Fall of Dien Bien Phu May 30, 2018PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITFrench History, Military History, Southeast Asian History, Vietnamese History Lead: The French needed a big victory to pave the way for an honorable withdrawal from Vietnam. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: By 1953 even the most enthusiastic colonialist in the French government knew France would have to pull out of Vietnam. A Summit conference was set for late April 1954 in Geneva and the French needed to beat the communists decisively on the battlefield to set the stage for a favorable result. The commander in Vietnam, General Navarre, decided to place troops, high in the mountains in a valley near the village of Dien Bien Phu. He reasoned that when the Communists came out of the jungle, he would catch them in a pitched battle and defeat them. Read more →
Vietnamese Revolution 1945 – Part V May 22, 1999PermalinkGabe OffenbackToday's AMITAmerican History, French History, Vietnamese History Lead: In September 1945 Ho Chi Minh in the wake of Japan's defeat declared Vietnamese independence. It turned out to be a futile gesture. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Two months before, at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, the victorious allies had promised Charles de Gaulle and the Free French they could reclaim their Indochinese colonies. To prepare the way, the British would move into South Vietnam to disarm the Japanese and ship them home. In the North, the Chinese would do the same. It was a prescription for disaster. Suddenly, during the fall of 1945 Vietnam was in chaos. The Free French were trying to return. The British favored the French but did not have enough troops to enforce their preference or keep the peace. Chinese troops in the north, largely illiterate and starving, like a hoard of locusts, engaged in promiscuous rape and pillage. Various factions of the native Vietnamese were fighting each other, the Chinese or the French. All the while Ho Chi Minh was trying to put together the combination of forces that could keep the French from returning and get the Chinese out. Read more →
Vietnamese Revolution of 1945 – Part IV May 22, 1999PermalinkGabe OffenbackToday's AMITAmerican History, French History, Vietnamese History Lead: The defeat of Japan was near in 1945 and the United States had to decide whether to permit the French to return to power in Vietnam. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: With the end of the war looming just months ahead, events in Indochina were at the boiling power. Since 1941 the Vietminh, a collection of nationalists and Communists under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and his military commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, had been conducting an increasingly effective insurgency against the Japanese and their French collaborators. Early in 1945 the Vietminh began to receive training from agents of the American Office of Strategic Services predecessor to the CIA. Read more →
Vietnamese Revolution, 1945 – Part III May 22, 1999PermalinkGabe OffenbackToday's AMITFrench History, Vietnamese History Lead: Fired by the dream of independence for his country, Ho Chi Minh spent a lifetime trying to find the right combination of forces necessary to get the French out of Vietnam. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: By the early twentieth century, the French had for the most part pacified Vietnam. France built roads, bridges, schools patterned along French lines and opened the door to foreign investment. Two basic approaches informed the French in their rule of Vietnam. One group of French leaders, mindful of the national history of Vietnam which was centuries older than France itself, argued for association in which the French, like the British in India, would govern Indochina through existing native institutions. Another group advocated assimilation which presumed that nothing could be better for Asia than for its people to adopt the ideas and culture of France. This dispute would continue until France left Vietnam in 1954, but practically France ended up ruling Indochina directly. Read more →
Vietnam Revolution, 1945 – Part II May 22, 1999PermalinkGabe OffenbackToday's AMITFrench History, Vietnamese History Lead: Taking advantage of internal conflict between Vietnamese factions and pressed by missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, French traders and finally the French government moved slowly into Vietnam. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: The first significant penetration of Vietnam by Europeans was accomplished by Catholic missionaries. Alexandre de Rhodes (road) beginning in 1627 won many converts by his intense preaching. Aside from the religious attraction, merchants saw conversion as a chance to increase their contact with Western traders. Peasants were drawn because Christianity meant relief from oppression by the Vietnamese aristocracy. Hundreds of thousands were converted and entire districts, particularly in the impoverished north, went over to the new faith. Read more →
Vietnam Revolution, 1945 – Part I May 22, 1999PermalinkGabe OffenbackToday's AMITFrench History, Vietnamese History Lead: In 1945 Vietnam stood at the crossroads. Decisions made then in Washington, Paris, Saigon and Hanoi provoked a war lasting three decades. The roots of the war are found far in the past. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: At the southeast corner of the Eurasian land mass lies Indochina. It is a region of rugged beauty: thick tropical forests, deep valleys between high mountain peaks, broad rich coastal plains. Over the centuries it has been the immigrant destination of much racial and ethnic diversity. The Khmer peoples probably came from western India before settling in present day Cambodia. The Lao, related ethnically to the Thai traveled south from China's Yunnan province. The Vietnamese moved in a generally southern direction from the Yangtze valley in China. Read more →
