Little did we know…

[Gargantua]

This was a fascinating discovery I made today…  Maybe you all knew but I sure as hell didn’t.

During World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans in 1940. For French Indochina, this meant that the colonial authorities became Vichy French, allies of the German-Italian Axis powers. In turn this meant that the French collaborated with the Japanese forces after their invasion of French Indochina during 1940. The French continued to run affairs in the colony, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Japanese.

The Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Japanese. However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party.

Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Japanese army interned them all on 9 March 1945 and assumed direct control themselves through their puppet state, the Empire of Vietnam, under Bảo Đại.

During 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French/Japanese exploitation. 1 million people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area). Exploiting the administrative gap that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes. Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided. This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh’s popularity and they recruited many members during this period.

In August 1945, the Japanese had been defeated and surrendered unconditionally. In French Indochina this created a power vacuum, as the French were still interned and the Japanese forces stood down. The Viet Minh stepped into this vacuum and grasped power across Vietnam in the August Revolution, largely supported by the Vietnamese population. After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Việt Minh had recruited more than 600 Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers.

You read that right,

It was the Japanese who guided and nutured the initial training, and establisment of the Viet Mingh.  The Subsequent French-Indo-China wars, and Vietnam war, are all part of the legacy, or poision pill if you will.

I had no idea…

The effects of WWII were truly felt globally. A change on one side of the planet, had direct and devestating effects on the other.

[Witt]

Did not know The French were defeated by Germany, but the rest I learnt at primary school.
Thanks anyway.

[CWO Marc]

@Gargantua:

It was the Japanese who guided and nutured the initial training, and establisment of the Viet Mingh.  The Subsequent French-Indo-China wars, and Vietnam war, are all part of the legacy, or poision pill if you will.

A somewhat analogous situation occurred during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.  The local resistance – the mujahideen – received assistance from the U.S. (notably in the form of Stinger surface-to-air missiles) in their ultimately successful campaign to drive out the Soviets.  This was followed by a civil war (during which the mujahideen fought each other), and more recently by the NATO presence in Afghanistan (a conflict which has lasted about as long as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan).

[KaLeu]

Interesting story, thanks for sharing it. It’s remarkable that this apparently happened after the war was over, but the overall idea would be pretty much in line with Japanese politics in countries they occupied. Japan tried to portray itself as a liberator, driving the Western colonial powers out of Asia, and promoting nationalism as far as it suited their needs. However, the indigenous population of those countries soon discovered that they were definitely not better off being ruled by Japan.

There’s a parallel with what happened in Indonesia, where Japan supported nationalistic movements to some degree, although that happened during the occupation years. Indonesian nationalism had been firmly established by the time Japan was defeated, and the four years that followed saw a very bloody decolonization war when the Dutch tried to re-establish their authority by sending a large army.