The Backwater in a Global War.
Developments in French Indochina depended on the course of the Second World War, in which the French colony played no important part. In Summer 1940, Germany defeated France and drove the British off the Continent. In this moment of crisis, the French Third Republic gave way to the “Vichy Regime.” Germany held the whip hand over Vichy: the Germans occupied two-thirds of the country (and eventually all of it); retained hundreds of thousands of French P.O.W.’s; and ruthlessly exploited the French economy. At home, Vichy pursued a “National Revolution,” while simultaneously trying to defend its overseas empire. The latter proved to be difficult. Dissident and colonial nationalists sought to engage the “Anglo-Saxons.” Eventually, French possessions in the Levant, the South Pacific, and Africa all fell under the control of anti-Vichy forces.
A variety of this larger pattern arose in French Indochina. There, the colonial administration declared for Vichy. Almost immediately, predators gathered. In this case, it was Japan. Japan had been at war in China since 1937. As the Japanese campaign had bogged down short of a Chinese surrender, Japan had sought to cut off the sources of external aid to China. These ran through British-ruled Burma and French-ruled Indochina. The rise of German power in Europe came to pre-occupy British and French leaders. Painfully aware of their own weaknesses, Britain and France increasingly sought to accommodate Japan in the Far East.
Only meager French forces defended the colony. The “Colonial Army” consisted of French soldiers of the all-volunteer force (sometimes called “Marines”) and regiments of indigenous troops under French officers. In addition, there were three battalions of the Foreign Legion. The regiments of indigenous troops—“Tirailleurs”–numbered about 48,000 men, the French and Legion troops numbered about 17,000 men. Neither supplies nor new recruits reached Indochina after France’s defeat in 1940. French air forces in Indochina totaled only about 100 planes, many of them obsolete. The French Navy ships in Indochina consisted of a light cruiser and at least four corvettes.
In July 1940, Governor Admiral Jean Decoux signed an agreement with Japan under duress. It allowed Japan to station forces in Indochina and to transit through the territory for other operations. Then Japan exploited France’s subordination to Japan’s ally Germany to extract more substantial concessions. In September 1940, Japanese troops marched into the northern territory of Tonkin; less than a year later, in July 1941, they moved into southern Indochina. Just as Vichy served as Germany’s puppet in the metropole, so did the French colonial administration serve as a Japanese puppet in Indochina. Thereafter, French troops still manned the defenses; French bureaucrats still handled the pettifoggery; French businessmen and planters still managed the economy. All was done under the suspicious gaze of the Japanese.[1]
Already in control of much of China, from late 1941 to mid-1942, Japan’s military over-ran a vast swath of territory belonging to the Western powers. British Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, the American Philippines, and a host of islands to the south and east all passed under Japanese rule. French Indochina lay isolated at the center of the Japanese empire. Then the tide of Japanese victory began to ebb, as did that if its ally Germany. By Summer 1944, the final outcome of the war seemed as certain as can be in anything so risky and surprising as war. The Anglo-Americans liberated France and joined the Soviet Union in the direct assault on Germany. A long string of American victories in the Pacific had destroyed Japanese naval power and brought American bombers within range of the Home Islands.
A footnote to these great events appeared in the effort by the government of liberated France to assert its control over French Indochina. In 1940, Winston Churchill had ordered the creation of a new organization to assist anti-German resistance movements in Europe. This “Special Operations Executive” (S.O.E.) then added a Far Eastern element (Force 136) to work against the Japanese. In later 1944 and 1945, Force 136 airdropped 40 French “Jedburghs”[2] into northern Indochina. These men had exciting adventures, but made little difference on the ground.
More importantly, Governor Admiral Decoux grew restive under Japanese control as Japan’s own doom drew near. He made contact with the new government in France; he began to prepare an uprising against the Japanese; and he refused to turn over to the Japanese American Navy fliers downed during a carrier raid in the South China Sea.
The carrier raid into the South China Sea alarmed the already-edgy local Japanese commander.[3] He feared an imminent American invasion of Indochina and had some knowledge of Decoux’s preparation for a French uprising. The Japanese Army began moving troops from surrounding areas into Indochina, almost doubling the size of the occupation force by the end of February 1945. They spread out to key positions around the country. On 9 March 1945, after obtaining permission from the government in Tokyo, Japanese troops in Indochina swarmed over the French garrisons around the colony. The French fought in a number of places, but all resistance had ended by mid-March 1945. As often had been the case during the Japanese offensive wave of 1941-1942, victories were accompanied by massacres of their defeated opponents.
The Vietnam Famine of 1944-1945.[4]
The global war weighed heavily upon political events in Indochina. The same can be said of other, non-political events. So, too, did other larger forces.
