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1 Vietnam Nationalism and Resistance 1771 to 1954
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Vietnam Nationalism and Resistance
1771 to 1954
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Introduction
Vietnam has many traces of its past in the present. Vietnamese photographer Khanh Hmoong, in his
project ‘Vietnam: Looking into the Past’ holds up old photographs over the exact location where
something historical still exists today to show the connection between the past and the present.
Below is one of his works showing Hue in the 1920s and now.
The sources used in this book come from several types of historians, who also hold up their own
views of the past for us to look at.
Marxists look at the different classes of Vietnamese society (including the Vietnamese rulers
as the feudal class and the French as the capitalist class and an imperialist power) and the
conflicts between the classes, a conflict driven by economic exploitation of the poor by the
rich.
Nationalists look at the forces that divided and united the Vietnamese people and gave
them their national identity.
Structuralists look at the way Vietnamese society was organised before the French invaded
and how and why the French imposed new structures, and what effects these had.
Biographers look at great men and women and their individual contributions that brought
about both small and great changes to Vietnam.
Enthusiasts look at specific areas of historical interest (such as the growing railways, the
changes in art, the new designs of buildings) and bring interesting details to light.
Photo-journalists try to capture in pictures key moments that give us insights into the times
we are studying.
I hope that by the end of this book, using your imagination and these sources, you will have your
own, personal picture of the past and be able to hold it up to the present and see the connections
between the two, not only with the buildings you see around you, but also with the beliefs, decisions
and actions of the people in this story.
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Contents
Introduction
French interest in South East Asia
1 A country divided within itself 1.1 How Vietnam was governed
1.2 A divided country
1.3 The agrarian (farming) crisis
2 The beginnings of trade with European countries 2.1 European trading interests in South East Asia
2.2 The European missionaries’ interest in South East Asia
2.3 The work of Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660)
3 The reunification of the country 3.1 The peasant revolts
3.2 The Tay Son rebellion
3.3 The founding of the Tay Son dynasty
3.4 Solving the problems of a united Vietnam
3.5 Quang Trung’s domestic policy
4 Nguyen Anh and increasing French involvement 4.1 The beginnings of direct French involvement
4.2 Pigneau in France
5 Victory and the reign of Gia Long (1802-1820) 5.1 Victory in Saigon
5.2 Victory over the Tay Son family
5.3 Gia Long’s domestic policy
5.4 Gia Long’s foreign policy
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6 Minh Mang (1820-1841) and the French 6.1 Minh Mang improved his father’s domestic policies
6.2 The problem of roaming bandits
6.3 The Phan Ba Vanh rebellion (1821 – 1827)
6.4 Minh Mang continued his father’s anti-Christian policies
6.5 Minh Mang’s foreign policy
6.6 What was happening between China and Britain?
6.7 French naval involvement
7 Tu Duc (1847-1883) 7.1 Tu Duc’s domestic policy and worsening relationship with Christians
7.2 Napoleon III’s foreign policy and response to Tu Duc’s persecution
7.3 The siege of Tourane, September 1858
7.4 The French invasion of Saigon
7.5 The Treaty of Saigon, 1862
8 The end of Vietnam’s independence 8.1 Tu Duc renegotiates the Treaty of Saigon
8.2 Vietnamese resistance to the French and how the French used this
8.3 What was happening between Cambodia and France?
8.4 Garnier’s voyage of exploration
8.5 France unites with Vietnamese opposition to Tu Duc
8.6 The French back down
8.7 The death of Tu Duc and the Treaty of Protectorate, June 1884
8.8 Assessing Tu Duc’s failure to withstand the French
French colonial rule
9 The beginnings of French colonisation 9.1 The French idea of ‘la mission civilisatrice’
9.2 The Indochinese Union (ICU) and the division of Vietnam
9.3 Why did some Vietnamese support the new French administration?
9.4 Paul Doumer (1857 – 1932) and the administration of Indochinese Union
9.5 The work of Pierre Paul Paris
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10 ICU state monopolies: salt, alcohol and opium
10.1 The French administration’s need for money
10.2 The creation of state monopolies
10.3 The alcohol monopoly
10.4 The opium monopoly
11 French reform of the infrastructure
11.1 The creation of farmland
11.2 Water irrigation
11.3 Roads
11.4 Railways
11.5 The Vietnamese builders of the railways
12 French organistation of eductation
12.1 Background to the introduction of French education
12.2 French schools
12.3 French ambivalence towards an educated Vietnamese people
12.4 How successful was French education provision?
12.5 The role of education in promoting Vietnamese resistance
13 The introduction of quoc ngu 13.1 Why quoc ngu was needed in Indochina
13.2 The impact of quoc ngu on Vietnamese nationalism
13.3 The impact of quoc ngu on new Vietnamese writers
13.4 Quoc ngu and the writing of ‘opposition literature’
13.5 The ‘popular realist’ style
14 Vietnamese art
14.1 The development of new, French influenced styles
14.2 Vietnamese lacquer painting
14.3 Silk painting
15 Anti-colonial resistance 15.1 Vietnamese anti-colonialism
15.2 The ‘Aid the King’ Revolt
15.3 The ‘Hanoi Poison Plot’
15.4 The ‘Thai Nguyen Uprising’
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16 Vietnamese involvement in the First World War 16.1 Why was it called a ‘world’ war?
16.2 The exploitation of the colonies’ resources and people
16.3 Colonial migrant workers
16.4 Colonial soldiers
16.5 The treatment of Indochinese troops
16.6 Vietnamese soldiers in action
16.7 Resistance to the war in Vietnam
16.8 Propaganda and the colonial troops
16.9 Promises for after the war
17 The French penal system in Hanoi until 1940 17.1 The penal system in Hanoi
17.2 The design of Hoa Lo Prison
17.3 The prisoners
17.4 The treatment of prisoners
17.5 The role of local people
17.6 The guillotine
17.7 Political prisoners in the 1930s
17.8 Communist Party prisoners
The rise of Vietnamese Nationalism
18 The origins of Vietnamese nationalism
19 The influence of international events on Vietnamese
nationalism 19.1 The triumph of Japan
19.2 Chinese nationalism and Marxism
19.3 Sun Yat-Sen and Marxism
19.4 Russian nationalism and Marxism
19.5 Lenin, the Bolshevik Party and Marxism
19.6 Geographical differences in Vietnamese politics
20 Three leaders of the early nationalist movement 20.1 Phan Boi Chau (1867 – 1940)
20.2 Phan Chu Trinh (1872 – 1926)
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20.3 Nguyen Thai Hoc (1904 – 1930)
21 Ho Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party
21.1 The background of Ho Chi Minh (1890 – 1969)
21.2 What was happening in Russia in 1919?
21.3 The creation of the Indochina Communist Party (ICP)
21.4 The world economic depression and the response of the ICP
22 Japanese invasion of Indochina 22.1 How the Second World War affected France
22.2 What was happening between Japan and China?
22.3 Why Japan invaded Indochina
22.4 Colonial resistance to the Japanese
22.5 Vietnamese nationalist support for the Japanese
22.6 ICP opposition to the Japanese and the origins of the Viet Minh
22.7 The famine of 1944
22.8 Japan and France make Vietnam nationalist promises
22.9 The Viet Minh gains popular support
23 The August Revolution and the end of the war 23.1 The plans for peace in Europe
23.2 The August revolution
23.3 The founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)
23.4 Steps to tackle the famine
23.5 The beginnings of radical reform
23.6 Resistance to the Viet Minh in the south
23.7 General Gracey and the British occupation
23.8 The French backlash
The Indochinese War and a divided nation
24 Occupations of north and south of Vietnam 24.1 The Chinese Nationalist occupation of the north
24.2 Ho sees the need to negotiate with the French
24.3 The British attitude towards French reoccupation of Indochina
24.4 The American attitude toward French reoccupation of Indochina
24.5 The French reoccupation of the south
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24.6 Ho Chi Minh’s northern government
24.7 The March Accord 1946
24.8 The French violate their agreements
24.9 The Haiphong spark of war
24.10 French use of Bao Dai as a challenge to Ho’s popularity
25 The Cold War 25.1 Background to the Cold War in Asia
25.2 What was happening between America and communist countries?
25.3 The French fighting force
25.4 The Viet Minh fighting force
25.5 The relationship between the Viet Minh and the peasants
25.6 International communist support for the Viet Minh
25.7 The propaganda war
25.8 President Eisenhower’s reluctance to help the French further
25.9 Dien Bien Phu and the defeat of the French (1954)
26 The Geneva Conference 1954 26.1 Background to the Geneva Conference
26.2 What was happening in the rest of Indochina and South East Asia?
26.3 Tensions between the different representatives at the conference
26.4 The agreements reached at the conference
26.5 Why did China allow such a bad settlement?
26.6 Ngo Dinh Diem
27 An overview of the colonial period 27.1 How are we to assess French colonialism?
27.2 Who benefited and who suffered the most?
27.3 Did the French fail as colonial masters?
27.4 How did the Vietnamese feel about the end of French rule?
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French interest in South East Asia
December 1873, Francis Garnier, a French officer, led an attack on the citadel in Hanoi. He was killed
by Chinese mercenaries fighting for the Vietnamese. His death was used by the French as a reason to
take control of Vietnam.
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1 A country divided within itself
1.1 How Vietnam was governed
In the 1700s, Vietnam was ruled by an Emperor, he was assisted by scholar-officials, called
‘mandarins’ (this is originally a Portuguese word, the Vietnamese is ‘quan’). They were
educated men who studied poetry, literature and the teachings of Confucius about good
government. They had to pass exams to get positions in government; the highest mandarins
were rulers of whole provinces on behalf of the Emperor.
Source 1
‘Chief mandarin and his attendants,’ by Charles Hocquard 1885
J. Thomson, who travelled around Indochina in the mid-1800s, described a mandarin he met
while he was visiting Saigon.
Source 2 He has never done a day's work in his life. His hands are small, well formed, and soft like a woman's, while, as an indication of their utter uselessness, the nails of his third and little fingers are permitted to grow, or are cultivated, until they rival vulture's claws. Some of his actions, too, might be aptly compared to those of the king of birds. If he be a government official, he is frequently severe in the treatment of subordinates ; for it is he, together with his chief, who are responsible for their behaviour…The life he leads is an
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indolent one ; when at home, he lolls on a couch or chair, surrounded by half-a-dozen attendants, one probably hunting for insects in the hair of his head, another fanning him; while a third, who watches the inanimate face of his lord, anticipates a wish, lights a pipe or cheroot, and quietly places it between his master’s lips. Thomson, J: The Straits of Malacca, Indochina and China, 1875
Source 3 From Chinese culture, and copied in Vietnam, long nails were considered a mark of education and wealth, since a person with long nails clearly did not work with their hands. Long nails were a way of distinguishing the wealthy and educated from peasants. Postcard reads: ‘Hanoi - the hand of an Annamese of letters (a person who is well educated). Long nails are a sign of distinction.’
However, this system of government was extremely unfair towards the poor.
Source 4 In the villages, landowners and notables would lay down the law, collect very high land rents, and exact exorbitant [very high] interest payments on debt…The feudal state administered the country by means of a bureaucracy of mandarins recruited through competitive examinations. One of its main functions consisted of building and maintaining an important network of dykes and irrigation canals to protect agriculture against natural disasters. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
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Source 5 Life for the peasant farmers was difficult. Ownership of land became more concentrated in the hands of a few landlords as time passed. The Mandarin bureaucracy was oppressive and often corrupt; at one point, royal-sanctioned degrees [the qualification needed to become a mandarin] were up for sale for whoever was wealthy enough to purchase them. In contrast to the people, the ruling lords lived lavish lifestyles in huge palaces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Son_dynasty, 2012
TASKS 1. Explain who the mandarins were and what their education was. 2. Describe different things you can see in source 1, and what this tells you about the
mandarins at this time. 3. In what ways does source 2 support what you can see in sources 1 and 3. Give
specific details. 4. What duties does source 4 say mandarins had and why do you think these were
important to farmers? 5. According to source 4, how did the rich landlords make life difficult for the peasants? 6. According to source 5, in what way was mandarin system corrupt?
1.2 A divided country
Vietnam had been under control of emperors of the Le Dynasty since 1428, but in reality
real power was divided between two warlord families, the Trinh family with their capital in
Thang Long (Hanoi), and the Nguyen family with their capital in Hue. The North and South
were at peace, but both families were building up their military forces.
1.3 The agrarian (farming) crisis
To buy weapons, and to feed their growing armies, both families increased land tax. The
Nguyen family went further than the Trinh family and taxed not only land, but all
agricultural, handicraft and trading activity. The people had to pay in strings of cash, in
timber and in cloth. Corrupt officials made the people even poorer. The record of Cao Xa
village noted that, ‘for every amount the state collected, the government-official collectors
took twice as much for themselves.’
Source 6 It was not the rich that bore the brunt of higher taxes…As farmers found it impossible to pay the increased land taxes, they sold their land to government officials. This newly acquired land would then be exempt from taxes, which further increased the tax burden for peasants who were trying to hold on to their lands. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
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Mandarins did not have to pay the land tax, which meant that the burden of paying the tax
fell on the peasant farmers. When the peasant farmers complained, they found that they
were not listened to fairly.
Source 7 One of the clearest indications of this agrarian crisis was the increasing number of lawsuits involving the appropriation [forced taking] of land, but the peasants who appeared before mandarin courts were mistreated, had to pay bribes, and usually lost the case. Complaints reached the [Trinh family] court in such great numbers that in 1723 the Trinh were compelled to set up a real supreme court of appeal at the gates of the palace. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Peasant farmers now worked on land that no longer belonged to them, or were struggling
to pay the tax. They stopped maintaining the water channels that irrigated the land and this
resulted in floods that brought famine and disease. The Cuong Muc annals, described the
effects of a famine in 1735:
Source 8 ‘Thieves and bandits multiplied in number…Peasants gave up all cultivation. All food reserves were exhausted in the villages…People roamed about carrying their children in search of rice. The price of rice soared; 100 coins were no longer enough to pay for a meal. People lived on vegetables and herbs, and ate rats and snakes. Dead bodies lay about on the roads.’ Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 7. Explain who really ruled Vietnam, and why they were taking so much tax. 8. According to source 6, why did peasant farmers sell their land to mandarins and why
did this make things worse for those farmers who did not want to sell their land? 9. According to source 7, in what ways did mandarins misuse their power to help
themselves? 10. Why do you think people ran out of food?
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2 The beginnings of trade with European countries
2.1 European trading interests in South East Asia
Source 1
A map of the ‘United Kingdoms of Annam, Tonkin and Cochinchina’ Paris 1650
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, French, Dutch, Portuguese and English
traders tried hard to set up settlements on the Vietnamese coast. They were interested in
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South East Asia as a source of raw materials, and wanted to trade by selling European
goods.
Source 2 On the surface, the French found such items as tea, fruits, and pepper along with the main source of nutrition for the Indochinese, rice and fish. Once the French began extensive exploration and mining, they discovered vast mineral resources. Of special importance was the coal from the Quang Yen mines located in Tonkin. The French also dug zinc, tin, silver, lead, and phosphates there, sapphires on the Siam-Cambodia border, and wolfram, iron ore, salt, and limestone in scattered locations. In Annam’s province of Song-wan and in the Nui-Kem Valley, and along the streams of the Upper Mékong in Laos, the French found gold. Beyond mining, Indochina became a new place for sugar refining, coconut and peanut oil production, and shipbuilding. Silk, rubber, lumber, tobacco, and cotton all became important commodities to the French through the creation of new industries. Burlette, Julia A.G: French Influence Overseas, the Rise and Fall of Indochina, 2007
Source 3
Postcard of tea merchants, late nineteenth century
However, setting up trade relations was very difficult, partly because of the tropical diseases
that killed the Europeans, and partly because they found the Vietnamese people unwilling
to trade.
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Source 4 Whatever their own differences, all Vietnamese hated foreigners, and their sophisticated administrative structure, modelled on China’s, could effectively mobilise resistance against western intruders. Besides, the Europeans were too preoccupied fighting among themselves to mount campaigns of the kind that would have been required for conquest. By the end of the seventeenth century, trade with Vietnam seemed pointless. The Dutch and English closed the small offices they had opened earlier in Hanoi, and the French shut down their post at Pho Hien. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
However, the Europeans had something both ruling families wanted, weapons. The
Portuguese helped the Nguyen family develop a foundry to make weapons, but also traded
with the Trinh in exchange for spices. The Dutch sold weapons to the Trinh.
TASKS 1. Write the title: ‘Natural Resources that attracted European Traders.’ Draw a chart
like the one below, and using source 2, list the different resources that traders wanted to buy (three have been done for you).
Crops Mining Refining
tea gold coconut oil
2. Using source 4, explain why ‘trade with Vietnam seemed pointless’
2.2 The European missionaries’ interest in South East Asia
The Roman Catholic Church encouraged European missionaries to go to Asia to spread the
message of the Christian religion. The majority of people in Vietnam did not convert to
Christianity, but some members of the royal court did.
Source 5 Some Indochinese welcomed the missionaries, but not everyone accepted the foreigners. Tolerance for Christianity and the West depended upon the current emperor and his personal beliefs. The emperors realized that missionary work would lead to trade and believed that trade could lead to political domination. Burlette, J.A.G: French influence overseas: the rise and fall of Indochina, 2007
Because of the unhappiness of the people under Trinh rule, missionaries were successful in
converting people to Catholic Christianity. However, certain western Christian beliefs
conflicted with the Chinese Confucian value system.
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Confucianism Christianity Authority is held by the Emperor, given to him by the ‘Mandate of Heaven’
All governments are less powerful than God’s representative, the Church
The emperor and wealthy Vietnamese men could have more than one wife (polygamy) and concubines
Marriage should only ever be between one man and one woman (monogamy) and a man should have no concubines
2.3 The work of Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660)
The most enthusiastic missionaries were an organisation, called the Jesuits. One of the first
Jesuits in Vietnam was the French missionary Alexandre de Rhodes. He was an amazing
linguist, learning Vietnamese in six months. Working with other colleagues, he created a
romanised system for writing Vietnamese called quoc ngu, which was simpler than writing
in Chinese characters. Using the work of two other missionaries he developed a Vietnamese-
Portuguese-Latin dictionary and wrote Christian literature in quoc ngu.
Source 6
Alexandre de Rhodes
Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin Dictionary, 1651
In 1603, Rhodes was expelled from Trinh territory,and found that the Nguyen family also did
not welcome him. After many attempts to revisit Vietnam he returned to France and spent
the rest of his life campaigning for the French to take a greater interest in Vietnam.
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Source 7
Map of North of Vietnam by Rhodes (North is on the right), 1651
TASKS 3. What reasons does source 5 give for why some Vietnamese rulers and their families
converted to Christianity? Are these good reasons to become a Christian? Explain your answer.
4. Why do you think ordinary people converted to Christianity? 5. What do you think Rhodes wanted to achieve by developing the system of quoc ngu? 6. Why do you think Rhodes was expelled from Vietnam. 7. Why do you think Rhodes continued to campaign for France to take greater interest
in Vietnam? 8. How do you think his detailed map (source 7) might have helped him in his
campaign?
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3 The reunification of the country
3.1 The peasant revolts
Among peasants, the common response to growing economic and social crisis is rebellion
and revolt. Between 1730 and 1770 there were many local rebellions. None of these were
strong enough to threaten the political system, but they were a sign that there were
economic and social problems throughout Vietnam.
Source 1 In 1739, centres of insurgency [revolt] were developing in every province…The Cuong Muc annals relate that poor people gathered ‘by the hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands, and besieged the towns in an irresistible upsurge.’ Contacts were established between insurgent organisations in various provinces in order to coordinate actions, but the uprisings remained in most cases local in character. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
3.2 The Tay Son rebellion
In 1771, three brothers from the village of Tay Son in the central province of Nghia Binh
launched a revolt. Tradition says that these brothers were angry at the way their father had
been treated by the Nguyen government. They were also angry because the Nguyen had
grown rich by taxing and exploiting the peasants.
Source 2
From a children’s web-book: Vietnamese History, 2000
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Source 3 a report by a Spanish missionary They began moving through the villages announcing to the inhabitants that they were not bandits, but envoys from Heaven, that they wanted to see justice prevail and liberate the people from the tyranny of the king and his mandarins. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 4 The Tay Son, as the brothers and their followers came to be known, advocated seizing property from the rich and distributing it to the poor. They also attracted support from powerful Chinese merchants who opposed restrictive trade practices. The rebellion thus began with peasants and merchants opposing mandarins and large landowners. http://www.historynet.com/the-first-tet-offensive-of-1789.htm
Landless farmers joined them to help build an army that moved south, taking over one
village at a time. The Tay Son policy included giving back land and food to the poor. Unlike
the Trinh and Nguyen families, they allowed the European missionaries to move freely
among the people. As their army moved southwards to Gia Dinh (Saigon), where the
Nguyen were now based, they ended the heavy taxes and in 1778 the Nguyen clan were
defeated.
TASKS 1. Why do you think that whenever there are extreme economic and social problems,
peasants will respond by violence? 2. Source 1 says the peasants ‘gathered in their thousands,’ the revolts were mostly
‘local in character’ and ‘contacts were established’ between groups. Why is there a problem with this description of the character of the revolts?
3. According to source 3, how did the Tay Son brothers attract the support of the people?
4. According to source 4, what else did the Tay Son brothers do to attract support and who else decided to join the Tay Son brothers and why?
5. In what way do sources 3 and 4 agree? 6. Given what you know about the European Christian missionaries, why do you think
the Tay Son allowed them to continue to move freely among the people?
3.3 The founding of the Tay Son dynasty
Once in power, the soldiers attacked the Chinese merchants, who they blamed for
exploiting the Vietnamese poor. They also murdered all the Nguyen clan, except for Nguyen
Anh, the sixteen year old nephew of the last Nguyen lord, who escaped.
The Tay Son brothers claimed they had been fighting to restore power to the Le Emperor,
and after establishing power in the South, they used this as their reason for then attacking
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the Trinh family in the North. The Trinh court was in crisis, making it weak, because different
factions in the family were fighting each other for power. The Tay Son army swiftly
advanced northwards and by July 1786 they had defeated the Trinh and the country was
united under the three brothers.
The three brothers installed themselves as kings in the southern, central and northern
regions, but promised their allegiance to the Le emperor and his court in Thang Long
(Hanoi).
This only lasted two years. The Le Emperor wanted real power and asked the Qing Emperor
of China to send him military help to overthrow the Tay Son kings. A Chinese army of
200,000 soldiers was sent to capture Thang Long and restore Emperor Le as ‘King of
Annam’. However, Emperor Le was no longer popular with the people.
Source 5 In fact Ton Si Nghi [the Chinese army commander, Sun Shi Yi ] held all the power…The actions of the Qing troops managed to open the eyes of those who had been mistaken about the real intentions of the invaders. Only Chieu Thong (Emperor Le) and the reactionary feudal lords who wanted to defend their privileges at any cost still clung to the coat tails of the occupiers. Feelings ran high among the population; the prestige [respect] of the Le dynasty was destroyed. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 6 …the Chinese treated Vietnam as if it were captured territory. Although the Chinese recognized Le Chieu Thong as king of An Nam, he had to issue his pronouncements in the name of the Chinese emperor and personally report every day to Sun Shi-Yi. Le Chieu Thong also carried out reprisals [revenge attacks] against Vietnamese officials who had rallied to the Tay Son, and seemed oblivious to the poor treatment his people were receiving from the Chinese. Even his supporters were upset, agreeing that 'from the first Vietnamese king, there has never been such a coward.' Meanwhile, typhoons and disastrous harvests, especially in 1788, led northerners to believe that the king had lost his 'Mandate of Heaven,' and they began to distance themselves from him. Vietnamese in the north especially suffered because they had to feed the Chinese from their own meagre food supplies. http://www.historynet.com/the-first-tet-offensive-of-1789.htm
TASKS 7. Why do you think the Tay Son brothers tried to destroy the whole Nguyen family? 8. Explain why the Tay Son brothers were able to defeat the Trinh family. 9. Describe in your own words how the Tay Son brothers set themselves up as rulers of
Vietnam. 10. What do you think were their reasons for not trying to remove Emperor Le?
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11. Sources 5 and 6 agree on some of the reasons why emperor Le was no longer popular. What are they?
12. What other reasons does each source give to explain why Emperor Le was unpopular?
The second Tay Son brother, Nguyen Hue, seeing that the Le Emperor had given the real
power to China, in December 1788 proclaimed himself emperor and took the name Quang
Trung. With an army of 100,000 soldier and 100 elephants he attacked Thang Long during
the Tet festival, and defeated the Chinese army. The Chinese troops and the Le Emperor
retreated to Chinese territory and Nguyen Hue began negotiations with the Qing Emperor.
Source 7
Portrait of a Tay Son soldier in Hoi An, by William Alexander, 1793
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Source 8 The Tay Son had been brought to power by the great peasant insurrections of the 18th century. Commercial elements had joined in, without however playing a prominent role. Nguyen Hue’s military and political genius, relying on this vast strength of the peasants in revolt, had enabled the insurrection to achieve rapid, sometimes lightning, success. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 9 a letter from a missionary describing the Tay Son general Vo Van Nham, 1788 ‘The talent of these men was to kill a great many people to make them fearful and to obey promptly. They also killed many people for no reason. As they left and brought this large number of forced troops they made to redouble their cruelty. For an error or for bothering someone or any similar thing, or even for no particular offense [soldiers] would have their heads cut off. In the space of a half a league on the road, one could see 15 bodies killed in this manner.’ http://www.historynet.com/the-first-tet-offensive-of-1789.htm
Source 10
Quang Trung used strong men with wooden boards to defend his infantry – from a children’s online history book
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Source 11 [I]n the course of a 40-day campaign, Quang Trung had devoted 35 days to preparations and only five to actual battle…Another key was the attitude of the civilian population, which rallied to the Tay Son in their march north, providing food, material support and tens of thousands of soldiers. This gave Quang Trung the resources needed to take the offensive. http://www.historynet.com/the-first-tet-offensive-of-1789.htm
TASKS 13. Explain why Quang Trung decided to attack the Le Emperor. 14. What reason does source 8 give for the strength of Quang Trung’s army? 15. What reason does source 9 give for the strength of Quang Trung’s army? 16. Why do you think sources 8 and 9 give such different reasons and which do you think
is more reliable as evidence? Explain your reasons. 17. In what ways does source 11 support source 8? 18. How does source 10 support source 11? 19. What can you learn about the Tay Son soldiers from the picture by William
Alexander (source 7)?
3.4 Solving the problems of a united Vietnam
Nguyen Hue agreed to pay tribute to China if the Qing Emperor would recognise his rule in
Vietnam. With China’s agreement he declared himself the founder of the Tay Son dynasty.
He moved the capital to near modern-day Hue and reorganised the government by giving
power to military generals and taking it away from the mandarins.
The country had suffered from many years of war, and from the corruption of the
mandarins. Quang Trung ordered that taxes on local products be reduced, landless farmers
were given unused land to cultivate, and trade with foreign countries was encouraged.
Source 12 a poem from the time by Nguyen Huy Long, a contemporary
Wreaths of smoke crown the kilns of Thach Khoi, Shuttles sing in the hands of brocade weavers, From Yen Thai comes the sound of pestles pounding paper pulp, In Nghi Tam fishing nets fence in the waters, Market are crowded with traders from east and west, Like butterflies, junk sails are pressed together.
Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
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3.5 Quang Trung’s domestic policy
Quang Trung ordered that all official texts and the Confucian classics used in education were
to be translated into Vietnamese in a script called chu nom. He also added science to the
subjects for education. The official court language was made Vietnamese, and no longer
Chinese, which meant that all people (and not just mandarins) could understand the law
and government.
He allowed religious freedom, which gave the French missionaries confidence to return to
Vietnam.
He implemented a military policy of ‘for every three men, one must be a soldier,’ which
meant that the country had a substantial infantry, navy, elephant force and cavalry. He
continued to wage war against Nguyen Anh, but suddenly, in September 1792, he died and
was replaced by Quang Toan.
3.6 Quang Trung’s foreign policy
Quang Trung’s policy towards China and the Qing Emperor was flexible, he had offered
tribute to the Chinese Emperor in order to be recognised as the ruler of Vietnam, but he was
also extremely ambitious. He proposed to marry one of the Chinese emperor’s daughters;
an indication of his intention to reclaim territory, and ordered the melting of Vietnamese
coins to make cannons, in the hope of restore the Chinese territories of Guangxi and
Guangdong that had been a part of Vietnam over one thousand five hundred years before.
Source 13 King Quang Trung was not only brave and clever, but also generous and understanding in ruling the country and using talented people. On one hand, he sent messengers to Thanh [the Chinese Emperor] to confer a title and to keep peace between two countries. On the other hand, he trained his army to be ready to attack China later. What a pity that he died at the age of 40 before he could carry out his dream.
http://thuvienbao.com/books-literature/viet_history/VNHistory_8.htm
TASKS 20. Looking at source 12, what are the different industries listed in the poem? What can
you infer from the poem about the state of Vietnam under Quang Trung’s reign? 21. Describe the other reforms Quang Trung made to the system of government and
educations. What do you think he hoped to achieve by making these reforms? 22. Look at source 13. Why do you think Quang Trung decided to pay tribute, and
receive the Chinese Emperor’s approval for his take-over and yet train his army for an attack on China?
23. Look at source 14 below. Design an information pamphlet, for a western tourist seeing this statue, which celebrates the achievements of Quang Trung.
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Source 14
Modern statue of Quang Trung in Tay Son
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4 Nguyen Anh and increasing French involvement
4.1 The beginnings of direct French involvement
Nguyen Anh, the sixteen year old nephew of the last Nguyen lord had survived. He rallied
his troops and retook Saigon. In 1783, Quang Trung’s army took back Saigon, and Nguyen
Anh fled to the island of Phu Quoc.
The island housed a Roman Catholic seminary (a training school for priests). The principle teacher was Pierre Joseph Pigneau de Behaine, who had come from India. When Nguyen Anh met Pigneau, they liked each other and it was clear they both felt they could gain from this new friendship. Nguyen Anh needed outside help to overthrow Quang Trung, and Pigneau wanted France to enjoy a special position in Vietnam. They both made promises: Pigneau would leave Pho Quoc, go to France, and return with a French force that would serve Nguyen Anh. In return, Nguyen Anh promised to give France the island of Poulo Condore and an area of the port of Da Nang.
Source 1
Pierre Joseph Pigneau de Behaine, by Mauperin, 1787
Source 2
Portrait of Prince Cahn, 1787
4.2 Pigneau in France Pigneau went to France to appeal directly to the French king, Louis XVI. As proof of his sincerity, Nguyen Anh insisted that his five year old son, Prince Canh, go with Pigneau. When they arrived, the prince made a sensation at the court. He had been dressed in exotic clothes, and played with the French king’s son, who was about the same age. A new hairstyle was created in his honour. However, it was a combination of detailed military information and the promise of France being able to control the area of Indochina that led to the king’s interest.
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King Louis XVI allowed Pigneau to collect French ships and military supplies from India, in an
agreement called the ‘Treaty of Versailles’.
Source 3
Signatures of the Treaty of Versailles: Montmorin, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Navy, and Evèque d'Adran, (Pigneau de Béhaine), 1787
The French government was in very bad financial trouble, so after Pigneau had left, Louis
XVI changed his mind and cancelled his permission. Instead, Pigneau raised the money to for
two ships (which he named, the ‘Dragon’ and the ‘Phoenix’) and filled them with
mercenaries and military provisions. In 1789 the ships arrived in Vietnam and Pigneau
returned Prince Canh, now a Christian, to his father.
TASKS 1. What do you think was the reason why Pigneau’s wanted the French king’s
involvement in helping Nguyen Anh? 2. Look at source 2, the clothes Prince Canh is wearing do not look Vietnamese. Why do
you think Pigneau dressed Prince Canh in this way? 3. In source 3, why do you think the Minister of Foreign Affairs was also the Minister of
the Navy at that time? 4. Why do you think Pigneau continued help Nguyen Anh after King Louis XVI changed
his mind? 5. Do you see any similarities between Pigneau and Alexandre de Rhodes (see 2.3)?
Explain your answer.
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5 Victory and the reign of Gia Long (1802-1820)
5.1 Victory in Saigon
Two ships of military fighters did not seem like a strong enough fighting force to defeat
Quang Trung, his two brothers and his armies. However, Nguyen Anh recaptured Saigon and
asked the French officers to design a European fortress there.
30,000 local people were forced to work on building it, and were taxed heavily to pay for its
construction. The workers were worked so hard that they revolted, but it was finished in
1790.
Source 1
Diagram of the layout of the original fortress
Pigneau died of dysentery in October 1799, after serving as an advisor and foreign minister
to Nguyen Anh. He was buried at Saigon in a specially built tomb, with full military honours.
Nguyen Anh's funeral speech described him as ‘the most illustrious foreigner ever to appear
at the court of Cochinchina.’
TASKS 1. Explain why Nguyen Anh was able to defeat the Tay Son family. 2. Why do you think Nguyen Anh decided to build an extremely modern (for that time),
western style fort (source 1), once he captured Saigon? 3. Look at source 2 below, why do you think Nguyen Anh decided to have a tomb built
for Pigneau in Vietnam, rather than return his body to France?
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Source 2
Early twentieth century postcard picture of the tomb of Pigneau
5.2 Victory over the Tay Son family
It was internal problems among the Tay Son brothers that led to the defeat of the Tay Son
dynasty. When Quang Trung died suddenly, in 1792, his son was only ten years old. Then
Nguyen Nhac, another of the Tay Son brothers, died in 1793, and this led to fighting
amongst the Tay Son family as to who should take power and this weakened their armies.
By July 1802, Nguyen Anh had defeated all the Tay Son armies and established the Nguyen
dynasty, naming himself Gia Long.
Source 3 Vietnamese emperors usually changed their names when they began to rule, and Nguyen chose the symbolic name Gia Long. Gia Dinh (Saigon) was the major city in the South, while Thang Long (Hanoi) was the ancient capital in northern Vietnam…He chose Hue in central Vietnam as his capital. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
Source 4 In 1802, Nguyen Anh crowned himself emperor at Hue, and adopted the title of Gia Long. He showed no mercy to his beaten adversaries, dead or alive. His soldier exhumed (dug up) the bones of a deceased Tay Son leader and his wife and urinated on them before the eyes of their son, whose limbs were then bound to four elephants and then ripped apart. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
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He sent ambassadors with tribute to China and announced that he intended to set up a
‘southern state’ called Nam Viet. This name was a very old one that had been used by rebels
in Vietnam against China. So, they sent a message back recognising him as emperor of ‘Viet
Nam.’
TASKS 4. Look at source 3, how and why did Nguyen Anh make his imperial name? 5. Look at source 4, why do you think Gia Long behaved so cruelly to the defeated Tay
Son family? 6. Why do you think he chose Hue as his capital? 7. Why do you think Gia Long sent tribute to China, and why did China redesign the
country’s name?
5.3 Gia Long’s domestic policy
After many years of war, a reform of agriculture was needed as well as ways to reduce
corruption among his mandarin officials:
He stopped paying officials and rewarding nobles by letting them take some of the taxes from
their local villages.
He repaired existing roads and had new ones built.
He organised a postal service to operate along the main roads
Public food storehouses were built to reduce the risk of starvation if there was a drought.
However, the population grew very quickly. Even though new land was cleared for farming, there
was no attempt made to improve agricultural technology, so any increase in the amount of food
grown was only due to the amount of land converted into farmland, and not enough new farmland
was cleared to meet the increase in the population.
TASKS 8. Write the title: ‘Gia Long’s Domestic Reforms.’ Divide his reforms into those that
were designed to reduce corruption and those which were designed to help the peasant farmers, and write two lists.
5.4 Gia Long’s foreign policy
Gia Long’s foreign policy was based on the belief that China was the greatest social,
economic and political power in South East Asia. He copied the Chinese system in running
the country, and undid many of Quang Trung’s reforms. He disliked the western Christian
religion but because of the help of Pigneau, he tolerated the activities of French Roman
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Catholic missionaries. He discouraged communication with the European states, and gave
France no special status.
Source 7
Sketch of a French ’12 pounder’ Field Gun
However, in Europe, technological revolutions were moving power away from China. European powers like Britain and France were becoming much more technologically and militarily advanced. By the end of the 1700s, France’s population had grown to 29 million and under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, French armies had been redesigned and well trained – now they could be formed and organised very quickly.
In the early 1800s, the French began experimenting with the first warships powered by
steam. In 1830, the French invaded Algiers, with 103 warships and 464 transport ships.
France was now able to conquer and colonise other countries.
Source 8
Early twentieth century photograph of a gate to the Imperial City of Hue, constructed by Emperor Gia Long in the early nineteenth century
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TASKS 9. Describe Gia Long’s attitude towards China’s role in South East Asia. 10. Which reforms by Quang Trung do you think Gia Long undid? 11. If Gia Long disliked French missionaries, why do you think he tolerated their activities
in his country? 12. When Gia Long was still Nguyen Anh he ordered the building of Western style forts,
when he became Emperor he built in the Chinese style (source 8). What do you think this shows us about Gia Long’s attitude towards the West and towards China?
36
6 Minh Mang (1820-1841) and the French
6.1 Minh Mang improved his father’s domestic policies Gia Long’s domestic policies had made peasant farmers unhappy, with the heavy tax burden, corvée (enforced unpaid labour) and conscription (enforced military service) making it impossible for them to keep their land. Because dykes and irrigation canals were being neglected there was a food crisis and in desperation there were over a hundred uprisings. When Gia Long knew he was dying, he chose a younger son, Minh Mang, to be emperor after him. Minh Mang introduced further reforms:
Vietnam was reorganised into 31 provinces and more efficient mandarins were put in
charge as governors
Irrigation canals were repaired
More unused land was turned into farm land
The Gia Long’s road system was extended
Trade with foreign countries was promoted
In 1828 a mandarin, Nguyen Cong Tru, was given the responsibility of encouraging
agriculture. He did this by forcibly recruiting and emigrating peasant farmers who had lost
their land during the war to southern provinces, to clear waste land in the coastal areas for
farming. However, land tax, corvée and conscription made keeping ownership of the new
plantations too difficult, and often they were bought up by rich landowners.
TASKS 1. Describe how Nguyen Cong Tru increased the amount farm land. 2. Which two of Minh Mang’s reforms do you think tell us that his mandarins were not
doing their job properly? Explain you answer.
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6.2 The problem of roaming bandits
The country suffered from roaming outlaws who regularly pillaged and destroyed villages,
or attacked ships along the coast. The problem was very large, in April 1825 alone, official
forces captured 80 bandits in Nghe An district, and in February 1827 the navy fought a
battle with 50 pirate ships.
The bandits were peasants who were no longer able to afford to work as farmers, who
wished to escape corvée and conscription, or had received no help during times of food
shortage. In some cases whole villages were deserted as they all turned to banditry. Minh
Mang was told by his local officials that bandits were a small, unhappy element in
Vietnamese society, but he recognised that their causes were economic and social. He
ordered that land taxes be lowered and rice sold at reduced prices to those who were
starving, and in the worst areas he ended corvée and conscription.
The problem was made worse by corrupt local mandarins and police officials who either
accused peasants who reported banditry of lying, or demanded bribes before they would do
anything. In 1827, Minh Mang was forced to order an investigation that led to the execution
or dismissal of many officials. Local officials, already afraid of bandits, dug moats to protect
their houses, set up armed self-defence patrols and used this power to terrorise the local
peasants – which drove even peasants out of their villages to join the bandits.
6.3 The Phan Ba Vanh rebellion (1821 – 1827)
One example is the story of the bandit Phan Ba Vanh, from what is now Thai Binh. Legend
says his father was a fish breeder, and certainly his family was so poor that he had be a
buffalo herder for his uncle rather than go to school. Little is known, but local legends say
that one day he killed a buffalo, either to help those who were hungry in the village, or
because he wanted to feel like a warrior and share with friends his kill, or because a local
landowner had become angry that the buffalo had eaten his crops and so Phan Ba Vanh
killed both the landowner and the animal.
He was expelled from the village and one legend says he moved to Mount Yen Tu where he
studied martial arts under a monk at the temple there. Moving from place to place he joined
an outlaw group and began to lead a rebellion. Phan Ba Vanh began to lead a growing army
of fighters and successfully defeated government troops both on land and at sea. He began
to call himself ‘Yellow Dragon’ (yellow was the royal colour), and styled himself ‘king’ and
used ‘official’ seals and signed ‘official documents.’
He called on peasants to rise up against landowners and mandarins, and his call was so
popular that many bandit groups transformed joined him, along with many peasant farmers.
The Minh Mang began to take Phan Ba Vanh seriously when a comet was seen in 1825,
which was interpreted as a sign of ill luck. From then on, Minh Mang’s troops were sent in
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their thousands along with naval vessels to suppress the uprising, which had now spread to
four provinces and was to be one of the largest in nineteenth century Vietnam.
Source 1
The Emperor’s military guards, late nineteenth century
Minh Mang’s troops were unable to defeat him at sea, but by March 1827 they finally
surrounded his base at Tra Lu, blocking off all escape routes, and attacked. Phan Ba Vanh
was wounded and died when captured. His head was cut off and his body cut into three
pieces and displayed in the provinces which had supported him.
More important for Minh Mang was the realisation that his own officials were not only
corrupt, but that they also limited the information he received from them, since they were
not willing to tell him anything that might harm their careers or make themselves look bad.
He realised that ordinary people had willingly joined Phan Ba Vanh in rebellion, rather than
support the Emperor.
To get round this, he improved the postal system, setting up postal stations with horses that
could quickly bring news. He continued to give money, rice and exemption from corvée and
conscription to those areas that suffered from the damages of the battles, but was unable to
stop the corruption of his mandarins.
TASKS 3. Explain why corvée and conscription would make it difficult for peasant farmers to keep
their land.
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4. Why do you think suffering peasant farmers did not appeal to for help from the government, but became bandits instead?
5. The three legends’ different reasons for Phan Ba Vanh’s killing of the buffalo give us three different suggestions about his character. What do you think those three suggestions are? Can they be combined or are they too different? Explain you answer.
6. Copy this sentence: ‘The difference between bandits and rebels is that bandits break the law, but do not imagine they can change the government who made those laws. Rebels call for the overthrow of the government and promise to replace it with something better’. What things did Phan Ba Vanh do that showed he had changed from a bandit to a rebel?
7. Look back at 3.2, describe the similarities and differences you see between the Phan Ba Vanh and the Tay Son rebellions.
8. Explain what Minh Mang saw was the problem with his governmental system. 9. Why do you think he improved the postal service to help solve this problem?
6.4 Minh Mang continued his father’s anti-Christian policies
Minh Mang was more anti-Christian than his father and made it illegal for foreign priests to
enter or live in Vietnam; but these laws were not strictly enforced.
Source 2 extracts from the Imperial edict of 1833 For many years men from the Occident [the West] have been preaching the religion of Dato [Christ] and deceiving the public, teaching them that there is a mansion of supreme bliss [Heaven] and a dungeon of dreadful misery [Hell]. They have no respect for the God Phat and no reverence for ancestors. That is great blasphemy. Moreover, they build houses of worship where they receive a large number of people, without discriminating between the sexes, in order to seduce the women and young girls; they also extract the pupils from the eyes of sick people. Can anything more contrary to reason and custom be imagined? Last year we punished two villages steeped in this depraved doctrine. In so doing we intended to make our will known, so that people would shun this crime and come to their senses. Now then, this is our decision: although many people have already taken the wrong path through ignorance, it doesn’t take much intelligence to perceive what is proper and what is not; they can still be taught and corrected easily. Initially they must be given instruction and warnings, and then, if they remain intractable, punishment and pain.
Secret addition, to be read by mandarins only
Moreover, this matter should be handled with discretion, following the [Confucian] maxim, which states: ‘If you want to destroy a bad habit, do so with order and patience,’ and continues: ‘If you wish to root out an evil breed, take the hatchet and cut the root.’
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We order all the tong doc [local officials] and all others who govern: 1. Carefully to attend to the instruction [teaching] of their inferiors, mandarins, soldiers, or populace, so that they may mend their ways and abandon this religion. 2. To obtain accurate information about the churches and homes of missionaries, and to destroy them without delay. 3. To arrest the missionaries, taking care, in doing so, to use guile rather than violence; if the missionaries are French, they should be sent promptly to the capital, under the pretext of being employed by us to translate letters. If they are indigenous [Vietnamese], you are to detain them in the headquarters of the province, so that they may not be in communication with the people and thus maintain them in error. Take care lest your inferiors profit from this opportunity by arresting Christians indiscriminately and imprudently, which would cause trouble everywhere. For this you would be held guilty. We forbid this edict to be published, for fear that its publication might cause trouble.
http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/minh-mang-catholicism-1833/
TASKS 10. What do we learn from source 2 about the differences between Confucian-
Vietnamese traditional beliefs and the Christian beliefs? 11. What scandal did Minh Mang accuse them of and what Christian practice led to this
idea? 12. In the secret addition to the edict, describe how French and Vietnamese missionaries
are to be treated differently. Why do you think he orders different treatment? 13. What corrupt practice is he afraid this edict will lead to? 14. Why do you think he ordered this edict to be kept secret?
6.5 Minh Mang’s foreign policy
As more French traders and missionaries moved to Vietnam, the French government took a
greater interest in the domestic and foreign policies of Minh Mang’s government. At this
time, French people had a great respect for the Roman Catholic Church, and French
newspapers called Vietnam’s policies ‘anti-Christian’ and ‘anti-modern.’
Because of the growing French presence, Minh Mang sent ambassadors to France to
negotiate an agreement between the two countries. Under pressure from French church
leaders who were unhappy with Minh Mang’s policies, French politicians refused to meet
41
with the Vietnamese delegates. When his son, Thieu Tri became emperor, he was even
more anti-Christian and anti-Western than his father.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
6.6 What was happening between China and Britain? European traders saw Asia as a source of raw materials and new markets. Britain was a rival of France is expanding it colonial power. Like Vietnam, China had resisted trading with European traders, and so Britain had been growing opium in India to sell in China, to force them to trade. Source 3
In order to stop the damaging economic and social effects of opium, the Qing Emperor confiscated the British stock of opium in the port of Canton. In 1839, Britain declared war on China, and sent in the British navy. This became known as the ‘first opium war.’ To the amazement of all of Asia, not only did China lose, but it was forced to give up territory to England, to pay an enormous amount for losing the war, and to open five ports on the eastern coast to international trade.
TASKS 15. Explain why the French would not negotiate a treaty with Minh Mang. 16. Explain briefly the causes and consequences of the 1839 Opium War. 17. Describe what you imagine Emperor Thieu Tri thought when he saw what had
happened to China (look back at 5.4)?
18. What do you think the French navy thought about Vietnam, after the Opium War?
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6.7 French naval involvement
The French navy moved some of its ships into the Eastern Sea, to set up a permanent base
there. With the French navy so close to Vietnam, any small incident could spark a crisis. In
1835, a young French missionary, Lefebvre, studied Vietnamese and began to preach, often
in secret to avoid arrest. In 1844 he joined a group of French priests who wanted to
overthrow Emperor Thieu Tri and replace him with someone who was more favourable to
Christianity. Lefebvre was caught twice, tried and condemned to death. Both times, aware
of the political tension with France, Thieu Tri had him deported instead.
Source 4 Thieu Tri understood his dilemma. He realised that the French, bent on conquest, were looking for pretexts [excuses]. He also knew that Vietnam could not protect itself unless it modernised. But he would not break with tradition, for he knew that innovation would bring down his imperial structure. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 19. Briefly, describe Lefebvre’s activities. 20. In your own words, explain what Thieu Tri’s ‘dilemma’ was, according to source 4.
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7 Tu Duc (1847-1883)
Emperor Tu Duc
Napoleon III
7.1 Tu Duc’s domestic policy and worsening relationship with Christians
Emperor Tu Duc came to power, but he was not popular with the people. He was the
younger son of Thieu Tri and had prevented his older brother coming to power. He actively
persecuted Christians. His older brother had attempted a coup involving support from
Vietnamese Christians, but was defeated. After this, Tu Duc’s persecution of Christians
became extremely aggressive.
Source 1
The execution of French missionary Augustin Schoeffler, by a Vietnamese artist, 1851
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Source 2 He decreed that Vietnamese Catholics be branded on the left cheek with the characters ‘ta dao,’ meaning ‘infidel,’ and their properties confiscated, since native Christians were ‘poor idiots seduced by priests.’ On the other hand, European missionaries were to be drowned and Vietnamese priests cut in half lengthwise, and bounties of silver would be paid for their capture. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
7.2 Napoleon III’s foreign policy and response to Tu Duc’s persecution
French missionary leaders in Asia began to demand that the French government do
something. In France the ruler, Napoleon III, was pressured by French naval officials to
preserve French honour and show France’s strength. French merchants demanded that he
make it safe for traders to work and live in Vietnam. Also, Napoleon III’s wife Eugenia was a
strong believer in Roman Catholicism and wanted missionaries and Vietnamese priests to be
protected. Many French people believed that the Vietnamese would greet them as
liberators and benefactors’. Also, Britain had now built a large empire in India and Burma,
and Napoleon III wanted France to be seen as equally internationally powerful. To
encourage him, French missionaries in Vietnam exaggerated how much silver, gold, coal and
timber could be had for trade.
7.3 The siege of Tourane, September 1858
Napoleon III authorised the navy to intimidate Emperor Tu Duc into treating missionaries
better. Although Lefebvre had left Vietnam for Singapore, in March 1847 two warships
arrived at Tourane (now Da Nang) and demanded that the Emperor send a letter confirming
Lefebvre’s release from Vietnamese prison, and that the letter be presented to them as if
they were more important than the Emperor’s representatives. The Emperor’s
representatives refused to deliver the letter in a way that showed the French had higher
status, and so the two warships fired on the coastline. They sank three Vietnamese vessels,
destroyed the harbour and killed hundreds of local people.
Source 3 The Vietnamese naval defeat at Tourane dramatically demonstrated the technological superiority of the French warships over the antiquated vessels of the Vietnamese fleet. In the eyes of many thoughtful Vietnamese, it demonstrated that the kingdom's blind adherence to the values and traditions of the past had left it painfully vulnerable to European coercion, and spurred calls for modernization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Tourane
45
Source 4
French warships, Tourane, September 1858
TASKS 1. Describe the long-term and short-term causes of Tu Duc’s persecution of Christians. 2. In what ways was Tu Duc’s treatment of local and foreign missionaries different from
that of Thieu Tri? 3. Draw a spider diagram, labelled: ‘Pressures on Napoleon III foreign policy towards
Vietnam,’ then around it write all the reasons you can find why Napoleon III authorised naval involvement.
4. Explain the incident that caused the French naval attack on Tourane. Why do you think the French navy demanded the mandarins behave in this way?
5. According to source 3, what did the defeat of the Vietnamese navy force many Vietnamese realise about their system of government?
7.4 The French invasion of Saigon
Napoleon III’s navy successfully captured Tourane, and sent troops on to Saigon, but
Vietnamese Christians did not rise to support them (possibly afraid that they would be
punished if caught).
The French found they could not leave the port in large numbers since they did not have
land vehicles or smaller boats. Also, the soldiers wore heavy uniforms that were extremely
uncomfortable in the heat, especially as the Vietnamese army attacked. They began to get
sick and for every soldier killed in battle, twenty died of dysentery, scurvy, cholera, typhus
or gangrene.
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Source 3
The French capture of Tourane, by a western artist
To stop the attack turning into a disaster, seventy more ships, and 3,500 troops were sent as
reinforcements, and these began the slow fight towards Saigon. By July 1861, troops
entered Saigon and claimed the city for France.
7.5 The Treaty of Saigon, 1862
Tu Duc surrendered, which surprised both the Vietnamese who had not yet lost, and the
French who had not yet won. In 1862 he signed the Treaty of Saigon. The treaty was very
generous to France:
o France now had full control of Saigon and its three neighbouring provinces
o Foreign merchants could freely trade in three Vietnamese ports
o Missionary activity was made legal throughout Vietnam
o French warships could freely travel up the Mekong river
o France had the right to forbid the emperor to give any land to another country
o The Vietnamese court paid France 20 million francs for losing the war
Source 4 The king and the high-ranking Court dignitaries were afraid of the modern weapons used by France. They were also misled as to the latter’s objectives, believing that the French, having
47
come from far away, were thinking less about conquering the country than of obtaining trade concessions. Moreover, the Nguyen monarchy, constantly suppressing internal revolts, neither wanted to nor was able to mobilise all the nation’s energies to oppose aggression. All this prompted the king and Court to implement a policy of appeasement, termed hoa nghi (peace and negotiation), trying to limit the aggression by granting more and more concessions. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 5 …the southern portion of Vietnam was at the periphery of his [Nguyen’s] court’s concern In many ways this region was still viewed as the frontier. A telling statistic is that of the 1,024,338 male tax payers in the official 1847 census, only 165,598 lived in the southern provinces. Tu Duc concluded there was little to lose in giving this sparsely populated area to the French. In addition…Christian-led rebels were threatening the peace of Thang Long (Hanoi) and Tu Duc wanted his army to concentrate on crushing this rebellion. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
Source 6 …the emperor had no other options. France’s seizure of Saigon and its surrounding provinces – the rice bowl of Vietnam – was starving his armies. He was also being menaced by rebels in the north, a greater threat in his estimation (opinion) than the French occupation of the south. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 6. Compare and contrast source 3’s portrayal of the capture of Tourane with the
reality. 7. Sources 4, 5 and 6 agree on some of the reasons why Tu Duc surrendered and signed
the Treaty of Saigon. What are the reasons they agree on? 8. What additional reasons does each source give for Tu Duc’s surrender? 9. List the provisions of the Treaty of Saigon, 1862. 10. Look back at 6.7. In want ways did the Treaty of Saigon give the French the same
results with Vietnam as Britain achieved with China? In what ways was the treaty different?
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8 The end of Vietnam’s independence
8.1 Tu Duc renegotiates the Treaty of Saigon
Tu Duc used his army to defeat Christian-led rebellions in the north. Afterwards, he
renegotiated the Treaty of Saigon. The French now agreed to return the three southern
provinces and in exchange, the Emperor handed over Cochinchina (the six provinces that
made up southern Vietnam) as a ‘French protectorate.’ Protectorate status meant that
France would control the Cochinchina’s domestic affairs, economy and foreign relations.
