan had imperial interests. A French general in Indochina called for the creation of a native army. General,

“Theophile Daniel Pennequin, the Commander and Chief of the Army in Indochina, shocked colonial society by calling for the creation of a native army. Fully aware that this required a drastic change in the treatment of the Vietnamese, he called for a policy of genuine association, a colony without conquerors and conquered, in which Vietnamese and Frenchmen were part of the same empire.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 136)

“The fact was that the economic needs and political aspirations of the Indochinese people were not reconcilable with the preservation of colonial rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 138)

“The medical establishments were merely small, understaffed, and poorly equipped clinics and dispensaries, manned chiefly by so-called hygiene officers trained to perform simple tasks like inoculations and first aid. Nor could 175 medical establishments in a country of 25 million be called an impressive achievement.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 140)

During World War I 140,000 Vietnamese were sent to Europe to work and fight in the war. This amounted to forced labor.(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141)

It was legal for Frenchmen to strike a Vietnamese. This shows the absolute disdain and impunity the French looked at the Vietnamese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141)

There was abuse of Vietnamese in the mines. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141)

In 1916, while France fought a war in Europe and had much less forces in Indochina, Emperor Duy-Tan led a rebellion which failed and he was also exiled, but to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 68)

Duy Tan spent 25 years on Reunion Island and “became an electrical engineer there, ran its radio station with the outside world and, in World War II, was one of the leaders of the anti-Vichy Free French underground there.” He became an officer in the Free French Army. After World War II Charles DeGaulle asked him to return to Vietnam to counter the Viet Minh. However, he was killed in a plane crash in Central Africa. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 68)

There was a policy of “granting land concessions to French colons and collaborating Vietnamese notables.” Change did not even come close to happening until 1927. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142)

“Ineffective . . . provincial chambers . . . in Tongking and Annam. They never had any but consultative functions. . . . they also had no moral authority as representatives of the people. Vietnamese nationalists regarded them as reactionary delegations of natives under the influence of the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142)

The Vietnamese were “disillusioned” with Sarraut. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142)

Vietnamese had fewer rights than the colonial subjects in other countries. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 144)

In 1913,

“Agents of the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam, founded abroad by Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cuong De, became active in many parts of the country. they operated from their new base in China, which they succeeded in building up after the start of the Chinese revolution [1911], an event that strengthened the spirit of national resistance in Vietnam as much as had the rise of Japan after 1905. On March 24, 1913, bombs were discovered in the vicinity of several public buildings in Saigon. On the twenty-eighth of the same month, unarmed peasants marched on Cholon, at the gates of Saigon, apparently intent upon voicing their grievances. . . . the French brutally dispersed the marchers, arrested hundreds of nationalists suspected of being the leaders of the emergent movement . . . On April 12, the nationalist “underground” murdered a high Vietnamese official in Thai Binh; on the twenty-sixth, a bomb was thrown in Hanoi, killing tow French officers and causing such panic among the French and such violent demands for action against the nationalists . . . Criminal Commission . . . sentenced dozens of Vietnamese to death, including the absent Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cuong De.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 143)

Uprising of native soldiers at the military post of Yen Bay in 1930. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 146)

“The Commission sentenced 83 nationalists to death, and 546 to imprisonment and forced labor. . . . That same year, 699 persons were summarily executed, 50 in Yen Bay alone. By the end of 1932, the number of nationalists arrested and held in prison was estimated at more than 10,000.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 146-147)

“1930 was a year of near-hysteria among the French community in Vietnam concerning the dangers of communism. For the wealthy . . . the threat of communism was a matter for concern.” Their criticism of French oppression died down as the rebellions grew. Without knowing it, perhaps, the Constitutionalists their limited ideas of independence fueled revolution. “They were an elitist group. Whatever, political aims some, such as the Constitutionalist, pursued, they were a group committed to maintaining the French in power. And they failed to recognize why communism could have an appeal to the peasantry of Vietnam.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 181-182)

The French refused to industrialize Vietnam because they were afraid that a middle class would develop as had in India. A middle class would demand political rights, “national aspirations,” economic participation. This could lead to Vietnam breaking away from France altogether. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 168)

In fact, the middle class was so small that it had little impact. A larger middle class might have been able to counter the attraction of communism. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 172) Vietnamese had no experience in business because the French would not let them. Therefore, an “intelligentsia” formed of doctors, lawyers, civil servants and “other professionals.” This bred resentment among the Vietnamese. They would have more than their share of influence on the revolution. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 172)

The landowners were a “wealthy class created by the French.” They became more economically powerful and in course demanded more political power. However, they were willing to share power with the French in what Buttinger called modus vivendi. The French resisted this and that created a new rebellious group they had to contend with. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 173)

The result is the Constitutionalist Party. It was short-lived because it never accomplished anything. Originally,

“it demanded liberal press laws, greater opportunities for Vietnamese nationals in government positions, equal treatment of French and Vietnamese officials, liberalization of the requirements for the practice of law, and other such moderate reforms. . . . wanted to make the Colonial Council . . . into a real legislative body. They put up their own candidates, and in spite of the severely restricted electorate-high officials, French-appointed collaborators, and rich landlords were almost the only ones given the right to vote-all their candidates were elected.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 173-174)

Constitutionalist Party

Frequently referred to as collaborators although this is a misinterpretation of the French, collaborateur, which was admirable in Vietnamese society for working with the French. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 187)

They formed the Constitutionalist Party whose aims were to reform French rule over Cochinchina. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 160) They did not understand that to achieve independence they had to sever Vietnam from France. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 162)

The Constitutionalists mainly lived in Cochinchina. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 163) Many of the Constitutionalists depended on those Vietnamese who made their fortunes allying themselves with the French colonialists. Their fundamental belief was to work within the system though this would not give Vietnam independence. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 163)

During World War I the French produced patriotic literature in Vietnamese to rally them to the French cause. However, the Vietnamese did not see the war that way. “Members of a Vietnamese secret society” attacked the Saigon Central prison which “brought [a] swift and terrible French reaction. . . . Fifty-one Vietnamese who had participated in the attack on the prison were executed by firing squad, with the leaders of the attacking group being forced to watch, six at a time, before they, too, were executed.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 165)

The French continued to fear uprisings, which they referred to as “treachery”, for the rest of the colonial period. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 165-166) This justified their “extraordinary slaughter.” Another attack occurred at the Poulo Condore prison in 1918. The French retaliated by killing seventy-five Vietnamese. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 166)

