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11-23-2004, 05:19 PM
The British intervention in Vietnam, 1945-1946
Monthly Review
June, 1991
by John Newsinger
The Vietnam wars did not begin with the French return to Vietnam at the end of the Second World War, but with the British intervention that preceded it. The story of this intervention ought to be more widely known.
The French Collapse
After the fall of France in the summer of 1940, the French administration in Indochina pledged its loyalty to the pro-Axis Vichy regime. This did not, however, save it from increasing pressure from the Japanese, who were determined to bring the colony under their control. To this end, the Japanese initiated serious border clashes in September 1940 and threatened to bomb Hanoi. This threat brought about a speedy French capitulation to their demands. The French accepted the establishment of Japanese military bases throughout Indochina. In return, they were left to rule over their Vietnamese subjects much as before.
The French humiliation at Japanese hands emboldened the Vietnamese nationalists. At the end of September, the first of a series of Communist-led insurrections broke out, and was ruthlessly suppressed by the French, with over 8,000 killed. According to Joseph Buttinger:
Airplanes and artillery razed entire villages and small towns...In view of the desperate mood of the French, it is surprising that any prisoners were taken But the treatment meted out to some was atrocious. They were brought to Saigon by night on river boats, and they could be seen standing in long rows in the harbour under glaring searchlights, strung together by wires pushed through the palms of their hands. [1]
For the Allies at war with Japan, the situation in Indochina posed considerable difficulty. as far as the British were concerned, the objective was to drive out the Japanese and return Vietnam to the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle as part of a colonial restoration throughout Southeast Asia. The American attitude, however, was different.
Astonishing as it might seem in view of later developments, the United States was at that time hostile to colonial restoration in general, and to the reassertion of French colonial rule over Indochina in particular. president Franklin Roosevelt had on numerous occasions made clear his lack of sympathy for the French and their empire. "Indochina should not go back to France," he had told secretary of State Cordell Hull in mid-October 1944. "France has had the country--thirty million inhabitants--for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning." [2] Instead, Roosevelt proposed the replacement of French rule by some sort of trusteeship that would prepare the way for independence. These sentiments had repercussions in the theater of war, where Americans not only refused to cooperate with the French, but actually provided assistance through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to the communist-led Vietminh.
In March 1945 the Japanese responded to their rapidly deteriorating military position elsewhere by staging a coup d'etat in Indochina, finally eliminating what remained of French power there. On March 11 Japan proclaimed Vietnam independent of France and set up a puppet government under the Emperor Bao Dai.
Most French army units were taken by surprise by the coup and were quickly disarmed and imprisoned. But some offered resistance and tried to fight their way to China. They appealed to the Allies for assistance. The British were eager to help, but the americans, although much better placed, refused. This situation brought to a head a continuing jurisdictional conflict between the British and U.S. military commands in the area. [3] Both the British and the French were outraged by the American attitude, and some still are. one eminent British historian has argued that Roosevelt's refusal to help the French at that time "can only be compared with that of the Russians toward the Warsaw rising the year before." In his dying days, according to this account, Roosevelt had brought "dishonour . . . on America." [4]
The Communists Emerge
The Japanese takeover in march 1945 created a power vacuum in much of Vietnam. Japanese military strength was concentrated in Saigon and elsewhere in the south of the country. They had eliminated French authority in the north but took no effective steps to replace it with their own. The communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, began to move in from southeast China to fill this vacuum, gradually establishing themselves as the dominant political force throughout much of the north.
As early as mid-April the communists had set up a Provisional Revolutionary Government and a National Liberation Army with the clear intention of taking power once the Japanese had been defeated. By the summer of 1945 Vietminh forces had liberated six northern provinces and parts of four others. They established their own local administrations and began building up their military strength, expecting that Japanese defeat was certain, but that there would still be much fighting.
The communists ere prepared for a period of continuing struggle against the Japanese that was likely to grow more intense as their influence spread south. The dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and nagasaki and the sudden Japanese capitulation dramatically changed the situation.
