The events leading up to the outbreak of war in Indochina in December 1946 have been covered in considerable detail in other works.104 For our purposes it is only necessary to outline the break-down in Franco-Vietnamese relations and French military
101 Sources for the Nong Khai incident come from: Stanley Swinton, 'One-Day "Invasion" o f Siam,' Straits Times, 21 July 1946; 'Raid on Tha Bo,' pp. 2-14; US, DOS, 892.014/7-346, 'Formal Meeting between
Siamese and French at Nankai [Nong Khai],' 15 June 1946, USNA; and US, DOS, 892.014/6-146, 'Compte Rendu des Incidents de Vientiane du 24 Mai 1946' in 'Siamese-Indochinese Border Incident of May 24, 1946,' 1 June 1946, USNA.
1 0 2 US, DOS, 892.014/6-346, T he French Embassy to the Department o f State,'3 June 1946 in FRUS
(Volume V m , 1946), p. 1010. A scathing editorial in the Thai paper, Thai Rat, gives an indication o f the
growing public sentiment against the French. Thai Rat, 29 May 1946.
103 This dicussion o f the Siemreap incident and the concurrent breakdown o f Franco-Thai talks in Washington is based on a wide-range o f US archival documents and Thai secondary sources, far too numerous to cite here. To my knowledge, there is no adequate published study o f the 1946 Franco-Thai dispute in Thai, English, and/or French. The author hopes to research this topic further.
10 4 See: Stein Tpnnesson, 1946: Declcnchement de la guerre d'Indochine: Les vepres tonkinoises du 19 dScembre, (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1987; Philippe Devillers, ed., Paris-Saigon-Hanoi: Archives de la Guerre, 1944-1947, (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1988); and Philippe Devillers, Histoire du Viet Nam de 1940 a 1952, (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1952).
actions against the DRV, for these factors would directly inform Hanoi's interest in Thailand. As mentioned above, the Vietnamese had adopted a policy called "peace in order to advance" and reached an accord with the French on 6 March. Although the French were willing to make some concessions to Hanoi in March, in private French officials in Indochina had not abandoned plans to retake northern Vietnam by force.105 In late May, Ho Chf Minh left for France to continue negotiations in Fontainbleau. During these negotiations, Vietnamese diplomats tried to hold Paris to the promises it had made in the 6 March Accord. However, the French position had begun to harden. Paris rejected the Vietnamese demand to set a date for the referendum, knowing that the DRV would win the overwhelming support of the people in such an election. Meanwhile, back in Saigon, d'Argenlieu announced formation of the Cochinchinese Republic, a move which was in direct violation of the March Accord but done with the approval of Paris. In the meantime, the Chinese pulled the majority of their troops out of northern Indochina.
On 10 September 1946, negotiations broke-down in Fontainbleau. Not wanting to leave without some sort of an agreement, Ho remained and on 14 September he signed a
Modus Vivendi with the French. Four days later, the last remaining Chinese troops
pulled out of Indochina and about two weeks after that the Thais agreed to return the Indochinese territories, thereby allowing Saigon to focus its attention on the DRV. French authorities in Saigon objected to Paris' agreement to the Modus Vivendi and a cease-fire, feeling both would undermine their position in the south. As the Norwegian historian Stein Tpnnesson has shown, to maintain their hold on Cochinchina, Saigon authorities began a more aggressive policy towards the north after the 14 September
Modus Vivendi.106 Saigon embarked upon a policy which challenged the unity of
Vietnam and chipped away at the sovereignty of the DRV by promoting French economic and military interests in northern Vietnam. D'Argenlieu and Valluy stepped up their efforts to fortify the Cochinchinese Republic and simultaneously to eliminate Viet Minh influence in Nam Bo. As for the north, on 15 October the French set up a customs agency in Haiphong without Hanoi's approval, while d'Argenlieu instructed his subordinates to draw up plans for a coup de force. On 20 November, a Chinese junk carrying petrol arrived in the Haiphong port in violation of the unilaterally instituted French licence system. The French intercepted the boat. Violence broke out when the Vietnamese intervened to exercise their authority in customs matters. Gun-fire was exchanged and some French intelligence officers were arrested by the Vietnamese. On
105 See: Tpnnesson, 1946, pp. 72-75 and T h e Outbreak o f War,' pp. 102-05 and 339, fn. 3. In both works, Tpnnesson cites French archival documents showing ranking French authorities in Indochina considering a coup de force against northern Vietnam in April 1946.
the 23rd, after the French had delivered an unacceptable ultimatum to the Vietnamese, the French forcibly took control of the city at the cost of thousands of Vietnamese lives.107
In the wake o f this incident and others,108 the Vietnam ese prepared them selves militarily and psychologically for war, although Ho refused to close the door to a diplomatic solution. However, by mid-December French officials in Indochina were worried that unless they acted quickly to create a rupture with Hanoi which would allow them to move against the DRV, political changes in Paris might destroy their plans to retake northern V ietnam and undermine their interests in Cochinchina completely. Tension mounted in Hanoi as armed skirmishes proliferated and the Vietnam ese and French anticipated the other to make an imminent attack. On the evening of the 19th, war broke out between the Vietnamese and French.109 That night the general resistance against the French was announced.
107 Tpmsson, 1946, pp. 89-106 and Nguyen Kien Giang, op. cit., p. 240.
108 Almost immediately after the Haiphong incident, another very similar incident occurred in Lang Son. See: Tpnnesson, 1946, pp. 106-20.
109 For a brilliant discussion of the complex events leading up to the outbreak o f full-scale war in Indochina m 1946, see: Tpnnesson, 1946.