This fear of French retaliation whether by firing squad or the guillotine polarized Vietnamese resistance. The French in Cochinchina reveled in the executions, as well. This led either working within the system as the Constitutionalists proposed or becoming a militarized revolutionary. The latter entailed long and painstaking work and eventually became dominated by Communists. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 167)

The Constitutionalists failed to see that their programs left them at the mercy of the French; the Vietnamese would always be subservient. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 174) In addition, they did not believe in overall democracy as did the scholar nationalists. Essentially, they were elitists. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 177) It did not aid the Constitutionalists to believe that collaborating with the French was a good thing, justifying French colonization of Vietnam because it overthrew the mandarins.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 180)

The Constitutionalist Party opposed “social revolution and demands for independence.” It supported the French during “uprisings.” This did not win followers. And the party became a “political corpse.” In 1926 the French disallowed the Vietnamese People’s Progressive Party. Thus, reform was out of the question as it had failed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 174)

The tumultuous year of 1930 proved destructive to Constitutionalist cooperation with the French. The Communists led a revolt against the French in Annam, especially, Nghe An. But Cochinchina saw “unprecedented agitation” also. The Constitutionalists feared the communist uprising as well. Although originally upset at the measures taken by the French to suppress the rebellion of 1930 the Constitutionalists toned their complaints down as time went on. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 181)

Vietnamese Nationalist Party, Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD)

Another organization was the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, known as the VNQDD. Membership was made up of intellectuals. Organized Vietnamese soldiers and collected weapons.

“Grew rapidly . . . but its leaders, young and inexperienced, were no match for the French Surete. Its chief was a twenty-three year old teacher named Nguyen Thai Hoc, whose passion and illusions interfered with the need for caution. . . . they ordered a general uprising which all major garrisons with Vietnamese troops were to take part . . . 1930. . . . failure. The garrison of Yen Bay in tonguing succeeded in killing its French officers and in holding out for one day.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 175-176)

The French “retaliated.”The rebelling soldiers were executed. Others deported with “life sentences of hard labor. Nguyen Thai Hoc and twelve of his collaborators were beheaded on June 17, 1930.” Only the communists, under Ho Chi Minh, were left to take up the struggle. They unified in 1930. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 176)

The revolution started on May 1, 1930 and the French slaughtered them. “Six months later, the peasants of the provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Ngai destroyed the local machinery of government and set up their own revolutionary regimes.” Local “soviets” were established. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 179)

Historians have called 1930 “the Year of the Red Terror.” The French crushed the revolutionary governments in what became known as the “year of White Terror.” They killed up to 10,000 Vietnamese in cold blood and deported another 50,000. 10,000 political prisoners were held at France’s “infamous concentration camp on Poulo Condore.” The French declared communism destroyed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180)

These events in France “evoked indignation, shock, and shame.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180) Moderate French in Vietnam supported Emperor Bao Dai who hope to obtain French support. “On May 3, 1933, he upset the traditional mandarin system of rule, took the reins of government into his own hands.” He was only 18 years old. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180-181) He made Ngo Dinh Diem Minister of Interior. Diem was also put in charge of a reform commission “which accomplished nothing.” Diem resigned and Bao Dai returned to his playboy activities. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 181)

“The French conquest was a great humiliation for a people who had repelled some fifteen invasions from China. (Bain, 2-3) Deeply resenting foreign control, the Vietnamese produced a long series of nationalist leaders and movements that struggled for doc lap - independence. The first nationalist groups tried to fight with traditional methods, but with the failure of these, subsequent leaders turned to Western techniques. Among the nationalists, a clash developed between those who followed the individualistic path of Western liberalism and this who followed communism. In the end, the Communists led by Ho Chi Minh gained ascendancy over the nationalist movement t bu means of a superior organization, the use of deception, and the murder of opposition nationalist leaders.” The latter policies alienated many Vietnamese so that “a second government” was formed. Beginning as anti-Communists “supported by the French” they developed their own nationalist identity. (Bain 3)

A school called Lycée Quoc-Hoc was founded by a mandarin named Ngo Dinh Kha. The school became, “the hotbed of Vietnamese resistance to all outside influences.” Ho Chi Minh’s father sent his son to study there. Also to study there was Ngo Dinh Diem, the founder’s son. “It was to blend all that was best in French education with a solid anchoring in Vietnamese culture.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 63-64) Also to study there were Vo Nguyen Giap, and Pham Van Dong. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 64)

In the early 1900s,

“many Vietnamese (particularly among conservative nationalists) who made the contrary decision of continuing to look toward China for guidance, or even toward the rising Japanese state. Such nationalist leaders as Phan Boi Chau, witnessing the rise of Sun Yat-sen’s Kuomintang, in fact emigrated to China and created the Dong Du [Eastern Voyage] movement which many young Vietnamese followed for over twenty years. A royal prince, Cuong-De, led another small group of nationalists to Japan, some of whom returned to their home country when the Japanese invaded it.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 65)

The school remained a center for revolutionary and nationalist activity. In 1966, “espousing the cause of Buddhism this time, [they] nearly toppled the South Vietnamese regime of General Ky and, with it, almost shook the whole American effort in Viet-Nam to its very foundations.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 64)

“Prominent nationalists rallied around him. . . . During the next three years, some two hundred university students went to study in Japan . . . he wrote his second book [1905 in Japan] , the History of the Downfall of Vietnam. He also met Sun Yat-sen” but Sun wanted the Vietnamese to fight for China while Chau wanted to fight the French in Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156)

These new “progressive scholars” embraced Western business practices. They gave up traditional scholarly functions to become farmers “growing cinnamon, tea, and and other economic plants for export. . . . Phan Chau Trinh founded a commercial company and owned a cinnamon tree plantation.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 56.) Scholars manufactured “hats, clothes, feather fans, wooden shoes, or bamboo trays.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 56-57.) Most, however, failed. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 57.)

Phan Chau Trinh

Nationalists demanded changes in Vietnamese behavior as well, similar to the Chinese nationalists overthrowing the Manchus. These included “cutting of long hair and fingernails, the cleaning to teeth, the use of soap, and the wearing of uncomplicated clothing.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 59-60.)

Ironically, France’s reputation was tarnished through all this. Japan’s on the other hand rose to “unambiguous admiration.” Japan had learned from the West and had defeated Russian in a war in 1905. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 52.) Consequently, a popular school song of the day said, “Japan, a nation of common culture (with us), Has been the first to hoist the flag of independence; In the inauguration of the modern era, Who can compete with the Emperor of Japan.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 53.)

