Introduction
Interestingly, books on Vietnam seem to be coming out with a steadily increasing frequency (see my review on Armorama of Prof. Geoffrey Wawro's new history of the American portion of the conflict). This is a good thing, since Americans generally have an indistinct grasp of the war; what's more, many are only minimally aware that American involvement was the second part of a story that had been going on since before WW2. Vietnamese nationalists had struggled violently against French colonial occupation since France first seized Southeast Asia in the 19th Century, and by 1945, a full-scale rebellion was happening as the French attempted to re-assert control over the region following their defeat at the hands of the Germans and the end of the Axis powers. The Japanese had assumed control of the region during the war, and now that they were defeated, the Vietnamese had no interest in exchanging one set of masters for another.
Numerous currents swirled through the region as Laos, Cambodians and Vietnamese attempted to throw off colonial rule, much as India and Africa were fighting both peaceful and violent revolutions to gain their independence. France, humiliated in 1940 and forced to accept a secondary role in the Allied coalition (de Gaulle wasn't invited to any of the summits between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), saw recovering its colonies in Africa and Asia as paramount to returning to the world stage. The Vietnamese had other ideas, and the United States, the Soviet Union and Communist China all took sides in what became a burgeoning war.
John Pike's new book Vietnam War and the Cold War 1945-1955 looks at Vietnam's place in the Cold War struggle between the West and Communism, and the threads that made up the war with France. After WW2 ended, the French viciously assumed military control of first Saigon, and then Hanoi, but could never gain the upper hand in the struggle, alienating most of the rural populace. After a ten-year struggle, their role in Vietnam's history ended on the plains around the crossroads village of Dien Bien Phu. The defeat paved the way for Vietnam's partition the following year, and the start of the second phase of the war, one that would eventually entrap the United States.
Contents
This is a hard-cover book with 529 pages, 8 pages of B&W photos and 24 pages of maps.
The Review
The style of the book is chatty more than hardcore history with a structure sometimes of "this happened and then that happened." In fact, it often reminded me of a rich buffet where there are so many good things to eat that you can't quite figure out where to start or end. Pike follows a chronological narrative, one showing how the Communists always had a plan, while the French had an dream of colonial grandeur, but no clear idea on how to achieve it. Clearly having a deep love of his material, Pike tends to take almost any divergent path that he comes across, which offers lots of tidbits of information, along with a story about the course of the war. The book could really have used an editor with a sharp blue pencil to shape it better, because sometimes passages are repeated, and typos abound.
Yet all in all, it makes for very pleasurable reading, and not at all heavy. The author is VERY British, and not a professional writer; some of his choices of expression are a bit old-fashioned, too, such as how a particular individual was both a spy "and a homosexual," as if that would matter to most readers under the age of 75. Still, Pike has a firm grip on his material, and things move right along. We learn not only about what was happening in Indochina as WW2 ground to a halt, but also how the politics of post-WW2 France greased the skids of their failure and tragedy. The French were cruel and arrogant, though probably no more of either than the Americans who followed them, and they underestimated their opponents. But looking back, it seems almost inevitable their quest would result in their total defeat.
Pike chooses to emphasize personality over dry facts; for example, we learn that the Communist military leader, Vo Nguyen Giap, had an acerbic tongue and was a ruthless political infighter. Ho Chi Minh buttered up the American OSS operatives who helped him fight against the Japanese, while all the while using their materiel to eradicate non-Communist rivals and thereby consolidate his power base for the coming war against the French. We learn how de Gaulle, lionized as the savior of the Free French during the Second World War, assumed France could reassert its control over Vietnam and the rest of Indochina easily, often making sweeping decisions from a total absence of information and from half a world away.
I'm not sure if traditional Franco-British rivalry plays a role, but overall France comes off very badly in the telling, with multiple accounts of their long history of violence and depravity against the Vietnamese populace. For example, French POWs freed in 1945 in Saigon took to the streets brutalizing civilians until the British garrison was forced to round them up and confine them to their barracks. It's therefore unsurprising that the war between the two adversaries would be highlighted by atrocities and brutality, both of which would continue once the United States showed up in large numbers in 1965.
The climax of the book is, of course, the battle of Dien Bien Phu, where France stupidly tried to lure the Vietminh into a pitched battle without understanding the terrain or the capabilities of their enemy. I learned a great deal about the battle, including that it was partly the result of US pressure on France to move quicker (at that point, the United States was paying for most of the French expenses, as well as giving them large amounts of equipment). Also that instead of concentrating their forces at DBP, they were running other operations simultaneously that bled off men and air power. The battle was closer to WW1-style hand-to-hand trench warfare than the jungle combat we imagine, and casualties were horrendous on both sides. When it was over, France's dream of colonial grandeur in Indochina was finished.
Conclusion
Modelers ask me what use histories like this book and Geoffrey Wawro's history of the American portion of the war are. The conflict in Indochina is a goldmine for model builders, since at the end of WW2, the French military was desperate for all sorts of materiel: American and British AFVs (Shermans, Amtracs, universal carriers and the Mk. 1 Coventry armored car), aircraft (Spitfires and Bearcats), and even American uniforms served along with German surplus (the Sd.Kfz. 251). North Vietnam would eventually receive 88mm flak guns and PAK 40s from the Soviets. The French even used Japanese tanks, both in Japanese camouflage and repainted in French green. France's war in Indochina from 1945-1955 is a veritable cornucopia of oddball AFVs and softskins, and so I invite my fellow modelers to familiarize themselves with its history.
John Pike's book is enjoyable reading that can be absorbed in short tranches rather than having to slog through it continuously. I found myself wishing for a tighter editing job at times, something that you will have to ignore, given the specialized nature of this volume, but which doesn't distract from the book's pleasures and value.
Thanks to Pen & Sword and Casemate Publishers for providing a review copy of this book. Please be sure to mention you saw it reviewed on Armorama when purchasing your own.