The Japanese collapse offered enormous opportunities to the communists, who were ready to seize them. Vietminh forces moved swiftly to consolidate their hold over the north and on August 19 their first units arrived in Hanoi. They were given a tumultuous reception with over 100,000 people demonstrating in the streets. With Hanoi in his hands, on September 2 Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and read out to a crowd of over half a million people the vietnamese Declaration of Independence. He began by citing the declaration of 1776:
All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with] certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Ho then went on:
The whole vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.
We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent. [5]
American OSS officers were photographed alongside General Vo Nguyen Giap saluting the Republican flag. At that time, the communist seem to have believed that if they could establish a republican government then it would be recognized by the Allies and the French would have no choice but to come to terms with them.
While the communists were able to consolidate their hold over the north and to establish a stable government with broad support in Hanoi, further south their influence was not as strong. In Saigon, for example, there were a number of nationalist and socialist organizations competing for power and influence. Indeed, the communists there were criticized for putting their faith in negotiations with the Allies and for the policy of studied moderation which they hoped would make their regime acceptable to the West.
On August 21 the United National Front organized a large militant demonstration in Saigon, bringing together the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the city's strong Trotskyist movement. This was a show of strength by those critical of communist policy and gave an early indication that here the Vietminh would not have it all their way. On August 25 the Vietminh organized their own, larger, demonstration, and that same day established the Committee of the South as a revolutionary government. The committee, headed by communist leader Tran Van Giau, attempted to establish control over Saigon and to extend its influence throughout the rest of the south. For the time being the communist argument that success could be achieved without confrontation with the Allies carried the day, but there were many who were not convinced.
On September 2 another massive demonstration through Saigon saw a shooting incident in which five Frenchmen and a number of Vietnamese were killed. Several French suspects were arrested but later released at the insistence of the Committee of the South. The communists were determined to avoid anything that might turn the Allies against them. Far from preparing to fight the British troops who were on their way to occupy Saigon, they hoped to be able to work alongside them.
The British Arrive
The British South Est Asia Command had been assigned responsibility for the southern half of Vietnam at the Potsdam Conference of July 1945; the Chinese Nationalist forces were given responsibility for the north. Troops under the overall command of the liberal Lord Louis Mountbatten, and responsible to a Labour Government in London, would restore French rule by force of arms in Saigon, while the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek in effect recognized Ho Chi Minh's government in Hanoi.
The task of occupying Saigon was given to the 20th Indian Division under the command of Major General Douglas Gracey. Officially, he was instructed to avoid involvement in local politics and to limit himself to disarming Japanese troops in the south and relieving the plight of prisoners of war and refugees. In practice he was to behave quite differently.
The 20th Indian Division was 22,000 men strong and overwhelmingly Indian in composition. it was supported by an armored regiment and two Royal Air Force squadrons. The Division was an experienced, battle-hardened formation that had fought long and hard against the Japanese in Burma.
The British soldiers arrived in Saigon on September 6 and thereafter troop-strength was built up over a period of weeks. The full Division was not in place until the end of October. Gracey and his staff arrived to take control on September 13. He ws immediately approached by the Committee of the South, but he refused to have any dealings with them. Gracy was interested only in dealing with the Japanese military authorities and the French.
The communists' determination to work with the British was such that they purged some nationalists who called for armed struggle, particularly Trotskyists, many of whom were arrested and killed. The British refusal to recognize the existence of the Committee of the South completely undermined its conciliatory position, forced the communists into confrontation, and strengthened the position of those who advocated armed resistance.
On September 17 the Committee attempted to compel Gracey to recognize them by imposing a boycott of the French, calling a series of strikes and ordering the closing of the Saigon market, cutting off food supplies to the city. Rather than negotiating with the Committee, Gracey decided to crush it. On September 19 he closed down the Vietnamese press and took control of Saigon Radio. This was followed by more drastic measures that amounted to martial law: all demonstrations and meetings were banned, carrying weapons was prohibited, the death penalty was introduced for a range of public order offenses, and the oppressive japanese curfew regulations were reimposed.