The conquest by France led the “progressive scholars” to decry the “backwardness of the country.” However, conservative scholars were not happy. They continued to look to the past, to venerate past scholars. They “still considered the political doctrine of China’s philosophers as immutable wisdom, in contrast to the shortsighted and mercantile art of Westerners.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 46.)

Phan Boi Chau had been frustrated by the lack of training by the French in mechanics, agriculture and commerce. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 41.)

He went back to Vietnam in 1905. However, he concluded that a “political revolution” was not needed “and that a reformed monarchy could work the same miracles for Vietnam that the Meiji emperors had worked for Japan. [However, the Meiji emperors, and it was one emperor, was not the power in Japan.] Another even more fateful misconception Chau brought back in his intellectual luggage was the idea that Japan would support Vietnamese national aspirations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156)

Prince Cuong De was the likely new emperor. In 1906 both Cuong De arrived in Tokyo and Chau began his first political organization. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156-157)

In 1907 Chau and his student followers were expelled from Japan. Some went to Siam and others, including Prince Cuong De, went to Hong Kong. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157)

“In 1908, Chau, together with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian and Philippine revolutionaries, founded an East-Asian League . . . against Western imperialism. . . . Trinh started a reformist movement whose much more radical aim was a democratic republic. . . . dominant republican trend in the national resistance movement.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157)

In 1908 “thousands [of Vietnamese] protested . . . against excessive taxation and against the unpopular corvee.” Later, Vietnamese nationalists attempted to poison French soldiers in Hanoi. After that, Hoang Hoa They attempted to invade from Yen The where the French allowed him to rule and thus keep him out of Tongking. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 70.) The French arrested the scholars and “tried and convicted [them] of advocating the rights of the common people and plotting with the traitor (meaning Phan Boi Chau) for popular rebellion. Phan Boi Chau, then in Japan, was condemned to death in absentia. Phan Chau Trinh, the popular lecturer, was condemned to immediate decapitation but narrowly escaped it through the intervention of a French friend.” Others were guillotined. Others were sent to perform hard labor on the infamous island prison of Poulo Condore. Still others were deported. The Dong Kinh school ceased to exist. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 71.)

After the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which overthrew the monarchy Chau decided to embrace a “democratic republic.” He organized the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam. “Chau even formed a government-in-exile, with Cuong De as president and himself as vice-president and minister of foreign affairs.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157-158) For twenty years Chau had impact on the Vietnamese revolutionary and independence movement, including organizing the peasants and military actions. Toward the end of World War I there were brief uprisings. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158)

However, Chau was behind the times. There was a need for plans and for action. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158)

“After the war and the Russian Revolution, Chau began to study Marxism. In the early 1920s, the Soviet Union began to organize its anticolonial campaign in the East. A Vietnamese by the name of Ly Thuy (alias Nguyen Ai Quoc, alias Ho Chi Minh), a secretary to a Russian delegation of political and military advisers to the Chinese Revolution stationed in Canton, proposed to Chau and the Vietnamese patriots that they participate in founding a World Federation of of Small and Weak Nations to guide the struggle of these nations against colonialism and imperialism.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158-159)

There were conflicts among the scholar nationalists. Some supported non-violence and a minority supported armed struggle against the French. The pacifists were led by Phan Chau Trinh who wanted to concentrate on education. The revolutionaries, led by Phan Boi Chau, “contended that educational and social modernization were empty unless they first rid the country of the French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 73.)

Ly Thuy (Ho Chi Minh),

“suggested that Phan Boi Chau . . . be sacrificed to the national cause . . . it could stir up the Vietnamese people and arouse world opinion. Chau would undoubtedly be condemned to death, but the French, in order to win sympathy in Vietnam, would probably pardon and release him. . . . One morning in June, 1925, Chau received an invitation to attend the founding meeting of the Vietnamese branch of the World Federation of Small and Weak Nations. As he was about to board a ship for Canton in Shanghai, a group of men jumped him and whisked him off to the French concession in Shanghai. He was shipped to Haiphong and thence to Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh’s intermediary allegedly received 150,000 piasters from the French. Some sources question this version of Chau’s arrest.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 159)

“With his capture, conviction, and pardon, Phan Boi Chau’s political career came to an end.” His ideas were now pasee. No longer could the “political elite” lead Vietnam to freedom. Again, it was the peasants who had been ignored. “He [Chau] failed to analyze Vietnamese society, to discuss the conflicting interests of the educated and the illiterate masses, and to formulate concrete proposals.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 159-160)

Phan Chau Trinh

Phan Chau Trinh did not look to Japan for liberation.

“Trinh foresaw that Japanese imperialism aimed at the domination of Asia, and he did not believe in a policy of getting rid of the tiger by letting the panther into the house. Upon his return to Vietnam, Trinh started his own nonviolent movement for a modern and independent Vietnam with a bold open letter to Governor General Beau, dated August, 1906, in which he deplored the abuses and extortions openly practiced by the mandarins under the French regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157)

Phan Chau Trinh protested the “brutal treatment of the native population.” The French abused the Vietnamese and held “political prisoners.” Imagine being held by a foreign country as a political prisoner in your own land. Phan Chau Trinh,

“asked for more education for his countrymen, for a larger role in the country’s government, for a drastic reduction in taxes, and above all for an economic policy as beneficial to Vietnam as to France. Unless these concessions were granted, he warned, hostility to French rule would continue to grow.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 119)

The Vietnamese Emperor Thanh Thai embraced the ideas of Phan Chau Trinh and the French declared him “insane” and “exiled him to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. This served to alienate the Vietnamese further. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 119)

Japan

From 1940 to 1945 the real rulers of Vietnam were the Japanese. The French in Vietnam simply served. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 185)

Japanese rule in Vietnam briefly encouraged Vietnamese nationalists. They were under the belief that Japan meant to liberate Asia from the Europeans. However, the Japanese freed captured French forces and allowed them a free hand in destroying “the last guerrilla group, led by an old communist” who was later executed in 1940. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 191)

Traditionally referred to as the Japanese interregnum, “the designation implies that colonial administrations . . . suffered no more than a pause in the control they exercised over colonies, a control they quickly recaptured after the war. . . . [However] the French never reestablished sovereign authority over the former possessions in Indochina.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 237) Lam concludes that the Japanese accelerated “the end of the old Western dominance over Southeast Asia. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 237-238)

The French cooperated with the Japanese because the official French government at the time, known as Vichy France, was under the control of the occupying Germans in France during World War II. Although French civilians and soldiers administered Japanese occupied Indochina during the war it was the Japanese who controlled policies. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 239)

