Charles Chanson

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Charles-Marie-Ferréol Chanson (born February 18, 1902 in Nice , † July 31, 1951 in Vĩnh Long , Indochina ) was a French general de brigade in the Indochina War .

Life

Start of career as an artilleryman

Charles Chanson came from a traditional military family; his father was a general in the artillery force . He also aspired to this career: After attending the École polytechnique from 1922 to 1924, he studied at the Artillery School in Fontainebleau , which Chanson completed in 1926. After a short period of service with the 3rd and 8th artillery regiments, he was transferred to the 64th artillery regiment in French Morocco at the end of 1927 and was involved in the suppression of local unrest in the following years. In mid-1932 he moved to the 67th Artillery Regiment in Constantine in Algeria.

Staff officer in World War II

After administrative posts at the Mailly-le-Camp military training area in 1935, in the artillery office of the War Ministry and at the École polytechnique, he attended the École supérieure de guerre in 1939 and thus qualified as a general staff officer .

After the outbreak of World War II , he served in various staff departments, including the 6th Army . After the defeat of France, he was awarded the Legion of Honor for his achievements during the unsuccessful defense of the Western campaign . After a stay in Marseille, he was transferred to Algiers by the Vichy authorities in early 1941 , where he performed various staff duties under Darlan and Juin . When Allied troops conquered the city on November 8, 1942 as part of Operation Torch , Chanson fought on the Vichy side. Since the Vichy administration in North Africa initially continued to exist under the Allies , Chanson also retained his position in Algiers. In 1944 he moved to Great Britain as a military attaché and finally worked as a liaison officer at the Allied headquarters in Versailles , where he dealt with issues of French rearmament.

Commander in Indochina

In October 1945, Chanson, now with the rank of Colonel , received command of the artillery division of the newly established 3rd Colonial Infantry Division under General Nyo . In February 1946, the troops were embarked in Marseille for French Indochina . There, in August of the previous year, the Việt Minh under Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ; the French government now tried to suppress the independence movement quickly and therefore sent an expeditionary force .

When he arrived in Vietnam, Chanson first acted as city commander of Saïgon-Cholon from March 1946 , before taking over responsibility for the problematic Secteur des Vaïcos in the Cambodian border area. For his successful fight against the Việt Minh troops in the region, he was promoted to the Legion of Honor in April 1947. Since February 1947, Chanson served as the regional commander in chief of central Cochin China ; in September 1947 he was promoted to général de brigade and the following December appointed deputy commander of southern Vietnam. In the same month troops under his command smashed a Việt Minh unit near Mỹ Tho .

In April 1948, Chanson was finally appointed commander of northern Vietnam. Unlike in the south, where the Việt Minh actions were limited to guerrilla tactics , open war with regular combat units had raged in Tonkin since November 1946. Under Chanson's command it was possible to push the Vit Minh back into the Chinese border area. In September 1948, Chanson's first service in Indochina ended. From February to November 1949 he headed the artillery school in Idar-Oberstein in the French occupation zone .

In November 1949, Chanson returned to Indochina and replaced General Boyer de Latour as commander of southern Vietnam, at the same time as commissioner of the French Republic in Cochinchina he also took over the management of civil administration. Within the next year he took vigorous action against the southern Việt Minh under Nguyễn Bình , inflicting a series of heavy defeats on them. By the spring of 1951, the French seemed to have largely brought the war situation in Cochinchina under control; the number of attacks had also decreased significantly. In May 1951 he was promoted to commander of the Legion of Honor for his actions to pacify the country .

On July 31, 1951, Chanson, together with Thái Lập Thành , the governor of South Vietnam of the pro-French Vietnamese government , fell victim to a suicide attack during an inspection tour in the city of Sa Đéc in the Mekong Delta : a young Vietnamese who was either the Việt Minh, the religious Cao Đài militias or the right-wing nationalist Đại Việt party , blew himself up right next to them with a grenade. Chanson was seriously injured and taken to the nearby V nahenh Long Military Hospital, where he died at the age of 49. The attack was the first suicide attack carried out with explosives in a war zone. Chanson also represents the highest ranking victim of the war. He was buried in the European cemetery in Saigon. The identity and affiliation of the assassin could not be clearly clarified, initially the 25-year-old communist Trịnh Văn Minh (or Trần Văn Minh ) was assumed , but the 18-year-old Phan Văn Út , who was probably commissioned by the Cao-Đài , is more likely -Separatists Trình Minh Thế acted. The French-Vietnamese authorities arrested forty people suspected of being involved the day after the attack, and the paramilitary youth militia of the Đại Việt party ( Thanh niên Bảo quốc Đoàn ) was banned. Commander-in-chief Lattre de Tassigny , however, made the Vi machtet-Minh-General Nguyễn Bình personally responsible and instructed his security chief Pierre Perrier to “track down and punish” him. The following October, the French commissioner in Cambodia, Jean de Raymond , another high-ranking dignitary, was assassinated.

Apart from the commander rank of the Legion of Honor was Brigadier General Chanson and the Croix de guerre 1939-1945 (two mentions), the Croix de guerre des Théâtres d'Opérations Extérieurs (nine mentions), the Resistance Medal , the Croix du Combattant that Médaille coloniale with the clasps Maroc , Sahara and Extreme-Orient , the Moroccan order Ouissam Alaouite (in the commander level), the American Legion of Merit (officer), the Vietnamese Order of the Dragon of Annam (officer), the Royal Order of Cambodia (Commander) and the Lao Order of the Million Elephants and the White Umbrella (Grand Officer).

Pierre Guillet published the biography Pour l'honneur in 1992 : Le général Chanson en Indochine, 1946–1951 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e www.ecole-superieure-de-guerre.fr: Charles-Marie-Ferréol CHANSON (Military biography, with pictures, French)
  2. ↑ a b Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach , NIAS Press, Copenhagen, 2011, p. 94/95 (entry Chanson, Charles Marie Ferreol )
  3. ^ Adam Dolnik: Understanding Terrorist Innovation: Technology, Tactics and Global Trends , Routledge, 2007, p. 43
  4. ↑ Serguei A. Blagov: Honest Mistakes: The Life and Death of Trình Minh Thế (1922-1955), South Vietnam's Alternative Leader , Nova Science, 2001, p. 29
  5. ^ Eugene Register-Guard, August 1, 1951: French Arrest 40 Terrorists
  6. ^ Joseph Buttinger: Vietnam: Vietnam at war , Pall Mall, 1967, p. 1244
  7. ↑ Chicago Tribune : October 31, 1951: French Chief in Cambodia is assassinated
  8. ^ Bibliothèque Numérique Francophone Accessible
personal data
SURNAME Chanson, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chanson, Charles-Marie-Ferréol (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French brigadier general in the Indochina War
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Nice
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1951
Place of death Vĩnh Long , Indochina