Gracey proceeded to arm the French prisoners of war so they could reinforce the small French military presence in the city. The French commissioner, Colonel Cedile, could muster some 1,500 armed men. According to one account, Gracey ordered Cedile to overthrow the Committee of the South. [6]
In the early hours of September 23 the French staged a coup d' etat, seizing public buildings, arresting large numbers of Vietnamese (the Committee escaped them), and raising the tricolour over Saigon's City Hall. The takeover was accompanied by celebrations that degenerated into a small scale pogrom, with Vietnamese civilians being insulted, manhandled, and beaten on the streets and in their homes. This French coup was the culmination of Gracey's martial law crackdown. As General Leclerc gratefully informed Mountbatten: "Your General Gracey has saved French Indochina." [7]
War
The Committee of the South responded by calling a general strike and the first fighting broke out. According to one account
The days immediately after the coup saw much sporadic fighting in which the British-Indian troops fought off desperate nationalist attacks, all over the city. In the early stages the Vietnamese casualties were fairly heavy. In one clash with 80 Indian Infantry Brigade on 26 September in the south of the city, sixty Vietnamese were killed. Mortars, 25 pounders and heavy machine-guns were freely used by the British in the street fighting, and non-combatant Vietnamese must certainly have suffered . . . [8]
It was in the midst of this confused battle that the OSS Commander in Saigon, Colonel Dewey, was killed by the Vietminh. He was almost certainly mistaken for a French officer. The irony was that at the time the OSS was hostile to British policy and openly sympathetic to the Vietnamese. [9] This was demonstrated quite brutally by an incident that took place in Laos the day after Dewey was killed: an OSS officer refused to intervene when Vietminh troops arrested a French officer and executed him; he declared that he was neutral. A British officer, Peter kemp, tried to interfere, and even attempted to shield the Frenchman with his body, but without success. [10] Mountbatten protested to the Americans, who in the words of one critic "were on the other side" in this war.
While the British tried to clear Saigon, the Vietminh continued infiltrating men and established roadblocks that effectively isolated the city from the rest of the country. Even though they were poorly armed, the Vietminh were able to put the British under considerable pressure. The British at last agreed to open negotiations. a ceasefire was agreed to, starting on October 2, and discussion began. These negotiations were just a ploy as far as the British were concerned, a device to gain time to provide a breathing space while more troops were flown in. On October 9 the British gave the Vietminh an ultimatum, ordering them to surrender the city or face the consequences. Heavy fighting broke out the next day.
The vietminh made fierce attacks on British positions throughout the city, but were beaten off. On October 12 they attempted to overrun the airfield at Tan Son Nhut. They reached "the doors of the radio station and were within 3000 yards of the control tower when they were stopped; the fight for the airfield turned into a grim struggle as its loss would have cut Saigon off from the rest of the world." [12] The Vietminh attacks were repulsed with heavy casualties.
After the failure of the offensive, the Vietnminh resorted to guerrilla tactics and the "bitter street battles . . . gave way to the brutal business of ambushes, small-scale guerrilla attacks, terrorism and repressive counter-measures, all carried out in the midst of a sullen and resentful population. No matter how many nationalists the British killed or captured, more appeared the next day." [13] By the middle of November the British believed that they had broken the blockade of the city and were mopping up what was left of a defeated enemy.
The official history of the 2nd King Edward VII's Gurkha Rifles provides an interesting firsthand account of this guerrilla warfare:
Day and night there was usually trouble somewhere. Up to the end our bridge posts were sniped regularly. Patrols were continuously searching the countryside for rebels and houses for arms . . . . The country was ideal for the guerrilla tactics which were used against us. Everywhere the ground was heavy and swampy, criss-crossed with drainage and irrigation canals. in such country the Annamites always had first shot. It was annoying that they never stayed to bear the brunt of the attack but always faded into the countryside where it was almost impossible to follow them without sustaining casualties . . . . It was curious to find ourselves operating with the Japs. At the beginning, owing to shortage of man-power we had to use them a lot . . . . On many occasions we acted as the guns while the Japs played the role of bearers. [14]
This use of large numbers of Japanese troops against the Vietnminh outraged many British troops and caused an outcry in Britain. Gracey found it necessary, however, both to supplement his inadequate forces and to minimize British casualties. Quite often when particularly fierce Vietminh opposition was met, Japanese troops were sent to deal with it.