The Vichy government demanded that the Japanese negotiate with them before making policy decisions about Indochina. The Japanese complied. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 240) An agreement between France and Japan was signed in Tokyo on August 30, 1940, recognizing “French sovereignty in Indochina and to respect French territorial integrity in that part of the world, in return for which principles France agreed to acknowledge Japan’s preeminence in the Far East.” Nevertheless, the Japanese retained the upper hand in any conflict. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 241)

Although a defeat for the French, the French colonials in Indochina “found themselves in the best of times.” The home country could not tell that what to do. And, as we will see after the war, the colonialists were brutal. As a result the governor general crushed “all Vietnamese attempts at rebellion” and made sure the Indochinese remained under French control. The Japanese did not challenge this. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243)

“In the early days of their occupation of Indochina, the Japanese were not prepared to support the Vietnamese drive for independence from France. The aftermath of the Langson incident and events in southern Vietnam in 1940 proved the point beyond doubt. Tran Trung Lap, the leader of the Vietnam Restoration League (Viet Nam Phuc Quoc Dong Minh Hoi), and anti-French organization, when he saw Japan’s easy victory in Langson on September 22, 1940, decided to take advantage of the situation and launch his own units against the same battered French garrisons. When the Mikado ordered his troops to cease fire on September 25, the Vietnamese rebellion continued to spread to the entire province of Langson. It was not put down until the end of December, after the French had captured and executed Tran Trung Lap.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243-244)

The Japanese did nothing. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243-244)

There was another uprising in November 1940 in southern Vietnam.

“Upon hearing of the Japanese entrance into northern Vietnam and of the threatened Siamese invasion of eastern Cambodia and southern Laos, the Communists staged general insurrection throughout the South, but with particular force in the province of My-tho. The post had been known to the French security service, and when the rebellion actually flared up on November 22, it was easily crushed. The repression was harsh. . . . The Japanese did not intervene on behalf of the Vietnamese.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 245)

The French made minor changes in colonial administration which allowed more prestige to the Vietnamese. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 246-247)

During the Second World War university students were “heavily indoctrinated.” They could “speak of independence, but only of an independence that allowed for association with France.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 248)

“With the elite neutralized by a generous policy with the young addicted to athletics and a safe form of nationalism, the colonial administration could concentrate its efforts on crushing those who tried to oppose their administration in any effective way.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 249)

Interestingly, the Japanese allowed the Filipinos, Burmese and Indonesians some independence. However, in Indochina, the Japanese kept the French in control. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 250) Ironically, Vietnamese independence activists living in Japan during the war had good relations with the Japanese government. So, “it seems most surprising that Japan appears neither to have expected, nor prepared for, a local pro-Japanese government.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251)

It was not surprising that Japan did not aid a Communist led rebellion. There were ideological differences to say the least. And, the Indochinese Communist Party opposed the Japanese invasion of China. The hostility between the two was so strong that Ho Chi Minh in 1939 “advocated that the Indochinese Communist party in effect forgo its ideological exclusivity and form a democratic front with the national bourgeoisie, and even the progressive French, to resist Japanese fascism.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251)

Although there were groups in Vietnam who may have cooperated well in the Japanese point of view the Japanese decided to “encourage the least likely elements in Vietnamese politics.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251-252) They supported the Dai Viet Party, Cao Dai, and the Hoa Hao. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 252-253)

The French colonials in Indochina, with their “colonial eggs”, enjoyed a life where the “white man’s superiority was practically sacrosanct.” So, when the Japanese occupied the region in 1940, the colonial eggs exhibited “great courage . . . to collaborate with Asians. Yet, when the mother country collapsed . . . and when Indochina lay helpless before the Mikado’s land and sea forces, the French admirals, generals, civil servants and colonists voluntarily accepted the Japanese occupation: they hoped that by this desperate wager they might save the essential - the presence of the French flag.” And, despite Japan destroying white rule throughout Asia, the “colonial eggs” saw that French sovereignty and “administration continued to function; French citizens were free.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 8)

Although the war in Europe went well for the colonials; the Fascists were close to defeat, that did not translate into defeat for the Japanese. The hopes of France soon restored to its full glory in Indochina were dashed when, on March 8, 1945, the Japanese overthrew any semblance of French rule. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 8)

“The Japanese, with foreknowledge of their coming defeat, intended, as a final stroke of revenge, to destroy Indochina entirely. And in order to make sure that it should never rise again they loosed the fury of nationalism among the mass of the Annamese population, who in turn set themselves to hunting down the defenseless whites.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9)

“The atomic bomb was the miracle that saved their lives. Indeed, the whites had their moment of exaltation, in which they believed that the Annamese would grow meek and harmless once more. They had not understood that they were going to come up against new and unrelenting forces; for at this time they still had no notion of what nationalism and Communism meant.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9)

However, a much more ferocious Vietnamese and Indochinese nationalism broke out without Japanese assistance! (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9-10) And then, all of a sudden, the Viet Minh seized Hanoi and established the People’s Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh “became the Father of the Nation.” The entire nation celebrated. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 10)

And the French were not safe. They had to sneak out at night to buy food at outrageous prices and many were arrested at all times of the day or night and hacked to pieces or buried alive by the Vietminh. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 10) Then the British arrived with “their Gurkhas, and they were followed by the French parachute troops.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11)

The British did well. The French “paras” thought the self-centered “colonial eggs” as traitors for their collaboration with the Japanese. They were reluctant to help them as they were attacked by the Vietminh. The Vietminh, according to the point of view of the “paras” were more deserving of aid as they fought the Japanese enemy. That friendship if you will ended quickly and “a few weeks later there they were plunged onto the bloodiest of wars.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11)

General Leclerc “arrived with his armored division, the famous 2nd DB (division blindee), and as his orders required he sent columns out from Saigon for the peaceful reoccupation of the country. But they were attacked. Presently captured French soldiers were found hacked to pieces, and presently Annamese villages went up in flames. For violence answered violence. . . . In a series of destructive thrusts the French retook Cochinchina, Cambodia, Laos, central and southern Annam. But the Red tieudoi (a platoon in the Vietminh army) and all the guerrilla formations continually reappeared, as though they sprang from their own ashes. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11-12)

“Nothing made sense. After a few months Leclerc’s own diagnosis was that it was impossible to reconquer Indochina by force. The uprising of the Asian masses, who were carrying on a people’s war according to the principles of Mao Tse-tung, was something that could no longer be overcome. And to try to do so would mean utter exhaustion in endless warfare.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12)

