Transformation of the French-Vietnamese War

Started in the autumn of 1945 as a local but courageous resistance of the people of Cochinchina (i.e. Southern Vietnam), the war against the French reached national scale after December 19, 1946. But as time passed, this war changed its character. From the Vietnamese side, the Vietnamese Communist Party has succeeded in its efforts to eliminate the nationalist parties and emerged as the sole leader of the resistance war. Beginning in 1950, with a China under communist control as their safe rear and source of all kinds of supplies, Viet Minh's strategy now took the offensive, creating major difficulties for the French. From the other side, the French encountered more and more military and political difficulties, due to a lack of just cause and their limited economic strength. In such circumstances, the French had to create the nationalist government of Vietnam (Quoc Gia Viet Nam) as a respectable facade, in order to transform the war into a struggle against communist aggression, and with the purpose of securing military and financial support from the United States.

The agreements reached at Ha Long Bay in Vietnam (June 5, 1948) and Elysee (June 21, 1949) in France paved the way for the creation of Bao Dai Government in July 1949. The next step was the American recognition of the three Free States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in February 1950 and their military aid to the French Expeditionary Forces in September 1951. All of these supports, unfortunately, did not help the French win militarily. By late 1953, the option of negotiation as a solution for the war emerged within the French political sphere. From the Viet Minh side, under pressure from the Soviet Union and China, Ho Chi Minh, in an interview granted to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on November 29, 1953, also agreed to negotiate with the French. ¹⁶ At the Conference of the Four Powers held in Berlin in January 1954 it was decided that an international conference would be convened in Geneva in April 1954 to discuss the problems of the wars in Korea and in Indochina. Negotiations to resolve the war in Vietnam "finally began on May 8, the day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu."¹⁷