By the end of December the British were ready to begin handing the south over to the rench, and the first troop withdrawals began. When Gracey himself finally left on January 28, 1946, there were only two British battalions still fighting the Vietminh. These were finally evacuated in march, leaving only a small number of specialist troops behind to assist the French. The last British troops to die in Vietnam were six soldiers killed in an ambush in June 1946.
British military operations against the Vietminh were conducted ruthlessly. This ws not a "hearts and minds" operation but the conquest by force of arms of a hostile enemy city. The Operation Instruction issued to the 20th Division makes this quite clear. Officers were warned that we may find it difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Same vigilance against ambushes and doubtful friends as one observed in the North-West Frontier of India . . . . Always use the maximum force available to ensure wiping out any hostiles we may meet. If one uses too much no harm is done . . . [15]
The disproportion between casualties inflicted and suffered shows that his advice was taken quite literally: by the middle of january 1946 the British had suffered 40 men killed and 110 wounded and they claimed to have killed some 600 Vietminh. japanese troops acting under British orders killed many more.
The actions of the British forces caused Mountbatten some worry. he was horrified to learn that they were burning down people's houses in reprisal for guerrilla attacks and complained about it to Gracey: "Cannot you give such unsavoury jobs (if they are really military necessities) to the French?" he asked. Gracey made clear in his reply that he considered the French much too undisciplined and triggerhappy to be relied on. [16 These were the people to whom he was handing over the country.
Responsibility
Without Gracey and his troops there is no doubt that the French would have found it considerably more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to reestablish themselves in Vietnam. From this point of view it was the British who started the Vietnam war and made it possible for the French to continue it, with American help, until their defeat in 1954. A recent account that positively eulogizes Gracey's contribution to the struggle against international communism has even argued that the state of South Vietnam that was established after 1954 must be seen as part of this British legacy. [17] The responsibility for this lies not with Gracey, however, but with his political masters, the Labour government in London. The British intervention in Vietnam stands alongside their similar interventions in Greece and Indonesia at the same time. It was part of a struggle to preserve European colonialism and one of the first blows in the Cold War.
NOTES
[1] Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (New York: Praeger, 1967, p. 244.
[2] Lloyd C. Gardner, Approaching Vietnam (New York. Korton, 1988), p. 25.
[3] For a recent account of this affair, see Peter M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War (New York: St. Martin's, 1985), pp. 87, 94-105. This book by a former U.S. Air Force Colonel is a strong defense of the British intervention and a ferocious critique of U.S. policy at the tiem.
[4] D. Cameron Watt, Succeeding John Bull (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 239.
[5] Marvin E. Gettleman, ed., Vietnam (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1065), pp. 65-66.
[6] Dennis J. Duncanson, "General Gracey and the vietminh," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society Vol. 55, No. 3 (October 1968), p. 296.
[7] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 331.
[8] George Rosie, The British in Vietnam (London: Panther Books, 1970), p. 70.
[9] For an insider's account of the OSS in Vietnam see Archimedes Patti, Why Vietnam? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
[10] Peter Kemp, Alms for Oblitnon (London, 1971), pp. 48-52.
[11] Dunn, First Vietnam War, p. 206.
[12] Ibid, p. 284.
[13] Rosie, British Vietnam, p. 75.
[14] G. R. Stevens, History of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles 1921-1948. (Aldershot, 1952), pp. 278-279.
[15] Rajendra Singh, Official History of the Indian armed Farces in the Second World War: Post-War occupation Forces (1958), p. 199.
[16] Peter Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace (New York: St. Martin's, 1987)), p. 173.
