First Indochina War

The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) was fought between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vietnam), and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 20 July 1954. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. On V-J Day, September 2, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed in Hanoi (Tonkin's capital) the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). In late September 1945, Chinese forces entered Tonkin, and Japanese forces to the north of that line surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon (Cochinchina's capital), and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese accepted the DRV under Hồ Chí Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do likewise in Saigon, and deferred to the French, against the ostensible support of the Việt Minh by American OSS representatives. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for a period of about 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed under the Japanese rule. On 23 September 1945, with the knowledge of the British commander in Saigon, French forces overthrew the local DRV government, and declared French authority restored in Cochinchina. Guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately, but the French gradually retook control of Indochina. Hồ Chí Minh agreed to talk with France but negotiations failed. After one year of low-level conflict, all-out war broke out in December 1946 between French and Việt Minh forces as Hồ Chí Minh and his government went underground. The French tried to stabilize Indochina by reorganizing it as a Federation of Associated States. In 1949, they put former Emperor Bảo Đại back in power, as the ruler of a newly established State of Vietnam. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against the French.