HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

From 110 B.C.E. to 938 C.E., much of present-day Vietnam, except for brief periods, was part of China. After gaining independence, Vietnam went through a history of resisting outside aggression. The French gained control of Indochina during a series of colonial wars beginning in the 1840s and lasting through the 1880s. At the post-World War I negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Ho Chí Minh requested that a delegation of Vietnamese be admitted in order to work toward obtaining independence for the Indochinese colonies. His request was rejected, and Indochina's status as a colony of France remained unchanged.

During the Second World War, the government of Vichy France cooperated with Japan, whose forces occupied Indochina. Although the French continued to serve as official administrators until 1944, Japan controlled their three colonies. Ho returned to Vietnam and formed a resistance group to oppose the Japanese in the north, aided by teams deployed by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency). These teams worked behind enemy lines in Indochina, giving support to indigenous resistance groups. In 1944, the Japanese overthrew the French administration and humiliated its colonial officials in front of the Vietnamese population. The Japanese then began to encourage nationalist activity among the Vietnamese and, late in the war, granted Vietnam nominal independence.

After the Japanese surrender, Vietnamese nationalists, communists, and other groups hoped to finally take control of the country. The Japanese army assisted the Viet Minh – Hồ's resistance army – and other Vietnamese independence groups by imprisoning French officials and soldiers and handing over public buildings to the Vietnamese. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chí Minh declared independence from France, proclaiming a new Vietnamese government under his leadership. In his exultant speech before a huge audience in Hanoi, he cited the U.S. Declaration of Independence and a band played "The Star Spangled Banner." Ho, who had been a founding member of the French Communist Party in the early 1920s, anticipated that perhaps the Americans would ally themselves with the Vietnamese nationalist movement. He based this hope on speeches by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who opposed a revival of European colonialism after World War II.

Photograph of the telegram from Hồ Chí Minh to Harry S. Truman dated February 1946, requesting American aid.

Ho's rule only lasted a few days since, at the Potsdam Conference, the Allies had decided that Vietnam would be jointly occupied by Nationalist Chinese and British forces who would supervise the Japanese surrender and repatriation (Karnow, 163). The Chinese army arrived in Vietnam from the north a few days after Hồ's declaration of independence, taking over areas north of the 16th parallel.

The British arrived in the south in October and supervised the surrender and departure of the Japanese army from Indochina. With these actions, the government of Hồ Chí Minh effectively ceased to exist. In the South, the French implored the British to turn control of the region back over to them. Hồ sought international relief from the impending French takeover, including a telegram to President Harry S. Truman, hoping to persuade American intervention.

French officials, when released from Japanese prisons at the end of September 1945, took matters into their own hands in some areas. In the north, the French negotiated with both the Nationalist government of China and the Viet Minh. By agreeing to give up Shanghai and its other concessions in China, the French persuaded the Chinese to allow them to return to northern Vietnam and negotiate with the Viet Minh.

Ho agreed to allow French forces to land outside Hanoi, while France agreed to recognize an independent Vietnam within the new French Union. In the meantime, Hồ took advantage of this period of negotiations to liquidate competing nationalist groups in the north. After negotiations with Hồ collapsed over the possibility of his forming a government within the Union in December 1946, the French bombarded Haiphong, killing thousands, and then entered Hanoi.

Ho and the Việt Minh fled into the mountainous north to begin an insurgency, marking the beginning of the First Indochina War. After the defeat of the Nationalists by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, Premier Mao Zedong was able to provide direct military assistance to the Viet Minh. By this method, Viet Minh obtained more modern weapons, supplies, and the expertise necessary to transform themselves into a more conventional military force.