"Any Forces That Seek to Impose Their Will on Other Nations Will Surely Fail"
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien Phu By AHMAD FARUQUI
On May 7, people from the world over will gather at Dien Bien Phu to commemorate
one of the most important battles of the twentieth century. On that date in
1954, the People's Army of Vietnam (Vietminh) inflicted a decisive military
defeat on the French army.
The battlefield is located in a river valley 500 km northwest of the capital,
Hanoi, near the border with Laos and China. The history of struggle is ingrained
in Vietnamese character. And, for more than a thousand years, Hanoi symbolized
their resistance to Chinese domination. Then, in 1873, a French expeditionary
force sacked Hanoi's citadel, and expropriated Hanoi into the seat of France's
Indochina Empire.
In 1953, as the colonial era drew to a close, the French began to negotiate the
terms of their withdrawal with the Vietnamese at Geneva. To strengthen their
bargaining position, the French sought to defeat the Vietminh on the
battlefield.
By March of the following year, French Col. Christian de Castries had gathered a
force of 16,000 soldiers at Dien Bien Phu. The architect of the new strategy was
Gen. Henri Navarre, who had taken over as the commander-in-chief of the French
Expeditionary Corps in Indochina. Navarre wanted to defend northern Vietnam and
Laos, but he also hoped to draw Giap's elusive Vietminh into a large-scale
confrontation. He believed that his paratroopers, foreign legionnaires, armored
vehicles, and fighter-bombers would destroy the communist Vietminh once and for
all. Navarre, however, had overestimated his force's strength and underestimated
the tenacity of the Vietminh.
General Vo Nguyen Giap, destined to become America's nemesis, commanded the
Vietminh forces. In time for the 50th anniversary celebrations, Giap has
released an updated edition of his book about the battle. "We must attack to
win. Attack only when sure of victory; if not, don't attack," Ho Chi Minh told
Giap. Giap recalls that the valley of Dien Bien Phu was fairly large but
completely surrounded by high mountains. He had carefully deployed his troops so
that the French could no longer pull out without incurring major losses. The
French garrison was cut off from all outside supplies, whether arriving by road
or air.
Contrary to the recent divergence between France and the U.S., the two nations
were close allies in 1954 and the U.S. bore the lion's share of the cost of the
French military operation in Indochina. On April 21, it airlifted a battalion of
French paratroopers from Paris to Vietnam. Two U.S. airmen helping in the
re-supply effort were killed by anti-aircraft fire and became the first
Americans killed in combat in Vietnam.
The initial plan of the Vietnamese was to launch a full-scale frontal assault
but after studying the fortified French position, Giap devised a new strategy.
He encircled the French base with hundreds of trenches "so that our fighters
could wage combat both day and night under enemy bombardment."
The French Expeditionary Corps had expected the Vietminh guerillas to engage in
all-out lightning clashes. Instead Giap preferred to destroy French pockets of
resistance one at a time, choosing the timing as well as the location. Giap's
strategy was so successful that the French supply line to the base in Dien Bien
Phu was strangled by early March. When Giap's troops opened fire on March 13,
1954, the French deputy commander of the base, who was responsible for
artillery, killed himself because he was powerless in stopping the heavy
Vietnamese barrage.
The French watched helplessly as the mightiest points of the base fell in the
face of assaults by bare-footed Vietnamese shock units. "Our system of trenches
ran from the high mountains down to the plains, further sealing the fate of the
base with each passing day," writes Giap. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower
turned down an eleventh-hour appeal from the French for U.S. intervention. In
place of American ground troops, Eisenhower's hawkish Secretary of State, John
Foster Dulles, offered two atomic bombs to the French government which the
French refused politely.
The last words Col. de Castries radioed his superior in Hanoi, General René
Cogny, were understated, "I'm blowing up the installations. The ammunition dumps
are already exploding. Au revoir." Cogny replied, "Well, then, au revoir, mon
vieux." On May 7, 1954, the Vietminh raised the flag of victory over the bunker
of the French commander. In the 56-day siege, about 3,000 French soldiers were
killed and another 10,000 French troops taken prisoner.
The defeat led to the death of French colonialism in Indochina and provided a
tremendous impetus to liberation movements the world over. It showed that a
small Asian country could defeat a powerful European colonial power. Soon
thereafter, the Algerian people rose in revolt against French colonial rule and
freed themselves after a protracted struggle lasting six years. The French
colonies in West Africa became independent by 1960. The wars in Vietnam and
Algeria had exhausted the French state. It had spent over two billion francs and
committed more than 450,000 troops in Indochina for no obvious gain.
The Americans, oblivious to the fall of colonialism around the globe, convinced
of the morality of their capitalistic ideology and cocksure about their military
prowess, marched into Vietnam just eleven years after Dien Bien Phu. At the
height of their occupation, a half million U.S. soldiers, marines, sailors and
airmen were stationed in Vietnam. When they left in 1975, they had won all their
battles and lost the war. In other words, there was no Dien Bien Phu for the
Americans.
However, according to General Giap, the seeds of the American defeat were sown
in Dien Bien Phu. It allowed Northern Vietnam to serve "as a firm and decisive
guerilla base for southern Vietnam in its resistance war against the American
aggressors, thereafter liberating the whole country."
The Vietnamese call their war against the French the first resistance and the
war against the Americans the second resistance. In their long history, both
wars represent but a moment in time. This moment in time, pregnant with military
lessons, should give pause to generals everywhere who think they can subjugate
weaker nations at the point of a gun.
Speaking on April 30, 2004, at the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon (now
called Ho Chi Minh City), a frail but defiant 93-year old General Giap said,
"Any forces that seek to impose their will on other nations will surely fail."
While diplomatic niceties did not allow him to comment directly on the U.S.
occupation of Iraq, the old warrior's reference to the new predicament of his
former foes was unmistakable.
Ahmad Faruqui is an economist who writes frequently on Asian security issues.
This article was originally published in Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan. He can
be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mitayo Potosi
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