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to their mountain bases in northern and central Vietnam. While the Viet Minh were building up and training an army, the Expeditionary Force was consolidating its control over the Red River Delta and establishing a string of highly vulnerable outposts around guerrilla-held territory. In October 1947 the French attempted an ambitious all-out attack against enemy headquarters, but it soon became obvious that this was an unconventional “war without fronts” where Viet Minh troops could simply melt away into the jungle when threatened. In addition, the French suffered from hit-and-run attacks deep within the delta, unprotected by a local population who either actively supported or at least tolerated the Viet Minh. Although the French persuaded Bao Dai to return as head of the Associated State of Vietnam in March 1949, most Vietnamese regarded him as a mere puppet and his government won little support.

The war entered a new phase after the Communist victory in China in 1949. With military aid flowing across the border, Bao Dai’s shaky government was seen as the last bastion of the free world; America was drawn in and funded the French military to the tune of at least $3 billion by 1954. The Viet Minh, under the command of General Giap, recorded their first major victory, forcing the French to abandon their outposts along the Chinese border and gaining unhindered access to sanctuary in China. Early in 1951, equipped with Chinese weapons and confident of success, the Viet Minh launched an assault on Hanoi itself, but in this first pitched battle of the war, suffered a massive defeat, losing over six thousand troops in a battle that saw napalm deployed for the first time in Vietnam. But Giap (known as “the snow-covered volcano” for his ice-cold exterior concealing a fiery temper) had learnt his lesson, and for the next two years the French sought in vain to repeat their success.

By now France was tiring of the war and in 1953 made contact with Ho Chi Minh to find some way of resolving the conflict. The Americans were growing increasingly impatient with French progress, and at one stage threatened to deploy tactical nuclear weapons against the Viet Minh; the Russians and Chinese were also applying pressure to end the fighting. Eventually, the two sides agreed to discussions at the Geneva Conference, due to take place in May the next year to discuss Korean peace. Meanwhile in Vietnam, a crucial battle was unfolding in an isolated valley on the Lao border, near the town of Dien Bien Phu. Early in 1954 French battalions established a massive camp here, deliberately trying to tempt the enemy into the open. Instead the Viet Minh surrounded the valley, cut off reinforcements and slowly closed in (see "The Battle of Dien Bien Phu" for the full story). After 59 days of bitter fighting the French were forced to surrender on May 7, 1954, the eve of the Geneva Conference. The eight years of war proved costly to both sides: total losses on the French side stood at 93,000, while an estimated two hundred thousand Viet Minh soldiers had been killed.

History |

The Geneva Conference

On May 8, a day after the French capitulation at Dien Bien Phu, the nine delegations attending the Geneva Conference trained their focus upon Indochina. Armed with the knowledge that they now controlled around 65 percent of the country, the Viet Minh delegation arrived in buoyant mood. But the lasting peace they sought wasn’t forthcoming: hampered by distrust, the conference succeeded only in reaching a stopgap solution, a necessarily ambiguous compromise which, however, allowed the French to withdraw with some honour and recognized Vietnamese sovereignty at least in part. Keen to have a weak and fractured nation on their southern border, the Chinese delegation spurred the Viet Minh into agreeing to a division of the country; reliant upon Chinese arms, the Viet Minh were forced to comply.

Under the terms of July 1954’s Geneva Accords Vietnam was divided at the Seventeenth Parallel, along the Ben Hai River, pending nationwide free elections to be held by July