Coastal Vietnam had long suffered from droughts, floods, and typhoons. All of these threatened the food supply. Before the French arrived, the government had created rice storehouses. French construction of a north-south coastal railroad drew part of its motivation from the desire to move food from the Mekong in the south to the central coast and mountains. The French also built substantial flood control and irrigation infrastructure. During the Depression of the 1930s, the French colonial administration had encouraged the cultivation of cash crops. This did not seriously harm food production.
The war seriously disrupted the rice market. For one thing, the French government had imposed a mandatory government purchasing system which fixed a price paid to producers for the rice.[5] The producer price remained fixed, while the sale price of rice on the market soared. Ordinary peasants could not purchase enough rice to feed their families or plant for the next season.[6] For another thing, the Japanese Army fed itself off local food production. The presence of an eventual total of 140,000 Japanese troops meant that there were many more mouths to feed. Moreover, the Japanese had the determination and the means to see that their troops got adequately fed, regardless of who else did not. The food supply available for civilians shrank, while the market price rose. Military factors compounded the difficulties. The Japanese commandeered all sea vessels of more than 30 tons displacement. Off and on, American planes attacked coastal shipping and the north-south railroad. These attacks further disrupted the shipment of food to the hardest-hit areas. Famine became widespread in the north during 1945.
The “Empire of Vietnam.”
A knock-on effect of the Japanese coup against the French came in the creation of a new “puppet state,” this one led by Vietnamese. It marked the first play of the nationalist card as a device to maintain outside control. It would not be the last.
On 11 March 1945, two days after the Japanese “coup” began, the Emperor Bao Dai read a speech prepared for him by a minor[7] Japanese official. He declared independence for the “Empire of Vietnam,” with himself as the head of state. Two chief tasks preoccupied the emperor for the next six months. First, the political structures of the new nation had to be created. Second, Tonkin and Annam remained administratively separate from Cochinchina. His government pursued national unification.
As a first order of business, Bao Dai appointed Tran Trong Kim as his prime minister.[8] Tran, in turn, began assembling a cabinet. It would be considered a cabinet of “technical experts,” rather than a collection of representatives of any particular political outlook.[9]
The work of the brief Tran Trong Kim government reminds one of the “Professors’ Parliament” of Germany during the Revolution of 1848-1849. At the same time, they had no knowledge of future external events that would shape political developments. For them, the cliché “the fog of war” was very real. All the war news brought ill-tidings for Japan. Who could tell when the roof would fall in? On the other hand, France had been wrecked by the war and the Vietnamese had seen the French in Indochina humbled. Real independence might well be within reach, particularly if it had the support of the Americans and the Nationalist Chinese. What was worth doing that might set the stage for future developments? The emperor, his prime minister, and the cabinet spent several months figuring out what to try to do in the very uncertain conditions.
By the second half of June 1945, they were ready to take the next steps. The Emperor created four committees: a “National Consultative Committee”; a committee on a constitution; a committee on basic administrative systems (administrative reform, legislation, and finance); and a committee on education. They also worked on fostering a sense of national identity. They designed a flag and they renamed the country’s regions. The set up a committee to pick national heroes for inclusion in a “Temple of Martyrs,” city streets were renamed from the French colonial names. In some places French statues were torn down to remove a reminder of French triumphalism over the indigenous population.
The Justice Minister amnestied some of the political prisoners held by the French. They proclaimed freedom of the press. A tide of anti-French publications flowed in. Later, the criticism would turn against the emperor’s government. The government, made up of middle-aged men, sought to mobilize “Youth” for the national cause. Physical training and small-group organization presaged the formation of military units. Sometimes “Youth” had other ideas. Very soon the university at Hanoi became a hotbed of political activism.
The second axis of effort for the “Empire of Vietnam” lay in creating territorial unity. The French had established a “colony” in Cochinchina in the far south; then had established “protectorates” over Annam in the center and Tonkin in the north. When the Japanese had prompted the declaration of independence by the “Empire of Vietnam” in March 1945, they had allowed Bao Dai authority over only Tonkin and Annam. Cochinchina, far closer to the approaching enemy, remained under direct Japanese control. Bao Dai insisted that the Japanese engage in negotiations to complete the unification of the country.
In May and June 1945, Bao Dai’s Foreign Minister Tran Van Chuong eroded the Japanese resistance. Eventually, in July, the Japanese yielded. They agreed to begin the process of uniting Cochinchina with Annam and Tonkin. Under normal conditions, this would have been a substantial victory for Indochinese nationalism. Conditions weren’t normal.
Most importantly, the famine entered its most severe stage in late 1944 and continued to wreak havoc through mid-1945. Committees, flags, and formalities of diplomacy disappeared in significance when people could see the streets littered with emaciated corpses. The inability of the “Empire of Vietnam” to respond effectively undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of many Vietnamese.