Source 1 Tu Duc soon sensed that the French would ultimately push to conquer all of Vietnam and spell doom for his tottering monarchy. He therefore contrived a bargain…He sent a prominent mandarin, Phan Thanh Giang, to Paris to promote the package. Napoleon endorsed it immediately as a cheaper alternative to continued French operations, agreeing to revise the treaty that France had concluded with Tu Duc in 1862. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
8.2 Vietnamese resistance to the French and how the French used this
The Vietnamese people, however, would not submit so easily. Many Vietnamese officials
refused to serve the French and resigned. Throughout the Mekong delta, the peasants
actively fought the French administrators. The French called in troops from the Philippines
and China to crush resistance in the south.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
8.3 What was happening between Cambodia and France? The French navy often acted without the French government’s approval or orders. In 1863, Admiral La Grandiere, now governor of Cochinchina, without any permission, sent an army and ships up the Mekong river to Cambodia. The Cambodian king, Norodom, tried to escape to Siam, but was captured and forced at gun point to recognise Cambodia as a protectorate of France. The king of Siam protested, but was offered two western Cambodian provinces to satisfy him.
Source 2
King Norodom
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In 1867, navy Admiral La Grandier sent troops into the three western provinces of
Cochinchina, claiming that the people there were a threat to the French presence in
Cambodia. The Vietnamese governor of these provinces, Phan Thanh Giang, who had
negotiated the Treaty of Saigon, committed suicide in protest.
Meanwhile, the French did nothing to help a Christian-led rebellion in the north against Tu
Duc. This proved that the French were now only using their concern for Catholic Christians
as an excuse for further encroachment into the country.
TASKS 1. What do you think were the reasons why Tu Duc spent his time persecuting
Christians in the north, but was willing to hand Cochinchina over as a ‘French protectorate’?
2. What reason does source 1 give for Napoleon III’s willingness to agree to this renegotiation?
3. Explain how we know that the Emperor and his people no longer agreed on how to deal with France.
4. Describe briefly the events in Cambodia. What do you think these events show us about the attitude of the French towards South East Asia?
5. Why do you think the King of Siam protested to what had happened, and why did the gift of two Cambodian provinces reduced his worries?
6. Explain how the French used Cambodia as an excuse to send troops into Cochinchina?
7. Why does the French government’s failure to support the Christian-led rebellion in the north prove that the French were only interested in an invasion of Vietnam?
8.4 Garnier’s voyage of exploration
French merchants had further ambitions. They believed that northern Vietnam was more
wealthy than the south, and that the Mekong river might be a route to sail all the way to
China, which would create new trading opportunities. In June 1866, Admiral la Grandier sent
Lieutenant Francis Garnier on a two year mission to investigate.
Source 3
Garnier and other explorers, from Voyage d’Exploration, 1873
The Mekong was found to be of no commercial value, but Garnier published a three-volume book, Voyage d’Exploration, filled with illustrations, maps and historical and geographical details. He concluded that the Red River between southern China and the Vietnamese port of Haiphong was an excellent trading route.
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Source 4
An illustration from Garnier’s Voyage d’Exploration, 1873
French merchants and soldier saw the possibilities that Garnier had suggested, and began to
move northwards to Tonkin. One merchant, Dupuis, began illegally transporting weapons
between Cochinchina and Yunan province in China. In 1873, on his way back from Yunan, he
was stopped in Hanoi by local mandarins. Dupuis and his crew of two hundred Europeans,
Chinese and Filipinos attacked and took over an area of Hanoi, raised the French flag and
called for help from the French governor in Saigon.
8.5 France unites with Vietnamese opposition to Tu Duc
The governor sent Garnier with a few French troops, promising Tu Duc that he would evict
Dupuis from Hanoi. However, when Garnier arrived, without any authority he declared the
Red River open to free trade and ordered all taxes on European goods to be lowered. The
local mandarins protested, and in response Garnier attacked the rest of the city. French
troops from Saigon, Vietnamese Catholics and those who opposed Tu Duc all joined
together to conquer the region between Hanoi and the sea, including Haiphong and Nam
Dinh.
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Source 5 (and the front cover of this section) popular French drawings of the death of Garnier
In December 1873, Chinese mercenaries (nicknamed ‘Black Flag soldiers’ and paid for by local Vietnamese mandarins) joined with local Vietnamese fought back. Garnier when he was outside the main gate of Hanoi, and rushed ahead of his men, but was captured, beheaded, and his head paraded through the surrounding villages.
Source 6
French cannon damage, still visible on a Hanoi building
8.6 The French back down
The French government became concerned that the situation was getting worse, that there
might be international complications and that trying to get further involved would be very
expensive. They ordered French troops to withdraw from Tonkin. However, Tu Duc did not
realise that France was unable to keep the war going, and negotiated the 1874 Giap Tuat
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treaty in which France handed back the towns it had seized, but was allowed to base troops
in Hanoi and Haiphong and travel freely on the Red River.
Source 7
Nguyen Trop Hop and the French representative, signing the Giap Tuat treaty of 1874
TASKS 8. Explain why Garnier wrote Voyage d’Exploration and how it influenced the thinking
of French merchants. 9. Describe Dupui’s actions when threatened with arrest in Hanoi. What do you think
his actions reveal about the French merchants’ attitude towards the Vietnamese government?
10. How do Garnier’s actions confirm that this is the French attitude towards the Vietnamese government?
11. Why did Garnier get support from non-merchant groups? 12. Why did the French withdraw their troops and what did they get out of the incident?
8.7 The death of Tu Duc and the Treaty of Protectorate, June 1884
Nine years later, in May 1883, the French government decided that it was in their interests
to establish a protectorate in the north, and sent 600 troops into Tonkin. Vietnamese troops
and the Chinese ‘Black Flag’ mercenaries encircled Hanoi and in a battle at the gates of the
city, the French commander was killed on the very spot that Garnier had been killed in 1873.
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In response the French used a massive show of force to attack Hue. Tu Duc died, hearing the
sounds of the French cannons firing on his city.
Tu Duc left no heir, and the court was divided, with different factions of the Nguyen family
fighting and three different Emperors had took power within a few months. The court was
split between those who wanted to fight the French, those who wanted to negotiate and
those who wanted to collaborate.
In August 1883, within one month of Tu Duc’s death, Nguyen Trong Hop, representing the Vietnamese court signed the peace Treaty of Hue with France, recognising Tonkin and Annam as protectorates of France and Cochinchina as part of the French empire. In June 1884, the scholar officials signed the Treaty of Protectorate, recognising French control over the whole of Vietnam. The Chinese court was afraid of a direct confrontation with the French. In May 1884 they agreed to let all Vietnam be a protectorate of France. After a large scale battle with the French on Formosa (Taiwan) in June 1885 they signed the Treaty of Tientsin giving up all claims to Vietnam. Now Vietnam was left entirely in the control of France.
Source 8
Nguyen Trong Hop
Source 9
A contemporary French illustration celebrating the ‘final conquest of Tonkin’
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8.8 Assessing Tu Duc’s failure to withstand the French
Different historians have attempted to assess Tu Duc’s weaknesses and why he was unable
to successfully negotiate with, or fight against the French.
Source 8 Patriots submitted many petitions [official requests] to King Tu Duc, advocating reforms which would strengthen the country’s defence capability…The Court, floundering in conservatism, refused to consider any of these petitions. Unaware of international developments, they were incapable of taking advantage of the difficulties confronting France to regain the initiative. They believed that with a policy of ‘peace and negotiation’ they could reach a settlement with the aggressors. They also banked on the Qing dynasty in Manchuria, which was then ruling China. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 9 Owing to his poor health, Tu Duc rarely made inspection tours of the country and as a result was not aware of its real situation…At a time when science and industry developed vigorously in the world and big powers were fiercely competing in trade, the Court of Hue was still deeply immersed in old Chinese classics with ancient Chinese traditions as standards…The officials of great breadth of vision…submitted petitions for comprehensive reforms…but the conservative faction in the Royal Court labelled these proposals ‘nonsense’ and Tu Duc rejected them. Ha Van Thu: A brief chronology of Vietnamese history, 2012
Source 10 To withstand the onslaught of Western imperialism, Vietnam needed a strong ruler…Court intrigue placed Hong Bao’s younger brother, Tu Duc, on the throne…Tu Duc was sickly, pessimistic, and fatalistic. He was not popular among the populace and he knew it…He was constantly fearful that his older brother would stage a coup against him. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
Source 11 Tu Duc…clung even more stubbornly to the belief that Vietnam could not disrupt it feudal institutions for the sake of security…Contemporary French publicists depicted Tu Duc…as a bloodthirsty beast. But Thieu Tri had chosen him as heir because of his mild disposition, and visitors to his court confirmed his moderation.
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Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 13. According source 10, what kind of personality did Tu Duc have? 14. How does source 11 describe his personality? How did the French describe him and
do you think their description was unjustified? Explain your answer. 15. What do sources 8 and 9 imply Tu Duc should have done to improve Vietnam? 16. How important do you think the Chinese treaty of May 1884 was for Vietnam’s
decision to sign the June 1884 Treaty of Protectorate, and why? Explain your answer. 17. Draw a spider diagram and label it, ‘Reasons for Tu Duc’s resistance of
modernisation.’ Around it write all the reasons you can find from the sources for Tu Duc’s refusal to modernise.
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57
French colonial rule
‘The French Colonies’ from a French magazine cover, late nineteenth century
58
9 The beginnings of French colonisation
9.1 The French idea of ‘la mission civilisatrice’
Source 1 from a speech by the French statesman Jules Ferry, 1885 ‘The mission is to spread or to awake in the other races, the concepts we have kept in our possession...To teach a purer morality, to extend and share our civilization; this task is beautiful enough to honour a great colonial enterprise.’
http://archive.org/stream/introductiontowo00gibb/introductiontowo00gibb_djvu.txt
Source 2 Although the French viewed the colonisation of Viet Nam as a mission of centralisation and assimilation (‘la mission civilisatrice’), the administration was also determined to make full use of the natural resources available in the territories. Friends of Vietnam Heritage: Vignettes of French Culture in Hanoi, 2008
TASKS 1. Look at source 1, what reasons does Ferry give to justify French colonisation? 2. What do you think is his opinion of those countries before the French colonised
them? 3. Look at source 2, how does it describe ‘la mission civilisatrice’? 4. What other reason does source 2 give for French colonisation? 5. Look back at the picture for the front of this section, ‘Les Colonies Francais’ (The
French Colonies). Note that the shield in the picture is in the same colours as the French flag.
a) What do the two words you can see easily on the shield mean in English? b) What do you think the third word probably is? c) Who or what do you think the woman holding the shield represents? d) Why is she shown standing on a boat? e) Who or what do you think the people on the shore represent? f) What do you think is the picture’s message? Explain your answer.
6. What problems do you think would arise between the Vietnamese people and the new French rulers because of this belief in ‘la mission civilisatrice’?
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9.2 The Indochinese Union (ICU) and the division of Vietnam
In 1887, the French created the Indochinese Union (ICU) formed out of Cochinchina, Annam,
Tonkin and Cambodia; Laos was added in 1893 (see the map at the front of the book).
Source 3 [The French] made it clear that Vietnam was to be three states: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina. They did not refer to Vietnam’s inhabitants as Vietnamese, a semantic ploy [a trick of words] meant to emphasise the disunity of the region. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
Source 4 Viet Nam was divided into three different ‘countries,’ different administrative regions – Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina – each country separately integrated into so-called ‘French Indochina’, which also included Cambodia and Laos and was ruled by a French Governor-General. France’s intention was clearly aimed at destroying the unity of the Vietnamese nation so as to more easily enslave it. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
The three parts of Vietnam were treated as separate units, as different from each other as
Cambodia and Laos.
o In Tonkin and Annam, the French continued to be ruled by the Nguyen emperors,
and the French claimed that all laws came from the Emperor, and continued to use
the old Confucian exam system to select mandarins. In fact the Emperor was a mere
‘puppet’ under French control.
o Cochinchina was controlled directly by the French, with a French governor of
Indochina, called the ‘Resident Superieur,’ based in Saigon (in 1902 he moved to the
new capital, Hanoi).
TASKS 6. Explain briefly how the French Indochinese Union (ICU) was organised. 7. What reason does source 4 give for this organisation? 8. Source 3 says that the French, ‘did not refer to Vietnam’s inhabitants as
Vietnamese.’ Why do you think the French deliberately avoided calling the peoples of Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina ‘Vietnamese’?
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9.3 Why did some Vietnamese support the new French administration?
The French occupying army was small (in 1900, there were only 11,000 troops for the whole
of the ICU) and so the colonial rulers relied on those Vietnamese people who were willing to
collaborate with their new European masters to help run the country.
Source 5 [T]he French relied on a small number of local officials and bureaucrats. Called nguoi phan quoc (‘traitor’) by other locals, these Vietnamese supported colonial rule by collaborating with the French. They often held positions of authority in local government, businesses or economic institutions, like the Banque de l’Indochine (the French Bank of Indochina). They did this either out of self-interest or because they held Francophile (pro-French) views. French propagandists held these collaborators up as an example of how the mission civilisatrice was benefiting the Vietnamese people. Some collaborators were given scholarships to study in France; a few even received French citizenship. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
Source 6
Mandarins, by Leon Busy, 1915
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Source 7
A postcard of ‘Le Tong-Doc (governor) Phuong, a friend of France’
TASKS 9. Look at source 5, what type of jobs does it say collaborating Vietnamese did? 10. According to the source, why did these Vietnamese choose to collaborate? 11. Describe what you can see in source 7. What key features in the picture show us that
Phuong was a supporter of French rule? 12. What do you imagine was Phuong’s attitude toward the mandarins in source 6 and
why? 13. Describe what you can see in source 8, below. What do you think this cartoon says
about the French opinion toward Vietnamese collaborators? Explain your answer.
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Source 8
French cartoon ‘The Bureaucrats’ 1909
9.4 Paul Doumer (1857 – 1932) and the administration of Indochinese Union Now that the French government had direct control over Vietnam and the rest of Indochina, they were very disorganised and unsure how to run the new colony. In 1897, the new Resident Superieur, was Paul Doumer.
Source 9 Paul Doumer, Governor of French Indochina between 1897 and 1902…recognised Viet Nam’s significant potential as a source of raw materials and as a market for French products, industries that would be developed under French management but with Vietnamese labour. Friends of Vietnam Heritage: Vignettes of French Culture in Hanoi, 2008
63
Source 10 Before his appointment as resident general of Tonkin, Doumer studied the finances of the colony; therefore, unlike former residents and governors, he assumed office knowing and understanding the financial situation. Doumer’s goals upon arrival were practical and necessary: to create a government with organization and to develop public works and finances Burlette, Julia A.G: French Influence Overseas, the Rise and Fall of Indochina, 2007
Source 11 The colony became an outlet for French industrial products and a supplier of cheap raw materials and labour…The French refused to develop the local industry and concentrated French capital on the production of immediately exportable goods, such as coal, minerals and rubber, and used every means to prevent the emergence of a capitalist industry. Heavy customs duties were levied on products from countries other than France, which virtually ensured a French monopoly over the Indochinese market. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 14. Look at source 9, what were the potential benefits to France that Doumer saw in
Vietnam? 15. According to source 10, what were Doumer’s goals? 16. What do you think is the connection between Doumer’s goals descrbed in source 10
and the potential benefits he saw described in source 9? 17. According to source 11, what kinds of production did France encourage and what
kinds of industry did France discourage? Why do you think France discouraged this type of industry?
18. According to source 11, why did France put high taxes on non-French goods (‘heavy customs duties’)
Within a year, Doumer made radical changes and improvements to French control of
Indochina. Before he took control, the Residents (French governors of each region of
Indochina) did not work together. Doumer created a ‘High Council’ in which all the
Residents, the heads of the army and navy, and the ministers in charge of agriculture and
trade all met together. He had published Franco-Japanese, Franco-Siamese and Franco-
Cantonese dictionaries to improve communications. Because of his success he was granted
money by the French government in 1898 to build 1,700 kilometres of railway.
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Source 12
Interpreters working for the French Embassy, Hanoi, by Hocquard, 1885
9.5 The work of Pierre Paul Paris
A key colonialist was Pierre Paul Paris, a trained lawyer and owner of a rubber plantation in
Indochina. He complained to the French government that the ICU administrators would
often make bad or even corrupt decisions that wasted a lot of French money. For example, 6
million francs was given by the French government to build a road from the Mekong to
Dong Ha. The money was suddenly diverted to supply electricity to an undisclosed city. Not
only was the road more important than electricity, but no one in the French colonial
administration knew which city was supposed to have got the money!
TASKS 19. Explain how the creation of a ‘High Council,’ the three new dictionaries and the
money to build 1,700 km of railway would help achieve Doumer’s goals. 20. Describe briefly the example of bad or corrupt decision making that Pierre Paul Paris
complained about. 21. What do you think this implies about how much the French government in France
was involved in the running of the ICU?
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10 ICU state monopolies: salt, alcohol and opium
10.1 The French administration’s need for money
Doumer aimed to make the people of the ICU pay the expenses of the more than 5,000
French ICU administrators. To do this, the Indochinese were taxed heavily: they were forced
to pay income tax on their wages, a poll tax on all adult males, and many documents and
publications were taxed. However, these taxes did not produce enough revenue.
10.2 The creation of state monopolies
Doumer set up state monopolies on the production, sale and tax of salt, rice alcohol and
opium. Before the French, the Vietnamese government had maintained a monopoly on the
making and selling of salt. Since salt is vital for life, this guaranteed that the government
would always get money from the people. The French simply took over this monopoly from
the Emperor.
10.3 The alcohol monopoly
In the past, the Vietnamese had always made their own rice wine. Fontaine, a French
company was given the monopoly in making and selling rice alcohol in Vietnam; all other
distilling was banned and severely punished with imprisonment and confiscation of
property. In 1902 the colonial administration made buying alcohol compulsory. Every
Vietnamese village had to buy a specific amount of alcohol each year, based on the number
of people in the village, at inflated prices.
Source 1
Wealthy Indochinese opium smoker, by Leon Busy, 1915
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10.4 The opium monopoly
Opium is a highly addictive drug that was used throughout Europe and America, and was
sold by most of the European colonial powers to Asian countries. The French already had
opium businesses in each section of Indochina. In 1899, Doumer reorganised these into a
centralised monopoly, with a modern refinery in Saigon to process raw Chinese opium into a
cheaper, fast burning product that was more addictive and easier for poor people to buy.
Source 2 French officials and colonists also benefited from growing, selling and exporting the narcotic drug opium. Land was set aside to grow opium poppies; by the 1930s Vietnam was producing more than 80 tonnes of opium per annum. Not only were local sales of opium profitable, its addictiveness and stupefying effects were useful as a means of social control. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
Source 4
Postcard of an opium smoker preparing a pipe, early 1900s
In Vietnam, among the poor only about two percent were opium addicts, but its effects
were terrible. It was used to help suppress hunger and exhaustion by over worked and tired
labourers, plantation workers and miners. However, these men might spend their whole
salary on opium rather than food, and then not only would they die but their families would
starve. Among the educated and rich Vietnamese elite, responsible for tax collection and
67
local administration, about twenty percent were addicts. This made them unreliable and
open to corruption because their addiction was so expensive.
Source 5
Year The Budget for
Indochina (million francs)
Amount received from opium sales
(million francs)
1902 27.1 6.8
1903 29 7.7
1904 32.3 7.8
1905 31.8 7
1906 31.3 6.6
1907 31.2 7.6
1908 32.8 7.8
1909 34.5 8
1910 35.8 7.8
1911 38.3 8.2
1912 35.6 8.6
1913 35.6 8.8
1914 35.6 13.1
http://belleindochine.free.fr/Opium.htm
TASKS 1. Explain briefly what a monopoly is. 2. Explain why Doumer decided to set up the salt, alcohol and opium monopolies. 3. Describe briefly the salt and alcohol monopolies. 4. According to source 2, what were the benefits of the opium monopoly? 5. Describe who chose to use opium and why? How did this damage Vietnamese
society? 6. Look at source 5:
a) Work out the percentage of the Indochinese budget that was received from selling opium (to do this choose three years at random, divide each year’s opium sales by the total year’s budget, and multiply by one hundred, and compare)
b) What is the average percentage amount of the total Indochinese budget from opium sales?
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c) What is the average percentage amount for the year 1914, the beginning of the First World War, and do you think what might be the reasons for the difference?
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11 French reform of the infrastructure
The ‘infrastructure’ is the total of basic facilities and equipment needed to run a country. In
the new Indochinese colonies, the French focused on irrigation, roads and the railway.
11.1 The creation of farmland
To encourage farming, large tracts of almost uninhabited land were sold to ‘colons’ (French
colonial settlers) and although a few wealthy Chinese and Vietnamese families also bought
land by 1920 almost all the rubber plantations were owned by colons. Drainage work in the
Mekong Delta created large areas of new land, which were turned into rice fields. Soldiers
from the French Foreign Legion with excellent service records were also rewarded by being
settled there, where they married local women and established farms.
Source 1
The house and personnel of a colon family in Cochinchina, early 1900s
The British writer and supporter of colonialism, Janse, described the work of the French in a
very positive way.
Source 2 The French have encouraged the natives to develop the growing of numerous other crops such as maize, various starchy plants, vegetables, tea, and tobacco, as well as several textile-producing crops such as jute, ramie, and cotton. The establishment of extensive coffee and
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rubber plantations has proved to be very successful. In recent years orange trees have been introduced into Indochina. Janse, Olov R.T: The Peoples of French Indochina, 1944
Rice and rubber were the main cash crops produced in Indochina. In the first twenty years
of occupation, four times as much land was turned over to growing rice than before, and by
the 1930s Indochina was producing 60,000 tonnes of rubber – amounting to five percent of
the total world’s rubber production. However, modern assessments of the French are far
more critical of how they treated their workers.
Source 3 The workers on these plantations were known as ‘coolies’ (a derogatory term for Asian labourers). They worked long hours in debilitating conditions, for wages that were pitifully small. Some were paid in rice rather than money. The working day could be as long as 15 hours, without breaks or adequate food and fresh water. French colonial laws prohibited corporal punishment, but many officials and overseers used it regardless, beating slow or reluctant workers. Malnutrition, dysentery and malaria were rife on plantations, especially those producing rubber. It was not uncommon for plantations to have several workers die in a single day.
http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
TASKS 1. Look at source 1, describe five key features of the photograph. What do you think
this can tell us about the colons and plantations? 2. Write the title, ‘Types of crops grown in colon plantations,’ then make a list, using
source 2. 3. Look at source 3, describe briefly the treatment of workers in a plantation.
11.2 Water irrigation
French ICU administrators saw how important supplying the paddy fields with enough water
was to achieve maximum rice growth. Not only would a big harvest feed the peoples of
Indochina, but the surplus could be sold to other countries for a profit (something the
Vietnamese emperors had forbidden). The French realised that the output of rice could be
doubled from one to two crops per year in some areas. The problem was that not only did
the peasants not have the knowledge to make improvements in irrigation; they also did not
have the money.
Source 4 Of all the internal improvements on which the French spent money in their Indochinese colony, irrigation had the most profound impact on Annamite society. Prior to French
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arrival, the Tonkinese had some means of watering their fields, but their system was on a much smaller and weaker scale than what the French could provide. The Annamites had the technology to use only small compartments to water their fields because they had neither the capabilities nor the knowledge to use larger, more complex courses. Irrigation assisted the colony’s largest agricultural product and most valuable export: rice. If the Indochinese learned proper farming techniques, they could produce not just one but two successful harvests annually, thus doubling the wealth of Tonkin each year. Burlette, Julia A.G: French Influence Overseas, the Rise and Fall of Indochina, 2007
Source 5
Peasant irrigation system, by Leon Busy, 1915
The ICU administrators called for loans from the French government to introduce
improvements, and the results were dramatic. By 1907, Indochina was second in the world
among all countries that produced and exported rice. Rice-producing countries such as
China, Japan, and Malaysia could not produce enough rice and fish to feed themselves, and
so they became Indochina’s largest buyers.
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Source 6
Postcard of a waterwheel irrigating rice fields
Source 7
New French irrigation system, Cho Lon province, early twentieth century
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TASKS 4. Look at sources 6 and 7, they show the pre-French Vietnamese irrigation system.
Using both pictures, try to explain how it worked. 5. Look at source 8, describe the differences you can see between it and source 7. 6. Would you agree with source 4 that, ‘of all the internal improvements on which the
French spent money in their Indochinese colony, irrigation had the most profound impact’? Explain your answer.
11.3 Roads
Building new roads was seen as serving many purposes at once. French traders needed
safer, cheaper ways of transporting goods from the interior to the coast, for shipment to
France. Many of the rubber plantations in Cochinchina were close to Saigon, but some were
in deserted regions and by building roads around them, not only would these be able to
connect with the city and port but new plantations further away could be established.
Mining in the centre of Tonkin relied on the river to transport coal, but with new roads
mines could not only transport coal more quickly but also sell it to more places.
Source 8 Before the arrival of the French, most of the traffic in Indochina was borne on the numerous waterways (rivers and canals) and on. Trails chiefly fit only for foot or equestrian travel. These means of travel have since been considerably improved, with many of the trails transformed into excellent highways. At the outbreak of the [1939 Second World] war there had been built more than 18,000 miles of highways, penetrating even into the most isolated regions, which were used by some 20,000 automobiles. Janse, Olov R.T: The Peoples of French Indochina, 1944
TASKS 7. Source 9, below, shows a road being constructed. Describe the key features of the
picture. What do you think it tells us about how the French built new roads. 8. In source 8, Janse says that the French have ‘considerably improved’ the
communication system in Vietnam. According to source 9, how did Vietnamese people move around before French occupation, and what had the French done to improve things?
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Source 9
Construction of a road through Annam, 1901
Laos was land-locked (surrounded by other countries and therefore isolated from the coast),
and roads were built to connect it to the other colonies and allow the different countries to
trade with each other. By building roads, the French connected the more isolated parts of
Indochina.
11.4 Railways
Source 10
Postcard of the Saigon – Cho Lon train, 1881
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Railway routes were less expensive to build than roads, but they were always in danger of
damage from droughts and typhoons and repairs were expensive. The first railway route in
Vietnam linked Saigon and Cho Lon in 1881 and was so successful that it extended to My
Tho by 1885. Tickets were cheap and local people could afford to transport their domestic
produce (fruit, vegetables, livestock) to Saigon to sell.
Source 11
Passenger wagon of a train on the Phu Lang and Lang Son line, 1894
In 1897 Doumer went on a field trip to survey conditions of local people in Hanoi. He wrote
in his diary in 1903:
Source 12 ‘Hanoi is separated by the 1,700m wide Hong River. It is dangerous for locals to cross it on boats. Without a bridge, the railway route has to stop 3 kilometers before reaching Hanoi, and thus it can’t reach China…It’s unimaginable to see the route disconnected by a river. We need a bridge.’ http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/features/bright-outlook-conceived-with-trans-vietnam-route-1.77456
The steel bridge, named after him, the Paul Doumer Bridge, was built for both road and rail
use to connect the two parts of Hanoi.