[17] Dunn, First Vietnam war, p. 367.
Monthly Review
June, 1991
by John Newsinger
The Vietnam wars did not begin with the French return to Vietnam at the end of the Second World War, but with the British intervention that preceded it. The story of this intervention ought to be more widely known.
The French Collapse
After the fall of France in the summer of 1940, the French administration in Indochina pledged its loyalty to the pro-Axis Vichy regime. This did not, however, save it from increasing pressure from the Japanese, who were determined to bring the colony under their control. To this end, the Japanese initiated serious border clashes in September 1940 and threatened to bomb Hanoi. This threat brought about a speedy French capitulation to their demands. The French accepted the establishment of Japanese military bases throughout Indochina. In return, they were left to rule over their Vietnamese subjects much as before.
The French humiliation at Japanese hands emboldened the Vietnamese nationalists. At the end of September, the first of a series of Communist-led insurrections broke out, and was ruthlessly suppressed by the French, with over 8,000 killed. According to Joseph Buttinger:
Airplanes and artillery razed entire villages and small towns...In view of the desperate mood of the French, it is surprising that any prisoners were taken But the treatment meted out to some was atrocious. They were brought to Saigon by night on river boats, and they could be seen standing in long rows in the harbour under glaring searchlights, strung together by wires pushed through the palms of their hands. [1]
For the Allies at war with Japan, the situation in Indochina posed considerable difficulty. as far as the British were concerned, the objective was to drive out the Japanese and return Vietnam to the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle as part of a colonial restoration throughout Southeast Asia. The American attitude, however, was different.
Astonishing as it might seem in view of later developments, the United States was at that time hostile to colonial restoration in general, and to the reassertion of French colonial rule over Indochina in particular. president Franklin Roosevelt had on numerous occasions made clear his lack of sympathy for the French and their empire. "Indochina should not go back to France," he had told secretary of State Cordell Hull in mid-October 1944. "France has had the country--thirty million inhabitants--for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning." [2] Instead, Roosevelt proposed the replacement of French rule by some sort of trusteeship that would prepare the way for independence. These sentiments had repercussions in the theater of war, where Americans not only refused to cooperate with the French, but actually provided assistance through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to the communist-led Vietminh.
In March 1945 the Japanese responded to their rapidly deteriorating military position elsewhere by staging a coup d'etat in Indochina, finally eliminating what remained of French power there. On March 11 Japan proclaimed Vietnam independent of France and set up a puppet government under the Emperor Bao Dai.
Most French army units were taken by surprise by the coup and were quickly disarmed and imprisoned. But some offered resistance and tried to fight their way to China. They appealed to the Allies for assistance. The British were eager to help, but the americans, although much better placed, refused. This situation brought to a head a continuing jurisdictional conflict between the British and U.S. military commands in the area. [3] Both the British and the French were outraged by the American attitude, and some still are. one eminent British historian has argued that Roosevelt's refusal to help the French at that time "can only be compared with that of the Russians toward the Warsaw rising the year before." In his dying days, according to this account, Roosevelt had brought "dishonour . . . on America." [4]
The Communists Emerge
The Japanese takeover in march 1945 created a power vacuum in much of Vietnam. Japanese military strength was concentrated in Saigon and elsewhere in the south of the country. They had eliminated French authority in the north but took no effective steps to replace it with their own. The communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, began to move in from southeast China to fill this vacuum, gradually establishing themselves as the dominant political force throughout much of the north.
As early as mid-April the communists had set up a Provisional Revolutionary Government and a National Liberation Army with the clear intention of taking power once the Japanese had been defeated. By the summer of 1945 Vietminh forces had liberated six northern provinces and parts of four others. They established their own local administrations and began building up their military strength, expecting that Japanese defeat was certain, but that there would still be much fighting.
The communists ere prepared for a period of continuing struggle against the Japanese that was likely to grow more intense as their influence spread south. The dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and nagasaki and the sudden Japanese capitulation dramatically changed the situation.
