French crack down on Vietnamese rebels
The morning after Viet Minh forces under Ho Chi Minh launched a night revolt in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi French colonial troops crack down on the communist rebels.Ho and his soldiers immediately fled the city to regroup in the countryside.That evening the communist leader issued a proclamation that read All the Vietnamese must stand up to fight the French colonials to save the fatherland.
Those who have rifles will use their rifles those who have swords will use their swords those who have no swords will use spades hoes or sticks.Everyone must endeavor to oppose the colonialists and save his country.Even if we have to endure hardship in the resistance war with the determination to make sacrifices victory will surely be ours.
The First Indochina War had begun.Born in Hoang Tru Vietnam in 1890 Ho Chi Minh left his homeland in 1911 as a cook on a French steamer.After several years as a seaman he lived in London and then moved to France where he became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920.He later traveled to the Soviet Union where he studied revolutionary tactics and took an active role in the Communist International.
In 1924 he went to China where he set about organizing exiled Vietnamese communists.Expelled by China in 1927 he traveled extensively before returning to Vietnam in 1941.There he organized a Vietnamese guerrilla organizationthe Viet Minhto fight for Vietnamese independence.Japan occupied French Indochina in 1940 and collaborated with French officials loyal to Frances Vichy regime.
Ho meanwhile made contact with the Allies and aided operations against the Japanese in South China.In early 1945 Japan ousted the French administration in Vietnam and executed numerous French officials.When Japan surrendered to the Allies on September 2 1945 Ho Chi Minh felt emboldened enough to declare the independence of Vietnam from France.French forces seized southern Vietnam and opened talks with the Vietnamese communists in the north.
Negotiations collapsed in November 1946 and French warships bombarded the northern Vietnamese city of Haiphong killing thousands.In response the Viet Minh launched an attack against the French in Hanoi in December 1946.The French quickly struck back and Ho and his followers found refuge in a remote area of northern Vietnam.
The Viet Minh undefeated and widely supported by the Vietnamese people waged an increasingly effective guerrilla war against the French.The conflict stretched on for eight years with Mao Zedongs Chinese communists supporting the Viet Minh and the United States aiding the French and anti-communist Vietnamese forces.In 1954 the French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu in northwest Vietnam prompting peace negotiations and the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at a conference in Geneva.Vietnam was divided into northern and southern regions with Ho in command of North Vietnam and Emperor Bao Dai in control of South Vietnam.In the late 1950s Ho Chi Minh organized a communist guerrilla movement in the South called the Viet Cong.
North Vietnam and the Viet Cong successfully opposed a series of ineffectual U.S.-backed South Vietnam regimes and beginning in 1964 withstood a decade-long military intervention by the United States known as the Vietnam War in America but also called the Second Indochina War.Ho Chi Minh died on September 2 1969 25 years after declaring Vietnams independence from France and nearly six years before his forces succeeded in reuniting North and South Vietnam under communist rule.Saigon the capital of South Vietnam was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after it came under the control of the communists in 1975.
