Battle for Điện Biên Phủ

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Battle for Điện Biên Phủ
Part of: Indochina War
French infantrymen in their trenches at Điện Biên Phủ
French infantrymen in their trenches at Điện Biên Phủ
date March 13 to May 8, 1954
place Điện Biên Phủ , Vietnam
output Victory of the Việt Minh
consequences the Geneva Indochina Conference
Parties to the conflict

France 1946Fourth French Republic France

Sponsored by: United States
United States 48United States 

Vietnam North 1945North Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Supported by: People's Republic of China
China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China 

Commander

Henri Navarre
Christian Marie de Castries
Marcel Bigeard
Pierre Langlais

Võ Nguyên Giáp
Hoang Van Thai
Van Tien Dung

Troop strength
15,000 soldiers,
24 105 mm howitzers
4 155 mm howitzers
28 120 mm mortars
4 M45 Quadmount
10 M24 Chaffee tanks 		50,000 soldiers,
42–48 105 mm guns
18 75 mm guns
20 120 mm mortars
36 37 mm anti-aircraft guns
12–16 Katyusha rocket launchers
losses

Approx. 3500 killed
approx. 4500 wounded
approx. 9000 prisoners
16–19 aircraft

Approx. 10,000 killed,
15,000 wounded

Indochina War 1946-54

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ is considered to be the decisive battle of the French Indochina War between the armed forces of France , including the Foreign Legion , and the forces of the Vietnamese independence movement Việt Minh . The battle for the French fortress in the Điện Biện district near the then district town Điện Biên Phủ began on March 13, 1954 and ended on May 8 with the defeat of the French, which sealed the end of the French colonial empire in Indochina (formerly French Indochina , today Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia ). The Việt Minh succeeded primarily through human labor to produce the necessary logistics for artillery superiority over the French, which were supplied from the air. As a result, the French, who had not expected such a performance from their opponents, were largely able to cut off the air supply and after a few months take the fortifications around Điện Biên Phủ. A large number of the captured soldiers died in the custody of the Việt Minh.

The outcome of the battle led to the overthrow of the Joseph Laniel government in France and paved the way for a negotiated solution to the conflict, the partition of Vietnam and the end of French Indochina at the Indochina Conference .

prehistory

background

Military control of the territory during the Indochina War

Indochina was a French colony until the beginning of the Second World War . With the defeat of 1940 and the strengthening of the Axis powers , the colony came under the influence of Japan. This influence weakened the French position of power so much that the Việt Minh were able to form a political and military mass movement with the goal of national independence as the strongest political force. This National Independence League, which was formally non-partisan but actually under communist control, was able to establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a sovereign state with communist characteristics in the northern part of the country in 1945 during the August Revolution . The French colonial power tried, however, to drag the communist Vietnamese state into a military conflict and thereby restore the colonial order through military superiority. Politically, the French tried to establish the Republic of Cochinchina as a partially sovereign client state in order to create a non-communist Vietnamese state and to deprive the north of the legitimacy . The Việt Minh responded with a guerrilla campaign in the south. With the bombing of the North Vietnamese port city of Haiphong by the French on November 23, 1946, the Indochina War began. The fighting in the first year ended in the displacement of the Việt Minh organizations underground and the reestablishment of the colonial regime. However, the Việt Minh continued to exist as a tightly organized guerrilla movement, starting from their bases in north Tonkins.

Since mid-1950 the Việt Minh have been able to bring their own armed forces close to the equipment and firepower of a regular army with Chinese support. The Việt Minh fought in large formations with supporting artillery . In Tonking , control of the French armed forces on the Red River delta was pushed back through several offensives . The changing French governments accepted the smoldering conflict without resolving it decisively. In the early 1950s, the majority of French political leaders believed that a military victory against the Việt Minh was unrealistic. Likewise, the possibility - Pierre Mendès France had been a public theme since 1950 - of a diplomatic solution and a withdrawal from Indochina had been discussed for some time . The looming peace in the Korean War , which ended with a partition, encouraged the pursuit of a negotiated solution. In 1953, Prime Minister René Mayer appointed General Henri Navarre as the new Commander- in -Chief in Indochina. Navarre was instructed to bring about the strongest possible military position as a bargaining chip for planned negotiations.

Due to the conspiratorial political work of the Việt Minh cadres, a large part of the rural population was covered by covert Việt Minh organizations in the villages, paid taxes and provided recruits . Even in the Red River Delta, which was actually controlled by the French colonial troops, around 70% of the villages were politically in the hands of the independence movement. In 1953 there were 75,000 regular French soldiers in supraregional, mobile units. Another 75,000 were assigned to a certain territory as regional troops. Around 200,000 local troops formed the backbone of the guerrillas on the other side. On the other hand, there were around 400,000 soldiers from the colonial power - albeit with a very different composition. The majority were locally recruited colonial troops. The French armed forces had to evacuate large parts of northern and central Vietnam under pressure from the Việt Minh guerrillas. In 1953 only the coastal regions around Hanoi , Hue and Saigon were left without a noticeable presence of the guerrillas. Instead of the loss-making attempt to control the country's rural area, the French leadership wanted to inflict decisive losses on the Việt Minh in a conventional decisive battle. This was to be done by building an airborne fortress-like ground base, which was then to be successfully defended in open battle .