This is not to say that the government stood around with its hands in its pockets. However, the government’s response was confused. The government liberalized the regulations on the rice trade to encourage entrepreneurs to buy and transport rice and the Minister of Supply was ordered to Saigon to co-ordinate famine aid. It also worked against liberalization by imposing new controls on prices and stockpiles and it created a “Northern Economic Intelligence Service” to crack-down on smuggling. The crux of the matter lay in the fall off in the rice harvest combined with the Japanese primacy in feeding their troops. Eventually, the crisis eased, but not from government efforts. Good harvests returned in May and June 1945, and—as a result of the famine–there being many fewer mouths left to feed. Estimates vary between half a million and two million deaths during the famine. Fairly or unfairly, the “Empire of Vietnam” bore much of the blame in the eyes of ordinary people.
The “Empire of Vietnam” held no monopoly on organizing for the future. When the Japanese overthrew French rule, the Viet Minh took action. Hanoi and the port of Haiphong in the north, Saigon in the south, and Hue in the center formed the essential Japanese goals. Japanese forces had little presence in the countryside beyond guarding lines of supply. Beyond that, they wanted things quiet at a low cost to themselves. They expected the “Empire of Vietnam” to maintain orderly government that did not interfere with Japanese activities. For the Viet Minh, opportunity knocked.
In a meeting in Hanoi in the third week of April 1945, the Viet Min’s Tonkin Revolutionary Military Conference struck a militant nationalist pose that set it apart from the cautious gradualism of the “Empire of Vietnam.” They made a rhetorical call for resistance—an uprising, guerrilla war–against the Japanese.
The Viet Minh had no real military force to speak of. Much attention has focused on the group of soldiers from the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who parachuted into northern Vietnam on 16 and 29 July 1945. The set about creating a training program for Viet Minh recruits. They also provided the weapons for several hundred Viet Minh soldiers. However, they only remained in Vietnam until the end of August. In all likelihood, much more help came from several hundred Japanese soldiers, either prisoners or deserters from the Japanese Army, who served with and advised the Viet Minh. In any event, the Viet Minh didn’t do much fighting against the Japanese. They didn’t have the forces for it.
The real focus of their efforts lay toward the future. They called for independence from France. They denounced the “Empire of Vietnam” as a Japanese puppet. They created seven military districts. The countryside lay open before them. Faced with famine, the Viet Minh led peasants in the seizure and distribution of the contents of 75-100 warehouses full of rice. They intimidated tax collectors. None of this did much to ease the famine, but it was dramatic and visible. In contrast, the actions of the government were bureaucratic and veiled. Many a peasant must have said “At least the Viet Minh did something!” Peasant recruits began to come in.[10] Like Bao Dai’s government, the Viet Minh wanted to lay the foundation for action in the near future.
[1] The Japanese left it to the French to stamp out local revolt (Cochinchina, November-December 1940).
[2] There are several academic books on the ”Jeds,” but you’re best served by consulting David Hogan, U.S. Army Special Operations in World War II (Center for Military History, 1992). See: Wayback Machine
[3] On the raid, see: South China Sea raid – Wikipedia
[4] Geoffrey Gunn, Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam: The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) is deeply researched.
[5] This was an extension of the wartime farm price purchasing system adopted in metropolitan France. There it led to an extensive black market.
[6] The government price for 1943 was 1.4 piastres/10 kilograms. The market price rose to 6-7 piastres in mid-1944. During the height of the famine in 1945, the market price rose to 60-70 piastres/10 kilograms.
[7] Minor in the scheme-of-things. I’m sure that Yokoyama Seiko, the Minister of Economic Affairs at the Japanese diplomatic mission, gloried in his elevated position.
[8] On Tran, see: Tran Trong Kim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[9] The article on Tran, Tran Trong Kim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, lists the cabinet members with links to the biographies in the Vietnamese Wikipedia.
[10] There is another aspect to the famine that is worth exploring. What social and psychological effects did the famine have on the worst-hit area? The famine was concentrated in the north. This area became the base of the Viet Minh. Doubtless, much of this depended upon proximity to China. The Chinese Communist Party could offer some support and shelter to Indochinese Communists. Covert travel to Annam and Cochinchina would be much more difficult. Still, the failings of the Bao Dai government’s response would have been stark in the north, less so in the south. Moreover, all the deaths would have torn apart families and villages. Networks of social and intergenerational support—and obligation or duty—would have broken down. Parents, wives, siblings, children would have died. Perhaps many young men lost all the ‘hostages to fortune” that held them in place in their village. Why not go to the forests and find a Cause for which they could fight? From starvation to depression: unveiling the link between the great famine and late-life depression – PMC
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