The Japanese collapse offered enormous opportunities to the communists, who were ready to seize them. Vietminh forces moved swiftly to consolidate their hold over the north and on August 19 their first units arrived in Hanoi. They were given a tumultuous reception with over 100,000 people demonstrating in the streets. With Hanoi in his hands, on September 2 Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and read out to a crowd of over half a million people the vietnamese Declaration of Independence. He began by citing the declaration of 1776:
All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with] certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Ho then went on:
The whole vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.
We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent. [5]
American OSS officers were photographed alongside General Vo Nguyen Giap saluting the Republican flag. At that time, the communist seem to have believed that if they could establish a republican government then it would be recognized by the Allies and the French would have no choice but to come to terms with them.
While the communists were able to consolidate their hold over the north and to establish a stable government with broad support in Hanoi, further south their influence was not as strong. In Saigon, for example, there were a number of nationalist and socialist organizations competing for power and influence. Indeed, the communists there were criticized for putting their faith in negotiations with the Allies and for the policy of studied moderation which they hoped would make their regime acceptable to the West.
On August 21 the United National Front organized a large militant demonstration in Saigon, bringing together the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the city's strong Trotskyist movement. This was a show of strength by those critical of communist policy and gave an early indication that here the Vietminh would not have it all their way. On August 25 the Vietminh organized their own, larger, demonstration, and that same day established the Committee of the South as a revolutionary government. The committee, headed by communist leader Tran Van Giau, attempted to establish control over Saigon and to extend its influence throughout the rest of the south. For the time being the communist argument that success could be achieved without confrontation with the Allies carried the day, but there were many who were not convinced.
On September 2 another massive demonstration through Saigon saw a shooting incident in which five Frenchmen and a number of Vietnamese were killed. Several French suspects were arrested but later released at the insistence of the Committee of the South. The communists were determined to avoid anything that might turn the Allies against them. Far from preparing to fight the British troops who were on their way to occupy Saigon, they hoped to be able to work alongside them.
The British Arrive
The British South Est Asia Command had been assigned responsibility for the southern half of Vietnam at the Potsdam Conference of July 1945; the Chinese Nationalist forces were given responsibility for the north. Troops under the overall command of the liberal Lord Louis Mountbatten, and responsible to a Labour Government in London, would restore French rule by force of arms in Saigon, while the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek in effect recognized Ho Chi Minh's government in Hanoi.
The task of occupying Saigon was given to the 20th Indian Division under the command of Major General Douglas Gracey. Officially, he was instructed to avoid involvement in local politics and to limit himself to disarming Japanese troops in the south and relieving the plight of prisoners of war and refugees. In practice he was to behave quite differently.
The 20th Indian Division was 22,000 men strong and overwhelmingly Indian in composition. it was supported by an armored regiment and two Royal Air Force squadrons. The Division was an experienced, battle-hardened formation that had fought long and hard against the Japanese in Burma.
The British soldiers arrived in Saigon on September 6 and thereafter troop-strength was built up over a period of weeks. The full Division was not in place until the end of October. Gracey and his staff arrived to take control on September 13. He ws immediately approached by the Committee of the South, but he refused to have any dealings with them. Gracy was interested only in dealing with the Japanese military authorities and the French.
The communists' determination to work with the British was such that they purged some nationalists who called for armed struggle, particularly Trotskyists, many of whom were arrested and killed. The British refusal to recognize the existence of the Committee of the South completely undermined its conciliatory position, forced the communists into confrontation, and strengthened the position of those who advocated armed resistance.
On September 17 the Committee attempted to compel Gracey to recognize them by imposing a boycott of the French, calling a series of strikes and ordering the closing of the Saigon market, cutting off food supplies to the city. Rather than negotiating with the Committee, Gracey decided to crush it. On September 19 he closed down the Vietnamese press and took control of Saigon Radio. This was followed by more drastic measures that amounted to martial law: all demonstrations and meetings were banned, carrying weapons was prohibited, the death penalty was introduced for a range of public order offenses, and the oppressive japanese curfew regulations were reimposed.