Operation Castor

Location Điện Biên Phủs in Vietnam, showing the French air supply routes as well as the approach and supply routes of the Việt Minh

The French military leadership under General Henri Navarre wanted to give the war a decisive turning point by destroying the Việt Minh troops. To achieve this, the guerrilla units should be lured into an open battle . To this end, an air-supplied outpost was to be built in northwest Tonking to attract attacks by the Việt Minh. The air supply of light infantry forces of the Chindits during the Burma campaign in World War II and the defense of Nà Sản in 1952 served as a model . Navarre assigned the sparse air forces to two tasks: on the one hand, they should supply and support the garrison , on the other hand they should also disrupt the supply routes of the Việt Minh to the site of the battle.

The choice fell on the outpost at Điện Biên Phủ, which had already been abandoned several times, and which at that time was occupied by a locally deployed battalion of the Independent 148th Infantry Regiment of Việt Minh. In contrast to Nà Sản, however, the base was located in a valley and surrounded by ridges that should lie outside the French defense. Once the base was successfully established and defended, it was to serve as a patrol base to control the surrounding highlands. Here, Điện Biên Ph sollte should also serve as a base of operations and retreat for the pro-French partisans of the ethnic minorities of the Thái and Hmong . The French leadership hoped to gain control of the rice - and in particular the opium harvest - of the region from a permanent base in the highlands . On November 17, 1953, Henri Navarre ordered the reoccupation of Điện Biên Phủs from the air. This took place under formal protest by Jean-Louis Nicot , chief of transport of the Air Force in Indochina , who assessed the available forces as too few to supply the isolated base. Navarre deliberately issued the order a day before Admiral Georges Cabanier's arrival , who was supposed to bring him instructions from the government to refrain from offensive operations for political and economic reasons. From November 20 to 23, 2200 French paratroopers landed in Điện Biên Phủ. They quickly succeeded in driving the scanty Việt Minh forces from the landing site and erecting field fortifications. Navarre confirmed on December 3, 1953 in a secret order to René Cogny, the commander in chief of Tonkin, his intention to prepare Điện Biên Phủ as a place of a defensive battle. This should inflict heavy losses on the Vi empfindt Minh.

Establishment of the Điện Biên Phủ base

Schematic representation of the French positions

The expansion of Điện Biên Phủs into a fortified base began immediately after the landing. The French command transferred the command and planning of the entire defense system to Colonel Christian Marie de Castries . The valley, which is around 15 kilometers long and five kilometers wide, was to be secured by fortified bases. These should be positioned so that they could support each other with fire, reinforcements and counter-attacks. The bases were each occupied by a battalion. A typical base consisted of a continuous trench system, which was secured with mine fields and barbed wire . Fortified log houses were built from sandbags and wood in favorable places. These were manned with heavy machine guns. 130 tons of wood and 20 tons of scrap iron were flown in for construction. 2200 tons of wood could be felled on site. According to calculations by the commander of the 31st Pioneer Battalion involved in the battle, André Sudrat, there was a need for 34,000 tons of building material to build fortifications against heavy artillery on the entire base. This amount was impossible to obtain with the available air transport capacity. The central bases Dominique and Eliane were conveniently located on a hilltop and were preferred for fortification. The bases of Anne-Marie , Claudine and Huguette to the west of it lay in flat terrain. The bases of Gabrielle and Béatrice were built at the valley entrances in the northwest and northeast . This also had Béatrice an advantageous elevation. Isabelle's base was isolated in the south . A small part of the artillery was parked here for defense. A second airfield was to be built at this base. In the center was the majority of the French artillery, the main airfield, a field hospital and a water treatment plant. The artillery consisted of 24 105 mm howitzers, 28 120 mm mortars and four M45 Quadmount anti-aircraft guns. Ten M24 Chaffee light tanks were also flown in. In order to be able to develop sufficient firepower with the existing number of guns, the gun emplacements were built open at the top to enable quick realignment of the artillery. For the same firepower from fortified positions with a restricted fire area, around twice as many guns would have been necessary.