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Source 13
The Paul Doumer Bridge, by Leon Busy, 1915
11.5 The Vietnamese builders of the railways
The railway routes were built by local people offered higher wages by the French, but
working in terrible conditions, due to jungle diseases like malaria, dangerous animals and
Chinese bandits who would attack them. The impact on communities of recruiting workers
could be very great.
Source 14 A French author, Jean Ajalbert, reported: ‘Requisitioning became an ill-disguised form of deportation…the public works drained whole communities in favour of construction sites from which only a small number returned…In 1901, I travelled in Lang Biang region…The mortality rate was frightful. Rice arrived there irregularly…There was only one physician for an area covering 120 kilometres. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
The first northern line was built so that French forces could be sent to the border to help
keep the bandits under control. As a national railway slowly grew, more workers were
needed and recruitment was by corvée (forced labour) organised several times a year. In
1904 over ten thousand people were recruited in just one recruitment drive. Workers were
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paid higher than a normal daily wage, but the conditions were so bad that many died of
exhaustion, from the hot sun or disease, and others fled to remote areas.
Source 15
Construction site of Hai Phong railway station, early twentieth century
Source 16 Archived files report a protest in March of 1894 when thousands of workers on the Phu Lang Thuong route went on strike to ask for higher salary, timely payment and an improvement of working conditions. French and local authorities stepped in to the case and demanded that contractors fulfill all the requests and set up better houses, deliver rice and food for workers on time, and pay extra salary for weekend work. http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/features/villages-desolated-for-forced-railway-labor-1.77459
The local mandarins were appointed to do the recruitment, and deliberately chose richer
people, who would then pay a bribe for the mandarin to find a replacement. The mandarins
then chose a replacement, who would also pay a bribe, and so the mandarins would look
again until they found someone without enough money to bribe them.
TASKS 9. Using source 11 and what you know, explain how the early railways benefitted Vietnamese
people. 10. According to source 12, for what two reasons was a bridge built over the Hong River? 11. How does source 13 support the reasons given for building a bridge in source 12?
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12. Explain how corrupt mandarins exploited the requisitioning process? 13. How did the use of corvée have a devastating effect on some local communities. 14. How do sources 15 and 16 show that workers were treated badly during their period of
corvée?
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12 French reorganisation of education
12.1 Background to the introduction of French education
Before the French, education was only provided for boys since girls were expected only to
marry and have children. Unlike elsewhere in South East Asia, Chinese influence made
Vietnamese education a non-religious activity with an emphasis on calligraphy and
literature. The government gave diplomas to those who passed sophisticated exams in
these two subjects and the mandarins were chosen from this educated class.
The colonial view was that European education would make improvements in all areas of
colonial society. Janse described what he believed French education had achieved.
Source 1 Though many of these groups still stubbornly cling to their beliefs and ancient customs, the French penetration, which, as mentioned, started in the fifties of the last century, has largely contributed to the levelling of the various social and racial barriers and to orienting the elite of these peoples toward human progress. Janse, Olov R.T: The Peoples of French Indochina, 1944
The French aimed for education to increase the loyalty of the Vietnamese people to their
colonial masters.
Source 2 Through instruction at school, native children began adopting beliefs of western superiority and strove to obtain it… To serve the interests of the colonizers, the French believed the Indochinese should understand how inferior their culture was in comparison to the Europeans. Burlette, J.A.G: French influence overseas: the rise and fall of Indochina, 2007
TASKS 1. According to source 1, what does Janse say are the benefits of French education in
Indochina? 2. According to source 2, what was the objective of French education?
12.2 French schools
French language, history and science were introduced into schools. Before 1906 less than
five percent of children went to school, but from then onwards the French administration
made an effort to get more boys into school, and trained 100 local teachers every year at a
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new training school. The aim of these schools was to promote more than just knowledge, it
was to create a ‘modern society’ out of a ‘backward’ one.
Source 3 The Tonkin Free School was started in 1907 to provide a Western style education. This education included classes in science, hygiene and French (these classes were held in the evening and had to be paid for separately). The school’s approach to what it means to be ‘modern’ is a good example of the thinking prevalent at that time. It was not enough to learn science and Western ideas: to be modern the Vietnamese had to also look modern. The school encouraged the adoption of Western styles such as having a short haircut. For the Vietnamese this meant a major break with their own identity since they traditionally kept long hair. http://www.excellup.com/Notes/10_SocSc_The%20Nationalist%20Movement%20in%20Indo%20China.pdf
Source 4
Primary School, Annam, early twentieth century
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The French set standards for the quality of the schools, but these standards actually made it
difficult for schools to succeed.
Source 5 [The Office of Public Integration] hired teachers, assigned books, set examinations, and inspected all schools in an effort to keep a tight hold on methods taught and materials distributed. Because of these strict laws, nearly 2,000 Vietnamese schools shut down in one year after failing to meet the requirements. Additionally, when the French created the new schools to educate children, the Indochinese became the ones paying for the construction, maintenance, and teachers. More schools closed because the Annamites could not afford to pay for them. Burlette, J.A.G: French influence overseas: the rise and fall of Indochina, 2007
12.3 French ambivalence towards an educated Vietnamese people
However, not all French colonists supported the idea of educating the Indochinese, and this
led to a conflict of interests. The French both needed and feared the results of offering a
European standard of education to their colonised peoples.
Source 6 The French needed an educated local labour force but they feared that education might create problems. Once educated, the Vietnamese may begin to question colonial domination. Moreover, French citizens living in Vietnam (called colons) began fearing that they might lose their jobs to the educated Vietnamese. So they opposed policies that would give the Vietnamese full access to French education. http://www.excellup.com/Notes/10_SocSc_The%20Nationalist%20Movement%20in%20Indo%20China.pdf
TASKS 3. According to source 3, what did the French idea of ‘modern’ require students to
learn and do? 4. How does source 4 support the claims in source 3? 5. Look at source 5, why do you think the Office of Public Integration ‘kept a tight hold’
on education? What are the reasons given that Vietnamese schools closed? 6. According to source 6, for what two reasons did French people fear education might
create problems? How are these concerns similar to, but different from the problem described in source 2?
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12.4 How successful was French education provision?
Looking back over the whole period of French occupation of Vietnam, some positive results
can be highlighted. The first Medical College was opened in 1901 and the University of
Indochina in 1908; other professional educational schools were set up, one for agriculture
and one for electrical workers. However, all of the ‘higher education’ organisations taught
only in the French language.
Source 7 French colonialism did provide some benefits for Vietnamese society, one of the more noticeable of which was education. French missionaries, officials and their families opened primary schools, conducting lessons in both the French and Viet languages. The University of Hanoi was opened by colonists in 1902 and became an important national centre of learning. A small quota of Viet students were given scholarships to study in France. But these changes were really only significant in the cities; there was little or no attempt to educate the children of peasant farmers. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
Source 8 [Education] was never widespread: 90 percent of children were unable to attend school. At the best of times there were only three high schools for the whole of Viet Nam (plus three high schools for the children of French colonists, totalling a few thousand students). Thirty years after its founding, the university had only 600 students. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
12.5 The role of education in promoting Vietnamese resistance
Michel L’Herpinierre, a French man living in Hanoi, described his life as a student in the
1930’s
Source 9 My school, the Lycee Albert Sarraut, was the elite French language secondary school in Hanoi. About half the students were Annamese, and they were almost all the children of well paid government officials…Most of the Indochinese students at school were obvious Nationalists, some with Communist tendencies…There were would be revolutionaries not only among the students, but among the staff. Two teachers at my school – Maurice and Yvonne Bernard, a French husband and wife…were openly members of the Communist Party and would discuss their political beliefs with anyone who would listen. They said the Communist Party…was very strong in France. My history teacher, who also taught at the Lycee Thang Long, was rumoured to be a Communist with a police record for subversive activities. But I did not think of Professeur Giap as a subversive…Many students, including myself, had leftist tendencies, socialist sympathies, for the colonial system in Indochina did nothing to encourage native capitalism. Besides, it seemed obvious to me that the rich had
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too much and the poor too little. One just had to look around. Perkins, Mandaley: Hanoi, adieu, 2012
Source 10 Teachers and students did not blindly follow the curriculum. Sometimes there was open opposition, at other times there was silent resistance. As the numbers of Vietnamese teachers increased in the lower classes, it became difficult to control what was actually taught. While teaching, Vietnamese teachers quietly modified the text and criticised what was stated. Elsewhere, students fought against the colonial government’s efforts to prevent the Vietnamese from qualifying for whitecollar jobs. They were inspired by patriotic feelings and the conviction that it was the duty of the educated to fight for the benefit of society. This brought them into conflict with the French as well as the traditional elite, since both saw their positions threatened. By the 1920s, students were forming various political parties, such as the Party of Young Annan, and publishing nationalist journals such as the Annanese Student. Schools thus became an important place for political and cultural battles. http://www.excellup.com/Notes/10_SocSc_The%20Nationalist%20Movement%20in%20Indo%20China.pdf
TASKS 7. According to source 8, ‘90 per cent of children were unable to attend school.’ Look at
source 7, who do you think were those 90 per cent? 8. According to source 7, what progress was made in providing education to the
Vietnamese and which group of Vietnamese benefitted? 9. Look at source 9, why do you think ‘children of well paid government officials’ were
sent to a French language school? 10. In source 9 L’Herpinierre says, ‘Most of the Indochinese students at school were
obvious Nationalists, some with Communist tendencies.’ Why do you think he describes them as two distinct groups?
11. What reasons does L’Herpinierre give in source 9 for why he himself had ‘socialist sympathies’?
12. Do sources 9 and 10 show that the Office of Public Integration was right to keep ‘a tight hold’ on teachers? Explain your answer.
13. According to source 10, for what reasons did education encourage political feeling in Vietnamese students?
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13 The introduction of quoc ngu
Before the arrival of the French, Vietnamese spoken language was written in phonetic
Chinese characters, called chu nom, and the elite continued to study in Chinese.
13.1 Why quoc ngu was needed in Indochina
The French believed that a written system closer to their own would be useful in their
control over Vietnam, and so introduced Alexander de Rhodes quoc ngu into French-
Vietnamese schools.
Source 1 Because few French and other European officials cared to take the time to learn the culture or the language of the peoples they conquered, they believed that a language written in Latin letters would free everyone from the burden of learning thousands of different characters… The administrators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found this system both convenient and practical and therefore strove to use it. Burlette, J.A.G: French influence overseas: the rise and fall of Indochina, 2007
Source 2 One of the most important cultural factors was the substitution of quoc ngu for the old (Chinese) ideographic script. The printing of newspapers and books in quoc ngu proceeded rapidly. The colonisers wanted to use it as a propaganda tool. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 3 French colonial officials and missionaries of the late nineteenth century took language policy quite seriously…Most were convinced that to achieve permanent colonial success required the harsh curtailment [restriction] of Chinese influences, including the writing system…to eliminate the Chinese language was simultaneously to isolate Vietnam from its heritage and to neutralise the traditional elite…most French officials still believed that Chinese was incompatible with ‘progress’. Marr, David G: Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920 – 1945, 1984
Quoc ngu was introduced into the new French-Vietnamese schools and in a short time the
older Chinese script almost disappeared. In 1910 the Resident Superieur of Tonkin made
quoc ngu compulsory for all public documents.
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13.2 The impact of quoc ngu on Vietnamese nationalism
Because quoc ngu was easier to learn, and there was now basic education using quoc ngu in
the cities, more educated Vietnamese people were able to access new ideas. In many ways
it highlighted and divided Vietnamese opinion about whether French rule was a good or bad
thing.
Source 4 … quoc ngu rapidly became for the Vietnamese national movement a means of disseminating [spreading] ideas about independence and development. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 5 [S]tudents emerging from the Franco-Vietnamese schools [began] to seize the initiative in quoc ngu development and turn it toward different, often revolutionary objectives. By the 1930s the idea that quoc ngu development and dissemination constituted essential components of the struggle for independence and freedom was part of every radical platform. Marr, David G: Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920 – 1945, 1984
TASKS 1. Write the title, ‘French promotion of quoc ngu.’ Look at sources 1, 2 and 3, each
gives different reasons promoting use of quoc ngu. List the reasons. 2. Look back at 2.3, is the original reason for the invention of quoc ngu similar or
different to the reasons you have listed? Explain you answer. 3. Look back at 3.5, in what way was the language policy of the Resident Superieur in
1910 similar to the language policy of Quang Trung? 4. Look at sources 4 and 5, why do they consider quoc ngu an important part of the
development of a new national Vietnamese identity?
13.3 The impact of quoc ngu on new Vietnamese writers
Between 1907 and 1909 Hanoi journalist Nguyen Van Vinh (1882-1936) translated and published foreign short stories and drama scripts. In 1913 a Frenchman, Schneider, began a quoc ngu weekly, Dong Duong Tap Chi (The Indochinese Journal), launched by Vinh it aimed to popularise quoc ngu, was designed to promote new Vietnamese writers, but also presented French policies and criticised anti-colonial activists. Many Vietnamese readers began to read French modern literature for the first time, with its emphasis on individualism and personal feelings.
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Chinese novels, which were written to convey moral messages, were also being translated
into quoc ngu, which meant that Vietnamese readers and young writers were able to blend
and develop different styles out of these very different influences. It was not long before
Vietnamese writers began to take up the new Western styles in their own writing. One
Vietnamese poet explained:
Source 6 ‘We live in a time of motors, electric lights, radios, films, and gramophone, quite different from the days of coconut-oil and mu-u-oil lamps.’ Marr, David G: Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920 – 1945, 1984
Vietnamese writers explored the tensions between what was good about French
occupation, and what was being lost or destroyed by French influence. One of the first
Vietnamese short story writers, Nguyen Ba Hoc (1857-1921) wrote ‘A Family Story.’ Two
brothers choose two different routes: the elder studies the Confucian classics but finds that
under the French he cannot get a job. The younger takes French education and gets a well-
paid job but is corrupted by money and the immorality of Western life.
TASKS 5. Explain how quoc ngu changed the kinds of literature that Vietnamese people could
read. 6. What do you think is the point the poet is making in source 6? 7. What do you think is the point of Nguyen Ba Hoc’s ‘A Family Story’? Is he saying
French influence is bad? Is he saying Confucian culture is better? Explain your impression of the story.
In 1925 Hoang Ngoc Phach published a novel, ‘Pure Heart,’ which became a great success among educated young people. A young male student falls in love with a young woman. Both know they cannot marry because their families have arranged marriages to other people they do not love. In the extract below, the young man explains his thoughts to his friend:
Source 7 I was both happy and sad seeing the expression of her love. Without my explaining it, I'm sure you understand my joy, the selfish joy of having won the heart of a woman; my sadness on the other hand came from my conscience. I was afraid that this love affair would hurt
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her, would bring her much unhappiness as I could not consider marriage with her, and it was very likely that she was not aware of that fact. You may know that my parents have chosen a mate for me, the girl's family having been in close association with mine for three years now, waiting for the marriage to take place when I'm through with my studies. This match is unalterable, first of all because her parents are my parents' old friends, and secondly, the rules of my family are very strict. I've strong feelings for my family. To me, the family is sacrosanct, and everything connected with it appears sacred. http://www.oocities.org/chtn_nhatrang/totam.html
The young woman, after her marriage, becomes so depressed that she dies; while the young
man finally accepts his parent’s choice. The tensions described in this story were so close to
the feelings of many young people that a number of broken-hearted young women
drowned themselves in Hanoi’s lakes after reading the novel.
TASKS 8. Source 7 describes the tensions between French individualism and personal feelings
and Confucian family values. Find three phrases in the source which express: a) the Confucian value of obedience to the family, b) the French value of individualism, c) the tensions the young man experiences between the two.
9. What do you think the young man in the story would have done if the young woman had refused to marry her parent’s choice? Explain your answer.
13.4 Quoc ngu and the writing of ‘opposition literature’
Anti-colonial writers divided into those who supported non-communist reform, and those
who wanted a communist-led social revolution.
One of the most famous of the writers who wanted social reform is Nhat Linh (real name, Nguyen Tuong Tam). His book, ‘Rapture’ tells the story of a young couple in love. The young man has been disowned by his traditionalist father (perhaps for anti-colonial activities) and the young woman is forced to marry a man she does not love. Her new family persecute her because she is ‘too western’ and during a violent argument her new husband beats her. In self-defence she pulls a knife and he is killed. She is found innocent at her trial, because she is seen as the victim of an oppressive family system and goes on to become a successful journalist. Through her fame her original lover hears of her and they are reunited.
Hoang Dao, a member of a community of writers called ‘The Self-Reliance Literary Group,’
put forward a manifesto of ideals for social reform among Vietnamese youth:
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modernise by adopting Western ways
encourage greater participation by women in society
seek real achievements rather than just positions of power
become physically fit.
TASKS 10. Describe the difference between the two types of anti-colonial writers. 11. What features of Nat Linh’s story are more critical of Confucian values and more
supportive of French values? Explain your answer. 12. Why do you think Hoand Dao’s list included ‘greater participation by women’ and
being ‘physically fit’? Explain your answer.
13.5 The ‘popular realist’ style
All the reformists appealed to urban readers. But writers influenced by Marxist ideas of class
struggle, anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism were mostly from lower levels of society and
had a better awareness of the lives and experiences of poorer workers and peasants. They
developed a literature that was known as ‘popular realist’.
One of the most famous was Nguyen Cong Hoan. His novel ‘Impasse’ tells how a Tonkinese peasant is persecuted by the opium-addicted landlord who wants to steal his land. The landlord puts illegal alcohol on the peasant’s land and arranges for the local magistrate to arrest him. In prison, the peasant is beaten and bribes are demanded of him before his case can be considered. Finally released, he has to mortgage his land to pay his expenses but resists when the landlord comes to take his land when he can no longer pay. The peasant is dragged off in chains, but throughout the story he has become transformed from a passive acceptor of his fate to a man deeply aware of the injustice and oppression he suffers.
Later ‘popular realist’ writers make their peasant characters even more pro-active in
resisting ill treatment.
TASKS 13. Communism focuses on ‘class conflict’ In what ways do you think Nguyen Cong
Hoan’s story illustrates class conflict rather than corruption? Explain your answer.
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14 Vietnamese art
14.1 The development of new, French influenced styles
Vietnamese traditional art reflected influences from China. However, Vietnam became the
earliest Asian country to explore modern art, as defined by the West, both in techniques
and in use of colour. Vietnamese students went to study painting in France, and returned
with new ideas, especially the use of oil paint. The Ecole Des Beaux Arts (Indochina's School
of Fine Art) in the early 1930s included professors of art coming from France to teach, in
particular Victor Tardieu. It was in the skills oils, silk painting and lacquer that the school
produced its greatest artists.
Source 1
Teachers and students at a ceremony at the School of Fine Art, 1929
14.2 Vietnamese lacquer painting
Vietnamese craftsmen and artists mastered techniques using lacquer for decoration and
preservation. Lacquer traditionally comes in three colours - brown, black and vermilion. In
1930 the Ecole Des Beaux Arts introduced classes on lacquer work and artists started to use
a new technique known as chiselling which gave a richer mix of colours and an added sense
of size and distance.
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The painter used hot lacquer to draw the outline of a picture and the colours were applied
one by one, layer upon layer. Using other substances such as plant material ash, crushed
eggshells, gold and silver to embellish their works, they achieved a rich variety of colours.
The final piece was polished and washed, which left a brilliant surface on a painting.
The works of Pham Hao and Nguyen Gia Tri are the best examples.
Pham Hao
Nguyen Gia Tri, 1938
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14.3 Silk painting
The art of silk painting was developed from using water colour paints, but the effect was
unique since silk gave the pictures a special quality that was very different from Chinese
water colours.
Nguyen Phan Chanh
TASKS 14. Do you think that these pictures show that Vietnamese culture was in danger of
being replaced by French culture? Explain your answer.
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15 Anti-colonial resistance
15.1 Vietnamese anti-colonialism
Most historians think that there was change in Vietnamese resistance from ‘anti-
colonialism’ to ‘nationalism,’ from wanting the French to leave to wanting Vietnam to be
united as a single nation. When the French first took over Vietnam, the Vietnamese people
opposed the French because they had a history of resisting foreign masters.
Source 1 Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism was determined and consistent, if not always successful. The French were not the first to conquer Vietnam, so the Vietnamese people were no strangers to resisting colonial powers. China had ruled medieval Vietnam for nine centuries; Chinese exploitation and demands of tribute had often triggered peasant uprisings, though few were of any significance. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/resistance-to-french-colonialism/
Different groups fought the French in an uncoordinated way. The French put down
resistance violently and publicly in order to deter further Vietnamese revolts.
Source 2
French colonists and the heads of ‘bandits,’ early twentieth century
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What follows are three examples of Vietnamese anti-colonial resistance.
15.2 The ‘Aid the King’ Revolt
In 1883, within a year of signing the Treaty of Hue , which had imposed French protection
over Annam and Tonkin, there were over 16,000 French troops in Vietnam. Popular
opposition increased amongst ordinary people and the mandarins. Ton That Thuyet, the
regent for the twelve year old emperor Ham Nghi, was outspoken in his opposition.
Source 3
Emperor Ham Nghi
Source 4 The French command wanted to strike at Hue in an attempt to destroy the movement from the top, and demanded the dismissal of dignitaries supporting resistance, Thuyet in particular. They demanded that the court hand over its artillery and reduce its armed forces, and urged the Royal Council to resign, to be replaced by a new body of pro-French mandarins. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 5 [June 1885] Thuyet recklessly ordered an attack against the French, who replied with an orgy of killing and looting…Over three days, according to a French account, French troops burned the Vietnamese imperial library, with its ancient scrolls and manuscripts, and they stripped the palace of gold and silver ornaments, precious stones, carpets, silk curtains, statuary, and even mosquito nets, cuspidors and toothpicks, the total valued at some twenty-four million francs. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
Ham Nghi fled to the mountains and issued a proclamation calling on the people to ‘aid the
king’ (can voung). Many mandarins responded, and local uprisings occurred in provinces
around Hue. With too few weapons, and too little central organisation, the Vietnamese
were not able to hold back French troops who surrounded the mountains and Ham Nghi
was captured and exiled to Algeria for the rest of his life.
Source 6 Can Vuong survived for a decade or so. It never managed to spark a significant anti-French uprising or gain widespread support, but its evasive guerrilla tactics made it difficult to deal
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with. Can Vuong’s mission – to drive French soldiers from Vietnam – proved difficult. Though there were barely a thousand French troops in Annam, almost all were stationed in the coastal citadels, which could be easily defended from attacks. So rather than attack the French, Can Vuong turned its attentions to central Vietnam’s Christian converts. The second half of 1885 saw at least four significant massacres of Vietnamese Christians. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/resistance-to-french-colonialism/
Source 7 With hardly any French troops to attack, the insurgents directed their anger instead against Vietnamese Christians, long regarded as potential allies of the French. Although the numbers remain disputed, it seems likely that between the end of July and the end of September 1885 Cần Vương fighters killed around 40,000 Vietnamese Christians, wiping out nearly a third of Vietnam's Christian population. The two worst massacres took place in the towns of Quảng Ngãi and Bình Định, both south of Huế, in which some 24,000 men, women and children, from a total Christian population of 40,000 were killed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_Vuong
Thuyet had escaped to China to ask for help, and resistance did not end with the capture of
the Emperor, who was exiled to northern Africa. The French replaced Ham Nghi with his
more obedient brother Dong Khanh, hoping this would remove support from the can vuong
movement.
Source 7 [The] people’s resistance, conducted with popular support, organised by various leaders and using various forms of combat, waged a widespread and protracted armed struggle throughout the country. The defection of a monarchy crippled by a mandarin bureaucracy and Confucian ideology, however, robbed it of any possibility of unified action on a nationwide scale. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 1. Look at source 4, describe the how France attempted to deal with opposition to its
new rule. 2. Look at source 3, why do you think the historian call Thuyet’s order ‘reckless’? 3. Describe how the French responded. Why do you think they responded so
aggressively? 4. Look at sources 6 and 7, why do you think supporters of can vuong attacked
Vietnamese Christians? 5. Why do you think the French did not execute Ham Nghi, and replaced him instead? 6. According to source 7, what made the monarchy unable to unite the people against
the French? Do you agree? Explain your answer.
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15.3 The ‘Hanoi Poison Plot’
In early 1908, a group of local terrorists combined with the Vietnamese National Party to
plan to seize Hanoi from the French. Vietnamese cooks were to neutralize the French
garrison in Hanoi by poisoning their dinner; at the same time, Vietnamese soldiers (Grade
Indochinois) would attack and prevent French troops outside from coming to the rescue.
On June 27 the cooks poisoned the soldiers’ food but it failed to kill them and simply made
200 of them sick. One of the cooks, a Christian, confessed to a Catholic priest who quickly
reported it to government officials. The French general in charge declared martial law, and
ordered the arrest of the plotters.
Source 8
A postcard showing the captured plotters, 1908
TASKS 7. What do you think was the objective of the Vietnamese National Party in taking over
Hanoi? 8. Source 8 shows the poison plotters in prison. What can you learn about how
prisoners were detained from this picture? 9. How do we know that source 8 was actually posted to someone? 10. Why do you think someone post somebody this picture? Explain your answer.
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Under pressure from the local French people living in Hanoi, 13 of the plotters were
executed almost immediately, and eleven days later another 24. The remaining rebels were
sentenced to life imprisonment or exile.
Source 9
A postcard showing the public display of the heads of the plotters, 1908
TASKS 11. Look at sources 2 and 9, why do you think heads were put on public display? 12. Look at source 9, describe the way the heads are displayed. What do you think is the
reason for this display? Explain your answer. 13. Why do you think a postcard was made of this picture and do you think it is for the
same reason as the picture of the prisoners in source 8? Explain your answer. 14. Describe the penalties given to those found guilty. Do you think these penalties were
too severe? Explain your answer.
15.4 The ‘Thai Nguyen Uprising’
The ‘Thai Nguyen Uprising’ was the biggest and most destructive anti-colonial rebellion in Indochinese history. Thai Nguyen Prison was the largest prison in Tonkin. In August 31, 1917, a mixture of political prisoners, ordinary criminals and prison guards, led by prison sergeant Trinh Van Canh, seized the prison, releasing 220 prisoners. From this base they attacked the local arsenal and captured a large collection of weapons.
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They then captured several important buildings in the town and killed French officials and those Vietnamese who worked with the French. Knowing that the French would counterattack, the rebels dug a trench around the town and called for a general uprising against the French. Over 300 of the poorest people in the town joined the 200 prisoners and 130 guards. The rebels put on military armbands and hung banners around the town.
The French bombed the town, pushing the rebels into retreat in the countryside. They fought for five days before they retook the town, and then had to spend six months hunting for rebels hiding in the countryside.
Source 9 The penitentiary [prison] provided a discrete site where traditional class and regional divisions might be overcome and new ideas of fraternity and community could develop, flourish and serve as a powerful foundation for collective resistance to the colonial state. Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
When the rebellion was over, the French government investigated the causes of the uprising. Commandant Nicolas, the French officer in charge of all the prison guards, claimed it was a local, anti-colonial rebellion. Resident Darles, the French governor of the prison, claimed that the rebellion was a nationalist one.