Gracey proceeded to arm the French prisoners of war so they could reinforce the small French military presence in the city. The French commissioner, Colonel Cedile, could muster some 1,500 armed men. According to one account, Gracey ordered Cedile to overthrow the Committee of the South. [6]
In the early hours of September 23 the French staged a coup d' etat, seizing public buildings, arresting large numbers of Vietnamese (the Committee escaped them), and raising the tricolour over Saigon's City Hall. The takeover was accompanied by celebrations that degenerated into a small scale pogrom, with Vietnamese civilians being insulted, manhandled, and beaten on the streets and in their homes. This French coup was the culmination of Gracey's martial law crackdown. As General Leclerc gratefully informed Mountbatten: "Your General Gracey has saved French Indochina." [7]
War
The Committee of the South responded by calling a general strike and the first fighting broke out. According to one account
The days immediately after the coup saw much sporadic fighting in which the British-Indian troops fought off desperate nationalist attacks, all over the city. In the early stages the Vietnamese casualties were fairly heavy. In one clash with 80 Indian Infantry Brigade on 26 September in the south of the city, sixty Vietnamese were killed. Mortars, 25 pounders and heavy machine-guns were freely used by the British in the street fighting, and non-combatant Vietnamese must certainly have suffered . . . [8]
It was in the midst of this confused battle that the OSS Commander in Saigon, Colonel Dewey, was killed by the Vietminh. He was almost certainly mistaken for a French officer. The irony was that at the time the OSS was hostile to British policy and openly sympathetic to the Vietnamese. [9] This was demonstrated quite brutally by an incident that took place in Laos the day after Dewey was killed: an OSS officer refused to intervene when Vietminh troops arrested a French officer and executed him; he declared that he was neutral. A British officer, Peter kemp, tried to interfere, and even attempted to shield the Frenchman with his body, but without success. [10] Mountbatten protested to the Americans, who in the words of one critic "were on the other side" in this war.
While the British tried to clear Saigon, the Vietminh continued infiltrating men and established roadblocks that effectively isolated the city from the rest of the country. Even though they were poorly armed, the Vietminh were able to put the British under considerable pressure. The British at last agreed to open negotiations. a ceasefire was agreed to, starting on October 2, and discussion began. These negotiations were just a ploy as far as the British were concerned, a device to gain time to provide a breathing space while more troops were flown in. On October 9 the British gave the Vietminh an ultimatum, ordering them to surrender the city or face the consequences. Heavy fighting broke out the next day.
The vietminh made fierce attacks on British positions throughout the city, but were beaten off. On October 12 they attempted to overrun the airfield at Tan Son Nhut. They reached "the doors of the radio station and were within 3000 yards of the control tower when they were stopped; the fight for the airfield turned into a grim struggle as its loss would have cut Saigon off from the rest of the world." [12] The Vietminh attacks were repulsed with heavy casualties.
After the failure of the offensive, the Vietnminh resorted to guerrilla tactics and the "bitter street battles . . . gave way to the brutal business of ambushes, small-scale guerrilla attacks, terrorism and repressive counter-measures, all carried out in the midst of a sullen and resentful population. No matter how many nationalists the British killed or captured, more appeared the next day." [13] By the middle of November the British believed that they had broken the blockade of the city and were mopping up what was left of a defeated enemy.
The official history of the 2nd King Edward VII's Gurkha Rifles provides an interesting firsthand account of this guerrilla warfare:
Day and night there was usually trouble somewhere. Up to the end our bridge posts were sniped regularly. Patrols were continuously searching the countryside for rebels and houses for arms . . . . The country was ideal for the guerrilla tactics which were used against us. Everywhere the ground was heavy and swampy, criss-crossed with drainage and irrigation canals. in such country the Annamites always had first shot. It was annoying that they never stayed to bear the brunt of the attack but always faded into the countryside where it was almost impossible to follow them without sustaining casualties . . . . It was curious to find ourselves operating with the Japs. At the beginning, owing to shortage of man-power we had to use them a lot . . . . On many occasions we acted as the guns while the Japs played the role of bearers. [14]
This use of large numbers of Japanese troops against the Vietnminh outraged many British troops and caused an outcry in Britain. Gracey found it necessary, however, both to supplement his inadequate forces and to minimize British casualties. Quite often when particularly fierce Vietminh opposition was met, Japanese troops were sent to deal with it.