Preparations for the attack by the Vit Minh

In January 1953, the plenum of the Communist Party of Vietnam agreed to only attack the enemy’s weak points due to the military superiority of the colonial power. An attack on well-defended areas was considered too costly. Therefore, the French forces should be drawn apart by actions in the periphery. The scattered units should then be destroyed by locally superior forces. The Vietnamese commander General Võ Nguyên Giáp toyed with the idea of ​​an offensive in the Red River Delta , but like H wie Chí Minh he came to the conclusion that this would be too risky. The Chinese military advisers to Giáp also spoke out in favor of shifting operations to the periphery. The reoccupation of Điện Biên Phủs by the colonial forces came as a surprise to the Vietnamese leadership. In October 1953, Giáp, Hồ and other high-ranking cadres met in Thái Nguyên Province . The Vietnamese leadership agreed to shift the focus to the north-west of the country. In December 1953 Giáp presented the party's Politburo with a plan to first encircle the enemy base Điện Biên Phủ with a major offensive and then take it completely. On December 6, 1953, the Politburo approved Giáps' plan. However, Hồ gave Giáp express instructions to refrain from attacking at his own discretion if a victory was not to be assumed as certain.

Already at the beginning of December 1953, mostly regular Việt Minh forces controlled the area around Điện Biên Phủ in the north and north-east and carried out pinprick-like battles. Among other things, de Castries chief of staff was killed by a sniper. The attempt by the French to evacuate 2100 pro-French Thái partisans from the neighboring province of Lai Châu by land to Điện Biên Phủ failed with 90% casualties. The attempt to support the refugees with forces from Điện Biên Phủ failed after a few kilometers of advance due to the resistance of the Việt Minh. An expedition of smaller troops to Laos and a meeting with pro-French troops under Colonel Crèvecœur was presented to the media by de Castries by taking journalists with him, but was militarily inconclusive. At the end of 1953, the French military was correctly informed about the number of forces planned for the attack and the approaching of artillery. At the turn of the year, Navarre informed US Ambassador Donald R. Heath of his doubts that Điện Biên Phủ could be held. De Castries and his artillery commander Charles Piroth remained confident that they would be able to successfully defend the base.

The battle plan proposed by Giáp in December provided for a three-phase process. First, the isolated bases of Béatrice , Anne-Marie and Gabrielle should be taken. In the second phase, positions should be driven towards the remaining bases, in order to then conquer them in the third phase. The plan envisaged the deployment of nine infantry regiments with the support of all available artillery, engineer and air defense units of the Việt Minh. These combat units totaled around 35,000 men. In addition there were 1,720 soldiers to secure the supply routes and 1,850 men to occupy the headquarters, including a reserve of 4,000 fresh recruits. This increased the total to 42,570 military personnel. There were also around 14,500 civilians who were to serve as porters directly for the combat units. Giáp planned for a forty-five day battle. For this he calculated 300 tons of ammunition, 4,200 tons of rice and 212 tons of meat, vegetables and sugar. The exact number of civilians employed in the hinterland is not known, but it is estimated at around 200,000. A land reform carried out in 1953 in the areas controlled by the Việt Minh increased the will of the population to cooperate. The Việt Minh had around 600 Soviet-style trucks. For the transport measures, unpaved jungle paths were laid in the hinterland of Điện Biên Phủs towards the Chinese border. Individual vehicles were mostly assigned to the same stage. Waterways were also used with rafts and traditional river boats. The traffic routes were shielded from aircraft by camouflage measures and an observer service. The road network was laid out in such a way that any routes that had failed due to bombardment could be quickly compensated for by parallel routes. According to the French military intelligence service, it took around a week to transport a cargo over the 800 kilometers from the Chinese border. The Việt Minh's actual consumption for the entire operation was 16,800 tons of food, around 20,000 rounds for the tube artillery, around 2.5 million rounds of ammunition for automatic weapons, 30,000 times 37 mm anti-aircraft ammunition and 90,000 hand grenades.

The French air force and units of the naval air force operated intensively against the supply routes towards Đi Richtungn Biên Phủ with their limited resources. In early 1954 the soldiers of the Việt Minh reported a food shortage. The air offensive against the supply routes, however, failed due to the camouflage measures and the anti-aircraft artillery of the Việt Minh. The French lost several dozen planes every month. Nevertheless, the French troops around Điện Biên Phủ received sufficient supplies from February, mainly from the air. The actual plan was an attack on January 25th. The French leadership was informed about the attack intentions of the Việt Minh. Giáp postponed the attack for an indefinite period in order to prepare his troops on site for the attack and to create positions, especially for the artillery. Contrary to the initial objective of overrun the base with forces brought in quickly, a well-planned, methodical battle was to be fought. As the impetus for this decision, Giáp gave the arrival of French tanks and the stationing of Bearcat fighters on the airfield.