The Nationalist Chinese entered northern Vietnam to take the surrender of Japanese soldiers and they were not going to allow the colonial French to return to power or, leave the country considering the long time enmity between the Chinese and the Vietnamese. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not want French colonialism restored,

“and the idea had been that as soon as it was convenient the Communist Ho Chi Minh should be knocked on the head and Tonkin taken over, either directly by the Chinese or indirectly by their friends. Faced with two evils Ho Chi Minh chose the lesser and called in the French to expel the Chinese, who had already squeezed him dry and who were preparing their take-over.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12)

The negotiations with the French failed. “Ho Chi Minh wanted nothing less than a sovereign state, a Red Vietnam based on the dictatorship of the people, whereas the French did not wish to concede independence at all, but at the most the setting up of a humanist, somewhat socialistic state very closely connected with France - an integral part of the French Union.” The French furiously defeated the Vietminh in a battle. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12)

“On December 19, 1946, in Hanoi, the Vietminh failed in an attempted massacre: now in their turn the French tried to bring off a single great decisive blow. They tried a military operation to crush Ho Chi Minh and his guerrillas within a matter of days. It was an operation on the greatest possible scale. And it too was a failure.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13)

“It was supposed to be a triumphantly successful hunt. Ho Chi Minh was to be taken in his hideout on the Chinese frontier, where he had no more than a few thousand fever-stricken and ill armed supporters.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13)

“It very nearly succeeded. In order to put an end to the Vietminh once and for all the French high command had made a prodigious effort: they had gathered all the available shock troops and all the war materiel that could possibly be assembled . . . It was a combined operation, planned according to all the rules of their respective staffs. Parachute troops were to be dropped over Backan, wretched little town that served as Ho Chi Minh’s headquarters and there stood almost in the middle of his jungle vastness, a hilly quadrilateral about one hundred and fifty miles square. And at the same moment two columns were to race forward and make contact with the paras, one column being armor, which was to thrust along the R.C. 4 (route colonial No. 4), and the other a column of boats, which was to go up the Clear River.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13)

This would finish off the Vietminh. However, the boats and the paras were not able to perform what was planned. Bodard, wrote that missing Ho Chi Minh by one hour meant that the war continued.(Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13)

Ho’s disappearance was so complete that French intelligence thought he died. Even his generals did not know where he was at times. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13-14) This was the beginning of what would become a terrible end for the French. They ignored what Bodard calls the “first great rule of the war in Indochina, the rule which states that every undertaking which is not a total success is fated to become a total disaster.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14)

The French stuck to “their own cars and trucks” and did not engage the Vietminh in hand to hand combat as the original French conquerors did decades before. This would mean failure. The French tried to keep a major road open for their supplies and to keep Chinese weapons out of the hands of the Viet Minh. Nevertheless, “Chinese technicians and Chinese arms and ammunition passed freely across it, to supply Ho Chi Minh’s growing forces, which eventually amounted to ten solid regiments, based on a complex of military schools, workshops, supply dumps, printing presses, and arms factories - all made of bamboo, all easily moveable. From the air, this jungle seemed deserted; in fact, it seethed with activity.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14)

In 1948 the French decided on a policy of “the new idea was pacification.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14)

“They were unable to to bring the Vietminh to a pitched battle and destroy them. Henceforward the great idea was to leave Ho Chi Minh in his patch of jungle and to win all the rest away from him.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14)

In this war, according to Bodard, “weapons were only of secondary importance. To work upon the people and to win them over the French brought everything they possessed into play; and the Vietminh did the same. The two juxtaposed, intertwined civilizations were at grips with one another in total warfare. At their disposal the French had everything that showed on the surface, the whole of the established society founded upon law. The Vietminh, on the other hand, were just underneath everywhere, present in everything that was hidden. Two sides appealed to two opposing instincts in mankind, the French holding out a normal life, with prosperity and the benefits of the West, and the Vietminh offering pride and revolt. The one side favored the wealthy and those who owned property; the other side the poor. . . . both . . . made use of terrorism. Between the two huge machines the private individual was crushed.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15)

The French fought the Communists in Indochina and “the Red concept of the world.” Ho Chi Minh had total devotion from his supporters. “For them Uncle Ho was above all the Patriot, the Hero who was expelling the French. As for themselves they were not quite sure whether they were Communists or not. They avoided asking themselves, preferring to say that they were “Socialists,” just as Ho Chi Minh must be. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15)

“Nguyen Binh, whom Ho Chi Minh had sent south in 1945 to build the Resistance in Cochinchina, was not a Communist.” Although trained in Moscow and operating in China he would set up, “in the Plain of Reeds, near Saigon, he eventually created a formidable headquarters, complete with camps, depots, workshops, schools, presses, and even a radio station; and his trade routes reached through the jungle as far as Siam. Cruel, indefatigable, pitiless, authoritarian, he was nevertheless generous romantic idealist, and, to the people of the south, he became a hero, almost a saint.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15-16)

They were not a fully operating army but groups of guerrilla fighters. They had “intelligence networks that branched out in never-ending complexity. In order to kill the French they lived parasitically upon them, right next to them. . . . The French, thanks to their money, were able to recruit informers, partisans, and Vietnamese soldiers.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16)

“In order to deal with so many enemies, therefore, the Vietminh made a systematic use of trickery and cruelty. In this war, as in all wars in which a Resistance is concerned, there was a kind of fascination with death. . . . Assassination was the answer that remained.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16)

Although there were bloodthirsty Viet Minh there were communists who killed out of perceived necessity although “the Party preferred to set about the reeducation of the guilty men.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16)

“They exploded bombs in the midst of Asian crowds, in the markets and in the cinemas. They paid boys to throw grenades that they made themselves in their workshops: these home-produced bombs, as they were called, did little damage. But sometimes, when they wanted a particularly striking effect, they use really dangerous grenades bought in Bangkok or Singapore, and then a whole dense mass of the cold would be mowed down. One of these bombs slaughtered sixty children in a single school.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16)

“The night belonged to the Vietminh. But at dawn the French patrols came out. What quantities of corpses they found. How often a detachment on reaching a village that had put itself under the unit’s protection, would find ranks of heads neatly lined up in the central square. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16-17) Some bodies bore warning notices, but there were others, quite unknown, who floated along the irrigation ditches, swollen like bladders, the skin a tightly stretched parchment. . . . Among the bodies, women, old people, children: usually tortured and burned.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17)

The French did not find Vietminh dead from their battles. The Vietminh returned to their bases with their wounded and dead. The French had to guess as to Vietminh casualties. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17)

