AHC: Win the First Indochina War

You are the supreme commander of all French forces in Indochina and you are battling the illusive Vietminh. Your task is to crush the Vietminh using whatever tactics you have in mind and do it with the best of your abilities. You could also advise/pressure the government in Paris on what needs to be done in order to finish the war and bring the boys home.

Good luck, Commandant. Vive le France
 

Babatus

Donor
At which date ?
Situation was vastly different on September 45, when you'll be tasked with landing the CEFEO and retake control of the colony by dealing both with the vietminh who just declared independence, the Chinese occupying the north of the country, and the japanese forces that just surrendered, and 1953 when you'll basically have to score some victories to help the negociation that are on their way in Europe.
 
At which date ?
Situation was vastly different on September 45, when you'll be tasked with landing the CEFEO and retake control of the colony by dealing both with the vietminh who just declared independence, the Chinese occupying the north of the country, and the japanese forces that just surrendered, and 1953 when you'll basically have to score some victories to help the negociation that are on their way in Europe.
Preferably sometime in the early 1950s
 
What type of tactics am I allowed to use. Because I can think of several ways of winning the war but they would be extremely controversial at best.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
depends on how much US is willing to help and pay the bills
Also how much USSR/CHina are helping VC

I would use chemical weapons as much as I can get away with

Use soldiers from african countries to offset manpower requirements
 

nbcman

Donor
The KMT refusing to leave the northern section of Indochina leading to war between the ROC and France would change the entire landscape. No First Indochina War to lose.

The KMT winning the Chinese Civil War would result in a weaker VM as there wouldn't be a sympathetic PRC next door. French win.

The US putting pressure on the French to allow self-government as opposed to letting the French try to assert their colonial mastery. No First Indochina War to lose.

Lord Mountbatten and General Gracey not declaring martial law (and using Japanese troops to enforce it) resulting in the VM having greater control and the French don't try to contest it. No First Indochina War to lose.

A successful Operation Lea would decapitate VM leadership. French possibly win.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
The KMT refusing to leave the northern section of Indochina leading to war between the ROC and France would change the entire landscape. No First Indochina War to lose.

What could motivate the KMT Chinese to stay? They had some things to worry about at home. But assuming they stayed till their sitationn in the Chinese Civil War nosedived in 1948, what does this do to Indochina?
 
By some stupid luck and happenstance, have Operation LEA capture General Giap and Ho Chi Minh. Quite literally, the French almost captured them in Bac Kan, and it was only because they hid in a hole that the two managed to avoid capture.

Capturing those two would set back the North Vietnamese war effort by a whole lot...a year maybe, or two, enough for France to figure out some sort of solution to Indochina...because like America before it...France may be able to win battles, but they can't win the war itself.

In addition to LEA, the problem with France was that they were still using tactics that were used in Europe against the Germans. Vietnam is a drastically different environment from Germany, and the tactics that worked against Hitler's legions don't work against Vietnam, simply because the terrain and the people are so different. In addition, Valluy needs to not underestimate the number of Viet Cong; I think we had 50,000 troops ready for batte in 1947?

In addition, France needs to commit more troops to Indochina- as Le Clerc asked and was refused- 50,000 men, a job that isn't easy especially in the postwar environment.
 
Use the same tactics as in Nà Sản. Under no circumstances cede the high ground and put a substantial number of forces into the bottom of a "rice bowl."
 
Use the same tactics as in Nà Sản. Under no circumstances cede the high ground and put a substantial number of forces into the bottom of a "rice bowl."
But the same tactics which were applied at Na San were also applied at Dien Bien Phu...and look what good it did the French.
 
Anything. Do anything you can to win.

That is a recipe for war crimes to be ignited

But the same tactics which were applied at Na San were also applied at Dien Bien Phu...and look what good it did the French.

Na San is a small outpost, and the amount of storage there was sufficient of long hold-out. Meanwhile, Dien Bien Phu had a much higher count of men and material, yet the supply line was thin. In fact, it completely relied on air power and the anti-air force of Viet Minh was considered "non-existent" (they were wrong about this).

At Dien Bien Phu the French did not occupy the high ground... and that did them in.

Half wrong and half right. Overall the French was at the bottom of the valley and Viet Minh occupied the surrounding mountain ranges as their artillery platform, but in each specific attack, French still had the high grounds and defence edge in most cases.
 
I just finished reading Fredrik Logevall's Embers of War about this very subject so I have some knowledge of the issue.

You are the supreme commander of all French forces in Indochina and you are battling the illusive Vietminh. Your task is to crush the Vietminh using whatever tactics you have in mind and do it with the best of your abilities. You could also advise/pressure the government in Paris on what needs to be done in order to finish the war and bring the boys home.

Good luck, Commandant. Vive le France

The fundamental issue with the question dovetails with the fundamental nature of the war. The French had the same issue that the Americans would have: conceiving of this war as a conventional war and not an insurgency. Valluy, Le Lattre, Salan, and Navarre all attempted to fight a conventional war in the very same way Westmoreland and Abrams did, and they all failed.

A lot of what needs to be done is in the political realm. The truth of the matter is that France was attempting to defend an unpopular political situation that came about by force following desire for goods, and so their legitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese people is very low. This can be improved by public works and attempts to approve the standard of living for the Vietnamese people, especially in the countryside, where the Vietminh did a lot of recruiting. But it cannot be avoided that the French are fighting an uphill battle in this realm.

You as commander must have good relationships in both Paris and Washington. You must keep the goodwill and political fortunes of the likes of Georges Bidault and Joseph Laniel in France and John Foster Dulles and Walter Bedell Smith in the US. Do whatever you can to ensure that Pierre Mendes-France does not become Prime Minister.