Source 10 ‘We are rebelling because we have suffered much cruelty from Resident Darles’, Sergeant Gia announced to the prisoners. ‘We go now to liberate the countries of Annam and expel the French.’ Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
TASKS 15. Describe the beginnings of the uprising, and which types of criminals joined the
rebellion. Do you think they all joined the rebellion for the same reasons? Explain your answer.
16. According to Source 9, what caused the rebellion? 17. Why do you think 300 people outside the prison also joined the rebellion? 18. Why do you think Resident Darles wanted to claim that the rebellion was
‘nationalist’? 19. Why do you think Commandant Nicolas wanted to claim that the rebellion was anti-
colonial? 20. From what Sergeant Gia says in source 10, what do you think he believed was the
aim of the rebellion? Explain your answer. 21. Look back over the three rebellions. According to source 1, what had caused
rebellions in the past? In what ways were these three rebellions each similar or different to anti-Chinese rebellions? Explain your answer.
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16 Vietnamese involvement in the First World War
16.1 Why was it called a ‘world’ war?
Originally, the 1914 war was a conflict between the central European powers of Austria-
Hungary and Germany against the combined forces of France, Britain and Russia (the
‘Entente’). Three of these countries were global powers, with colonies throughout the
world.
It did not take long, before the war expanded to included the colonised countries: Great
Britain, France, Belgium and Japan and the British dominions of Australia, New Zealand and
South Africa all sent troops to attack the German colonies in Africa and Asia. Most of the
German colonies were conquered within a short time.
Source 1
http://debitage.net/humangeography/colonialism.html
16.2 The exploitation of the colonies’ resources and people
The colonies of the Entente supplied goods and money. French West Africa, for example,
provided palm oil, palm kernel and peanuts.
Source 2 Indochina also contributed 184 million piastres in the form of loans and 336,000 tonnes of food. These burdens proved all the heavier as agriculture was hit by natural disasters in the years 1914 – 1917. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
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TASKS 1. Explain why the war in Europe soon became a ‘world war.’ 2. Look at source 1, which countries had colonial concerns in Asia?
16.3 Colonial migrant workers
The Entente also used colonial people as temporary migrant workers, sent to Europe. The
French government recruited into France about 220,000 workers from outside Europe,
coming from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Madagascar as well as from China and Indochina
(about 49,000 men). The massive presence of non–European male workers led to problems.
The French government had a policy of strict segregation between colonial workers and
French civilians and planned to send them back to the colonies as soon as possible after the
end of the war.
French trade unions did not know how to deal with the new workers; they stressed
internationalism and rejected all forms of racism, but they were aware that colonial workers
were often being misused by the French government as ‘strike breakers’. However, French
workers complained that these colonial migrants were stealing French people’s jobs as well
as their women. There were many attacks on them, especially towards the end of the war.
Source 3
Vietnamese soldiers being used as gardeners, at Versailles
TASKS 3. What is ‘strict segregation’ and why do you think the French used it when importing
migrant workers from the colonies? 4. What is ‘strike breaking’ and how did this create a problem for trade unions in
France?
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5. Describe why French people attacked migrant workers near the end of the war.
16.4 Colonial soldiers
Colonial peoples were also used as soldiers. France sent large numbers of African troops to
Europe, from Algeria, West Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Madagascar and the Somali Coast. The
French regarded the Africans as more aggressive than the Indochinese.
Source 4 Colonel Petitdemange, responsible for West Africans’ training in the camp of Fre´jus in southern France, wrote in a letter in January 1918 to a colleague that African soldiers were ‘cannon fodder, who should, in order to save whites’ lives, be made use of much more intensively’. And even Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, in a speech delivered to the French Senate on 20 February 1918, stated: We are going to offer civilisation to the Blacks. They will have to pay for that. . . . I would prefer that ten Blacks are killed rather than one Frenchman – although I immensely respect those brave Blacks – for I think that enough Frenchmen are killed anyway and that we should sacrifice as few as possible! Koller, C: Recruitment of colonial troops in Africa and Asia, 2008
France recruited soldiers both through volunteers and by conscription (forcing men to
become soldiers). In the beginning, only African soldiers were conscripted.
Source 5
Algerian colonial soldiers
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TASKS 6. Look at source 4, which phrases of Georges Clemenceau illustrate the idea of la
mission civilisatrice and which show that he considered colonised people inferior?
16.5 Indochinese troops
Only in 1916 did those in favour of an arme´e jaune (‘yellow army’) aim at recruitment of
men from Indochina. The massive recruiting campaign caused some local rebellions, also
men deliberately injured themselves or even jumped off their ships to avoid going to France.
The soldiers had further difficulties because their commanding officers were French, and did
not speak Vietnamese, Lao or Cambodian. Indochinese soldiers were mainly used in support
roles, such as construction work, because the French did not think they were good fighters.
Source 6
Vietnamese soldiers boarding the ship ‘Porthos,’ at Haiphong The transportation of the Vietnamese troops was poor and many became ill. The conditions for all soldiers during the war, European or colonial were often dreadful and little provision was made for Asians living in a totally different continent. Source 7 French report on conscription of Vietnamese peasants, 1916 In 1916 Camp 82 was located in the Haiphong recruitment district, near Hanoi. On May 5th, 2295 new conscripts underwent a close physical examination before their basic
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training commenced. Army doctors immediately rejected 1287 men because of eyesight or hearing problems, malnutrition, malaria or skeletal deformities. However,
they were not released. Instead these men were transported to the local docks, where they awaited shipment to Europe to work in French munition and aviation
factories. The remainder of Camp 82 (1008 troops) soon began their military training. Within two
weeks 340 had deserted, leaving 668 men. Seven days later a further 20 men were dead from bronchial pneumonia, attributed to 15-hour training days, bad food and cramped accommodation. By the end of the month another five had died from
hepatitis or blood poisoning. A total of 643 troops, or 28 per cent of the original group, went to combat units in Europe. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/conscription-of-vietnamese-for-service-in-world-war-i-1916/ Source 8 Many of the Vietnamese, like the West Africans, needed to be wintered in the south of France. In a morale report of the 3er Bataillon Indochinois, written on 10 September 1918, Captain Colin said that the Vietnamese were having a difficult time adjusting to the climate. The Vietnamese do not like bread and insisted on rice for their rations. Despite these issues, it was reported that the Vietnamese spirit was enthusiastic… Perhaps the most demoralising event for the Vietnamese was receiving letters from their wives with the news that they had remarried. Dean, W: Morale among French Colonial Troops, 2010
Source 9
Indochinese troops at base camp, 1918
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TASKS 7. Describe the roles Vietnamese troops were expected to fulfil. 8. Look at source 7, what happened to those too unfit to become soldiers? 9. Look at sources 7 and 8, what health problems did Vietnamese soldiers suffer from
and why? 10. How do sources 6 and 9 support your findings from sources 7 and 8?
16.6 Vietnamese soldiers in action
It is estimated that about 30,000 Vietnamese lost their lives during the war. Some died in
the fighting. To get an idea of the use of Vietnamese troops in battle, we can look at the 21st
Battalion. It was formed in December 1916, from Indochinese soldiers already serving in France. It
comprised 21 officers, 241 Europeans and 1,200 Vietnamese. From April 1917 the battalion was
employed at Dand, near the front line, in road and airfield repairs and drainage work on the
battlefield. From May to the end of August they fought in the frontline trenches near Rheims, and
held their position until the end of the war. The battaleon was dissolved in April 1919.
Source 10
A typical French wartime trench
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16.7 Resistance to the war in Vietnam
There were many anti-colonial riots against the French during the war, but all were easily suppressed. Emperor Duy Tan had been enthroned by the French, at the age of seven. In May 1916 he escaped from the palace, and relying on thousands of troops in Hue who were about to be shipped to France, planned a national revolt. The plan was leaked and the French disarmed the Vietnamese soldiers before the day they were to leave. Duy Tan was captured but he was not executed, instead he was deposed and exiled to the island of Reunion. All the other members of his court who had been involved in the rebellion were executed. The most significant rebellion took place in Thai Nguyen, in August 1917 (see 15.4)
Source 10
Emperor Duy Tan, enthroned 1907
16.8 Propaganda and the colonial troops
German propaganda against the use of colonial peoples as troops fighting in Europe never
called on the colonial armies to disobey their colonial masters. Instead, they warned the
Europeans that if African and Asian soldiers were trained to use modern weapons and were
allowed to take part in battles, then they would see for themselves the weakness of the
white man, and would lose respect for them. Then, after the war, they would turn their
weapons against their own colonial masters. The French and British policy of deploying
colonial troops in Europe was therefore a break in ‘white solidarity’.
French propaganda argued that both France and her colonies had the same interests and
concerns. It was the task of France to lift these people to a ‘superior life’ and so this was not
a betrayal of ‘white solidarity’ but an opportunity for the colonial soldiers to show by
disciplined loyalty their gratitude to the country that had civilised them.
However, the underlying message was the same from both Germany and France: that the
peoples of the colonies were different and inferior.
16.9 Promises for after the war
To encourage loyalty, the French made promises of reform to their colonies, but these were
never put into action after the war ended.
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Source 11 The colonial administration, while harshly suppressing the national movement, sought to appease the elite by promising a few paltry reforms, with promises of important postwar reforms from the more generous ‘liberal’ governors. These promises were never fulfilled. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 12 Vietnamese troops who returned from France with a new outlook on life were particularly disappointed. They realized that neither they nor their country would be rewarded for the services that had rendered France. Buttinger, J: Vietnam - A Dragon Embattled, Vol 1, 1967
TASKS 11. Explain the propaganda that Germany used towards the Europeans. 12. Do you think the Germans were making a good point? Explain your answer. 13. Explain how French propaganda used the idea of la mission civilisatrice to justify
using colonial troops. 14. According to sources 11 and 12, what did Vietnamese people realise from having
fought in the war? 15. Design a propaganda poster of either:
a) Germany warning of the dangers of using colonial troops b) France claiming that for the Vietnamese la mission civilisatrice is worth
fighting for
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17 The French penal system in Hanoi until 1940
17.1 The penal system in Hanoi
The ‘penal system’ means the ‘system of punishment’ used. In Hanoi, in 1896, the French
began to build the prison known as ‘Maison Centrale’ (‘central house’) together with the
Court of Justice and the Intelligence Department. The Intelligence Department was the
police spy service, which hunted and arrested those Vietnamese suspected of being
resisters to French occupation. These people were then held in the Maison Centrale until
they were tried at the Court of Justice. Those who were sentenced in the Court of Justice to
between 5 and 20 years of hard labour, or a life sentence, were then transferred to other
prisons. Those sentenced to death would be returned to the Maison Centrale.
The site for the Maison Centrale had been cleared of a village which made pottery with kilns
for firing. So the prison got its nickname, ‘Hoa Lo Prison’ (‘fiery furnace’). French prisons
were usually built far from residential areas, but in this case all three buildings were built in
the centre of Hanoi.
The Chief Jailer was always French, and appointed by the Governor of Indochina. A unit of
European and African soldiers was assigned to guard the prison, as well as local Vietnamese
people.
TASKS 1. Describe the building of the Maison Centrale, the Court of Justice and the
Intelligence Department. What was unusual about the siting of this particular Maison Centrale?
2. Why do you think the French used European and African soldiers as guards in the Maison Centrale?
3. Which types of prisoners did the Maison Centrale hold?
17.2 The design of Hoa Lo Prison
Hoa Lo Prison was designed in several sections. The outer area consisted of the Secretary
Office, guards’ room, sections for European prisoners and women prisoners, a healthcare
centre and kitchen. The inner area was made of nine separate sections.
The inner area also contained ‘death row’ where prisoners were held before execution. The
building followed a standardised plan, so that doors made of enamelled metal on iron could
be shipped over from France.
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Source 1
Photo of the Maison Centrale, Hanoi, mid- 1900s
TASKS 4. Draw a sketch of the prison from the photograph, and label where you think the
Secretary’s office, the guards’ room, the women’s prison, death row and the kitchen were.
5. Why do you think that prisoners who were punished with hard labour or a life sentence were not kept at the Maison Centrale?
17.3 The prisoners
Even though the prison was unfinished, it had to start receiving prisoners on January 1,
1899. All detention rooms were narrow and dark. As early as 1885, an inspector from the
Ministry of the Navy and the Colonies complained in a report about the way prisoners were
kept.
Source 2 Most of our prisons in Indochina include only one room, in which all detainees, both the accused and the convicted, are held together indiscriminately…I also noted that the insufficiency of surveillance and the carelessness with which the prison registers are kept make it impossible to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the true situation of the
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prison population. Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
Source 3
A modern reconstruction in an original prison cell of men being kept prisoner
A 1932 report by the Inspector of the Ministry of Colonies described Hanoi’s Maison
Centrale’s women’s quarters.
Source 4 Two hundred and twenty five of these miserable creatures are locked up in a space meant for a hundred. They form an incredible mob, neither classed nor catagorised, composed of political prisoners, common law convicts incarcerated for various crimes, defendants and minors, not to mention twelve women with infants.’ Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
Hoa Lo Prison was originally designed for 400 prisoners. In 1913 renovation expanded its
capacity to 600. It was overcrowded and conditions were extremely dirty. Annual statistics
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by the Government General of Indochina show the number of prisoners held on 31
December each year.
Source 5
Hanoi Central Prison Men Women
1922 771 122 1929 400 117 1930 1,065 147 1931 913 164 1932 1,144 227 1933 1,155 261 1934 1,130 226 1935 838 183 1936 880 113 1937 831 88 1938 977 124 1939 662 112 1940 825 93
Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
TASKS 6. In what ways do sources 2, 3 and 4 agree about the way prisoners were kept in
prison? 7. What does the modern reconstruction not show that the written sources do show? 8. Compare the years in which the two reports were written; what can you infer about
the French attitude to conditions in prisons from this? Explain your answer. 9. Look at source 5, show the number of prisoners on a compound bar graph (women,
men, and total) 10. Draw a line across the graph at 600 and label it ‘official capacity.’ 11. What pattern of change do you notice in the number of prisoners kept over the
years? 12. What do you notice about the ratio of men to women prisoners? 13. What adjectives in sources 2 and 4 best describe the numbers of prisoners?
17.4 The treatment of prisoners
The prison guards were corrupt, secretly selling tobacco, opium and food to the prisoners at
very high prices.They were also very violent; in 1929 Phan Van Hum, a political prisoner, said
that his two strongest memories were of rotten rice and vegetables and endless beatings.
Huynh Thuc Khang, another long term prisoner, explained that in all prisons the French
prison warders beat the local Vietnamese guards, the guards beat the caplans (prisoners
given jobs as overseers) and the caplans beat the ordinary prisoners. The atmosphere in all
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the prisons was one of violence and fear. Due to the terrible conditions, there were
sometimes riots and violence against prison guards.
Source 6 In 1934, 168 inmates died at Hanoi Central Prison…There is no reason to think that most prisoners who died in captivity were sick or on the verge of death at the time of their arrests. Rather, it was the brutality and squalor of the prison system itself that weakened and ultimately killed them. Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
Source 7
A memorial, in the original prison, to the treatment of socialist prisoners by the French
TASKS 14. What does the source say was the man reason for deaths in Maison Centrale? 15. Does the source present its conclusions as a definite fact or as an inference? 16. How does the writer come to this conclusion? 17. Do you think it is a fair conclusion to draw from the evidence, and why? 18. In what way does source 7 portray the treatment of prisoners? Describe what you
can see.
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17.5 The role of local people
During the early 1900s, street sellers made money passing messages from outside through
the jail's windows and throwing tobacco and opium over the walls. Letters and money
would be thrown back into the street. This led to the first jailbreak, organised in December
1932. Seven prisoners pretended to be seriously ill and were taken to hospital for
treatment. They had already arranged for an agent to prepare false identification papers
and money for them, which they used to ‘disappear.’
17.6 The guillotine
The French guillotine was first used in 1792, and was a simple mechanical device for
execution. Made of a tall wooden upright frame, it held a sheet of metal blade, cut at a 45
degree-angle, which was raised by a rope. The condemned person's neck was positioned
beneath the blade in a stock. The blade then fell, cutting the head from the body. It was the
main method of execution in France and her colonies. Those who were sentenced to death
in Hanoi’s Court of Justice were returned to Hoa Lo Prison and kept in isolation cells,
awaiting the date of their execution by guillotine.
Source 8
A modern reconstruction, in the original isolation cells, of prisoners awaiting execution
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A mobile guillotine was designed so that it could be disassembled and transported by train.
For example, in January 1930 it was taken to Yen Bai in order to execute eleven members of
the Vietnamese National Party, including Nguyen Thai Hoc (see 20.3).
Source 9
French postcard showing a public execution, using the mobile guillotine
TASKS 19. Look at source 8, why do you think the Maison Centrale Museum has reconstructed
prisoners awaiting execution on death row? 20. Look at source 9, why do you think the use of the mobile guillotine was
photographed and made into a postcard?
17.7 Political prisoners in the 1930s
Source 10 French justice lost its credibility when colonial police could wantonly jail political suspects for years without trial. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
The rise in Vietnamese anti-colonial activity increased the number of political prisoners sent
to Hoa Lo Prison. French colonial prisons kept different types of prisoners together, which
meant that anti-French resisters and in particular members of the Communist Party were
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able to mix with other kinds of prisoners. The prison became an education centre for
revolutionary teaching and activity, political ideas were shared and discussed.
Source 11 In place of the everyday forms of resistance and sporadic outbursts of violence that inmates had initiated in the past, jailed activists formed mutual aid networks, organized political indoctrination campaigns, printed clandestine prison newspapers, and orchestrated protest demonstrations. For the first time, prisoners planned and carried out acts of resistance as part of long-term strategies to undermine the authority of the colonial state… In another unprecedented development, inmates held in different prisons coordinated resistance efforts with one another and with allies on the outside. For French officials, these changes signified the transformation of the prison system from a nagging administrative problem into a poisonous wellspring of deliberate anticolonial activism. Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
In January 1930, prisoners in Hao Lo, became more active in trying to force change. Under
the direction of prisoner Tong Van Tran, a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party,
some began to protest at the terrible food. Transferred to another prison with 18 others,
this group went on hunger strike until the Chief Jailer finally agreed to improve the food.
Prisoners demanded that they be treated as political prisoners, and not common criminals.
They had been forced to sit looking down with their arms crossed, whenever they were
questioned; they now demanded that they be allowed to sit upright. With the execution of
Nguyen Thai Hoc and other members of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, the women in
Hoa Lo Prison organised a ‘screaming campaign’ and built a mock grave in the centre of yard
to hold a funeral for those executed.
17.8 Communist Party prisoners
A unit of the Communist Party was first formed in the 1930s, but was soon broken up by the
transfer of the leaders to different prisons or execution. For example, in October 1931
Nguyen Hoang Ton, a 19 year old member of the Communist Youth, was executed by
guillotine just outside the prison, as a way of intimidating the local people. However, as
more communists were arrested, the unit was reformed again and again. Many of the
future leading figures in Communist North Vietnam spent time in Hoa Lo Prison during the
1930s.
TASKS 21. Explain how the French practice of putting all prisoners together increased
nationalist awareness. 22. Look at source 10, why do you think putting political suspects in prison for years
without trial would undermine the credibility of French justice in the eyes of
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Vietnamese people? 23. According to source 11, in what way had prisoners shown their frustration with
prison conditions before the arrival of political prisoners? 24. What evidence is there in the source that prisoners:
a) now organised to help each other, b) now tried to spread their political message outside the prison, and c) now organised to protest within the prison?
25. How does source 11 describe the long-term goal of these resistance activities?
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The rise of Vietnamese Nationalism
The two sides of an Indochinese ‘One Piastre’ note
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18 The origins of Vietnamese nationalism
Historians argue that the Vietnamese people became more ‘nationalist’ in their resistance
to the French. Vietnamese nationalists wanted to unite the country into a single,
coordinated opposition to the French that would lead to the creation of an independent
nation, with a single identity (something the French had tried to discourage).
The reasons given by historians for Vietnamese nationalism are varied and complex.
Source 1 A primary factor [main reason] for the Vietnamese independence movements was the strict rule that France placed on the ICU [Indochinese Union]. It was illegal for Vietnamese to travel outside their villages unless they had special papers from the government; it was illegal to publish any material without French permission; and the Vietnamese had to receive French permission to have any type of public or private assembly. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
Source 2 A painful experience awaited many young Vietnamese, usually of wealthy origin, who had studied in Paris. Having enjoyed the freedom and comradeship of the Latin Quarter, they would return to Vietnam to have their newspapers and books confiscated by the colonial police, who regarded them as potential subversives. They rarely found jobs that equalled their education, and they would never match the wages of the French. Worse still, minor French officials, to whom all Vietnamese looked alike, would humiliate them by addressing them in familiar tu form reserved for servants and other inferiors. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
Source 3 [The peasants] were too poor to buy French imported goods and no one was concerned with providing them with new farming techniques to improve production. They were treated by the agents of the administration with extraordinary brutality…After just a few years of colonial domination, rice consumption per capita had dropped noticeably from 262 kilograms in 1900 to 226 in 1913…The condition of the peasantry, already poor under the feudal regime, worsened under the colonial administration. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 4 French political and economic policies prevented the emergence of a strong middle class or liberal political parties, which drove most nationalist movements toward revolutionary activity. Whilst the earliest revolts planned to return power to the mandarin class, twentieth century rebellions shifted their ideology toward modern western institutions and
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technology. Hall, Mitchell: The Vietnam War, 2000
Source 5 Moreover, the distance between the French colonial state’s professed commitment to modernisation and republican values, on the one hand, and the brutality, squalor and corruption of the colonial prison system, on the other, highlighted a contradiction within the colonial project that anti-colonial activists were quick to exploit. Zinoman, P: The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862–1940, 2001
TASKS 1. Each of these sources gives a different reason why the Vietnamese became more
nationalist as well as anti-colonial. Summarise on five squares of paper the different reasons given.
2. Which reason do you think was the most widely held reason, which do you think was the least important? Organise the reasons in terms of importance (top = most, bottom = least) and explain why you think this is the best order.
3. Each of these reasons can be connected with other reasons given. For example, can you see the connections between source 2 and source 4? Lay the five squares out and try to make as many links between them.
4. Look back at what we have investigated so far, can you think of any other reasons? 5. Look at the pictures of the one piaster note:
o Describe the images it uses to represent Indochina? o How many languages does the note use (and how many can you recognise)? o Why do you think the note uses several languages?
6. Imagine you are holding up a one piaster note to a group of Vietnamese. Write a nationalist speech to young educated Vietnamese, condemning French colonialism. Use the features of the one piaster note as a way of illustrating what is wrong with French colonialism. Use the ideas from the five sources and anything else you have thought of to develop your argument.
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19 The influence of international events on Vietnamese nationalism
19.1 The triumph of Japan
The story of Vietnam’s growing nationalist feeling cannot be separated from events
happening in others parts of Asia.
Source 1 In 1905, Japan’s victory over Tsarist Russia resounded throughout Asia. It proved that through renovation, an Asian state was capable of defeating a European power. Despite the fact that Japan, having turned capitalist, had conquered Taiwan and Korea, Vietnamese patriots showed great admiration for the country, nurturing the hope that Japan, as an Asian power, would offer aid and possibly support even in their struggle against French colonialism. Many scholars and students left to study in Japan as part of what became known as the Dong Du (Go East) movement. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
19.2 Chinese nationalism and Marxism
Vietnamese nationalism is also inseparable from the influence of Karl Marx and his writings.
In China, the Qing dynasty Emperors were unable to stop the Europeans and Japan from
dividing up the coast of China for trade, and so looked very weak. In 1911 a series of army
rebellions led to the abdication of the last emperor and gave the Chinese nationalist party,
the Guomindang, a chance to set up a Republic. The first president was a political activist
and exile, Sun Yat-Sen.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
19.3 Sun Yat-Sen and Marxism Sun had read Marx and proposed a three part programme to modernise China. Nationalism: to unite all the different regions in China with one identity, as ‘Chinese’. Democracy: to slowly introduce more and more power to the people and less and less to the rulers. Livelihood: to reform the ownership of land and the sharing of wealth.
Sun Yat-Sen
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19.4 Russian nationalism and Marxism
The Russian Tsar had survived a revolution in 1906, but the First World War then led to such
extreme hardships that the Tsar lost the support of his army and the people and in 1917 a
second revolution forced him to abdicate. Within a few months a third revolution led to a
single party ruling the country. The second 1917 revolution in Russia was directly connected
to the writings and ideas of Marx.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
19.5 Lenin, the Bolshevik Party and Marxism In November 1917 Lenin and the Bolsheviks led a take-over and within a short time Russia was a single-party state, based on socialist principles, and calling for the workers of the world to rise up in revolution and copy the Russian example.
Lenin
TASKS 1. Look at source 1, what do you understand by the phrase, ‘Vietnamese patriots’ in
this source? 2. According to source 1, what did the Japanese victory over Russia prove to
Vietnamese patriots? 3. Why do you think, Vietnamese patriots hoped to receive ‘aid and possibly support’
from Japan? 4. What do you think scholars and students in the Dong Du movement hoped to gain by
studying in Japan? 5. What do you think the imperial rulers in Vietnam thought about the abdication of
the last emperor of China? 6. In what ways do you think Sun’s three-part programme would have influenced those
Vietnamese nationalists? 7. What do you think the French thought of the 1911 revolution in China? 8. What do you think was the attitude of the French to the Bolshevik take-over of
Russia? 9. What do you think the different reactions of Vietnamese nationalists might have
been to the Bolshevik take-over?
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19.6 Geographical differences in Vietnamese politics
Structuralist historians argue that the way Vietnam had been divided by the French affected
how Vietnamese people reacted to events in China and Russia. Southern Vietnam was the
‘colony’ Cochinchina, under the direct rule of a French Governor-General. French influence
in Cochinchina had a powerful effect on the lifestyle of many wealthy Vietnamese. The
region grew economically, and by the 1920's there was a western educated middle class.
Cochinchinese were allowed, under colonial law, more political and organizational freedom
than the people in Tonking and Annam. Political parties were allowed and legally formed,
and those people who opposed the French looked to the example of China and the new
Republic.
In Tonkin and Annam France had set up ‘protectorates’ which meant that legally Tonkin and
Annam were independent and the emperor and local lords were allowed to keep their
positions of power; in reality they had to submit to French rule. The imperial family declared
that political parties were illegal and supported by a French army used violence to silence
possible political opposition. This meant that those Vietnamese who opposed the French,
also opposed the Vietnamese emperor and were more attracted to the example of the
Bolsheviks.
TASKS 10. Describe the political situation in Cochinchina. 11. Why do you think that the Vietnamese who opposed the French in this region looked
to the example of China and the new Republic? 12. Describe the political situation in Tonkin and Annam. 13. Why do you think that the Vietnamese who opposed the French in these regions
looked to the example of the Bolsheviks?
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20 Three leaders of the early nationalist movement
20.1 Phan Boi Chau (1867 – 1940)
Born into a northern Vietnamese family, the son of a poor scholar, he studied for the mandarin exams but became involved in trying to build on the failed Can Vuong movement, creating a new organisation, the Duy Tan (Renovation). In 1903 he located a descendent of Gia Long, Prince Cuong De, and took him to Japan in the hope of developing a ‘royal resistance movement’ ‘where they were free to publish and speak out against the French.
