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 Äại.
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.