You need American aid, and you need to promote the notion that this is a specifically anti-Communist crusade. This plays well in the US, even if it doesn't in France. Paris may not be willing to provide as many troops as Leclerc would want, but the US can provide support and materiel. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all agreed on this.

depends on how much US is willing to help and pay the bills
Also how much USSR/CHina are helping VC

I would use chemical weapons as much as I can get away with

Using chemical weapons would mean that the war effort loses the vast majority of its support in France as well as a severe curtailing of American aid. The US does not want to be so publicly affiliated with a Western power that uses weapons that not even the Nazis used.

Use soldiers from african countries to offset manpower requirements

Plenty of African troops were used in Indochina by the French. The issue was that there was this fear in Paris that they could absorb the ideology of the Vietminh and then use them to exacerbate the already tense situation there (the Algerian War will break out in 1954 all else being equal), and as such they were not used in high quantities. Using large quantities of African troops leads to the possibility of nationalist uprisings in places far closer to Metropolitan France.

What could possibly work, and the likelihood isn't great, is to enact a system of internment camps throughout the country to impound every man, woman, and child who could be of use to the Vietminh, not unlike how the British were dealing with the Mau Mau in Kenya at the same time, itself based on British suppression of the Communists in Malaya and going back farther the Boers in the Boer War. This will require a lot of manpower which Paris may not be able to provide, and the system of internment camps will likely lead to appalling human rights abuses as you saw in Kenya (Caroline Elkins has a great book on the subject, and it is not for the faint of heart). Since this conflict is part of the global war against Communism in the way that Kenya was not, combined with how many fingers the US has in the pie, there is a very strong chance that this will get out to the international media and lead to widespread condemnation and the possibility of the revocation of American aid. It also means that the Vietminh will have a field day in recruiting. That being said, this system did work in Kenya as it had support in London by the likes of Alan Lennox-Boyd and the Churchill and Eden governments. French politics are substantially more volatile than British politics in this time period so you cannot bank on that sort of support from Paris. If you do enact a policy of internment camps, there will doubtlessly be buckets of blood on your hands, but it could put an end to the Vietminh as an effective fighting force.

To have the above, you need to either extend the system of camps to Laos and Cambodia, or defend the borders. The former is resource intensive and costly, whereas the latter is almost impossible. China will definitely be supporting the rebels and working against the camps after 1949, which is another wrench in the gears.

The question of success boils down to either improving French legitimacy in Indochina or the capacity to brutally punish Vietnamese society as a whole to take the wind out of the Vietminh. Neither seems particularly possible in the 1950s.
 
You need American aid, and you need to promote the notion that this is a specifically anti-Communist crusade. This plays well in the US, even if it doesn't in France. Paris may not be willing to provide as many troops as Leclerc would want, but the US can provide support and materiel. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all agreed on this.
This would also play very well in Vietnam where the communists were opposed by a large portion of the population and the religious organisation.
 
Plenty of African troops were used in Indochina by the French. The issue was that there was this fear in Paris that they could absorb the ideology of the Vietminh and then use them to exacerbate the already tense situation there (the Algerian War will break out in 1954 all else being equal), and as such they were not used in high quantities. Using large quantities of African troops leads to the possibility of nationalist uprisings in places far closer to Metropolitan France.

You are somewhat contradicting yourself, see underlined sections.

Actually, the CEFEO used a large number of North African and sub-Saharan African troops in Indochina. Between 1945 and 1954, the composition of the CEFEO was broken out as such:
French 45%
North African 25%
Foreign Legion 15%
Sub-Saharan Africans 12%

The percentages for North Africans and sub-Saharan Africans were actually increasing as the war closing out since the French government was not allowing Metropolitan Army troops or draftees to be used in theater as such any reinforcements that were coming were primarily from North Africa. The percentage of Foreign Legion troops was decreasing as units were disbanded and personnel transferred to the Army of Vietnam (AVN).

The Last Valley by Martin Windrow has an excellent discussion on the CEFEO, its compositions and failings.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Can the French censor press reports and use CW discretely and flatly deny it later ?

Also hunger and concentration camps as weapons like British did in the Boer wars ?
 
Can the French censor press reports and use CW discretely and flatly deny it later ?
Are you serious? The French have already got terrible press with trying to retain their colonies, do you think that using CW to retain these colonies will get them more public support?
Any aid that the US had been giving, will immediately be cut off; and by 1954, the US was covering 80% of the cost of the war.

The French can't really win this war, but their best chance was before 1949. Once the CCP wins in China, it's all over. Now the Vietminh have a steady source for supplies and munitions and a sanctuary if the fighting really goes bad for them.

As someone said earlier, have Operation Lea be successful and the French capture Ho and Giap in the Viet Bac. That would disrupt the Vietminh enough to allow the French to stabilize the political situation in Indochina and possibly allow them to make some concessions that would allow them to continue ruling.

It is virtually impossible for a colonial power to win a war of national independence in the modern age. The ease with which news travels make it tough to take the extreme measures to quell the insurrection. That last time one was successfully quelled was the US in the Philippines during the Insurrection there, it was so isolated that a lot of what the US did never got publicized.
 
tfw when you restart a thread that's been dead for two months
It is virtually impossible for a colonial power to win a war of national independence in the modern age. The ease with which news travels make it tough to take the extreme measures to quell the insurrection. That last time one was successfully quelled was the US in the Philippines during the Insurrection there, it was so isolated that a lot of what the US did never got publicized.
The British won in Malaya though... (although they eventually released Malaysia afterwards)
 
Yeah, but was that really a war of national independence? From what I recall, it was not lead by Malays but rather ethnic Chinese and wasn't supported by the majority of the Malays.
 
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