Source 1 Finding more than 100 Vietnamese students in Japan, he organised the Viet Nam Cong Hien Hoi (Vietnam Public Offering Society). The name was significant because the designation for the land they wished to recover was not Tonkin, Annam, or Cochinchina. For the emerging nationalists, the geographical boundaries that the ICU placed on Vietnam were artificial and had to be removed. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
In 1904 Phan developed the concept of quoc dan (‘the country and its people’) which
argued that the Vietnamese people were inseparable from their land, that they were a
single nation.
Source 2 Phan Boi Chau met the Chinese reformer Liang Qichao (1873 - 1929) in Yokohama in 1905. Phan’s most influential book, The History of the Loss of Vietnam was written under the strong influence and advice of Qichao. It became a widely read bestseller in Vietnam and China and was even made into a play. The book focuses on two connected themes: the loss of sovereignty and the severing of ties with China – ties that bound the elites of the two countries within a shared culture. It is this double loss that Phan laments, a lament that was typical of reformers from within the traditional elite. http://www.excellup.com/Notes/10_SocSc_The%20Nationalist%20Movement%20in%20Indo%20China.pdf
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In 1908, the Japanese authorities were persuaded by the French to deport him and he fled
to southern China. Here he was inspired by Sun Yat-Sen’s ideas of the construction of a
democratic Vietnam based on nationalism, rejecting his previous idea of ‘royal resistance.’
He established the ‘Modernisation Society’ in 1912, ordering terrorist attacks to be carried
out on ICU officials. The French became even more concerned about suppressing nationalist
sentiment, and in 1916 exiled another Nguyen emperor, Duy Tran, to Reunion Island in the
Indian Ocean. Phan Boi Chau was on the run, but was finally captured in the international
sector of Shanghai and ended his life under house arrest in Hue.
TASKS 1. Explain in what way Phan Boi Chau’s early activities were a continuation of the an
Vuong movement. 2. According to source 1, what was significant about the name of the Vietnam Public
Offering Society? 3. Using source 2, explain what Phan Boi Chau believed Vietnam had lost through being
colonised.
20.2 Phan Chu Trinh (1872 – 1926)
Born into a rich educated family in central Vietnam, he achieved the highest Mandarin degree in 1903, in 1905 he resigned his post. He and Phan Boi Chau went to Hong Kong in disguise, and then to Japan as part of the Dong Du movement.
Phan recalled how they disagreed about what they felt needed to happen in Vietnam.
Source 3 I debated time and again, and our opinions were diametrically opposed. That is to say, he wished to overthrow the monarchy in order to create a basis for the promotion of popular rights; I, on the contrary, maintained that first the foreign enemy should be driven out, and after our nation's independence was restored we could talk about other things. My plan was to make use of the monarchy, which he opposed absolutely. His plan was to raise up the people to abolish the monarchy, with which I absolutely disagreed. In other words, he and I were pursuing one and the same goal, but our means were considerably different. He
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wished to start by relying on the French to abolish the monarchy, but I wished to start by driving out the French to restore Vietnam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Chu_Trinh
Developing his political ideas, he returned to Vietnam in 1906, and wrote to the French
Governor General Paul Beau. He asked the French to live up to their ideal of ‘la mission
civilisatrice’. He called for France to develop modern legal, educational, and economic
institutions in Vietnam and industrialise the country, and to remove the mandarin system.
He blamed France for the exploitation of the countryside by colons and by Vietnamese
‘collaborators’.
In 1907 he opened a school for young Vietnamese men and women called Dong Kinh Nghia
Thuc, or Free School of the Eastern Capital (Hanoi). The school avoided doing anything
illegal, but advocated the ideas he had developed in Japan, along with those of Phan Boi
Chau. It offered a series of free public lectures with discussion around various western
ideas, now readable in quoc ngu.
French authorities considered his work subversive, and after peasant tax revolts in 1908, he
was arrested, and his school closed. Sentenced to death, campaigners in France protested
and he given life imprisonment. In 1911, he was pardoned and sentenced to house arrest
but he refused to accept only partial freedom. So instead he was deported to France.
In Paris in 1915 he joined a group called ‘the Vietnamese Patriots’ which included Ho Chi
Minh. He was allowed to return to Saigon in 1925, and died in March, 1926. His funeral was
attended by 60,000 people and included demonstrations across the country demanding the
end of French colonial occupation.
TASKS 4. Using source 3, Phan Boi Chau’s recollections, explain Phan Chu Trinh’s goals for
Vietnam. 5. Describe how Phan Chu Trinh understood what la mission civilisatrice should have
given the Vietnamese people. 6. Explain what the Free School of the Eastern Capital was. 7. Why do you think that the French believed his school was subversive?
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20.3 Nguyen Thai Hoc (1904 – 1930)
Born into a peasant family, Nguyen Thai Hoc studied at Hanoi Business School, but became concerned about the need for Vietnam to improve economically. He wrote letters to the French Governor, but was ignored. He was influenced by the Chinese Nationalists under Sun Yat-Sen. He dropped out of school and in 1927 founded, along with Pham Tuan Tai, the VNQDD (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, or Vietnamese Nationalist Party). It was Vietnam’s first revolutionary party. The majority of people who joined were northern teachers, workers in the colonial government and merchants, but the party was less successful in attracting peasants and industrial workers.
Source 4 The aim and general line of the party is to make a national revolution, to use military force to overthrow the feudal colonial system, to set up a democratic republic of Vietnam. At the same time we will help all oppressed nationalities in the work of struggling to achieve independence, in particular such neighbouring countries as Laos and Cambodia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Nam_Quoc_Dan_Dang
The movement believed violent action was necessary, and killed several French officials and
Vietnamese collaborators. To attract more people from the south, in February 1929 the
VNQDD assassinated Rene Bazin, a French official who was extremely cruel in his recruiting
of labourers for southern rubber plantations. This did not produce the support they hoped
for, but it did focus the attention of the French police, who quickly arrested hundreds of
suspected VNQDD supporters. Nguyen Thai Hoc managed to escape.
In February 1930 the VNQDD organised that 50 Vietnamese soldiers within the Yen Bai
garrison and about sixty civilian VNQDD members who entered the soldiers’ camp from the
outside, would kill their French officers. The mutiny failed because the majority of the
Vietnamese soldiers in the garrison refused to take part and remained loyal to the colonial
army.
French quickly quashed the uprising. The main leaders of the VNQDD were arrested, tried
and put to death, including Nguyen Thai Hoc; others were given harsh prison sentences.
Although members of the VNQDD survived, their military threat was over and it never
recovered its influence.
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Source 5
Photograph of a monument in Yen Bai to the VNQDD
TASKS 8. Design an information pamphlet for western tourists seeing the monument to the
VNQDD. Explain the origins, goals and activities of the movement.
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21 Ho Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party
21.1 The background of Ho Chi Minh (1890 – 1969)
Born into a poor family in Nghe An, he was named Nguyen Sin Cung. Clearly a bright boy, when he went to school he was renamed Nguyen Tat Than (‘he who succeeds’). In 1908 he began the journey down south to find an opportunity to travel abroad, and by June 1911 he had joined a French ship visiting Africa, America and Europe before finally settling in Paris in 1917.
Source 1 [After 1908] Ho Chi Minh went to Sai Gon only to find that Nam Ly (Cochinchina) under the colonial regime was in no way different from Trung Ky (Annam) under the ‘protectorate’ and Bac Ky (Tonkin) under the ‘semi-protectorate.’ Everywhere the people were subjected to the same oppression and exploitation, the same miseries and humiliations. This contributed all the more to Ho Chi Minh’s urge to go to the countries of the West to see how their peoples had managed to become independent and strong, so that upon his return he could help his fellow-countrymen drive out the French colonialists. Commission for Research on the Party History, Ho Chi Minh’s Life and Cause, 2012
Source 2 During those years spent among the working people of all countries in the world, Ho Chi Minh became deeply aware of the injustices and cruelties of capitalist society. He was grievously shocked by the destitute life of the working class and labouring people, regardless of the white, yellow or black colours of their skin. …He clearly realised that our friends were the working class and labouring people in all countries and our enemy was imperialism wherever it may be. Commission for Research on the Party History, Ho Chi Minh’s Life and Cause, 2012
In the early days of his life in Paris, he had no legal identity card and was supported by the
French Socialist Party, hiding to avoid inspection by the police and earning his living working
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in a photography shop and making drawings for a Chinese antique shop. He began reading
the writings of Marx and Lenin, and in 1919 changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc (‘Nguyen
the patriot’). He also joined the French Socialist Party.
When the First World War ended, the victorious nations held a conference at Versailles, just
outside of Paris, to organise the peace of Europe. Nguyen Ai Quoc sent a ‘Petition of the
Annamese Nation’ to the conference demanding that the French recognise that the
Vietnamese were entitled to basic rights.
Source 3
A western newspaper cartoon, comparing the Versailles peace conference to a native American peace-pipe assembly.
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Source 4 The petition was among other things composed of eight points:
1. Amnesty for all Vietnamese political detainees; 2. Reform of the Indochinese judicial system by giving the Vietnamese the same judicial
safeguards as to the Europeans… 3. Freedom of the press and freedom of opinion; 4. Freedom of association and freedom of assembly; 5. Freedom of teaching and creation of technical and vocational schools in all provinces
for natives; 6. Replacement of the regime of decrees by that of laws; 7. Presence of a permanent delegation of the natives in the French parliament to keep
it informed of their aspirations… The struggle of Ho Chi Minh in Versailles was his first blow at the imperialist chieftains. But the conference was merely a place where the victorious gangsters were dividing their booty among themselves, and the burden was to be borne by the peoples of the defeated countries and the oppressed nations. Commission for Research on the Party History, Ho Chi Minh’s Life and Cause, 2012
Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote a Vietnamese version of his ‘eight points’ in verse, giving it the title
‘Requests from Viet Nam.’ He also wrote a version in Chinese entitled ‘Letter of Petition
from Annam,’ and arranged for 6000 copies of these to be printed at his own expense and
handed out at meetings, and even secretly sent copies to Vietnam. He repeated the main
points in an article in the French communist newspaper, L’Humanite in August 1919.
Inevitably, he began to attract the attention of the Sûreté (French secret police) and
especially Paul Arnoux, in charge of the surveillance of Vietnamese expatriates in Paris.
TASKS 1. According to sources 1 and 2, why did Nguyen Tat Than (Ho Chi Minh) desire to
travel abroad and what did he learn by travelling to different countries? 2. What do you think we learn about Nguyen Tat Than’s thinking, from his new name,
Nguyen Ai Quoc? 3. Look at source 3:
o Which countries are represented in the cartoon? o What is underneath the table? o What is the message of the caption below the cartoon? o What do you think is the meaning of the cartoon?
4. Look at source 4, why do you think Nguyen Ai Quoc wanted the replacement of decrees by laws, and the French Parliament to include Vietnamese delegates?
5. Why do you think Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote different language versions of the ‘eight points’?
6. Britain, France, Italy and Germany were at the Versailles conference and were colonial powers. What do you imagine was their reaction to Nguyen Ai Quoc’s petition?
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INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
21.2 What was happening in Russia in 1919? World War One divided socialists. Most supported the war and their nationalist governments, while some called for a united socialist movement for world peace. Lenin rejected both nationalism and pacifism. Instead, he called for a drive to change the ‘war of nations’ into a ‘trans-national class war’ - to change the war between countries into an international revolutionary war between classes. In 1915 Lenin proposed the creation of a ‘new International’ to promote “civil war, not civil peace” through propaganda directed at soldiers and workers. After Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, in 1919 he set up the ‘Third International’ or ‘Communist International,’ or ‘Comintern.’ Its purpose was to encourage world revolution. In 1920, at its second conference, Lenin proposed 21 conditions for any socialist party wanting to join the Third International. Source 5
Members of the Second Congress of the Third International, 1920
TASKS 7. Describe the two positions socialists took about the war. 8. Explain Lenin’s position, and the purpose of the Comintern.
The French Socialist Party held a conference in December 1920, to discuss whether to join
the Third International (Comintern) or to stay with the Second International, to remain as a
socialist party or establish a communist party. Nguyen Ai Quoc spoke about French
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imperialism and the need for the French Socialist Party to take active steps to promote
socialist thinking among the colonial peoples and to help them.
Source 6 extract from The Path Which Led Me to Leninism Heated discussions were then taking place in the branches of the Socialist Party, about the question whether the Socialist Party should…join Lenin’s Third International?... a comrade gave me Lenin’s “Thesis on the national and colonial questions” published by l'Humanite to read. There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me! I was overjoyed to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted out aloud as if addressing large crowds: “Dear martyrs compatriots! This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!” After then, I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International…My only argument was: “If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?” Ho Chi Minh Internet Archive (marxists.org), 2003
The discussions led to the decision to form the French Communist Party and join the Third
International. In this way, Nguyen Ai Quoc had decided that in order to save Vietnam from
French colonial control the only effective method was proletarian revolution as understood
by Marx and Lenin.
Source 7
Nguyen Ai Quoc at Tours Congress, 1920
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Source 8
An example of the front cover of Le Paria
He became one of the founding members of the French Communist Party and the first Vietnamese Communist. He then applied for membership of the Third International, and in 1921 became editor-in-chief of a newspaper, Le Paria, which combined the issues of socialism and colonialism, patriotism and Leninism.
Source 9 From then on, he found the correct revolutionary line for the Vietnamese people, the one that combined class struggle with national struggle, national independence with socialism, the genuine patriotic spirit with noble proletariat internationalism. Commission for Research on the Party History, Ho Chi Minh’s Life and Cause, 2012
In 1923 he travelled to the Soviet Union and attended the Fifth Congress of the Third International (photo, left). He joined several Russian based communist organisations as representative of the peasants and farmers in the colonies. He was in Russia when Lenin died and shortly afterwards wrote an essay, ‘Lenin and the Colonial Peoples,’ which was published in Pravda.
Source 10 extract from ‘Lenin and the Colonial Peoples’ … all of them, from the Vietnamese peasants to the hunters in the Dahomey forests, have secretly learnt that in a faraway corner of the earth there is a nation that has succeeded in overthrowing its exploiters and is managing its own country with no need for masters and Governors General. They have also heard that that country is Russia, that there are courageous people there, and that the most courageous of them all was Lenin. This alone was enough to fill them with deep admiration and warm feelings for that country and its leader… They also learned that that great leader, after having liberated his own people, wanted to liberate other peoples too. He called upon the white peoples to help the yellow and black peoples to free themselves from the foreign aggressors' yoke, from all foreign aggressors, Governors General Residents, etc. And to reach that goal, he mapped out a definite programme. Ho Chi Minh Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003
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From then on he continued to travel, to China and Thailand to contact Vietnamese
nationalists to join the Viet Nam Association of Young Revolutionary Comrades. Young
people who joined attended revolutionary training courses led by Nguyen Ai Quoc and then
encouraged to get jobs in factories, plantations and mines to promote awareness of a
Marxist based nationalism.
TASKS 9. Look at source 6, after reading Lenin’s ‘Thesis on the national and colonial questions’
how did Nguyen Ai Quoc understand the goal of the Comintern? 10. List the different organisations and responsibilities that Nguyen Ai Quoc took on, in
the 1920s. 11. According to source 9, what did Nguyen Ai Quoc understand to be the ‘correct
revolutionary line’ for Vietnam? 12. Look at source 10, what does Nuyen Ai Quoc say are the most important
contributions of Lenin and the Russian Revolution to colonial peoples? 13. Describe how Nguyen Ai Quoc established the Viet Nam Association of Young
Revolutionary Comrades, and how he used them.
21.3 The creation of the Indochina Communist Party (ICP)
Nguyen Ai Quoc, 1934
Other organisations began to form, many of them influenced by Marxism. However, there was no complete agreement amongst the different groups. So at a meeting in February 1930, in Hong Kong, Nguyen Ai Quoc established the Indochina Communist Party (ICP) made from members from Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina and the Vietnamese community in China in order to unite the disparate groups.
Source 11 extract from the Political Programme of the ICP at the time of its founding
NATURE AND TASKS OF THE INDCHINESE REVOLUTION …The bourgeois democratic revolution essentially consists, on the one hand, of doing away with the vestiges of feudalism, eliminating the means of pre-capitalist exploitation and carrying through land reform, and on the other of overthrowing French imperialism and making Indochina fully independent…To fulfil these essential tasks it is vital to establish worker-peasant soviet power which alone can serve as a powerful tool for overthrowing imperialism, feudalism and the landlords, giving land to the tillers and enacting legislation
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protecting the interests of the proletariat. The essential tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution are:
1. To overthrow French imperialism, feudalism and the landlords. 2. To establish a worker-peasant government. 3. To confiscate all land belonging to foreign and native land-owners and the churches
and share it out among middle-level and poor peasants, the right of ownership belonging to the worker-peasant government.
4. To nationalise all foreign capitalist enterprises. 5. To abolish current taxes and duties, and levy a progressive tax. 6. To decree an eight-hour workday, and improve the living conditions of workers and
working masses. 7. To regain independence for Indochina, and gain recognition of the right of its
peoples to self-determination. 8. To set up a worker-peasant army. 9. To promote equality of the sexes. 10. To support the Soviet Union, and become allied with the world proletariat and the
revolutionary movement in colonised and semi-colonised countries. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 12 It was a turning point not only in the history of the working class, but also in the Vietnamese national movement, which now had a leading party armed with a scientific theory, clear-cut principles for action and organisation, and close ties with the world revolutionary movement…All these were sadly lacking in the organisations and parties which preceded it in the struggle against imperialism. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 14. Look at source 11, and make three lists on the elements of the Political Programme:
socialist, nationalist and internationalist. 15. According to source 12, what did Marxist-Leninism bring to Vietnamese anti-colonial
resistance movements that was new?
21.4 The world economic depression and the response of the ICP
In 1929 there was a global economic depression; with businesses failing, French business
withdrew from Vietnam. The world price of rice halved, the price of rubber dropped to a
quarter, rice-husking mills closed and thousands of junk-boats were scrapped. Coal miners
suffered as ten thousand were made unemployed. However, the taxes that Vietnamese
workers had to pay remained the same. This meant that peasant farmers had to produce at
least twice as much rice just to pay their taxes. In the cities there were more and more
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strikes (in Europe, going on strike was legal but in Vietnam strikers could go to prison for five
years). Food shortages affected even the wealthiest areas and famine in the north of
Annam. These conditions enabled Vietnamese communists to explain capitalist exploitation
to those who were starving.
The Vietnamese communists in Nghe An and Ha Tinh helped set up small self-governing
communities, called Soviets, which made sure peasants could share communal land,
reduced taxes and made food available to the poor. Peasants burnt debt contracts and
property deeds and organised attacks on local administration offices.
The ICP also encouraged workers to strike in reaction to French brutality. In March 1930 at
Phu Rieng rubber plantation in southern Vietnam the workers disarmed the soldiers at the
local station, cut down trees to block the way for police cars and women who had been
raped by French legionary soldiers splashed ash and lime into their eyes. French officials
sensed they were losing control in Vietnam, and sent in French Legionary soldiers to break
up the soviets, the police opened fire on workers and airplanes bombed civilian targets.
Over 1000 ICP members were arrested.
In Hong Kong, Nguyen Ai Quoc was also arrested and spent two years in prison. When he
was released he went to Russia and from there wrote articles that were secretly distributed
in Vietnam. Although he had not been in Vietnam for twenty-four years, he was becoming
well known there.
TASKS 16. Describe how the rise in taxes affected Vietnamese peasants and workers. 17. Explain how soviets were designed to work. 18. Describe the activities that the ICP encouraged to resist the French.
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22 Japanese invasion of Indochina
22.1 How the Second World War affected France
In 1939, Germany was at war with several European countries. France was defeated very
early in the war, and a new non-democratic government was set up in Vichy, southeast of
Paris, under the rule of Marshal Phillippe Petain. Officially neutral for the rest of the war,
the Vichy government actively worked with the Germans. Vichy was now the official rulers
of Indochina.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
22.2 What was happening between Japan and China? After the First World War, Japan had acquired Germany’s colonies in China. When the economic depression of 1929 made it difficult for Japanese goods to sell abroad, they needed new markets and saw Manchuria as a source of raw materials, a market for its manufactured goods and as a protective barrier against the Soviet Union. Japan invaded Manchuria in September 1931 and set up the old Chinese emperor, Pu Yi, as a puppet ruler. China was politically divided at this time, and the Chinese government had little influence in northern China. In July 1937, the Japanese military in Lugou faked an attack by Chinese soldiers and used it as an excuse to invade the rest of China. The Germans supported the Japanese, seeing them as the rightful rulers of Asia. Source 1
Japanese troops in August 1937, after occupying Shanghai
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For the next two years Japanese troops successfully defeated city after city through China in brutal battles, and committed terrible cruelties towards the civilians. This meant that as they spread further and further, they were surrounded more and more by people who opposed and resisted them, and their army was beginning to suffer heavy casualties.
22.3 Why Japan invaded Indochina
Source 2
Japanese troops entering Saigon
To stop the supply of weapons and fuel coming from Indochina to the Chinese resistance, in September 1940 the Japanese demanded that the Vichy government close the Indochinese-Yunan Railroad, (which went from Haiphong, through Hanoi to Kunming in China). At first the Vichy government would not agree, but faced with the certain invasion of Tonkin they gave in.
They signed an agreement which allowed Japan to move troops and supplies through
Indochina and to keep 6,000 Japanese troops based there, but to limit the total number of
troops to 25,000.
The Japanese immediately sent more troops than was agreed and French colonial soldiers and the Foreign Legion fought unsuccessfully to stop them. The Japanese took control of Vietnam, but then reached an agreement with the Vichy government - similar to the one Vichy made with Germany - to allow the French administration to continue running the colony. The French were expected to control the north of Indochina while the Japanese would control the south.
Source 3
A Japanese soldier posts Proclamation No. 1 declaring martial law in English, French and Vietnamese, September 1945
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The Japanese were happy to let this situation continue as long as their military needs were
supplied.
TASKS 1. Explain why the growing Japanese occupation of China was causing Japanese troops
increasing difficulties. 2. Describe the ways the Vichy government cooperated with the Japanese and how the
Japanese exploited this cooperation. 3. Why do you think the Japanese allowed the French to continue to run the north of
Vietnam? 4. Look at source 3, what is martial law and why do you think the Japanese imposed it
on the people of Saigon?
22.4 Colonial resistance to the Japanese
Source 4
A French colonial anti-Japanese poster, 1940
Despite working with the Japanese, the French administration aimed to encourage resistance in the hope of fighting the Japanese later. French propaganda reminded the Vietnamese people of their own history, especially their long struggle against domination by China. French officials increased the pay and status of Vietnamese administrators, especially those in villages. They instituted the ‘policy of regard,’ which was an attempt at preventing cruel treatment of native Vietnamese by both French and Japanese. New schools were opened, enrolments rose, and a fund was organised for the creation of Hanoi University. They also established a Vietnamese Youth Movement which trained young people in the use of weapons. Nationalists, led by ICP members, soon dominated the youth movement.
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Source 5 Young people and state employees were authorised to speak of patriotism on condition that it was a local patriotism integrated with loyalty to France. None of these measures changed in any way the essence of France’s policy, which aimed at the total elimination of the national movement. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 1. Look at source 4, describe what you can see. What do you think is the message of
the poster? 2. Why do you think the French reminded the Vietnamese of their occupation by the
Chinese? 3. Explain the ‘policy of regard.’ 4. Why do you think the ICU was able to dominate the Vietnamese Youth Movement?
22.5 Vietnamese nationalist support for the Japanese
However, nationalists in all the countries of Indochina did not feel any closer to the French
because of this change in French policy and treatment. Japan continued to move through
Southeast Asia to defeat the British in Malaya, the Dutch in Indonesia and the Americans in
the Philippines. In one sweep, Japan had destroyed almost one hundred years of European
colonialism and nationalists rejoiced that European colonial powers were no longer in
control.
Source 6 [The Japanese] held out the lure of national independence which Vietnam would achieve with their help, and the solidarity of the Asian peoples rising in revolt against whites, and of a mutually beneficial and prosperous Greater East Asia. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Some nationalists were willing to wait and see if the Japanese would give Vietnam
independence. Prince Cuong De – who had been closely connected with Phan Boi Chau (see
20.1) – had remained in Japan in the 1930s and many of his supporters hoped the Japanese
would help him become the next emperor of Vietnam.
The Japanese also encouraged anti-French religious groups such as the Cao Dai and Hoa
Hao, which spoke openly against the French. The Japanese expected to win the war and had
no intention of allowing the French to continue to rule Indochina, but they had no clear plan
for the future of the region.
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Source 7 Right up to the end of the war, however, Japan found it was more important to maintain order in Indochina with the help of the French than to support any group of puppets. When French pressure became too strong, the Japanese chose to send their agents out of the country so as not to spark conflict with the French. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 5. According to source 6, what did the Japanese offer that appealed to some
nationalists? 6. Why might some nationalists not be happy with the choice of Cuong De as Emperor? 7. According to source 7, what was the main priority of the Japanese during the war?
22.6 ICP opposition to the Japanese and the origins of the Viet Minh
As early as November 1939, the ICP discussed the significance of the war on their nationalist
liberation campaign. Thinking back to the Versailles conference of 1919, they argued that
this second war was a new attempt by the imperialist powers to divide up of the world
between them. Therefore, all socialist programmes, such as land reform and the removal of
land owners were to be stopped, and the only objective that mattered was to liberate the
country.
Nguyen Ai Quoc, now named Ho Chi Minh (‘he who enlightens’), believed the Japanese
were no better than the French, and in February 1941 he returned to Vietnam, basing
himself at Pac Bo on the Vietnam-China border. At the Eighth Plenum of the ICP he
persuaded the members to agree that national freedom was more important than class
struggle or whether a person was a communist or not. The ICP should work with any other
groups who had the same nationalist goals. To unite all like-minded Vietnamese in one
organisation, the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Nam Doc lap Dong Minh
Hoi) or Viet Minh was set up. The Vietminh’s goal was the removal of imperialist nations
using guerrilla warfare in the cities and the countryside.
In 1942 Ho Chi Minh was captured by Chinese Nationalists and imprisoned for two years.
Released in 1944 he returned to northern Vietnam to lead the battle against the Japanese.
He was very aware of American opposition to Japan, and so contacted the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) - which later became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS organised
‘the Deer mission,’ training 200 Vietminh and providing medical help to Ho Chi Minh, who
was extremely ill.
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Source 8
Ho Chi Minh (center) and Vo Nguyen Giap (far left) with American OSS agents planning coordinated action against the Japanese - 1945
In return, the Vietminh rescued U.S. pilots who had been shot down, spied on the Japanese
and reported their movements and attacked them in the jungle. During the war, the
American President, Roosevelt, made it clear that he did not support France retaking control
of Vietnam after the war.
Source 9 …I had for over a year, expressed the opinion that Indo-China should not go back to France but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. France has had the country – thirty million inhabitants – for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning…Each case must, of course, stand on its own feet, but the case of Indo-China is perfectly clear. France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indo-China are entitled to something better than that. Winkler, Allan M: The Cold War – A History in Documents, 2000
TASKS 8. Explain why Ho Chi Minh created the League for the Independence of Vietnam. 9. Describe the agreement made between the OSS and Viet Minh.