The war was profitable for both the French and the Vietminh. “Like mushrooms, little straw huts would spring up around it, belonging to concubines, snack sellers, bistro keepers, informers, interpreters, boys and bees (cooks). Even the neighboring Vietminh would take time from ambushes and murders to go marketing next to the enclosure.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17)

Bodard describes “martyrs to pride.” A Colonel would not allow his forces to be deterred by the overwhelming forces of the Vietminh. Recent graduates of St. Cyr, the French military academy, died for pride and this did nothing to advance the French militarily in Indochina. These young officers proclaimed that they and their soldiers had “contempt of death.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 18)

The French officers romanticized the war instead of fighting it. Bodard noticed that in later years those officers who survived became political and economic leaders of France promoted the idealized view of the French army. As such, they would continue to war and “go on to new tragedies, even greater humiliations, and they would end up being lost soldiers.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 18-19)

Both sides practiced cruelty. “The Expeditionary Force’s Asian partisans, continually threatened with a hideous death, killed the Viethminh with the most sophisticated torments - unless of course they came to an understanding with them. Often it happened that even the French were caught up in this intoxication of torturer and death.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 19)

“The Viets knowingly urged the French to commit excess, for they were well aware that as far as torture was concerned they were far beyond the French, both in efficiency and skill. For them torture as a form of warfare finally became a technique that allowed them to gain an ascendancy over the people and to win.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20)

Most of Indochina is “uninhabited jungle. . . . each side fought in the twilight, without seeing the other; handfuls of men, lost in the enormous landscape, tried to creep up on one another through the darkness and the leaves, to kill at point-blank range. But it was not only the French and the Vietminh who hunted one another down. They had also drawn the little western kingdoms of Indochina, with their scores of different races, into butchery. The jungle turned into a chaos of hatred in which men varying in civilization from the Stone Age to the utmost refinement of Buddhism wiped one another out. All the primitive enmities between clans and tribes were exploited, and between the imperialists and the Communists they exploded spontaneously.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20)

“. . . Wars dating from every century were all going on at the same time: the weapons ranged from blowpipes, spears and spells to machine guns and mortars.” There were fights for salt and opium which both the Vietminh and French wanted. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20)

Cambodia and Laos sided with the French but another Cambodian leader sided with the Vietminh. In Laos the royal family split its allegiances.

“Even the savages were drawn into the battle” taking one side or the other. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 21)

“But even among the most backward little tribes the conflict was primarily ideological. . . . Throughout all this vast stretch of country the French were in contact with the petty rulers: everywhere they explained to the natives that the Vietnamese were the enemy, the Vietnamese and the Vietminh.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 21)

“For in fact the jungle was not impenetrable at all. It was crisscrossed by secret tracks. Ho Chi Minh’s column and his agents traveled along them through the limitless mountains and forests, marching as though time did not exist.” Political commissars established bases from which the communists developed popular support. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23)

All French military positions could be seen by the Vietminh. However, the latter could not be seen by the French. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23)

The French promised to free the “savages” from the Vietnamese but the Vietnamese promised to free them from the French. While the French meant with the different people’s rulers the Vietminh built a resistance among the population. “Ho Chi Minh’s agents worked at the level of the common people, saying to the wretched jungle dwellers whom they found undermined with fever, superstition, and undernourishment, “You do not even know it, but you are the People. All rights belong to you. . . . And then, when the forest tribes were sufficiently infected and won over, the Viets began the war of the jungle trails against the French. It had its own rules, laws far more rigid and merciless than those of the war in the rice fields.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23)

The Vietminh positioned themselves to attack their enemies flanks and, only at the last second. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 24)

“It was a ghastly kind of hide-and-seek played by blind men in a dark room-the forest. . . . victory lay in . . . finding the one path that the human quarry would take through the maze of jungle tracks.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 24)

One French soldier stated , “In the first place you have to understand that the jungle is neutral. It doesn’t help anyone. It is always the strongest who wins. Any man who is wounded is done for. You can’t pick him up and carry him. Almost every time you have to leave him behind. . . . You can starve to death out there., with flowers all around you. You can die of thirst in spite of the enormous monsoon rains, because the water just goes straight down the cracks in the limestone. Everything rots, and your flesh rots first of all. You get fevers, and horrible great boils, and the least little scratch sets up an inflammation that can’t be cured. . . . You can’t stop because the enemy is following you and you are following him. you have to go faster than him and get on to his track so that he won’t get on to yours.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 25)

“As an enemy the Viet is really tough: he can run all night. . . . His fire discipline is terrific.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 25)

“In the forest, then, there was an infinitely complex struggle. The Vietminh had their successes and their failures, but they were making ground, even if it was only at a walking pace and at the speed of dialectic reasoning - two kinds of slowness. It was antlike labor, and its aim was the setting up of the Red political system. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 28)

Catholics

The French arrival in Indochina in the late seventeenth century caused conflict with the elites. Ostensibly, merchants, they were actually missionaries. The Vietnamese leaders considered the French a part of “worldly conquest” using Catholicism as its tool. Therefore, those Vietnamese who converted to Catholicism were despised. “The early converts came from among the poor and downtrodden.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65)

The Vietnamese emperors jailed Vietnamese Catholics and deported the French missionaries. Some were killed. However, the Catholics “were never in danger of extinction.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65-66)

In the eighteenth century it became clear that the French conquest of Vietnam was not initiated by the French government or people but by private individuals serving their own interests. “The story of French intervention in Indochina is largely the story of the efforts of individuals to engage the power, wealth and prestige of their country to promote their private schemes. The missionaries sided with the vocal advocates of intervention.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65-66)

“The Catholic militias that had fought the Vietminh had disbanded and joined the exodus to the South.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 416) Civilian Catholics fled communism.

“These refugees included not only collaborators and profiteers but also officials, professors, and students, journalists and artists who had voiced anti-Communist sentiments, businessmen who had the wisdom to foresee their eventual expropriation, and the many dependents of National Army personnel. Yet many members of the native middle class-shopkeepers, small merchants, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals-stayed rather than give up their established lives.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 416)

Also, after the Geneva Conference, “900,000 persons came to the South must be regarded as genuine political refugees.” Most were Catholics.