The preparations dragged on for another six weeks. Particular attention was paid to the bulletproof accommodation of the artillery in casemates carved out of the rock. The Việt Minh also set up numerous positions to deflect the French counterfire away from their guns, and methodically prepared their crews for the fire on their mostly assigned targets. The Việt Minh set up their artillery on the French side of the hills above Điện Biên Phủ. This enabled them to fire their guns directly instead of indirect fire . This increased the hit accuracy of the mostly relatively inexperienced gun crews. The French commanders in Điện Biên Phủ were not convinced until the beginning of the battle that the Việt Minh would succeed in exerting a dangerous artillery superiority: the artillery commander Piroth took the view that the Việt Minh, even if they did manage it, would be heavy Bring artillery that could not provide them with sufficient ammunition. The deployment of the artillery on the enemy-facing sides of the hill was dismissed as a "rumor" by Piroth, although the daily newspaper Le Monde reported about it in February.

At the beginning of March there were isolated shelling of the airfield of Điện Biên Phủ. At the end of January, sporadic shelling of the fortress itself began. On February 3, on the occasion of the Tết Nguyên Đán , the Việt Minh shelled the French positions with an intense thirty-minute artillery bombardment. There were also coordinated sabotage and commando actions by the Việt Minh against facilities and aircraft of the French air forces throughout North Vietnam.

Course of the battle

Beginning of the battle in March

First wave of attacks by the Việt Minh on the northern positions

In March 1954, Giáp assessed his troops as well enough prepared. The Việt Minh opened the attack on March 13, 1954 with artillery fire on the camp. The French artillery was unable to suppress the opposing artillery despite the mobilization of a quarter of its 105 mm ammunition. As a result, the camp's main airfield was badly damaged and almost completely unusable on the first day of the battle. The secondary airfield at Isabelle could not be put into operation under these conditions either. Thanks to the interaction of artillery and infantry, which had come close to the French positions, the Việt Minh were able to overrun the Béatrice base after just a few hours. Only 250 of 750 members of the battalion of the 13e DBLE defending the base were able to withdraw. On March 15th, the Gabrielle base was captured. Of the defending Algerian infantrymen, 220 were taken prisoners of war. 550 were killed. On the same day, the artillery commander Piroth committed suicide, according to his entourage due to feelings of guilt over the failure of his artillery to effectively fight the enemy fire. De Castries tried to keep Piroth's suicide secret in the camp. A few days later, however, the information was published in Le Monde . The Anne-Marie base fell to the Việt Minh on March 17th after most of the defending Thái soldiers had withdrawn. The Việt Minh were thus able to successfully complete the first phase of their battle plan within a few days. However, the casualties were high, with 2,500 combatants dead. In response to the start of the battle, the French government sent the country's highest ranking active officer, General Paul Ély , to Washington to solicit US support at the government level. In Điện Biên Phủ itself, the paratrooper officer Pierre Langlais, appointed by de Castries, assumed the decisive role in commanding the battle.

The French government asked the United States to air strikes against the Việt Minh forces at Điện Biên Phủ. The plans for this were given the code name Operation Vulture . The US Air Force Chief of Staff , Nathan F. Twining , and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Arthur W. Radford , even put forward an option for tactical nuclear weapons. However, this option was rejected by the Eisenhower administration and Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgway . However, the US government asked the leaders of Congress for authorization to intervene. However, the Congress demanded on the one hand the participation of the British as intervening allies and on the other hand the immediate full independence of Vietnam, since a commitment to French colonialism could not be justified for domestic political reasons. The British government under Winston Churchill refused to intervene in Indochina. The French themselves saw the American demand for immediate state independence of the colony as unacceptable. As a result, there was no operational intervention by the US or other Western powers on the part of the French. However, rumors of an impending air strike by the US Air Force were rampant in Điện Biên Phủ and were spread by officers to raise morale. The CIA- controlled company Civil Air Transport flew 682 transport missions over Điện Biên Phủ between March 13 and May 6, 1954 with the approval of the US government. During these missions, a C-119 Flying Boxcar was shot down over Laos. The two US crew members were killed.

Second wave of attacks on the fortress

French M24 tanks at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ

Due to the high losses of the first wave of attacks, Giáp announced on March 18 that the attack tactics on the fortress had been changed. To reduce one's own losses, a trench system should be driven as close as possible to the French positions before further attacks. During the day, the troops brought wood from the surrounding forests to build the trenches. At night, the positions were expanded with simple tools. French artillery fire and air strikes could not bring the fortifications to a standstill. Raid-like counterattacks by the colonial troops failed with high losses in the fire of the guns and mortars of the Việt Minh. The Việt Minh also managed to keep the connection between the Isabelle base and the main camp under constant threat until the end of March. To open the route for French troops, daily battles were necessary, mostly with tank support. While the position was being expanded, Giap increased its reserves from around 8,000 to around 25,000 men.

