Battle of Route Coloniale 4

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indochina War 1946-54

The battle on Route Coloniale 4 is a series of skirmishes between September 30 and October 7, 1950 between the Viet Minh and French troops in the north of the country near the border with China . The French units deployed were largely wiped out as they withdrew from the border region.

background

Location of the border region with the larger settlements within Vietnam

The border region between Vietnam and China was a stronghold of the Viet Minh. Since the victory of the communist forces in the civil war in 1949, the Vietnamese have used China as a retreat and were supported by their neighbors with supplies and arms deliveries as well as training and military advisers . In September 1950, the Vietnamese commander in chief Giap had around 30 battalions including artillery . This meant that his troops, apart from the air force and motorization, were on a par with the French expeditionary corps in terms of firepower. The French military leadership underestimated the forces of the Viet Minh by around a third. In addition, it was not clear to the French that the Viet Minh had been able to bring their units up to the level of regular infantry forces with Chinese help since 1949.

Giap planned to shut down the French bases lined up on the region's only traffic artery, the very poorly developed Route Coloniale  4 , with an offensive in autumn after the rainy season. To this end, Giap brought together 14 infantry and three artillery battalions in the region. The battles were practiced intensively in advance by the troops on specially built models of the French fortifications in That Khe, Dong Khe and Cao Bằng.

In 1950, the French armed forces had 250,000 military personnel in Indochina . 150,000 were local units and local auxiliaries. The French expeditionary force made up around 100,000 of the regular troops of the Armée de Terre, the Legion and the colonial troops. In Tonkin , the region where the communist guerrilla was strongest, only around 53,000 French forces were stationed. Most of them were deployed for security purposes in the densely populated Red River delta and were not available as mobile units. The French Commander in Chief Marcel Carpentier was aware of the weakness of his outpost in northwest Tonkins. He planned to evacuate Cao Bang in mid-October. Before that, however, the Thai Nguyen settlement should be captured in order to be able to present the public with a contrast to Cao Bằng's task.

course

On September 16, 1950, four to five battalions of the Viet Minh, supported by mortars and pipe artillery, attacked the Dong Khe base, which was defended by two legionary companies. After 52 hours, the last French survivors retreated into the jungle. 32 men were able to get through to the French lines. This cut off Cao Bgendeng, about 25 kilometers to the north, and the garrison there was in danger of being enclosed and destroyed.

Carpentier planned to withdraw the cut garrison fighting along Route Colonial. You should meet forces from the south from That Khe. As a result of this plan, the Legion's 1st Paratrooper Battalion dropped out near That Khe on September 18. The southern forces under Colonel Marcel Le Page with around 3500 men started moving north along Route Coloniale 4 on September 30th.

Cao Bằng was reinforced by a battalion of Moroccan colonial troops by air. The garrison had around 2,600 soldiers. Around 500 civilians fled with her. The garrison was ordered on October 3rd to make their way along RC 4 in the direction of That Khe, leaving the vehicles and heavy equipment behind. However, the commander Colonel Charton did not want to leave the vehicles to the enemy and motorized his troops to make the evasive movement.

On the night of October 3rd and 4th, both French columns along Route Coloniale were stopped. The commanders were ordered to advance through the jungle, leaving their vehicles behind. On October 7, both groups were able to reunite south of Dong Khe with heavy losses. However, under pressure from the pursuing Viet Minh, the troops' ability to offer organized resistance collapsed. One day after the meeting, the commanders gave their soldiers the order to make their way through the jungle in small groups towards the French lines.

consequences

Power relations in the Indochina War 1950

In the course of the fighting, the French armed forces had 4800 missing and dead people. Around 1200 went into captivity. Only around 600 of the soldiers who marched into the jungle returned to the French lines. The skirmishes in the border region marked the first defeat in the Indochina War to appear in the public perception of the motherland. In response, the French leadership cleared the impassable border region, which thus fell completely under the control of the Viet Minh. In addition, the Viet Minh captured some of the 450 trucks, 950 machine guns, 100 mortars and 10,200 rifles and submachine guns that the French troops had to leave behind in the battle. The Viet Minh had lost around 9,000 of around 30,000 soldiers to death. The supplies and weapons of war captured by the Viet Minh were sufficient to equip an entire division.

At the international level, the defeat led to greater support from the US government for France, as the concurrence of the Korean War gave preference to the unity of the Western camp over the previous critical stance on French colonialism in Washington. Both Marcel Carpentier and his civilian counterpart, High Commissioner Léon Pignon , were recalled as commanders in Indochina and replaced by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny , who was entrusted with both offices. At the political level, the government envisaged the previously rejected step of forming a Vietnamese pro-French national army.

The Viet Minh had a film team on site led by Khuong Me during the fighting for Dong Khe. The resulting material was processed into a film and shown in the same year at the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin. Colonel and battle veteran Dang Van Viet published a book about the fighting.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York, 2013, pp 242-244
  2. ^ Charles R. Shrader: A War of Logistics - Parachutes and Porters in Indochina 1945-1954. Lexington, 2015, p. 212
  3. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam , Cambridge 2004, p. 109
  4. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, pp. 244–246
  5. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, p. 246
  6. ↑ a b c d Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam , Cambridge 2004, pp. 109-110
  7. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, pp. 246–248
  8. ↑ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam , Cambridge 2004, pp. 109–110, p. 92
  9. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, pp. 249-251
  10. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina - An Ambiguous Colonization 1858 - 1954 , Berkeley, 2013 p. 367
  11. ↑ Bernhard B. Fall: Street Without Joy, Harrisburg, 1964 (reprint from 1994) p. 33
  12. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, pp. 254f
  13. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach , Copenhagen, 2012, p. 104
  14. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War , Copenhagen, 2011, p. 129