“The Communists have claimed that going to the South was not a personal decision for many of the Catholics, that they left under pressure of the community and as a group. The priests were accused of having spread the word that God had gone South, that those who remained in the North would risk losing their souls and probably their lives, since the North would be destroyed by American bombs. . . . The regime was thus rid of a great many implacable enemies.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 420)

In 1784, French bishop Pigneau de Behaine took to France “four-year-old Prince Canh, who became the darling of Versailles.” The French promised to support the young prince in his family’s cvil war against the Tay Son but later found that would be difficult. Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 43)

Monsignor Pigneau returned to Viet Nam and directed a victorious battle against the Tay Son. He and Prince Canh die shortly thereafter and Nguyen Anh defeated the Tay Son. He later became Gia Long. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 43)

Gia Long continued to use French military engineering expertise with new designs of citadels. He died in 1820. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 44)

“Gia-Long’s successors, however, did not match their ancestor in realism and intelligence. Rather than face up to the realities of growing European intervention as Siam and Japan were reluctantly doing, they attempted to retreat into isolationism and began to expel Western merchants and to persecute Christian missionaries and converts.”

Approximately 130,000 Catholics were murdered from 1827 to 1856. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 44)

French soldiers landed at Danang in 1856 and then “secured the surrounding Mekong Delta in the following decade.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45)

“Since the late fifteenth center, Viet-Nam had elected its local governments and this had proved an effective shield against the imperial government’s highhandedness. The Emperor’s writ stops at the bamboo hedge [of the village] is an old Vietnamese saying. The driving French colonials began to tamper with those hallowed institutions, thus breaking one of the most important links in Vietnamese society.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45)

The French “established a university in Hanoi as early as 1904; vast irrigations systems eliminated the disastrous floods or droughts which had beset Viet-Nam’s agriculture and transformed the country into one of the world’s food baskets; and epidemics were completely wiped out by a network of Pasteur Institutes. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45-46)

“But the French failed to provide the Vietnamese with a real say in the political development of their country, allowed too few of them to obtain an advanced education and too few of them to rise high in the administrative hierarchy of their own country. French-type cities gave the country a veneer of Westernization beneath which a small but vigorous intellectual class grew increasingly impatient with the colonial framework.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46)

Secret societies grew however only the Communist became an effective clandestine political party. The Indochina Communist Party was created by Ho Chi Minh. Those who could not handle the conflict between the colonials and nationalism went into “exile or an escape into meditation and religion. Super naturalism grew especially in the 1920s with the development of Cao Dai. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46)

The Japanese conquest of Indochina during World War II created the opportunity for the Vietnamese “to shake off the French yoke.” Following the defeat of Japan the Viet Minh were the only organization capable of creating a government. The Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, contained communists and non-communists. He declared an independent government, the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, on September 2, 1945. However, the French wanted to reclaim their colony. In addition, “divisions among the Vietnamese Nationalists made a conflict almost unavoidable.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46)

Negotiations failed as “moderates were swept aside by the extremists in both camps.” The Viet Minh controlled the countryside and “French and the Vietnamese under their control, held all the cities and towns. . . . The French lashed out in ineffectual search-and-destroy operations, but the Viet-Minh, following Marshal Tran Hung Dao’s doctrine, refused to be drawn into a major battle.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 47)

“All Europeans were regarded as thieves who would stop at nothing, including murder, to gain their objectives. To cheat them was not considered dishonorable.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 68) Emperor Gia Long “did not trust any European power.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 73) “An imperial edict of 1825 charged the “perverse religion of the European” with “corrupting the hearts of men.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 73)

“The French missionaries who came to Asia after 1820 were generally politically aggressive and confident that their countrymen at home admired and supported their efforts. And indeed, Minh Mang’s persecution of the missionaries aroused French Catholic opinion more than any other event outside of France. After 1840, Catholic propaganda openly demanded French intervention on behalf of the missionaries. . . . [French] naval officers “to afford protection to French missionaries threatened with personal violence, if that could be done without involving the French flag . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 78)

The French attacked Tourane killing “hundred times more lives than all the Vietnamese governments in two centuries of missionary persecution.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 79, 80)

“Vietnamese Catholics had been implicated in the South’s uprising against Minh Mang . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 80)

Nevertheless, a Vietnamese priest traveled to France and met with their emperor, Napoleon. He told the French that “the Vietnamese people would greet the French as “liberators and benefactors,” and it would not take long “to make them all Catholics and devoted to France..” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 83)

In 1857 the French invaded Vietnam landing at Tourane. The French were not welcomed by the French. “The Vietnamese people simply vanished, and the French found themselves without the indigenous labor force with whose help they had hoped . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 84) The navy admiral in charge was furious with the French Catholics for misleading him and the French government. The French land forces headed for Saigon to take the rice stores. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 84)

Tu Duc slaughtered thousands of Vietnamese Catholics. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 89) “Tu Duc ruled over his unfortunate country from 1847 to 1883. The first year of his rule also was the year of the first French attack on Tourane. When Tu Duc dies, the northern and central parts of his country were about to become the two French protectorates of Tongking and Annam. The South, which the French had already wrested from Vietnam, had become the French colony of Cochinchina.

“Vietnam’s nine hundred years of independence had come to an end.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 74) The influence of the mandarins over the peasants had come to an end. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148)

Emperor Ham Nghi - Put on the throne at age twelve. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148) In 1885, manipulators behind the throne put Ham Nghi “at the head of an insurrection that for months reduced French control of Annam to a few strongpoints and left in its wake a trail of blood and fire. . . . failure . . . Ham Nghi . . . captured.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148)

The uprising occurring in his name

“reached the proportions of a truly national war of liberation. . . . No longer was the rebellion led only by court mandarins, but also by private scholars who had never held office, and it was largely due to the scholars’ moral authority that the peasants responded . . . And it was they who continued the struggle after more and more hurt mandarins made dishonest peace agreements with the colonial regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 149)

“The young ruler fell into French hands through treachery. . . . [he] was deported to Algeria. Everyone of his captured followers was executed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 149)

Survivors went underground to continue the resistance to the French. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 63)

By 1885 the rebellion ended. The movement was destroyed. Vietnamese Catholics cooperated with the French after they had been slaughtered by the rebels. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150)

“But the end of 1888, when Ham Nghi was caught and the exhausted survivors of the uprising who fought in his name were slowly wiped out, was not the end of resistance to French rule in Annam. The murder of the man who had betrayed Ham Nghi was the signal for another attempt to regain independence. This time the movement was led chiefly by scholars who had refused to serve or broken with the mandarin regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150)

Another rebellion in 1893 led by Dr. Phan Dinh Phung who had

“his headquarters on the mountain Vu Quang, a strategic spot that dominated the French-held fortress of Ha Tinh and the narrow foot paths and poor roads connecting North Annam with Laos and Siam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150)