On March 18, de Castries issued the order to bury those who had died on the spot because of the dangerous nature of the transport. The French side tried to reinforce their fortifications with earth throats for lack of better material. Extensive minefields were also created. On the French side, the airlift to supply and reinforce Điện Biên Phủs came under increasing pressure from the Việt Minh air defense. The responsible air force commander Nicot had ordered a higher drop height for replenishment drops. The runway could only very rarely be approached successfully due to artillery fire from the Việt Minh. Few of the wounded were evacuated. Reinforcement via landing aircraft was limited to medical personnel and medical supplies. To maintain the airlift, the French military relied on supplies from the US armed forces. Around 1,000 cargo parachutes per day were required to supply the troops from the air.

Giap opened the second wave of attacks on March 30, 1954. The targets of the offensive were the eastern bases Dominique and Éliane as well as the base Isabelle. The Việt Minh were able to take parts of the Dominique and Éliane bases , but suffered heavy losses under the French bombardment and artillery fire. On the French side, French paratroopers fired against fleeing Algerian colonial soldiers. The Vietnamese offensive could not achieve its goal of completely taking the bases. But important hill positions were conquered, which towered over the remaining French positions. On the French side, the second offensive led to a breakdown in morale, especially in North African and Vietnamese colonial units. Several thousand soldiers sought refuge in natural niches and caves in the Nam Youn river bed and no longer took part in combat operations. The French leadership refrained from using armed force against the deserters, as they feared negative effects on the morale, especially of the non-French soldiers. The French-controlled area was reduced by the attacks from around five square kilometers to around 2.6 square kilometers. The French artillery was able to continue to operate, even if their operational capability in some batteries fell to around 50%. The establishment of the Vietnamese artillery and their distribution in bulletproof casemates made it difficult for the Việt Minh to concentrate a large amount of fire on just one target. On April 7th, Giap again ordered trench warfare tactics without attacks over open terrain in order to minimize his own losses. Around the same time, the leadership of political officers within the fighting troops were reported to have had moral problems due to high casualties. Giap and his staff responded with a political campaign against the right-wing deviation , which, with reference to its own losses, undermined soldiers' morale.

The attempt to support the trapped troops from the direction of Laos with Hmong partisans and a small core of regular troops under the command of Colonel Boucher de Crèvecoeur failed until the end of April due to the resistance of the Việt Minh. The rumor of this Operation Condor , however, persisted both under the occupation of Điên Biên Ph französischen and in the French print media.

The Vietnamese flag flies over the French command bunker of Điện Biên Phủ

The fall of Điện Biên Phủ

In mid-April the French garrison comprised 4,900 fighting soldiers, around 4,000 deserters and non-combatants and 2,100 wounded. Although the Việt Minh gathered their forces for a new major attack and did not carry out any major attacks, the garrison lost 1,430 soldiers by the end of April. Only 683 could be brought up by parachute jump as "replacement reinforcement". With their few dozen bombers, the French air forces were unable to significantly disrupt the Việt Minh's military structures, which were mostly well camouflaged over around 160 square kilometers. Air Force officers described the effectiveness of the bombing attacks as low due to the lack of training of the pilots. On April 22nd, Giáp presented the plan for the complete capture of the French positions. From May 1st to 5th, break-ins into the bases of Eliane and Huguette were supposed to create the conditions for a final general attack. This was to begin on May 10, 1954, after five days of preparation and only hesitant fighting on the part of the Việt Minh.

As the controlled territory became smaller and smaller and the threat posed by the Vi Mint Minh flak increased, the French supply dried up. The garrison only had food for three days, light artillery ammunition for two days of fighting and heavy artillery shells for a few hours of fighting. The French headquarters around General Ély considered on April 30th for the first time to order the breakout of several thousand men from the base in order to break through several hundred kilometers through enemy-controlled jungle into French-controlled territory. The renewed general attack by the Việt Minh was able to quickly achieve its limited goals. De Castries was authorized on May 2 to attempt an escape. However, he rejected this in consensus with his subordinate commanders as hopeless. On May 3, he gave the order to send wounded men who were still fit to fight to the front.

On May 6, after their attacks had apparently subsided, the Việt Minh used Katyusha rocket launchers for the first time . This heavy artillery strike resulted in the flight of many deserters from their caves on the Nam Youn River and led Giáp to believe that the collapse of the camp was imminent. As a result, Giáp ordered the general attack three days before the scheduled date, which in the course of the day led to the breakdown of French morale. During the battle for the Éliane base , the Việt Minh used a mine to blow up part of the base's trench system. De Castries gave the order to end all resistance, but was prevented by orders from his superiors Navarre and Ély from formally capitulating with white flags. The isolated base of Isabelle surrendered a few hours later in the early morning hours of May 8, 1954. Numerous local colonial soldiers stripped of their uniforms and tried in small groups to avoid capture. On the same day, the previously scheduled Indochina Conference began in Geneva.