22.7 The famine of 1944
In May 1941, the Japanese had contracted with the Vichy government to receive over a
million tons of rice from Indochina. As the war continued, the Japanese needed more
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supplies and took them, regardless of the suffering of the Indochinese peoples that this
caused. The Americans had blockaded the Eastern Sea (Bien Dong) which prevented the
Japanese from exporting anything out from the south of Vietnam. So, the Japanese
concentrated on the north. In 1944, droughts and insects reduced the amount of rice
available to the Japanese, while the French administration began to horde rice in
preparation for the coming of the Allies.
Source 10 To meet Japan’s needs, the colonial administration took control of a group of products including cement, jute, sugar oil and coal…The heaviest burden for the Vietnamese people was the compulsory delivery of rice. Even Tonkin, disastrously short of food, had to deliver 130,205 tonnes in 1943 and 186,130 tonnes in 1944. Whether the harvest was good or bad, each region had to deliver a quantity of rice in proportion to its cultivated area…In 1944, when American bombing disrupted the transport of coal to Sai Gon, the French and Japanese used rice and maize as fuel for the power stations…Beginning in 1943, a major famine escalated from 1944 onwards. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 11 Japanese policies had led to starvation and extreme poverty for millions of Vietnam’s peasants. This harrowing economic situation was a result of Japan’s insistence that the Japanese farmers pull out their rice crops and plant hemp for the war effort. The rice that was harvested was given to the Japanese, while millions of Vietnamese starved. Woods, Shelton: Vietnam, An Illustrated History, 2002
Source 12 Vietnam was pulled into a wartime economy, with France and Japan competing in administration. Many people blame the famine on Japanese troops hoarding foodstuff from farmers, forcing them to grow jute instead of rice, thus depriving them of needed food, but in reality France had started the same policy earlier. They had decreased the land set aside for growing staple crops such as maize and potatoes to make land for growing cotton, jute, and other industrial plants. Because of the decreased land available for growing, harvests of staple crops decreased considerably. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_Famine_of_1945
There is no agreement as to the number of people who died in the famine. Estimates range
up to 2 million. Even now, people who were alive at the time remember the horror of the
famine.
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Source 13 Not far from Hanoi, a leathery old peasant by the name of Duong Van Khang recalled to me years afterward that so many of his fellow villagers died that ‘we didn’t have enough wood for coffins and buried them in bamboo mats’…Dr. Tran Duy Hung, mayor of Hanoi at the time, recollected the scene…’Peasants came in from the nearby provinces on foot, leaning on each other, carrying their children in baskets. They dug in garbage piles, looking for anything at all, banana skins, orange peels, discarded greens. They even ate rats. But they couldn’t get enough to keep alive. They tried to beg but everyone else was hungry, and they would drop dead in the streets.’ Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
Sources 14 and 15
Photographs of those who had starved to death
Michel L’Herpiniere described what he saw as he walked down a Hanoi street, after being
released from a Japanese police prison in early 1945.
Source 16 We stared down the road in disbelief. This had to be a nightmare. The street, which even at this early hour should have been bustling with people and oxcarts, cyclos and rickshaws, was deserted. In their stead were dead bodies, perhaps a dozen of them, scattered where they had dropped along the path between the corner and my apartment. Some appeared to have died in their sleep, others lay twisted in grotesque positions where they had fallen. All were Annamese. All were emaciated. Perkins, Mandaley, Hanoi, adieu, 2012
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TASKS 10. Look at sources 10 and 11, in what different ways were the French and the Japanese
responsible for the famine? 11. Using the sources and your own knowledge, who do you think was primarily to
blame for the famine? 12. Using sources 13, 14, 15 and 16, write a short description of looking out of a window
and seeing the effects of the famine outside.
22.8 Japan and France make Vietnam nationalist promises
In February 1945 the leader of the anti-Vichy resistence in France, Charles de Gaulle
succeeded in ending Vichy rule and promised Indochina a greater degree of ‘autonomy’
after the war. The Japanese, in a desperate attempt to keep the Indochinese people on their
side, in March announced Vietnam’s freedom from colonial rule. French colonial officials
were arrested and imprisoned and the Nguyen emperor, Bao Dai, was declared the ruler of
an independent Vietnam. The leaders of the ICP were not fooled, they knew that the new
Emperor was a puppet of the Japanese (like Pu Yi in Manchuria) and that the Japanese were
losing the war.
Source 17 Bao Dai, the indolent puppet emperor, had been hunting during the Japanese coup. The next day, back in his palace, a Japanese envoy informed him that Japan had granted Vietnam its freedom. Fearful of retribution if he refused, he consented to reign under the Japanese, just as he had served the French. He formally renounced France’s ‘protectorate’ over Vietnam and declared its independence…The Japanese had picked Ngo Dinh Diem as Bao Dai’s prime minister but discarded him at the last minute as too truculent. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
22.9 The Viet Minh gains popular support
The Viet Minh encouraged peasants to organise self-defence groups, to resist planting jute,
and to break open the stores of rice held by the French and Japanese. The famine gave them
the ideal way to show that the Japanese and French were a ‘common enemy’ that would
rather wipe out the Vietnamese than suffer themselves.
TASKS 13. Why do you think both the French and the Japanese promised greater independence
for Vietnam after the war? 14. Why do you think the Japanese thought that arresting the French colonial officials
would win them Vietnamese support? 15. Look at source 17, why did Bao Dao agree to rule under the Japanese? 16. Explain how the famine helped the Viet Minh to show that both France and Japan
were the common enemy.
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23 The August Revolution and the end of the war
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
23.1 The plans for peace in Europe In May 1945 Germany surrendered and U.S. troops were beginning the invasion of Japan. In July 1945 the Russian, British and American leaders met at Potsdam, in Germany, to plan the post-war organisation of Europe. Source 1
The leaders, Prime Minister Atlee (Britain), President Truman (U.S.A.), Stalin (U.S.S.R.) Vietnam was not considered very important, but it was discussed. The British agreed to accept Japanese surrender south of the 16th parallel (Dan Nang), while the Nationalist Chinese would accept Japanese surrender north of the 16th parallel. In effect this meant that when the Japanese surrendered, the British would be occupying the south of Vietnam while the Nationalist Chinese would be occupying the north. President Truman was deeply suspicious of Stalin, believing that all communist activity was directed by the Comintern, under Stalin’s control.
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Source 2
Lieutenant Colonel, 20th Indian Division, accepts the surrender of a Japanese Commander, Saigon
TASKS 1. Describe the decision at Potsdam on how to receive the Japanese surrender. 2. Look at source 2, describe the international elements that you can see in the picture. 3. Explain how the Japanese surrender would leave Vietnam divided.
23.2 The August revolution
The Viet Minh meet in August 1945, bringing together representatives from many different
political, ethnic and religious organisations. Seeing the growing weakness of the Japanese
control of Indochina, they decided that their goal was to seize power by defeating and
disarming the Japanese, before the arrival of allied French, British and Chinese troops.
When Japan gave in after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
events moved very quickly.
Viet Minh groups occupied government buildings in Hanoi, and took control of local and
district governments. Their slogan was, ‘Break open the rice stores to avoid famine.’ The
food crisis unified the country, and the Viet Minh recruited large numbers of peasants in
northern and central Vietnam and Ho called for a general uprising.
In the south, the Viet Minh did not have such complete support. However, various
communist and non-communist nationalist groups set up a council and declared their
support for the Viet Minh. In Hue, the capital of what had been Annam, the emperor Bao
Dai turned over power to the Viet Minh. By the end of August the Viet Minh had formed a
Provisional Government, with its capital in Hanoi.
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Source 3 Bao Dai, isolated and confused in his palace in Hue, had received a message from the Vietminh demanding his resignation. He complied – remembering, as he later put it, that King Louis XVI had lost his head for resisting the French Revolution…he dropped his regal title and became Nguyen Vinh Thuy, so that he could ‘live as a simple citizen in an independent country rather than king of a subjugated nation’…Bao Dai went to Hanoi, where Ho appointed him ‘supreme adviser’ to the new government. He asked to be treated as a ‘simple citizen,’ but the Vietminh leaders addressed him as ‘Sire,’ and he respectfully referred to Ho as ‘Venerable.’ Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 4. Why do you think the Viet Minh wanted to seize power by disarming the Japanese,
before the arrival of the French, British and Chinese. 5. Why were the Viet Minh able to recruit so much support from the northern and
middle areas of Vietnam? 6. Why do you think the Viet Minh did not have such direct support in the south? 7. Look at source 3, what reason does Karnow give for Bao Dai’s abdication?
23.3 The founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)
Source 4
Ho Chi Minh announces the foundation of the DRV, 2 September, 1945
In September, Ho Chi Minh declared the founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), with its provisional Government and himself as President. The situation was extremely unstable, there was still famine, Chinese Nationalists were preparing to occupy the north, the British and French were about to land in the south. The new Provisional Government had no economic, administrative or diplomatic experience. None of the leading world powers would accept the authority of the new government of the DRV.
Michel L’Herpiniere relates a discussion he had with his close friend Jo about the
complicated international situation that Vietnam’s new government found itself in.
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Source 5 The Allies had split responsibility for Indochina at the 16th parallel, she told me. The British had been given the south and were landing their own forces there. Here in the north the United States was responsible, and a small delegation of Americans was already in town. She had also heard that a French military mission headed by Jean Sainteny had arrived on the same flight from Kunming [China]. Sainteny and his entourage of French negotiators had been met by angry demonstrators outside the hotel and the Japanese had removed them ‘for their own safety’ to the isolation of the Governor’s Palace. Japanese soldiers still guarded the gates and grounds, and nobody had seen or heard of the French delegation since. I asked her why, if the Americans were there, they still hadn’t released the French Army from prison. The streets were awash with Vietminh soldiers stirring up trouble and surely order had to be restored quickly. ‘It’s not as straightforward as you think,’ she said quietly, kindly…I don’t think the Americans see it quite like we do. I think they would be very happy if the French never returned to power in Indochina, and indeed it wouldn’t surprise me to see them actively supporting independence for the country.’ Also Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army was on the way to oversee Japanese surrender and maintain law and order. ‘The Chinese!’ I blurted out.’ But the Annamese hate the Chinese!’ For a thousand years the Annamese had fought the Chinese. Surely they would have preferred the French to the Chinese. Perkins, Mandaley, Hanoi, adieu, (2012)
TASKS 8. List the key problems that the new DRV faced. 9. Look at source 3, who is Sainteny? 10. What evidence is there in source 3 that the Japanese and the French cooperated
together? 11. How does source 3 describe the attitude of the Americans towards the French? 12. Do you agree that the Vietnamese, ‘would have preferred the French to the
Chinese’? Explain your answer.
23.4 Steps to tackle the famine
In the same month, the new government launched a campaign to share their food, the grow
food on whatever available land they could find. Quick growing winter crops such as
potatoes, cabbages and marrows were grown on any land possible, even in public parks.
Volunteers travelled round the country collecting food, to share out. At the same time, over
a thousand kilometres of water channels were repaired in order that rice fields could be
made useable again.
Source 6 For the first time in the history of Viet Nam, a government had overcome famine by taking
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active measures. Mobilising the masses made it possible, in the summer of 1946, to obtain a good harvest, which continued the success of the previous winter and spring.. The famine was contained and brought under control. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
23.5 The beginnings of radical reform
The new government began to reform land ownership. Land belonging to colonialists and
collaborators was confiscated and allocated to poorer peasants. Peasants were told that
they could grow crops on any waste land, that they would now take over Industries once
owned by French businessmen, and workers were told they had the right to manage these
businesses. The French monopoly and tax on opium, alcohol and salt were abolished.
A villager recounted how the Viet Minh introduced land reform in the district of Thai Binh
province, in the Red River delta.
Source 7 [Viet Minh agents had put a village official on trial before the local villagers] They read the charges. He had been an accomplice of the Japanese pirates. He had forced the peasants to pull up their rice and plant jute and peanuts, enriching himself even though the people were miserable and dying. He admitted that he had worked for the Japanese, but claimed that he was just carrying out orders. But they announced that his crime was very serious because he had opposed the revolution and helped the enemy. So they sentenced him to death and shot him right there. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
Economically, the north of the country had no resources it could sell to other countries. The
Bank of Indochina had collapsed, and people had to rely on barter or using gold and silver
jewellery to buy and sell with. The government established the Vietnamese Dong as the new
currency, which was treated as equivalent to the Indochinese piaster, but no foreign
government recognised it.
The other key concern was literacy. Over 90% of the population had less than basic
education, with only 72 junior secondary schools and 3 senior secondary schools in the
whole country. There were only three universities in the whole of Indochina. In September
1945 the Mass Education Department was set up, with over ninety thousand volunteer
teachers who ran basic literacy classes in temples, factories, market places and communal
houses.
Source 8
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The elderly sat alongside young people, learning to read and write. Children became teachers of their own parents and grandparents. From September 1945 to September 1946, while foreign troops still swarmed across the nation’s territory and the fight against famine required enormous efforts, 2.5 million Vietnamese learned to read and write. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
TASKS 13. Describe the DRVs methods to solve the famine. 14. Explain how key resources and industries were taken over by the DRV. 15. According to source 7, how did the Viet Minh deal with people who had collaborated
with the French and Japanese? 16. Why do you think literacy was considered an important problem to solve? 17. Describe the DRVs methods of solving the literacy problem.
23.6 Resistance to the Viet Minh in the south
In southern Vietnam there was resistance to the new Viet Minh political system. Several
groups had areas of influence.
The Cao Dai religion was based in Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border. The majority of
its followers were rural peasants in Cochinchina. Their leaders had cooperated with the
Japanese, and at the end of the war they actively fought the Vietn Minh’s intrusion into
the area and the reforms they wished to introduce.
The Hoa Hao religion, founded by a young Buddhist monk, Hyunh Phu, in 1939, was also
a rural religion, mixing local folk beliefs and simple social reform ideas in ways that
peasants could understand and support. This movement rejected the Viet Minh’s call for
a national revolution. On September 9th a band of Hoa Hao supporters armed with hand
weapons attacked a Viet Minh garrison at Can Tho. Activities against the Viet Minh
continued until 1947 when Hyunh Phu was assassinated.
The Roman Catholic bishops of Phat Diem and Bui Chu had inherited a lot of power past
favour by the French. Each village in the two areas was administered by a local priest,
and the bishops raised their own taxes and had their own private military. At first, in
1945, not wanting to be seen as supporting the French they cooperated with the Viet
Minh, but soon saw that the Viet Minh were their rivals. The two areas became a neutral
zone, both anti-French and anti-Viet Minh and funded themselves by allowing illegal
goods to be sold through them. In October 1949 the Viet Minh decided to suppress
these using seven battalions, but the bishops called for French military help. It took until
1954, before the Viet Minh finally took control of these areas.
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TASKS 18. Briefly describe the groups who supported Cao Dai and Hoa Hao.
23.7 General Gracey and the British occupation
The Allied forces began to occupy the south of Vietnam. General Douglas Gracey, the British commander, declared martial law in Cochinchina in an attempt to stop the fighting. He had a limited number of eighteen hundred troops at his command and so had charged the Japanese with maintaining law and order in Saigon, distributing leaflets by airplane telling all Vietnamese people they would be punished if found carrying weapons.
On 17 September, the Viet Minh called for a general strike to protest how the Vietnamese
were being treated. Arming the Japanese (who had been prisoners of war) led to angry
reactions from the local people.
Source 7
From an Arlington newspaper, September 1945
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Source 8
From an Arlington newspaper, September 1945
TASKS 19. Which actions by General Lacey do you think provoked Vietnamese anger? Explain
your answer. 20. Why did General Lacey take these actions? 21. According to source 7, what provoked the ‘armed revolt’? 22. Why do you think source 7 called the violent clashes a ‘strange melée’? 23. How does source 7 imply that the Japanese are exploiting the violence?
23.8 The French backlash
In response, Gracey declared martial law; banning public meetings, a curfew and closing
Vietnamese newspapers while allowing French newspapers and radio to continue. On 22
September, he released and armed fourteen hundred French troops to help impose martial
law.
The next day, French troops spread throughout Saigon, attacking the Viet Minh’s
headquarters and killing members of the DRV, taking over police stations and public
buildings, raising the French flag on the rooftops and in combination with French civilians
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and members of the two religions attacked any businesses suspected of supporting the DRV.
Saigon was paralysed, without water, electricity or transport.
Source 9
From an Arlington newspaper, September 1945
25 September, in response to the French violence, the Viet Minh attacked the airport and
the local prison, to release hundreds of Vietnamese. The French civilians barricaded
themselves in their houses as civil war began. It is reported that revenge attacks by the
Vietnamese were equally brutal, killing hundreds of French and Eurasian civilians, including
women and children.
Source 10 If any one date marks the start of the first Indochina war, it might be that day. For the strike and its aftermath initiated a momentum of conflict that, despite periodic negotiating attempts, could not be stopped. Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
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TASKS 24. Design a newspaper front page, describing the events of 21 to 25 September. Use
the ideas from sources 7, 8, 9 and 10. Choose which group you believe responsible for the violence and tell the story from that point of view: The British, the Japanese, the French or the Viet Minh.
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155
The Indochinese War and a divided nation
A wounded Viet Minh prisoner is given help by Franco-Vietnamese medicals after a shoot-out near
Hung Yen, south of Hanoi, 1954
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24 Occupations of the north and south of Vietnam
24.1 The Chinese Nationalist occupation of the north
Based on the Potsdam agreement, more than 200,000 Chinese Nationalist soldiers entered Hanoi. They began stealing and looting. Having plundered villages on their way down, on arrival they openly broke into people’s houses and took whatever they wanted. Officers took over French property and forced themselves into part-ownership of local Vietnamese and Chinese businesses. The Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek was openly anti-communist and Ho Chi Minh was afraid that the Chinese would use the DRV as an excuse to keep the Nationalist army in Hanoi. Ho quickly concluded that the Chinese were much more dangerous than the French.
Source 1
Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek
Source 2 At the end of December 1945, Li Han [General of the Chinese Nationalist troops] sent an ultimatum to the Vietnamese government demanding the sacking of communist ministers, the handing over leadership of the government to nationalist reactionaries, the granting to the latter of 80 seats in the National Assembly (before the elections), and the replacing of the national flag. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
24.2 Ho sees the need to negotiate with the French
Ho discovered that Chiang Kai-shek was prepared to do a deal with the French. He would
withdraw Chinese troops in exchange for French troops, if France would give up its control
of Shanghai and other Chinese ports. In February 1946 an agreement was signed and Ho
realised he was powerless. Ho saw that the DRV had to come to an agreement with the
French and so contacted Sainteny, de Gaulle’s representative in Hanoi.
TASKS 1. Describe the arrival and behaviour of Nationalist Chinese troops in northern
Vietnam.
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2. What colonial connection did France have with Shanghai and how did Chiang Kai-shek use this?
24.3 The British attitude towards French reoccupation of Indochina
President Roosevelt had not supported the restoration of Indochina. In 1941, he and the
Prime Minister of Britain, Winston Churchill had issued the Atlantic Charter which made it
clear that America would support, ‘the right of all people to choose the government under
which they wished to live,’ and would not support, ‘any territorial changes that do not
accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.’
However, the British were also afraid of failing to support a fellow colonial power. The
British government decided to get French troops into southern Indochina as quickly and
possible and then withdraw their own troops. The British not only transported French
soldiers to Indochina, but gave them their American military equipment.
Source 3
French troops leaving Marseilles, France for Indochina to retake control of the French colony - November 1945
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TASKS 3. Describe how the British supported the French reoccupation. 4. Look at source 2, what impression do you get of the French attitude towards retake
control of Indochina?
24.4 The American attitude toward French reoccupation of Indochina
American suspicion of communism had grown, and President Truman gave Charles de
Gaulle assurances that America would not try to stop France retaking control of Indochina.
Secretary of State, George Marshall, summarised what the American attitude was in a
telegram in 1947.
Source 4 …we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there are two sides [to] this problem and that our reports indicate both a lack [of] French understanding of other side…and continued existence [of] dangerously outmoded [old fashioned] colonial outlook and methods in area. Furthermore, there is no escape from fact that trend of times is to effect that colonial empires in XIX Century sense are rapidly becoming thing of the past…On other hand we do not lose sight [of] fact that Ho Chi Minh has direct communist connections and it should be obvious that we are not interested in seeing colonial administrations supplanted by philosophy and political organization emanating from and controlled by Kremlin. Winkler, Allan M: The Cold War – A History in Documents, 2000
TASKS 5. Look at source 3 and look back at 22.5, source 9. In what ways do they agree and
what is new in source 3? What do you think this tells us about how American foreign policy had changed?
24.5 The French reoccupation of the south
General de Gaulle appointed a new ‘high commissioner for Indochina,’ Admiral d’Argenlieu
and established French control in Saigon. The new high commissioner appointed
Vietnamese to positions of authority in the new administration in Saigon. However, the
appointments were to landowners, doctors and lawyer who had all gained from French
occupation. An advisory council was also set up to discuss what to do about Cochinchina,
and although eight out of twelve of its members were Vietnamese, seven of them were
naturalised French citizens and none of them wanted Vietnam reunified.
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24.6 Ho Chi Minh’s northern government
In the north Ho Chi Minh’s popularity was widespread. He had included Catholics and
socialists in his government, as well as communists, and successfully banned prostitution,
opium, gambling and alcohol.
Ho wrote to the American President, outlining how France were undermining the
independence of Vietnam and reminding him of the Atlantic Charter signed by the previous
president, Roosevelt.
Source 5
Ho Chi Minh’s telegram, 28 February, 1946
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Bao Dai wrote to General de Gaulle to describe the situation in the north.
Source 6 ‘You would understand better if you could see what is happening here, if you could feel this yearning for independence that is in everyone’s heart, and which no human force can any longer restrain. Should you re-establish a French administration here, it will not be obeyed. Every village will be a nest of resistance, each former collaborator an enemy, and your official and colonists will themselves seek to leave this atmosphere, which will choke them.’ Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 6. Describe the strategies the French used to make sure they would get support for
their control, both in Saigon and Cochinchina. 7. Why do you think Ho would have thought that the Atlantic Charter matched what
the Viet Minh wanted for Vietnam? 8. Look at source 5, what does Ho say he expects the French to do in the near future?
24.7 The March Accord 1946
Both Ho and Sainteny realised that if they did not achieve a successful agreement, war was inevitable. In March 1946 an accord was reached:
France would recognise the DRV as an independent state in Tonkin
A plebiscite would decide the future of Cochinchina
The DRV would be part of the French Union (the new name for the old French Empire)
Twenty-five thousand French troops would remain in Vietnam for the next five years
Source 6
Ho Chi Minh and French General Leclerc de Hauteclocque toast agreement to reintroduce French troops in north Vietnam, 1945
Ho had gained official recognition from the French of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in
the north, he had bought time to strengthen the Viet Minh and had successfully expelled
the Nationalist Chinese. However, his critics pointed out that he had allowed French troops
to re-enter the north and there was no date set for the plebiscite on the future of
Cochinchina.
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Source 7 [Ho] told his critics at a meeting in Hanoi: ‘You fools! Don’t you realise what it means if the Chinese remain? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go.’ Karnow, Stanley: Vietnam, A History, 1983
TASKS 9. List the four points of the March Accord, of 1946. 10. Look at source 7, for what reasons did Ho accept the March Accord? 11. Describe the negative points some of the Viet Minh pointed out to Ho about the
March Accord.
24.8 The French violate their agreements
Source 8
Ho Chi Minh arriving France, March 1946
Ho went to Paris to discuss the details of the March accord, but found that he was not taken seriously. He was sent to Fontainebleau outside Paris where he was only allowed to meet unimportant government officials. In fact, one French socialist politician resigned from the meetings on the grounds that it was obviously rigged in advance to discredit the Vietnamese.
To Ho’s great disappointment, a French communist at the meetings did not resign, and soon
Ho realised that even the French Communist Party was more nationalist than ideological.
In June 1946, while Ho was still in France, d’Argenlieu (who had no authority to do so)
proclaimed that Cochinchina was an independent republic within the French Union. In the
north, French soldiers in Tonkin openly ignored the DRV officials and acted as if they were
independent of the new government. In Hanoi, French citizens began to talk as if the real
power had returned to France.
In September, Ho signed a further ‘interim understanding’ which resolved nothing. As he
left the meeting he said, ‘I have signed my death warrant.’ On returning to Hanoi in October
Viet Minh critics accused him of selling out to the enemy but the Vietnam National
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Assembly supported him, and a new constitution was announced, recognising people’s
freedoms, equality between men and women and unity for the country, north and south.
TASKS 12. Look back 22.2, source 3, why should Ho not be surprised with the lack of French
communist support? 13. Describe d’Argenlieu’s actions. 14. Why do you think Ho said, ‘I have signed my death warrant,’ when he signed the
September agreement?
24.9 The Haiphong spark of war
The port of Haiphong was a place of great tension, since French businesses said it was
unclear who had the right to collect tax duties on imported goods. November 20, a French
patrol seized goods from Chinese smugglers, Viet Minh militia intercepted and arrested the
French crew. The French commander attacked the Viet Minh and fighting began to break
out. It spread through the port. The French government, wishing to look strong, sent troops
through Haiphong, French bomber aircraft flew in to attack and the cruiser Suffren fired
shells into the streets.
Source 9
Aerial photographs of the shelling of Haiphong, November 1946
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Neither side could restore peace, and by December, Hanoi had become a battleground. The
French authorities demanded that the Vietnamese government hand over to French troops
the right to restore order in the capital, while Ho Chi Minh called on the new chairman of
the French Council of Ministers to respect the agreements France had signed. The French
ignored him.
Source 10 On the evening of 19 December 1946, President Ho Chi Minh made an appeal to the nation: ‘Compatriots, we want peace, and we have made concessions. But the more concessions we make, the more the French colonists use them to encroach upon our rights. They are determined to reconquer our country…Let those who have guns use their guns, those who have swords use their swords, those who have neither guns nor swords use hoes, pick-axes, and sticks. Let all arise to oppose colonialism and defend our homeland…’ Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
The Viet Minh’s military leader was Vo Nguyen Giap, who called on ‘all soldiers and militia’
to unite to ‘destroy the invaders and save the nation.’ Giap was an unconventional tactician;
he used spies to get information from French military leaders, he insisted that the rural
population be politically educated in order to keep the support of the countryside, and that
Viet Minh soldiers should use the highlands as bases to launch surprise attacks against the
French.
TASKS 15. Design a newspaper front page by the French accusing the Viet Minh of causing the
conflict. Use the details you have studied and present them from the ‘French point of view.’
24.10 French use of Bao Dai as a challenge to Ho’s popularity
In 1948 Bao Dai was persuaded by the French to leave Hong Kong, where he was in exile, and signed the Elysee Agreement, in which Vietnam would be an independent country but France would keep control of its army, finance and foreign affairs. The French government aimed to make him him an alternative to Ho Chi Minh. In September 1949, Bao Dai returned to Vietnam with the titles of ‘Premier’ and ‘Emperor’ and his new government was recognized by the United States and Britain in 1950 soon after communist countries recognised Ho’s new government. However, very quickly, Bao Dai realised that he was still a puppet of the French and would not be allowed to speak about Vietnamese independence.
