The First Indochina War, known alternatively as the French Indochina War, was fought in French Indochina between the French Union and the Viet Minh and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 11 August 1954. Most of the engagements of this conflict occurred in Vietnam.
At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the South East Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. On 25 August 1945, Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated, handing power over to the Viet Minh. On 2 September, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Also in September 1945, Chinese forces entered Hanoi, and Japanese forces north of the 16th parallel surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon, and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese Nationalists acknowledged the DRV and the communist-led Viet Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do that in Saigon, in deference to the French.
On 23 September 1945, French forces overthrew the Viet Minh administration in Saigon and declared French authority restored south of the 16th parallel. Guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately. After one year of low-level conflicts and failed negotiations, all-out war broke out in December 1946 between French and Viet Minh forces. As part of decolonization, France established the French Union in 1946 and reorganized Indochina in 1949 as a confederation of associated states within it. In June 1949, they united French Cochinchina with the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin to form the State of Vietnam within the French Union, and installed former Emperor Bảo Đại as head of state.
The Chinese Communist victory of 1949 changed the nature of the Indochina War. In 1950, the newly established People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the DRV while the United States recognized the State of Vietnam. The conflict largely resembled a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons, although guerrilla warfare continued to occur in many areas. The United States provided assistance to France, while China assisted the Viet Minh. French Union forces included colonial troops from the empire – North Africans, Sub-Saharan Africans, Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese ethnic minorities – and professional French troops, European volunteers, and units of the Foreign Legion. The use of French metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming more unpopular at home. It was called the "dirty war" (la sale guerre) by French leftists. In December 1950, France officially established an army for the State of Vietnam. In September 1951, the US began providing direct economic aid to the State of Vietnam. Segments of the population supported neither the communist Viet Minh nor the French colonialists, and were labeled attentistes. After the internationalization of the war, several among them stepped off the fence and entered the political contest.
The French strategy of inducing the Viet Minh to attack well-defended bases in remote areas at the end of their logistical trails succeeded at the Battle of Nà Sản. French efforts were hampered by the limited usefulness of tanks in forest terrain, the lack of a strong air force, and reliance on soldiers from French colonies. The Viet Minh used novel and efficient tactics, including direct artillery fire, convoy ambushes, and anti-aircraft weaponry to impede land and air resupplies, while recruiting a sizable regular army facilitated by large popular support. They used guerrilla warfare doctrine and instruction from China, and used war materiel provided by the Soviet Union. This combination proved fatal for the French bases, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
An estimated 400,000 to 842,707 soldiers died during the war as well as between 125,000 and 400,000 civilians. Both sides committed war crimes, including killings of civilians (such as the Mỹ Trạch massacre by French troops), rape and torture.
The State of Vietnam gained full independence legally in June 1954, although the transfer of power was not yet complete. Despite gaining a great military advantage and controlling most of the country's territory, the Viet Minh had to accept a separation at the 17th parallel due to diplomatic pressure from the Chinese. At the Geneva Conference in July 1954, the new French cabinet of Pierre Mendès France agreed to give the Viet Minh control of North Vietnam, but this was rejected by the State of Vietnam and the US. The Indochinese Federation was dissolved in December 1954. In October 1955, the Republic of Vietnam was formed as a successor state of the State of Vietnam. The Republic of Vietnam withdrew from the French Union in December 1955. The last French troops left the Republic of Vietnam on 28 April 1956. An insurgency, de facto controlled by the communist North, developed against the South Vietnamese government. This conflict, known as the Vietnam War, ended in 1975 with the fall of South Vietnam to the North Vietnamese army.
Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887. Vietnamese nationalism grew until World War II, which provided a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu. Châu looked to Japan, which had modernized and was one of the few Asian nations to successfully resist European colonization. With Prince Cường Để, Châu started the two organizations in Japan, the Duy Tân hội (Modernistic Association) and Vietnam Cong Hien Hoi.
Due to French pressure, Japan deported Phan Bội Châu to China. Witnessing Sun Yat-sen's Xinhai Revolution, Châu was inspired to commence the Viet Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou. From 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shikai's counterrevolutionary government. In 1925, he was captured by French agents in Shanghai and transported to Vietnam. Due to his popularity, Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940.
In September 1940, shortly after its ally Germany had conquered metropolitan France, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina. The Japanese retained the French colonial administration, ruling from behind the scenes, as did the Germans in Vichy France. For Vietnamese nationalists, this was a double-puppet government, with the Axis powers behind the French behind the Vietnamese local officials. Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, ensuring his continued safety and comfort.
From October 1940 to May 1941, during the Franco-Thai War, the Vichy French in Indochina defended their territories in a border conflict in which the forces of Thailand invaded while the Japanese sat on the sidelines. Thai military successes were limited to the Cambodia–Thailand border area, and in January 1941 Vichy France's modern naval forces soundly defeated the inferior Thai naval forces in the Battle of Ko Chang. The war ended in May, with the French agreeing to minor territorial revisions which restored formerly Thai areas to Thailand.
In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh formed the Viet Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam). He founded the Việt Minh as an umbrella organization, seeking to appeal to a base beyond his own communist beliefs by emphasizing national liberation instead of class struggle. In 1941, Hồ and the Indochinese Communist Party founded a communist-led united front to oppose the Japanese.
In March 1945, with the World War all but lost, Japan launched a coup d'état to oust the Vichy French, and formally installed Emperor Bảo Đại as head of a nominally independent Vietnam. The Japanese arrested and imprisoned most of the French officials and military remaining in the country.
In Hanoi on 15–20 April 1945, the Tonkin Revolutionary Military Conference of the Việt Minh issued a resolution (reprinted 25 August 1970 in the Nhân Dân journal) calling for a general uprising, resistance and guerrilla warfare against the Japanese. It also called on the French in Vietnam to recognize Vietnamese independence and on the Provisional Government of the French Republic (Allied French) to recognize Vietnam's independence and fight alongside them against Japan.