consequences

Death, wounding and imprisonment

Around 15,000 soldiers and paramilitaries were deployed on the French side in the battle. 4,000 of them were parachute jumped in to reinforce the fighting. The Vietnamese themselves made up the largest group with around 5,400 men. 26% were foreign legionnaires. 19% of the soldiers were French nationals from the mother country. 17.5% were residents of the French colonies in North Africa. 247 West African colonial soldiers also served in Điện Biên Phủ. Around 3,500 soldiers were killed during the fighting. Around 10,000 people were taken prisoner at the time of the surrender, including civilian auxiliaries for the French armed forces. Since Giáp did not have sufficient means to care for the seriously wounded, 900 of them were handed over to the Red Cross and flown to French hospitals. Around 9,000 prisoners of war were sent several hundred kilometers to various prison camps on foot. Acts of violence against prisoners occurred but were not systematic. Vietnamese soldiers in the colonial army were treated worse than French soldiers. Many prisoners died on the march or in the camps due to a lack of nutrition and medical care. A major cause of death was amoebic dysentery . The remaining French medical team was refused treatment of their own wounded due to the separation of officers and men. Around 1,000 members of the legion from what were now communist states were repatriated. Around 3900 survivors returned to France from August 1954.

The casualty figures officially announced by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) name around 4,000 dead and around 9,000 wounded. According to estimates by independent historians, around 10,000 killed and around 15,000 wounded. In particular, the risk of the attacking infantry was highest. The probability of not surviving a wave of attacks was initially around 30%, in the course of the battle around 20% for the individual soldier. The evacuation of the wounded was a difficult and often life-threatening undertaking. Around a third of the Việt Minh wounded could not be removed from the battlefield until their death.

Medical care on both sides was primitive and inadequate. On the French side, only two doctors and one nurse were available for around 15,000 soldiers, as the plans assumed an open airlift to evacuate the wounded. Due to the narrowness and enemy fire, the hygienic conditions in the hospitals were inadequate. It was teeming with parasites. On the Vietnamese side, a doctor and six assistants were available for up to around 50,000 men. There was a lack of modern medical equipment as well as modern drugs. Even the quinine used to prevent malaria had to be diluted to barely effective doses. On both sides, especially after the onset of rain in April, the soldiers were exposed to unsanitary conditions due to flooding of the positions and gastrointestinal infectious diseases and wound infections were widespread strains of the soldiers on both sides.

Political Consequences

The loss of thousands of soldiers, including a general, brought back memories of the defeat of 1940 in the French and pro-French Vietnamese public, who had so far only marginally noticed the Indochina war . On the day of the fall of the garrison, there was national mourning in France and mourning programs were broadcast on television and radio. Depending on the political orientation, the press reacted with demands for the resignation of Laniel's government, criticism of the US's non-intervention or self-criticism of French society. Le Figaro attributed the defeat to a self-deception of French society. In particular, the prospect of further casualties and prisoners of war crammed into the Việt Minh camps made a continuation of the war seem intolerable to the population. Within the French military, the defeat led to resentment with its own political leadership, which ultimately led to the coup in Algiers during the Algerian war .

Even before the battle, in January 1954, Soviet diplomats had allowed French diplomats to split Vietnam into a communist northern part and a southern part, which was still under French control. The Soviet government's interest in a peaceful solution was to improve relations with France and, in return, to prevent France from participating in the European Defense Community . Likewise, China, which feared US intervention if the war escalated further, supported the partition of Vietnam with the creation of a communist-controlled buffer state in North Vietnam. The outcome of Điện Biên Phủ played a decisive role for the Indochina Conference in Geneva, which was scheduled for the summer of 1954 , at which the great powers and Vietnam were present. The Vietnamese political leadership has already been instructed by its Soviet and Chinese allies in preliminary talks that partition should be the maximum enforceable demand in the negotiations. This did not fulfill the hope of the Vietnamese leadership that the battle would lead to greater concessions. However, the defeat accelerated the conclusion of the contract on the French side. The defeat at Điện Biên Phủ triggered the resignation of the government under Joseph Laniel in France and brought the declared opponent of the Indochina War Pierre Mendès France into the government office; he also took over the foreign ministry. Mendès France and the Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong were able to agree, with the mediation of the Soviet Union and China, to divide the country at the 17th parallel. However, the country's political unity should be preserved and all-Vietnamese, secret elections should decide the political future of the nation in two years. The battle itself was a unique event to date insofar as a national liberation movement of a colonized state was able to inflict a decisive military defeat on the enemy in an open battle. The defeat at Điện Biên Phủ and the subsequent withdrawal of the French from Indochina encouraged other organizations in the colonies striving for independence; so began in November 1954 the Algerian war . According to the member of the FLN leadership Benyoucef Benkhedda , the defeat at Điện Biên Phủ had a decisive influence on the internal discussion of the organization in the direction of an uprising with the aim of a war of liberation. On October 9th, the French evacuated Hanoi. In the same month, the Eisenhower administration pledged its support to Ngo Dinh Diem in building a pro-Western Vietnamese state in Cochinchina. South Vietnam gained independence in December 1954. The last French troops left the country in April 1956. The conflict between the two Vietnamese states finally culminated in the Vietnam War and President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the domino theory to the American public during the battle in April 1954 in order to aim for a larger one Justify US engagements in Southeast Asia.