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Source 10
Crowds welcome the arrival of Bao Dai in Haiphong, September 1949
TASKS 16. In what ways were the Elysee Agreement 1948 and the March Accord 1946 similar
and different? 17. Why do you think the USA and Britain recognised the new government of Bao Dai? 18. What do you imagine the crowds in source 10 were expecting to happen to Vietnam,
with Bao Dai as Emperor?
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25 The Cold War
25.1 Background to the Cold War in Asia
With the growing tensions after the Second World War in Europe, Vietnam became caught
up in an international ‘cold war’ in which the two major world powers, the USSR and the
USA, used smaller countries to fight their ideological battle, a battle to win the world over to
either communism or capitalism.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
25.2 What was happening between America and communist countries? America was becoming increasingly concerned about the spread of communism.
In 1948 Stalin ordered the blockade of Berlin, trying to force Germany to split into two countries, a communist East Germany and a capitalist West Germany. This led to almost a year of European tension about a possible third world war.
Between 1947 and 1949 China was suffering a civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. Chiang Kai-shek was defeated and Mao Zedong established the communist People’s Republic of China in October 1949.
In 1950, communist North Korea (supported by troops from China and the USSR) and South Korea (supported by troops from US) were at war for control of Korea.
Source 1
President Eisenhower
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President Truman had not thought that Ho Chi Minh was a servant of Stalin and the USSR, but the new President Eisenhower developed the ‘domino theory.’ This said that communism was spreading from country to neighbouring country. It had spread from Russia to China; and now Vietnam and Korea were at risk of becoming communist. If Vietnam became communist, then Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand and India were all at risk. The French now presented themselves as the opponents of the spread of communism, and asked Eisenhower for financial and military aid.
TASKS 1. Explain how Eisenhower would have seen parallels between what was happening in
Korea and what was happening in Vietnam. 2. Draw a sketch to show Eisenhower’s ‘domino theory.’
25.3 The French fighting force
The Elysee Agreement had led to the British and United States setting up embassies in
Saigon. These were used organize the delivery of arms and material to the French forces.
With only limited forces available in Vietnam, the French troops were initially hard-pressed
by the Viet Minh, but reinforcements arrived and the CEFEO ("Corps Expéditionnaire
Français d'Extrême-Orient" or ‘French Far-Eastern Expeditionary Corps’) gained some
control over major cities and towns. Early in 1947, French armoured columns opened up the
major roads, and the Viet Minh were forced back to their hillside bases.
The French were confident that they had dispersed these ‘hill-bandits’ for good. In fact,
while the Viet Minh would melt away from major French forces and avoided full frontal
combat, they could close the roads whenever they wanted, and pick off small army units, or
French civilians in surprise attacks, often at night. The French controlled the main cities and
major roads, but the Viet Minh controlled the countryside and the mountains.
From 1952, the forces of the French Union included not only Vietnamese from the south,
but Cambodians, Lao and soldiers from French Africa. This policy was called jaunissement
(‘yellowing’) and was an attempt to give the impression that French Indochina was a united
force against communism. However, in reality, the French did not trust the South
Vietnamese to not defect to the Viet Minh and the training of these soldiers would take
over a year. It was already too late!
TASKS 3. What do you understand to be the difference between guerrilla warfare and
conventional warfare? 4. Why do you think control of the cities and main roads was not enough to control the
country? 5. Look back at 15.5, what similarities and differences do you see between the
recruiting and use of the arme´e jaune and jaunissement?
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25.4 The Viet Minh fighting force
Source 2
Photograph of Ho Chi Minh (second left) and General Giap (far right) at a hillside base
Giap organized Viet Minh troops into three levels:
Village militias (usually just a few people in each village) who were to provide material
and military support to local action. These supported the:
Regional forces, who were mainly part-time fighters who acted locally but maintained
full-time cadres (political representatives). These supported the:
Regulars or Chuc luc who were based in either Viet Bac (an area of jungle and mountains
north-west of Hanoi) or south of the Red River at the junction of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An
and Ha Tinh provinces.
TASKS 6. Draw a sketch or diagram that explains the organisation of the Viet Minh. 7. Draw two columns and head them, ‘French’ and ‘Viet Minh.’ List in each of the
columns the strengths, weakness and international support each side had.
25.5 The relationship between the Viet Minh and the peasants
Ho Chi Minh was very concerned to have the relationship between the Viet Minh and the
ordinary people based on respect, since the peasants were the people who supplied the
Viet Minh with food, shelter and a hiding place when it was needed. His guidelines were
called the ‘Twelve Recommendations.’
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Source 3 The nation has its root in the people. In the resistance war and national reconstruction, the main force lies in the people. Therefore, all the people in the army, administration, and mass organisations who are in contact or live with the people, must remember and carry out the following recommendations: Six forbiddances: 1. Not to do what is likely to damage the land and crops or spoil the houses and belongings of the people. 2. Not to insist on buying or borrowing what the people are not willing to sell or lend. 3. Not to bring living hens into mountainous people's houses. 4. Never to break our word. 5. Not to give offence to people's faith and customs (such as to lie down before the altar, to raise feet over the hearth, to play music in the house, etc.). 6. Not to do or speak what is likely to make people believe that we hold them in contempt. Six permissibles: 1. To help the people in their daily work (harvesting, fetching firewood, carrying water, sewing, etc.). 2. Whenever possible to buy commodities for those who live far from markets (knife, salt, needle, thread, pen, paper, etc.). 3. In spare time, to tell amusing, simple, and short stories useful to the Resistance, but not to betray secrets 4. To teach the population the national script and elementary hygiene. 5. To study the customs of each region so as to be acquainted with them in order to create an atmosphere of sympathy first, then gradually to explain to the people to abate their superstitions. 6. To show to the people that you are correct, diligent, and disciplined. Ho Chi Minh’s ‘Twelve Recommendations’ December 20, 1946 http://indochine54.free.fr/hist/hcmwords.html
TASKS 8. Explain why Ho felt it was important for the Viet Minh to have good relations with
the peasants. 9. Look at source 3, Ho’s ‘Twelve Recommendations’ are a detailed set of guidelines for
good relations with the peasants. Which of the permissibles or forbiddances are about:
o respect for peasant culture? o building better relationships or bonds of friendship with the peasants? o encouraging nationalist feeling and support for the Viet Minh?
25.6 International communist support for the Viet Minh
Mao, the leader of China, was encouraged by Stalin to support the Vietnamese struggle, and
Mao openly called for ‘national liberation movements’ in all colonial countries. Viet Minh
troops began receiving intensive military training in southern China. By October, well-
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trained, well-equipped Viet Minh troops, operating partly from China and partly from the
jungle highlands, mounted a major assault against the French cordon of defences in
northern Tonkin, covering the Chinese border. It took two months for the French to regain
control of the area.
Source 4 [In] 1946 Viet Nam was still geographically isolated and US imperialism still preoccupied elsewhere, was not interfering to any great extent in the affairs of Indochina. The fight essentially pitted the Vietnamese people alone against French colonialism. The victory of the Chinese revolution and founding of the people’s Republic of China in October 1949 profoundly altered the world’s balance of forces. The resistance was then able to rely upon the socialist camp and break the colonialist encirclement. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 5 Giap’s forces had the triple advantage of fighting experience won during the last phases of the Japanese occupation, of occasional material aid from Mao Zedong’s Communists in China, and of operating in a region where the population was on their side. Logevall, Fredrik: The Origins of the Vietnam War, 2001
Chinese support increased as the Viet Minh’s successes increased. By March 1952 the
Americans estimated that about 15,000 communist Chinese troops were serving in Vietnam
in technical and advisory roles, and the Viet Minh were equipped with small arms, machine
guns and anti-aircraft guns supplied by the Chinese. By 1954 this had increased to over
8,000 tons of supplies, including ammunition, petroleum, rice and Soviet Russian rocket-
launchers.
China also influenced the Viet Minh’s military strategy. At first Giap’s idea had been to
exhaust the French by constant small attacks that would slowly but surely kill their soldiers.
The Chinese recommended a policy of annihilation, whereby Giap would choose a suitably
small French force and assault it with a much larger one. In this way, French forts along the
Chinese border were wiped out, one by one.
TASKS 10. Look at source 4, why do you think that when China became communist, this ‘altered
the world’s balance of forces’? 11. What do you think source 4 is referring to when it speaks of ‘colonialist
encirclement’? 12. Source 5 lists three ways that Giap was advantaged. China’s help was one, what
were the other two? 13. Describe the help that China gave the Viet Minh.
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25.7 The propaganda war
The French propaganda message to discourage support of the Viet Minh contrasted life
under French rule with life under the DRV. It also followed the American line that all
communist activity was dictated by Stalin .
Sources 6 and 7
French anti-communist propaganda posters, 1950s
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TASKS 14. Look at source 6, how does it depict life under French rule and contrast it with life
under DRV rule? Describe what you can see. 15. Look at source 7, what does it show Stalin doing and how does it portray Ho Chi
Minh? What is it saying about these two people?
The Viet Minh also used propaganda to popularise their cause, artists working with very
limited resources produced powerful messages to attract attention and win support from
the Vietnamese people.
Source 8
Propaganda poster march, by the artists in Hanoi, 1949
Source 9 A new cultural life was born in the liberated zones. Each unit of the armed forces and each village had its own art groups. Writers and artists, both amateur and professional, wrote poems or did sketches, and cinema teams were set up…In difficult wartime conditions, those authors were not able to reach great literary heights, but the poems, short stories, fables, reports and occasional novel to be awarded prizes revealed a new wellspring in Vietnamese literature. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
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25.8 President Eisenhower’s reluctance to help the French further
In response to increasing French difficulties, the US increased their aid to the French,
supplying weapons and money and aircraft. Some American leaders said the US should join
the fight if Britain would as well; but the British government was afraid this would lead to an
international war including China and the USSR. French General Ely went to Washington to
ask President Eisenhower to send in American troops; and even suggested using atomic
weapons. Eisenhower was not impressed by the French army, calling them ‘a hopeless,
helpless mass of protoplasm.’ America also ended a war with communist North Korea in
which 40,000 American soldiers had died, and the US government was not prepared to see
more American lives lost.
Source 10
Vice-President Nixon visiting South Vietnamese troops, 1953
Source 11 The war became a Franco-American war against the Vietnamese people, and through it, against the national liberation movement in Asia…US aid to France rose to 385 million dollars in 1953, covering 60 percent of expenditure on the war…by July 1954, American missions led by high-ranking officials, including…Vice-President Nixon participated directly in working out France’s military strategy. Airlifts were organised in France, the Philippines and Japan to supply the French… Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
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As the situation for the French got worse, Eisenhower’s administration decided they would
not give more help on their own. In his memoirs Eisenhower explained that he could not get
the American Congress to support sending in US troops unless:
The US acted along with Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines and the British
Commonwealth,
The French worked quickly towards giving Indochina greater independence,
The French agreed not to withdraw their troops out of the war, if the US put their
troops in.
There was little popular support in America to get more involved, and Senator John F.
Kennedy (who later became president) explained why:
Source 10 ‘I am frankly of the belief that no amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, ‘an enemy of the people’ which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.’ Winkler, Allan M: The Cold War – A History in Documents, 2000
TASKS 16. Explain why America would not get more directly involved in the war. 17. Explain why the British were reluctant to become directly involved in the war. 18. In his memoirs, how does Eisenhower show that Americans were still not in favour of
colonialism? 19. Why do you think that Eisenhower was afraid that the French might withdraw their
troops, if the US put their troops in? 20. Look at source 10, according to Kennedy, why couldn’t the French win this war?
25.9 Dien Bien Phu and the defeat of the French (1954)
Ho compared the Viet Minh to grasshoppers fighting French elephants; but this was
misleading. General Giap had an army of over 100,000 men now well supplied with
weapons. The French also had 100,000 troops along with 300,000 southern Vietnamese
troops, but the guerrilla methods used by the Viet Minh were difficult to defeat because the
French could not effectively control 130,000 kilometres of forest. There was considerable
pressure back in France to finish the war. Over the last seven years more than 80,000
French troops had been killed or wounded, and there was no sign that the French were
winning. The cost of the war was considerable, and was paid for by American and French
taxes.
Source 11 So the war continued, while the United States kept on raising the level of material aid until American tax payers were carrying by the spring of 1954 about three-uarters of the financial
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cost of the French effort. Bombers, cargo planes, trucks, naval craft, automatic weapons, small arms and ammunition, radios, hospital and engineering equipment plus financial aid flowed heavily. Between 1950 and 1954 US investment in the war in Indochina reached a total of approximately $3 billion. Logevall, Fredrik: The Origins of the Vietnam War, 2001
The French wanted to attack in a conventional battle in which their superior American
weapons and standard tactics would be an advantage. General Giap decided to lure the
French into such a battle by sending troops into northwest Laos.
Source 12
Army aerial photograph of the valley of Dien Bien Phu
General Navarre sent 15,000 French troops to Dien Bien Phu, a valley close to the Laos-
Vietnam border, to prevent Viet Minh movement. Navarre believed he was in a better
position, the valley was surrounded by high mountains making it seemingly impossible for
the Viet Minh to transport heavy artillery to the area or to use airplanes in an attack.
However, Navarre completely underestimated Giap’s determination to prepare for a full
scale battle. Giap prepared an army of 60,000 Viet Minh troops, who carried over 200 pieces
of Chinese heavy artillery on their backs over the mountains. Once in position, these were
completely hidden by the thick mountain trees. A dense fog covered the valley, limiting
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French air support and the monsoon storms made it impossible for airplanes to supply the
French troops with equipment.
Source 13
Viet Minh soldiers pulling a howitzer across a hill
Source 14 Colonel Tran Do, described the experience of moving each howitzer uphill: ‘Each night, at the hour when the freezing fog came down the hills into the valley, groups of men arrived on the roads… The track was so narrow that if a slight deviation of the wheels had taken place, the gun would have fallen into the deep ravine. The newly opened track was soon an ankle deep bog. With our sweat and muscles, we kept re-building the track to haul the artillery into position.’
http://talkvietnam.com/
Source 15 On the Vietnamese side, the heroism and tenacity of hundreds of thousands of men and women enabled them to overcome all the difficulties involved in the supply and installation of artillery pieces…The French were caught unprepared, as they never believed it was possible to haul big artillery pieces up rugged peaks and camouflage them perfectly, or the Vietnamese gunners could be trained in such a short period of time. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 16
North Vietnamese troops rally before the attack on the French
Giap did not launch a direct attack. First he used the heavy artillery to bomb the French, destroying their airstrip in the first few days, now French supplies had to be dropped in (from Hanoi, over 300 kilometres away), and often these were too exposed to be collected safely. Viet Minh dug tunnels to allow them to get closer unseen. When they attacked, the French troops were cut off and extremely vulnerable.
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Source 17
Photograph of French troops watching as supplies are parachuted into the valley
After almost sixty days of fighting, on 7 May 1954, the French surrendered. Around two
thousand French troops had been killed, while the Viet Minh had lost over eight thousand.
Source 18
Vietnamese soldier hoists a flag above a French Command Post at Dien Bien Phu
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TASKS 21. Explain why it was misleading for Ho to compare the Viet Minh to grasshoppers
fighting French elephants. 22. Describe the French losses over the period of the war. 23. Look at source 11, what military support were the Americans giving the French by
1954? 24. Explain why Navarre chose Dien Bien Phu as the site for a showdown with the Viet
Minh.? 25. Look at sources 13, 14 and 15, and with your own knowledge, explain how Giap
prepared for a full scale attack. 26. How does source 13 support the evidence of source 14? 27. Explain how the weather conditions would have made supplying the French troops
ineffective?
28. Look at source 17, what other difficulty can you see for the French in getting supplies?
29. One western historian called the French defeat evidence of, ‘an underdeveloped irregular force over a conventional army.’ Is this a fair description of the Viet Minh and their victory? Explain your answer.
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26 The Geneva Conference 1954
26.1 Background to the Geneva Conference
Under great pressure from the French people, and from growing anti-French opinion
internationally, the French government agreed in November 1953 to discuss ‘the Indochina
question’ at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland in April 1954. The leaders of France, the
United States, China, the USSR, Britain and Bao Dai’s puppet government in Vietnam were
already discussing Indochina when the French lost at Dien Bien Phu.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
26.2 What was happening in the rest of Indochina and South East Asia? At the end of World War II a group of leading Lao families had formed the Lao Issara (Free Lao) and revolted against French occupation. They were defeated very quickly, but recovered when communists joined them to form the Pathet Lao(Lao Nation) army. Supported by the Viet Minh, the Pathet Lao had taken control of almost half the country. France was exhausted, and could not continue to fight anywhere in Indochina. Source 1
Pathet Lao guerrillas, during the war of liberation in Laos
However, Britain was waging a successful guerrilla war in their colony of Malaya against Chinese and Malayan communists. Source 2
Federation of Malayan police, 1949
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26.3 Tensions between the different representatives at the conference
The conference was extremely tense; and the relationship between the delegates was very
poor. President Eisenhower tried to pressure the French to continue fighting, and was
frustrated when a new French Prime Minister had been elected who had promised to end
the war by July. The French delegates refused to speak to Viet Minh representatives, and
the Pathet Lao was not even allowed to attend the conference. The American
representative wanted the other delegates to say that China’s continued involvement with
Indochina was no better than the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
Source 3
Representatives (Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai in the centre) at the Geneva Conference, 1954
TASKS 1. Why do you think the French people voted for a Prime Minister who promised to
end the war in less than a year? 2. Why do you think the French representatives would not speak to the Viet Minh’s
representatives? 3. Why do you think the Viet Minh were allowed to attend the conference, but the
Pathet Lao were not? 4. Do you think the success of the British against the communists in Malaya influenced
how America behaved? Explain your answer. 5. What do you think the Americans were trying to say about China, by comparing it to
the Japanese in Manchuria in 1931? Explain your answer.
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26.4 The agreements reached at the conference
All three countries within Indochina were declared by France to be independent. There was
to be a cease-fire while new political structures were to be set up and an International
Control Commission of Indians, Canadians and Poles was to supervise the agreement.
The Pathet Lao was given control of only two provinces in the newly independent Laos, the
rest was to go to an anti-communist government supported by America.
Source 4
Map of the Geneva agreement over Vietnam
Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel of latitude.
Ho Chi Minh would rule north Vietnam with the communist party, as leader of the DRV.
Ngo Din Diem as Prime Minister under Bao Dai would rule south Vietnam (a strong opponent of communism), as leader of the ‘Republic of Vietnam.’
French troops would leave Vietnam and the Viet Minh would leave South Vietnam and the 17th parallel would be a demilitarised zone.
The Vietnamese people could choose which side of the 17th parallel to live and had the freedom to move for the next two hundred days.
A general election would be held by July 1956 throughout Vietnam, to decide the future of the country.
TASKS 6. In what ways do you think the treatment of the Pathet Lao and the Viet Minh was
the same, and in what ways different? Explain your answer. 7. Why do you think the conference agreed to a continued division of Vietnam until
July 1956 (what do you think both sides hoped to gain at a general election)?
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26.5 Why did China allow such a bad settlement? There is much discussion among historians as to why Ho agreed to the decisions of the Geneva Conference, since Vietnam was still divided. All historians agree that China was the main reason for the final decisions of the conference, and that the Viet Minh had little choice. However, China’s reasons were complicated. Source 5 In effect, Ho Chi Minh had settled for half a country, even though his forces were dominant in virtually all of it. Why did he do so? Simply put, because the key players at Geneva left him no real alternative…Beijing’s motivations were complex, but a key concern was the same as for the Soviets, French and British: to avoid giving the United States an excuse to intervene in Vietnam. Logevall, Fredrik: The Origins of the Vietnam War, 2001
Source 6 [T]he French delegates in Geneva refused to meet the Vietnamese, but held long negotiations with the Chinese, and the two parties agreed on the main elements of a compromise acceptable to both…the northern half of Viet Nam and two Laotian provinces (Sam Neua and Phongsaly) would be controlled by the Vietnamese and Lao patriotic forces. China’s southern borders would thus be protected by buffer zones controlled by forces that Beijing believed it could easily handle. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
Source 7 The Soviet Union and Chinese delegates, Molotov and Zhou Enlai, were not prepared to back the Viet Minh claim to the whole of Vietnam. They favoured a peaceful compromise. The Chinese had always worried about the danger of a strong united Vietnam south of their border. Wood, John: Vietnam and the Indochina Conflict, 1990
Source 8 DRV leaders were frustrated by their less than complete success, but the Chinese and Soviets were more interested in improved relations with the western powers than in pressing Vietnamese goals. Hall, Mitchell: The Vietnam War, 2000
TASKS 8. According to source 5, what was the key concern that China, the Soviets, Britain and
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France all shared? 9. According to source 6, what did China gain by getting the Viet Minh to rule the
northern half of Vietnam and the Pathet Lao to rule two northern Lao provinces? 10. According to source 7, what was China afraid of? 11. According to source 8, what was China’s main concern? 12. Overall, given that China helped the Viet Minh win the war against France, why do
you think they left the Viet Minh with such a bad settlement? Explain your answer.
26.6 Ngo Dinh Diem
Few people believed that the settlement would lead to a lasting peace. The Americans refused to sign the agreement, and Eisenhower said he would not be bound by the decisions taken at the conference. America had pressured France into making Bao Dai appoint Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister of the new southern Republic of Vietnam. Ngo took power in July 1954 and it was obvious he was a terrible choice; a Roman Catholic in a country of mostly Buddhists, from a wealthy and corrupt family, arrogant and self-opinionated, as a collaborator with the French puppet ruler Bao Dai he was deeply disliked by all nationalist Vietnamese and after the French left he inherited a state with no real government, police force or troops and which had suffered terrible war damage. The Americans wanted him only because he was deeply anti-communist.
TASKS 13. Why do you think the Americans refused to sign the agreement? 14. Explain why Ngo Dinh Diem was such a bad choice as Prime Minister of the new
republic?
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27 An overview of the colonial period
27.1 How are we to assess French colonialism?
Source 1
European drawing, ‘The arrival of the [French] Governor General of Indochina’ 1902
President Roosevelt did not have a good opinion of French colonialism. Modern historians
compare the ways that different European colonial powers governed their colonies.
Source 2 Paris never articulated a clear and coherent colonial policy for Indochina – so long as it remained in French hands and open to French economic interests, the French government was satisfied. The political management of Indochina was left to a series of governors, appointed by Paris. More than 20 governors were sent to Indochina between 1900 and 1945; each had different attitudes and approaches. Colonial governors, officials and bureaucrats had significant autonomy and authority, so often wielded more power than they ought have. This situation encouraged self-interest, corruption, venality and heavy-handedness. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
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27.2 Who benefited and who suffered the most?
The wars that had led to the French take-over of Vietnam in the 1880s had never been
followed by any real support towards the largest class of Vietnamese people in the country,
the peasants. In fact their condition had worsened over the following years.
Source 2 The seizure of land by the colonisers, mandarins and dignitaries who placed themselves at the service of the French, the increase in financial charges, the duties on alcohol and salt…considerably worsened the peasant’s plight. The colonial administration was more concerned with building railways and roads of strategic importance or serving colonial enterprises than with building hydraulic works essential for protecting crops…Drought, floods and constant food shortages, punctuated by recurrent famine, afflicted the peasantry. Nguyen, Khac Vien: Vietnam, A Long History, 2009
French colonialism had divided the Vietnamese into collaborators and resistors. The
collaborators gained a European education and positions of authority, but were a minority
hated by their own people.
French use of forced conscription (corvée), their cruel treatment of anti-colonial resistors,
combined with the national use of quoc ngu and their refusal to treat collaborators as equal
to Europeans all contributed to a new Vietnamese national self-awareness. However, France
developed Vietnam into a capitalist economy with international markets, and the people
gained the benefits of this. One French essayist describes an example of these benefits.
Source 4 extract from an essay, Le Fardeau de l’Homme Blanc (White Man’s Burden) By Ari Meyers, 1902 Kim Van Dinh, a merchant’s wife in Saigon, was especially influenced by these new trade routes. She says “my family’s business was faltering. The demand for the products we were selling was very low, and we were barely getting by day by day. The trade routes allowed us to get our products out into Europe and gave us a new life.” Her family’s major export was rice, and with the demand high in Europe, she was able to get an income. But colonization affected her in more ways than one: “My youngest son was able to start school, whereas I grew up uneducated. Other Vietnamese complain about the Europeans ridding us of our culture and making us work, but I only see the good they have done for us. Business is booming, I live a comfortable life.” http://wp.menloschool.org/mwhbblock/?cat=4
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27.3 Did the French fail as colonial masters?
The French, on the whole, failed to understand or sympathise with the rising of anti-French
feeling.
Source 5 extract from an essay, Le Fardeau de l’Homme Blanc (White Man’s Burden) By Ari Meyers, 1902 You may encounter many Vietnamese people who resent our actions, who claim that we have stripped them of their culture simply for our own profit, but these allegations are false. The Vietnamese who resent us have simply refused to accept the western ways that are bettering their country. True, we westernized them, but it was not entirely for our benefit alone. We set out to better the lives of those living in Indochina. http://wp.menloschool.org/mwhbblock/?cat=4
Source 4
Vietnamese nationalists arrested by French troops in Saigon, September 1945
During both the First and Second World Wars, the French made promises to improve the conditions of the people, and give greater political independence. On both occasions they failed to live up to these promises. After 1945 the French actively made efforts to take back control of Indochina and suppress nationalist resistance despite the open opposition of America and the international decline in support for colonial rule.
27.4 How did the Vietnamese feel about the end of French rule?
For all nationalists, the expulsion of the French was the end of domination by foreigners and
the beginning of independence. For communists, it was also part of a greater story, a
people’s war waged by a people’s army as part of a struggle by all colonised nations to
liberate themselves from imperialism, and the beginning of a brotherhood of socialist
countries.
However, two Vietnams now existed. For the communist North Vietnamese DRV, the
Geneva Conference had led to only a partial liberation of the country. Now a national
revolutionary movement was needed to build the foundations of socialism in the north
while aiming to inspire revolution in the south.
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Source 5
The first Viet Minh troops arrive in Hanoi to replace the French, October 1954
America was determined to prevent the spread of communism further into South East Asia
and southern Vietnam, and was already secretly interfering directly in other countries.
Eisenhower wrote to the newly appointed leader of South Vietnam. The seeds of the
American War can be found in his words.
Source 6 I have been following with great interest the course of developments in Viet-Nam, particularly since the conclusion of the conference at Geneva. The implications of the agreement concerning Viet-Nam have caused grave concern regarding the future of a country temporarily divided by an artificial military grouping, weakened by a long and exhausting war, and faced with enemies without and subversive collaborations within. http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/eisenhower-ngo-dinh-diem-1954/
TASKS 1. THE GREAT DEBATE: The class will set up a debate to consider the benefits and losses
of French rule in Indochina. Key ideas for the debate:
a) Economic benefits b) Nationalism c) la mission civilisatrice d) quoc ngo e) Christianity f) The Vietnamese emperors
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188
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All photographs and art work used in the book are taken from the internet and considered to be in the public domain. All texts use are
cited. The book is for educational purposes only, No violation of copyright or of rights to such material is intended. Editing of material has
relied entirely on Microsoft Word.
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