By the end of December the British were ready to begin handing the south over to the rench, and the first troop withdrawals began. When Gracey himself finally left on January 28, 1946, there were only two British battalions still fighting the Vietminh. These were finally evacuated in march, leaving only a small number of specialist troops behind to assist the French. The last British troops to die in Vietnam were six soldiers killed in an ambush in June 1946.
British military operations against the Vietminh were conducted ruthlessly. This ws not a "hearts and minds" operation but the conquest by force of arms of a hostile enemy city. The Operation Instruction issued to the 20th Division makes this quite clear. Officers were warned that we may find it difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Same vigilance against ambushes and doubtful friends as one observed in the North-West Frontier of India . . . . Always use the maximum force available to ensure wiping out any hostiles we may meet. If one uses too much no harm is done . . . [15]
The disproportion between casualties inflicted and suffered shows that his advice was taken quite literally: by the middle of january 1946 the British had suffered 40 men killed and 110 wounded and they claimed to have killed some 600 Vietminh. japanese troops acting under British orders killed many more.
The actions of the British forces caused Mountbatten some worry. he was horrified to learn that they were burning down people's houses in reprisal for guerrilla attacks and complained about it to Gracey: "Cannot you give such unsavoury jobs (if they are really military necessities) to the French?" he asked. Gracey made clear in his reply that he considered the French much too undisciplined and triggerhappy to be relied on. [16 These were the people to whom he was handing over the country.
Responsibility
Without Gracey and his troops there is no doubt that the French would have found it considerably more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to reestablish themselves in Vietnam. From this point of view it was the British who started the Vietnam war and made it possible for the French to continue it, with American help, until their defeat in 1954. A recent account that positively eulogizes Gracey's contribution to the struggle against international communism has even argued that the state of South Vietnam that was established after 1954 must be seen as part of this British legacy. [17] The responsibility for this lies not with Gracey, however, but with his political masters, the Labour government in London. The British intervention in Vietnam stands alongside their similar interventions in Greece and Indonesia at the same time. It was part of a struggle to preserve European colonialism and one of the first blows in the Cold War.
NOTES
[1] Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (New York: Praeger, 1967, p. 244.
[2] Lloyd C. Gardner, Approaching Vietnam (New York. Korton, 1988), p. 25.
[3] For a recent account of this affair, see Peter M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War (New York: St. Martin's, 1985), pp. 87, 94-105. This book by a former U.S. Air Force Colonel is a strong defense of the British intervention and a ferocious critique of U.S. policy at the tiem.
[4] D. Cameron Watt, Succeeding John Bull (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 239.
[5] Marvin E. Gettleman, ed., Vietnam (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1065), pp. 65-66.
[6] Dennis J. Duncanson, "General Gracey and the vietminh," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society Vol. 55, No. 3 (October 1968), p. 296.
[7] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 331.
[8] George Rosie, The British in Vietnam (London: Panther Books, 1970), p. 70.
[9] For an insider's account of the OSS in Vietnam see Archimedes Patti, Why Vietnam? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
[10] Peter Kemp, Alms for Oblitnon (London, 1971), pp. 48-52.
[11] Dunn, First Vietnam War, p. 206.
[12] Ibid, p. 284.
[13] Rosie, British Vietnam, p. 75.
[14] G. R. Stevens, History of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles 1921-1948. (Aldershot, 1952), pp. 278-279.
[15] Rajendra Singh, Official History of the Indian armed Farces in the Second World War: Post-War occupation Forces (1958), p. 199.
[16] Peter Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace (New York: St. Martin's, 1987)), p. 173.
[17] Dunn, First Vietnam war, p. 367.