What if Operation Léa successfully captured Ho Chi Minh and Giap?

[aeb1]

Operation Léa was a French Union operation between 7 October and 22 December 1947. It was an attempt by the French to crush the Viet Minh, with airborne forces dropped with the intention of capturing the VM leadership. French armoured columns and a dinassaut force would then strike into the VM heartland.

The parachute assault surprised the VM, nearly capturing Ho Chi Minh and General Giap, but the VM soon recovered and began ambushing the French columns.

Bernard Fall later contended that the only chance France had for full victory in Indochina lay in beating the VM before China fell to Communism in 1949 providing a wealthy and capable ally on the border of Vietnam as well as a safe haven for training and refitting etc. He therefore concluded that all military operations after that date were more or less redundant and only early success could possibly lead to victory.

So what if Sentanac's paras had completed the job and captured or killed Ho and Giap? By all accounts they missed the pair by minutes. Repercussions for the war? A possible outright French victory?

 

[King Henry]

Given how much the Vietnamese were willing to take OTL in the name of national independence (and also sometimes communism), I really don't see the French winning long-term.

 

[aeb1]

No doubt, but I wonder if removing Ho and Giap could alter the course of the French war and impact on US involvement.

 

[Flocculencio]

Given how much the Vietnamese were willing to take OTL in the name of national independence (and also sometimes communism), I really don't see the French winning long-term.

But by all accounts, Ho was a truly inspirational leader who in the aftermath of WW2 was the lynchpin holding the various nationalist factions together. With him gone in a pre 1949 situation the freedom struggle is likely to fall apart.

 

[raharris1973]

Here's an estimate I prepared several years ago based on this PoD

To sum it up on I'd guess the Viet Minh still takes power, but up to 5 years
later.

I don't see a reason for the regime to be humanitarian. the period of
time between the end of the war with France and the resumption of
serious struggle in the south (1954-1959 in OTL) is probably much
shorter than in OTL, because people with less authority than Ho and giap probably couldn't impose restraint on the party in the south.

Full thread here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/soc.history.what-if/ho$20and$20vo/soc.history.what-if/JS3q3qIcvtw/5XO9l0HQQ50J

Does anyone think I'm overestimating Viet Minh ability to survive and win?

Even a later Viet Minh victory, with Ho and Vo out of the picture, creates interesting global butterfly potential.

For example, let's imagine that Viet Minh at least cling to life between 1947 and the end of 1949, and then get revived with substantial Chinese support, wearing down the French by 1959.

This might effect the rate of decolonization elsewhere.

The Algerian War might be delayed five years, lasting from 1959 to 1967. Morrocco and Tunisia might not get independence until 1961, and French Sub-Saharan Africa not until 1965. France may remain an Israeli ally and alienated from Arab states until the early 1970s. Maybe a knock-on of this could be the Portuguese African empire and Rhodesia lasting into the 1980s. Or through the 1980s.

Getting back to Vietnam, I think that the loss of Ho and Vo, and the delayed victory, is going to make the North Vietnamese more subservient to the Chinese. And 1959 is an unfortunate time to imitate the Chinese. North Vietnam could have trouble restraining pressures to reunify and go radically socialist in this era of the Great Leap Forward. And they won't have the soft touch of "Uncle Ho". Le Duan and Truong Chinh, Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho were all harsher and less appealing personalities.

 

[raharris1973]

Did you have anything else in particular in mind?

So what if Sentanac's paras had completed the job and captured or killed Ho and Giap? By all accounts they missed the pair by minutes. Repercussions for the war? A possible outright French victory?

Well I shared one possible result, Viet Minh bereft of its top two leaders slips into eclipse until rejuvenated by Chinese Communist arrival on the border in 1950, when they regain the momentum lost in 47 and start their long road to victory.

There's another approach to take however. If the decapitation devastates the Viet Minh and drastically reduces its chances, Vietnamese politics may not necessarilly be static or easily controlled by the French. The French could face new challenges, as some groups who worked with the French to get revenge on the Viet Minh and protection from them (I am thinking of the southern sects Hoa Hao, Cao Dai and Binh Xuyen and Dai Viet party folks) come to worry less about them and drive better bargains with the Paris. If the guerrilla warfare becomes merely low level background noise in some distant hills, and is not seen as a relevant struggle in the cities, other movements could become relevant. Perhaps a politicized Buddhism of the kind that emerged in 1960s South Vietnam could gain a serious following and feature demonstrations and self-immolations as a tactic gaining some notoriety. Or, if the masses lose faith in Viet Minh ability to win in 1947 to 1949, depending on their skills, ambitions and luck, Bao Dai or other collaborationist factions could try political tactics against France that give them more credibility than in OTL, over the long haul at least.

Perhaps an explosion in Algeria was inevitable in 1954 or the few years after and would have occurred even without inspiration from Indochina. Depending on how things work out, a nasty Algerian war, by absorbing French attention and showing vulnerability, could end up inspiring renewed independence activism or renewed uprisings in Vietnam. This could set Vietnam on a path to negotiated independence under non-communist factions. Of course that does not foreclose communist participation in politics, either guerrilla or agitprop, for all time. If postponed until later, rebels may resurface via urban terrorism as much as rural insurgency.

Regardless of which path is taken, the capture of Ho Chi Minh *alive* would be interesting and a good basis for a story. Where would the French imprison him? If executed or put on a trial with any publicity, he becomes a martyr. If imprisoned, his captivity gains alot of attention and interest. And I think to the extent he is not completely hidden, he would leave a positive impression. (In other words, he won't make a ranting embarrassment of himself like the founder of Sendero Luminoso, Abimael Guzmán, after he was captured).