During the Second World War, French Indochina was occupied by Japanese troops. With Japan weakening, a vacuum of power was created in the former French Indochina, which was filled by the Communists. At the end of 1944, they began the formation of armed detachments. The Communist Party of Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh, and the armed forces were led by Vo Nguyen Ziap for most of the conflict.
The course of the war
The first incident involving Vietnam is the events of December 24 and 25, 1944, when an armed communist detachment made a daring assault on the French posts in Fukat and Nangan, wisely using the natural relaxation before Christmas. The French lieutenants of the quarters were killed, and their Vietnamese subordinates (30 and 16, respectively) surrendered.
By mid-1945, Vietmin controlled a substantial portion of the territory of North Vietnam; the number of partisans was already about 10 thousand. The defeat of Japan in the World War further weakened the likeness of centralized power in Vietnam. On August 15, in the town of Tanchao, in the area inhabited by hill tribes (which is especially emphasized in all Vietnamese works on the issue of ethnic minorities), the beginning of the armed struggle was proclaimed. On August 19, the Communists occupied Hanoi. The ineffective actions of the Japanese and French administrations in 1944-1945 allowed the Vietnamese communists to seize power without major casualties. France did not want to lose its colonial possessions, and the war between the Vietnamese Communists and the French troops became an obvious prospect.
On November 20, 1946, a Vietnamese boat was fired from a French warship in the North Vietnamese port of Haiphong. On November 21, the French command sent an ultimatum to the leadership of Vietnam (the Communist Party of Vietnam) demanding that Haiphong be cleared of its presence. After the failure to fulfill these conditions, the French troops carried out a massive shelling of the city. On December 19, 1946, the French command demanded the disarmament of the Vietnamese forces in Haiphong. Due to the significant superiority in armament, the French troops effectively drove the Vietnamese Communists out of the major settlements of Vietnam.
By the end of March 1947, the French-controlled the main cities, roads connecting them with each other, and the coastal territory. The main stronghold of the Communists was the impassable terrain in northern Vietnam on the border with China - Vietbak. Attempts by the French to defeat this partisan region in 1947 were unsuccessful and led mainly to the deterioration of military equipment and a decrease in the fighting spirit of soldiers. At the same time, Vietminh accumulated military forces and improved their structure, leading it to the usual for regular troops. The armed forces of the Vietnamese Communists in the period 1946-1950 are estimated at about 60 thousand people.
In 1948-1950, the actions of the French troops were of the nature of “sweeping” of certain territories, the small number of French colonial troops did not allow for effective offensive operations deep into the jungle.
In September 1950, Vietmin destroyed several French garrisons near the Chinese border. The French troops lost about six thousand people.
In 1950, the first 35 American military advisers arrived in Vietnam to help the French. By 1952, their number grew to two hundred.
In the spring of 1952, the colonial troops went over to the defensive and fortified themselves at the most economically important points in northern Vietnam (southern Vietnam was a relatively calm place for the French). The Vietnamese, being at the end of 1951 confident in their military advantage, launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on the French position. These battles led to heavy casualties from heavy weapons (napalm, heavy artillery, river, and sea warships). At the end of 1952, the French launched an offensive operation and captured the town of Hoabin, located forty kilometers from the line of defensive lines. But at the beginning of 1953, due to problems with the supply of troops (the Vietnamese blocked the road and the river path, shot down enemy transport aircraft), the garrison had to be evacuated with heavy losses. In the fall of 1952, Vietmin launched an offensive on the rare French fortifications along the western border of Vietnam. The colonial forces tried unsuccessfully to divert the attention of the Vietnamese from these fortifications by attacking the supply bases in Vietbak. The French had little strength to carry out an effective offensive operation, and they had to retreat without achieving their objectives.