Reception and culture of remembrance

Monument to the Vietnamese Armed Forces

There is now a museum at the site of the battle. The Castries command bunker has been preserved. There are several war memorials of the Vietnamese armed forces on the site. The Vietnamese dead who were buried during the battle were recorded centrally in 1960 by Vietnamese government agencies and reburied in two cemeteries of honor. In 1994 a French war memorial was erected on the initiative of a former member of the Foreign Legion with the support of the then Defense Minister Jacques Chirac .

In Vietnam, the victory of Điện Biên Phủ became a central motif of state propaganda. The air defense battles during Operation Linebacker II during the Vietnam War with the United States were referred to as Dien Bien Phu in the air by the North Vietnamese . In 2004 the Vietnamese state celebrated the 50th anniversary of the battle with large-scale celebrations. In addition to Vietnamese veterans, high-ranking military personnel from the People's Republic of China, who were then employed as military advisers, were honored. On the occasion of the occasion, Võ Nguyên Giáp also paid tribute to two generals and a colonel who fell victim to preventive political cleansing after the victory and who died in custody as treason. The officers, including the chief of the political department, the commander of the logistics department and the chief of the operations department in Giap's staff, had previously not been recognized by the official historiography.

The French press and the military leadership described the battle in the post-war period based on the Battle of Verdun and portrayed the fighting as a heroic defensive battle of the French troops. The Algerian President Ferhat Abbas , however, referred to the battle as a liberation battle based on the Valmy cannonade of all colonized peoples. In both German states the fate of the German members of the French Foreign Legion preoccupied public opinion. The number of German Foreign Legionnaires, which actually comprised around 50% of the legionary teams and their share in the battles, was clearly overestimated. The struggle of the legionaries was transfigured in the sense of a hero myth. Legionaries also persisted that the legionnaires deployed at Đi Bin Biên Phủ consisted mainly of former members of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS , which was not possible due to the age structure of the soldiers.

The battle was cinematically processed several times. The film Diên Biên Phú - Symphony of Doom by Pierre Schoendoerffer , a survivor of the Kesselschlacht who devoted his cinematic and literary work to the Indochina War, deals with the battle. As early as 1955, the American director David Butler shot Jump Into Hell (German synchro-title: Die Hölle von Dien Bien Phu ), with Jacques Sernas , Kurt Kasznar and Peter van Eyck in the leading roles.

After the end of the war in Hanoi, a Vietnamese-Soviet film team under Roman Karmen cut an official documentary film about the battle from material shot on site and re-enacted scenes. The Vietnamese writer Tran Van Dan , who had volunteered for the battle, was expelled from the party and his work was censored because of his 1955 novel Man for Man - Wave by Wave ( Nguoi Nguoi Lop Lop ). To date, it has not been possible to openly scientifically or artistically examine the war and the battle outside of the officially prescribed propaganda line in Vietnam.

The recovery and burial of the remains of the French soldiers began in 1955 by a French team. However, the work was canceled by the Vietnamese government due to the deterioration in relations between France and the DRV against the background of the impending Vietnam War. In 1993 a national memorial for the fallen in Indochina was erected in Fréjus and several thousand unidentified soldiers were buried there after they were repatriated from Vietnam.

Quote about the battle

“The survivors of Dien Bien Phu told of the battle, of the failure of the leadership, of the terrible surprise when suddenly artillery fire drummed on their inadequate position. A Thai battalion defected immediately. The other colored troops had behaved passively and sought cover. Only the French paratroopers had really fought to the last hole in the ground and down to the knife, and the Foreign Legionnaires, eighty percent Germans, were ready to die like in a mythical battle of the Goths. "

- Peter Scholl-Latour

literature

In German language:

  • Marc Frey : The end of a colonial empire. Dien Bien Phu, March 13 to May 7, 1954. In: Stig Förster u. a. (Ed.): Battles of world history. From Salamis to Sinai. Dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-34083-5 , pp. 358-373.
  • Marc Frey: History of the Vietnam War. The tragedy in Asia and the end of the American dream. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-45978-1 , pp. 11-41.
  • Terry Kajuko: Dien Bien Phu - The Paratroopers of the Foreign Legion in Indochina. Epee Edition, Kehl am Rhein 2014, ISBN 978-3-943288-26-1 .

