Vietnam War - France

Counterinsurgency - The French Experience - Transcript of a 1963 presentation given by Dr. Bernard Fall to the students and faculty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Dien Bien Phu - Comprehensive web page on "the longest, most furious battle of the French Expeditionary Corps in the Far East. 170 days of confrontation, 57 days of hell."

Dien Bien Phu: A Battle to Remember - Bernard Fall. Vietnam Magazine article. This article by the late Bernard B. Fall is an account of one of the most significant battles to take place in Vietnam. A conflict between Communist Viet Minh forces and a French-established garrison, it occurred in a town called "Seat of the Border County Prefecture" or, in Vietnamese, Dien Bien Phu. Bernard Fall wrote that in comparison with other world battles, Dien Bien Phu could hardly qualify as a major battle, let alone a decisive one. "Yet," he said, "that is exactly what it was." The siege occurred while the 1954 Geneva Conference was ironing out agreements between the major powers, including the future of Indochina. When Viet Minh forces overran Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954, it was, according to Fall, the end of French military influence in Asia.

T. E. Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent - James Schneider. Army magazine article, July 2005. In 1946 French Gen. Raoul Salan conducted several interviews with Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who planned and directed the military operations against the French that culminated in their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Salan was part of a post-World War II negotiating mission established to finalize the return of French authority to Vietnam. Later he would command the French Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam from May 20, 1951, until May 1953, conducting the last successful military action against Ho Chi Minh. In an action designated Operation Lorraine, Salan’s forces swept through the Red River Valley and the jungles of North Vietnam on October 11, 1952. The following year he turned over his command to Gen. Henri-Eugene Navarre, the ill-fated commander at Dien Bien Phu. During the 1946 interviews, Salan was struck by the influence of one man upon the thinking of Giap; that man was Thomas Edward Lawrence. Giap told Salan: “My fighting gospel is T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am never without it.

Foreign Legion Specialized Units in Indochina - Mireille Nicoud and Shaun Darragh. Vietnam Magazine article. The underdeveloped nature of Indochina demanded a number of technical units to perform combat support and service support functions that were not easily duplicated among the locally recruited labor force. As the few Foreign Legion engineering units proved their worth, they spun off a number of similar units with increasingly specialized functions throughout Indochina. These were followed by logistics and service units, to include an aerial delivery company and port terminal units. The peculiar combat environment of the major river deltas also produced a need for amphibious assault units - a need met by Legionnaire Cavalry from the most tradition - bound arm of the French Army.

The Hoa Binh Campaign - Shaun Darragh. Vietnam Magazine article. By late 1951, the French army had recovered from their disasters along Colonial Route 4 the previous autumn. Giap's newly invigorated Viet Minh battle corps had been stopped on the doorstep of Hanoi at the Battle of Dong Trieu in March 1951. In May 1951 its move into the Red River Delta via the Day River was checked during hard fighting at Ninh Binh, Yen Phuc and Thai Binh. Then, in October 1951, the Viet Minh had been temporarily expelled from the Black River highlands at Nghia Lo after a daring airborne drop into their rear. In the course of a year, the French army had gone from panic verging on defeat to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Setting the Stage in Vietnam - David Zabecki. Vietnam Magazine article. Beaten in the Red River delta, the Viet Minh proved at Hoa Binh they had learned their lesson, a lesson that would win them the war.   In October 1950, it appeared as if the Viet Minh had reached a turning point in their war against the French. Operating from bases across the border in Communist controlled China, the Viet Minh forces of General Vo Nguyen Giap swept down upon the string of French border posts that ran along Vietnam's Colonial Route 4. When the smoke cleared away on October 17, the French had lost over 6,000 troops. The defeat stunned the French government, which immediately recalled its high commissioner for Indochina, Leon Pignon, and the commander-in-chief of the French Expeditionary Corps, General Georges Carpentier. As a replacement for both, Paris sent General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Widely considered France's greatest living soldier, de Lattre had commanded the First Free French Army in World War II.