On 13 March-7 May 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was fought in Vietnam between the French under Christian De Castries and the Vietminh under Vo Nguyen Giap during the First Indochina War.
Why did it happen?
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, France expected to hold on to its colonies in French Indochina (present-day Vietnam) that had been occupied by the Japanese during the war. However, on 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh, a member of a Communist-led nationalist movement known as the Vietminh, declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and, under General Vo Nguyen Giap, led a guerrilla war against French forces. The war lasted for eight years, and despite assistance from the United States, France was unable to defeat the Vietminh in battle. After the death of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1953, the Russians wanted to establish better relations with the West and saw a settlement of the Korean and Indochina Wars as a way of achieving this. However, the end of the Korean War allowed Communist China to send supplies to the Vietminh on a larger scale, and faced with this pressure, French general Henri Eugene Navarre sought to end the war by forcing the Vietminh to abandon their guerrilla tactics and face the French in open battle. On 20 November 1953, French paratroopers occupied the valley of Dien Bien Phu, about 160km west of Hanoi. By January 1954, the French had chosen Colonel Christian de Castries to command French forces at Dien Bien Phu while Vietminh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap arrived and waited for the weather to lower French morale before attacking.
Who was involved?
The French forces at Dien Bien Phu numbered 16,000 infantry, 10 tanks, 20 artillery and 229 aircraft. The French forces were divided into eight defensive positions named after Christian de Castries’ mistresses: Gabrielle, Beatrice, Anne-Marie, Huguette, Claudine, Dominique, Eliane, and Isabelle. The French plan was to bait the Vietminh into attacking their defensive positions, whereby they could then be destroyed by French tanks and artillery. However, the terrain was unsuitable for tank warfare as it was comprised of bush and jungle which entangled the vehicles and made them useless. What is more, heavy rain made the ground so soft that the tanks became bogged down and inoperable. The Vietminh forces at Dien Bien Phu numbered 50,000 infantry and 200 artillery. Before the battle, General Vo Nguyen Giap carefully studied the French positions and concluded that it would be unwise to play into French hands and send forth waves of infantry. Instead, Giap planned to sap French morale by waiting several months while the weather lowered the spirits of the French soldiers before attacking each defensive position and defeating them in detail.
What happened?
On 13 March, the Vietminh launched artillery attacks throughout the day to weaken French positions within the valley. During the night, the Vietminh infantry attacked and captured the two northern French positions, Gabrielle and Beatrice. On 17 March, The Vietnamese allies of the French abandoned their positions at Anne-Marie, which forced the French infantry to withdraw to Huguette. On 30 March, after a lull in the fighting, the Vietminh attacked Eliane and Dominique in the north, while in the south, Isabelle was isolated by artillery fire which stopped the French from sending reinforcements to their northern positions. Between 11-22 April, the French recaptured part of Eliane while Vo Nguyen Giap called in reinforcements to overrun Huguette and all the airstrips. On 1 May, Giap ordered an all-out attack on the remaining French positions. After heavy fighting, the French forces at Isabelle abandoned their position as their supplies became exhausted. Finally, on 7 May, the surviving French forces at Eliane were captured by the Vietminh, which officially ended the battle. French casualties at Dien Bien Phu numbered 4,206 killed, 11,721 captured and 62 aircraft lost, while Vietminh losses numbered 8,000 killed and 15,000 wounded.
What changed as a result?
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was a decisive victory for the Vietminh. In the aftermath of the battle, the French were evicted from Vietnam, and the country was divided into a Communist-controlled north and an American-supported south, divided at the 17th parallel. The Communists never accepted this division and, in 1959, began to send guerrillas known as the Viet Cong into South Vietnam to subvert the government. In 1961, the United States began sending vehicles and military advisors to help South Vietnam in its struggle against the North before fully committing itself to South Vietnam’s defence in 1964. In 1999, Vo Nguyen Giap stated in an interview that the Battle of Dien Bien Phu “was the first great victory for a weak, colonized people struggling against the full strength of modern Western forces” (David, 2009, p.319). Indeed, other states in Southeast Asia, such as Burma, Indonesia, and Malaya, fought guerrilla wars against the British Empire, earning their independence between 1948 and 1960.
Bibliography
David, Saul. War: The Definitive Visual History. New York, Dorling Kindersley, 2009.
McNab, Chris. The World’s Worst Military Disasters. London, Amber Books, 2005.
Regan, Geoffrey. Battles That Changed History: Fifty Decisive Battles Spanning Over 2,500 Years of Warfare. London, Andre Deutsch, 2002.