In English:

  • Bernard B. Fall : Hell in a Very Small Place - The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York 1967.
  • Ted Morgan: Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America Into the Vietnam War. New York 2010.
  • Jules Roy: The Fall of Dien Bien Phu. The white man's Stalingrad in Indochina. Heyne, Munich 1964.
  • Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004.

In French:

  • Pierre Pelessier: Diên Biên Phu: November 20, 1953 - May 7, 1954. Paris 2004.
  • Pierre Journous, Hugues Tetrais: Paroles de Dien Bien Phu: Les survivants témoignent. Paris 2004.

Web links

Commons : Điện Biên Phủ  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 702.
  2. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 709.
  3. ^ Phillip B. Davidson: Vietnam at War - The History 1046-1975, Oxford, 1988, p. 224.
  4. ^ A b c Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 624.
  5. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 707.
  6. ↑ a b Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 539-543.
  7. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. 2009, pp. 349-363.
    Keith Weller Taylor: A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge 2013, pp. 539-543.
  8. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. 2009, pp. 367-370.
  9. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, p. 357.
  10. ^ Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945-1954. Paris 1987, pp. 214, pp. 220-223.
  11. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 358-360.
  12. ^ Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945-1954. Paris 1987, pp. 214-215.
  13. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. 2009, pp. 367-370.
    Marylin B. Young: The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990. New York 1991, p. 32.
  14. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 216-218, p. 348.
  15. ^ Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945-1954. Paris 1987, p. 229.
  16. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 358-360, pp. 385-386, p. 392.
    Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 234, p. 348.
  17. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 313-317, pp. 702.
  18. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 352-353.
  19. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 387-394.
  20. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 318-323.
    Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 419-421.
  21. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, p. 448.
  22. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, p. 394.
  23. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 141.
  24. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 262-264.
  25. ^ Charles R. Shrader: A War of Logistics - Parachutes and Porters in Indochina, 1945-1954 , Lexingtion, 2015, p. 359
  26. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 281-285.
  27. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 413, pp. 421-425, pp. 447-448.
    Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 286, pp. 351-355.
  28. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 446-451.
    Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 412, p. 474.
  29. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 441-443.
  30. ^ Marylin B. Young: The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990. New York 1991, pp. 33-35.
  31. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach, Copenhagen. 2012, p. 106, p. 287 f.
    Publication by the French embassy in the USA. (PDF) March 2005; Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  32. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 423-427.
  33. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 429-432, p. 434.
  34. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 458-460, pp. 481-482, pp. 491-495.
  35. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 515-517
  36. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 458-460, pp. 481-482, pp. 571-575, p. 594.
  37. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 537, 559, 576.
  38. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 586, pp. 588, pp. 593, 602-603, 608-612.
  39. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 647.
    Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945–1954. Paris 1987, pp. 232-233.
  40. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 539-543.
    Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954). Copenhagen 2011, p. 146.
  41. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 146.
  42. ↑ Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, p. 511, p. 516 f.
    Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, p. 647.
    Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945–1954. Paris 1987, p. 495.
  43. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, pp. 145–146
  44. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 627-630.
    Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, p. 536
  45. ^ Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Cambridge 2004, pp. 655-656.
  46. ↑ a b c Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2013, pp. 521-523, pp. 602-605.
    Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine 1945–1954. Paris 1987, pp. 237-239, p. 284.
  47. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 147.
  48. ^ A b c Pierre Journoud: Dien Bien Phu: naissance et destin d'un mythe herroïque. In: Héros militaire, culture et société (XIXe-XXe siècles). Claude d'Abzac-Épezy, Jean Martinant de Préneuf, June 1, 2012, accessed April 17, 2015 (French).
  49. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 147
  50. ^ Bob Seals: "Peace" in a Very Small Place: Dien Bien Phu 50 Years Later. Military History Online, accessed April 10, 2015 .
  51. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 92, p. 497.
  52. ^ David Lowe, Tony Joels: Remembering the Cold War: Global Contest and National Stories , New York, 2013 p. 17
  53. ↑ Eckard Michels: Germans in the Foreign Legion 1870-1965. 5th edition. Munich 2006, p. 184, pp. 208-209.
  54. ^ Jacques Dalloz: Dictionnaire de La Guerre d'Indochine. Paris 2006, p. 226.
  55. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, p. 104, p. 302, p. 432 f.
  56. ^ Bernard B. Fall: Hell in a Very Small Place. Cambridge 1966, pp. 449-450.
  57. ↑ Le Mémorial des guerres en Indochine. In: Website of the French Ministry of Defense. French Ministry of Defense, accessed April 18, 2015 (French).
  58. ↑ Thomas GUEST: INDOCHINA. The long way to Dien Bien Phu, Neobooks 2017, p. 1
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on May 23, 2015 in this version .