“For many months the French, whose outposts were constantly attacked by Phung’s small army of 3,000 were clearly on the defensive, unable effectively to control most provinces of North Annam or to protect collaborating mandarins and Catholics. It took the French almost two years of pursuit and terror to break the resistance. . . . His followers surrendered on a promise of pardon, but all except his wife and son were beheaded.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150-151)

“De Tham . . . was a former pirate who became an outstanding nationalist leader after 1883. With his strong army he fortified the province of Yen Tre and invaded the provinces of Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, and Hung Hao. Despite his treaty with the French he did not become a collaborator. . . . His army was smashed and . . . the French did not get his head . . . until 1913.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 152)

Rebels in the delta areas “enjoyed widespread support.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 152) Nevertheless, the rebellion, was defeated in 1892. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153)

“The number of lives lost between 1858 and 1896, in the first phase of national resistance against French rule, makes this one of the saddest periods in Vietnamese history. . . . The sacrifices had been in vain. Not only was nothing won but nothing was learned, either by the victors or the vanquished.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153)

The French did not understand why the Vietnamese fought them. And they did not understand Vietnamese aspirations. Some “warned of new and still more violent conflicts, but these warnings were ignored by the policy-makers and ridiculed in colonial society.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153)

1900 saw new leaders in Vietnamese resistance to the French. The mandarins “fled to China” where they contemplated what went wrong with their leadership. Confucianism did not hold the answers for defeating the French. “Japanese imperialism was making it first onslaught.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154)

These new Vietnamese revolutionaries did not however think beyond having a new emperor and coming to terms with the French. This did not help the peasants. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154)

The interests of the new Vietnamese leaders had little to do with those of the peasants and this would lead to defeat. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154-155)

Rubber Plantations

Rubber production took off in Vietnam in 1907. They were mostly owned by French colonists. The French government subsidized the rubber industry in Vietnam. By 1925 the industry became self sufficient. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 165-166)

A destructive consequence of the rubber plantations was the use of “coolie” labor. Most peasants did not want to work on the plantations because life expectancy was short. So, forced labor, “corvee” was used.

“Working for the French was a fate to be avoided at all costs. Plantation workers were recruited bu brutalized Vietnamese special agents-cai-who use the vilest methods in rounding up needed workers. . . . disease was rampant, and the death rate was four times the normal rate.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 166)

“The guiding principle of French economic policy in Indochina had always been to put immediate profits before long-term economic considerations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 167)

The rubber plantation owners enjoyed great wealth in the 1930s. The communists also grew in the 1930s and won support because they argued what the people knew from experience to be true. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 166-167)

Cochinchina

Colonial rulers aggressively conquered what became known as Cochinchina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 92)

“In Cochinchina, circumstances had forced the French to set up their own rule. Vietnamese noncooperation, the direct result of the methods the French applied in establishing themselves, led to a war that lasted almost two years, which was followed by years of brutal repression, a response to the guerrilla resistance that began after the defeat of the Vietnamese armies.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103)

“The first governor of Cochinchina, Admiral Bonard . . .was eager not only to come to terms with the emperor of Vietnam, but also to gain the cooperation of the mandarins who . . . had been in charge. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103-104) The emperor agreed but the mandarins resisted. “They simply disappeared, taking with them or destroying indispensable records, and proclaiming . . . that collaboration with the French was a betrayal of the national cause.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 104)

Frenchmen replaced the mandarins. Cochinchina was administered as a military colony. Finally, even the mandarin resistance ended. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 104-105)

The French created new classes. One, landowners and other landless peasants. The landowners were a result of French colonial policy. They had no real power other than over the peasants. In royal times the peasants had ownership of the land that was recognized by the emperors. The French converted this to private land ownership leaving the peasants out. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 162-163)

The French “ignored custom in favor of the theory that they, as heirs of imperial power in Cochinchina, had the right to dispose of all untenanted and uncultivated land.” The lands were given to “colons, and collaborating, rich Vietnamese. A new relationship developed for the Vietnamese peasant and the land. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 163)

“Between 1880 and 1930, the rice-land surface in Cochinchina quadrupled, but the average holding of a peasant was smaller in 1930 than before the coming of the French. And although considerably more rice was grown than ever before, the peasants’ share continued to decline.” The French exporters rice to China and Japan and made an enormous amount of money. The Vietnamese had never exported rice and stored surpluses.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 163) The peasants thusly starved. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 164)

Cochinchina had a “special economic and political status.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 107) Merchants, soldiers and well to do Vietnamese dominated the politics and economics of Cochinchina. There were rice exporters and land speculators. There were also political appointees who had no other place to go. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 108)

Chochinchina “The Mekong irrigated Vietnam’s richest lands and millions of acres still waiting to be opened up for production that could make Vietnam of the biggest rice exporters.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 109)

In order to placate the French and disarm the argument that the Vietminh were just a bunch of communists, the Committee for the South in Cochinchina “gave important functions to official Catholics, Buddhists, independents, and dissident sect leaders who claimed to represent substantial Hoa Hao and Cao Dai groups.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 296)

Tongking

In 1883 the French began a twelve year “pacification” military campaign that entailed the slaughter of Vietnamese. The Vietnamese surrendered and “signed the Treaty of Protectorate which put an end to the independence of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 98)

“At the time this treaty was signed, no one could have foreseen how long French rule would last nor where it would lead. But one thing was certain: neither the people nor the mandarins welcomed their new master or accepted his presence. In announcing the death of Tu Duc, the imperial court expressed Vietnam’s will to regain independence. Tu Duc, the proclamation said, “was killed by sorrow over seeing foreigners invade and devastate his empire, and he died cursing the invader. Keep him in your hearts and avenge his memory.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 98)

Getting out of Vietnam would prove to be essential to France as holding onto the country sowed political division and was militarily costly. “France, ever since Vietnam was finally conquered in 1883, to pay so heavy a price for it in blood, money, and political dissension? (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 101)

Vietnam becomes France’s richest colony under Paul Doumer who became Governor General in 1896. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 102) Previously Vietnam had been in constant flux under the French. The Vietnamese did not accept French rule and the French exploited the country. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103)

In Tonking the French destroyed Vietnamese resistance and came to an accommodation with the mandarins. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 106)

ANNAM

The last area for the French to conquer was Annam. The French dissolved the emperor’s cabinet and replaced it with a Vietnamese and French membership cabinet. “the French took over the collection all taxes [in 1897]. The emperor was granted a handsome allowance and the mandarins became French employees.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 107)

After the war and under Diem, the French remained the controlling power in South Vietnam and still maintained their economic interests. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 395)