The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which took place from March 13 to May 7, 1954, was a decisive Vietnamese military victory that ended French colonial rule in Vietnam. In its wake came the country’s separation into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, creating the political framework for the continuation of the conflict and ultimately the Vietnam War.
Beginning of French military incursions into Vietnam
After a millennium of Chinese control over Southeast Asia and Vietnam ended in 969, a series of imperial dynasties ruled for the next 915 years. French traders started trading in Vietnam in the 17e century, finally joined by French Christian missionaries. To protect them, French military incursions began in 1858. By 1884 Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia had become a French colony known as French Indochina.
After World War II, France sought to restore control over the region. He sent troops to restore colonial rule. They were opposed by the Viet Minh, a communist movement led by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh who demanded independence from Vietnam.
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The First Indochina War
The Viet Minh began to fight against the French in 1946 in what became the First Indochina War, first using guerrilla tactics and then more conventional methods of warfare, as they received weapons and financial support from the Soviet Union and China.
In November 1953, thousands of French paratroopers fell in the Dien Bien Phu Valley, in the mountainous region of the far northwest of Vietnam, near the Laotian border. There they took possession of a small airstrip and began to create a military fortress that included a chain of fortified garrisons within 40 miles of the airstrip.
The French brought in over 15,000 troops, but this considerable force was stretched out to defend the large perimeter. And they were vastly outnumbered. The Viet Minh had nearly 50,000 troops under the command of General Vo Nguyen Gap, a staunch Communist who is considered one of 20e the greatest military strategists of the century.
France had two main objectives in its occupation of Dien Bien Phu. He was looking for a base from where he could attack and cripple the supply lines in Laos that were supporting the growing insurgency there. And he wanted to provoke the Viet Minh into an open and massive attack, confident that the French forces would win in this type of war.
The French underestimated Giap’s leadership as well as the weapons and capabilities of the Viet Minh army. French forces expected to rely on the airstrip to supply the stronghold, mistakenly assuming that the Viet Minh did not have anti-aircraft weapons.
Giap did nothing to try to stop the initial incursion. For four months, his troops prepare. They spread through the steep hills until the army literally surrounded the Dien Bien Phu valley. They carved out well-protected artillery positions and sort of manhandled huge artillery pieces along steep slopes and through dense growth to their positions.
The Viet Minh surrounds the French forces
On March 13, 1954, under the dark sky of a new moon, the Viet Minh artillery began to bombard one of the French garrisons on the perimeter and the army besieged the entire French outpost. The next day, Giap’s artillery disabled the airstrip and his troops attacked and captured another perimeter garrison.
For the next two months, under the guise of artillery fire that the French were unable to suppress, Viet Minh forces adopted the type of trench warfare seen in World War I, digging closer and closer French lines while working to isolate the remaining French. garrisons. The French Air Force, without an operational landing strip, had to refuel with parachutes under fire. He lost 62 planes during the battle; 167 others were damaged.
On March 30, 1954, Viet Minh troops attacked two other garrisons. Bloody and desperate attacks and counterattacks raged for nearly a week as the French fought with fierce determination but continued to give in. By April 22, Giap’s forces had captured 90% of the airstrip, forcing the air drops to stop and leaving the French army in dire and deteriorating conditions.
The human toll on both sides was enormous and Giap had to call in reinforcements from Laos before resuming ground attacks on the French perimeter which was shrinking on May 1. Soldier stood atop the conquered French headquarters waving the red and yellow Viet Minh flag in victory.
High number of victims for both sides
The 57-day battle was a complete rout for the French army, which lost more than 2,200 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 11,000 others who were captured, including more than 5,100 wounded. Only about 3,300 French prisoners of war returned home. Thousands of people died in captivity as the French negotiated its exit from Indochina at the 1954 Geneva Conference.
The terms of the July 1954 peace agreement provided for a temporary partition dividing northern and southern Vietnam which was to end in unified national elections in 1956. Elections never took place. Two separate countries emerged, with Communist North Korea supported by Russia and China and South Vietnam supported by the United States and some of its allies.
Before the Vietnam War
The push for full Vietnam independence did not stop, and in South Vietnam, insurgents regrouped under the name Viet Cong. With the support of North Vietnam and its army, the Viet Cong engaged in guerrilla warfare to challenge the ever-growing American strength, which led to the Vietnam War, also known as the Second World War. ‘Indochina, which spread from the 1950s to the 1970s.
In 1973, the United States withdrew its combat troops. Two years later, on April 30, 1975, South Vietnam fell and Vietnam became a unified and independent Communist country. Its former capital, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
READ MORE: Timeline of the Vietnam War
Dien Bien Phu today
Today, Dien Bien Phu is a popular historical tourist attraction in Vietnam. It has a modern museum and much of the battlefield is preserved, including several of the fortified French positions, the protected French headquarters, and the Viet Minh headquarters complex. Regular commercial flights from Hanoi land on the same airstrip, now paved with concrete.
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“Analysis of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu”, by Major Harry D. Bloomer, United States, GlobalSecurity.org.
“Dien Bien Phu and the Fall of French Indochina”, Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.
“Dien Bien Phu: Digging into History” (Dien Bien Phu today), by Stephen Grenville, The Interpreter, Lowy Institute.
“Dien Bien Phu”, FactsandDetails.com.
“What the French have lost in Dien Bien Phu”, by Geoffrey Norman, history.net.
