Battle of Hanoi
The Battle of Hanoi began with an attack by the Viet Minh on the infrastructure and French troop presence in the capital of Tonkin Hanoi on December 19, 1946. It ended after months of guerrilla warfare with the withdrawal of the last Viet Minh soldiers on February 17, 1947. During the fighting, the city was seriously destroyed and the pro-French civilian population was attacked.
In the majority opinion of historians, the battle marks the beginning of the Indochina War .
background
The takeover of power by the Japanese on March 9, 1945 eliminated the remaining structures of the colonial state in French Indochina . After the collapse and surrender of the Japanese Empire, British-French troops occupied the southern part of the country and national Chinese soldiers the northern part. At the same time the communist independence fighters proclaimed Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi , the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the August Revolution . While the French were able to reestablish their colonial rule in the southern part, this was initially not attempted in the north due to the presence of Chinese troops and the position of the Viet Minh. Negotiations allowed France to deploy around 15,000 soldiers across Tonkin on March 6, 1946 . This also included the capital of the DRV Hanoi. After the withdrawal of the Chinese troops in September 1946, tensions escalated quickly and in November 1946 there was fighting during the Haiphong incident and the city was occupied by French troops. From this point on, the DRV government prepared to evacuate its civil and military structures from Hanoi in order to wage a guerrilla war with them. The military high command of the Viet Minh established a plan to cover the retreat by holding skirmishes in Hanoi.
Military balance of power
On the Vietnamese side, around 2,000 members of the military remained in the city after the DRV government's evacuation order. The force consisted of the capital regiment of the Viet Minh and militias formed ad hoc in the city . There were also around 200 children among the military personnel who were used for reconnaissance and reporting purposes. The commander of the units in the city was the commander of the capital regiment Vương Thừa Vũ .
The French forces at Hanoi were commanded by Colonel Debès and were under the supreme command of CEFEO commander Jean-Étienne Valluy .
Due to a lack of equipment and armament, the Vietnamese side was clearly inferior to the French armed forces, which had tanks, artillery and fighter planes on a large scale.
Course of the battle
The battle began at 8:00 p.m. on December 19, 1946 with a Vietnamese attack on the power station, transport hubs and French armed forces posts in the city. The French leadership in the city had been warned by its own agents from the afternoon that an attack was imminent. The French troops managed to occupy the airport and the northern part of the city on the first day of the battle. From this area, the districts controlled by the Viet Minh were recaptured. Due to their inferior firepower, the Viet Minh resorted to guerrilla actions from their urban area.
The security of the old town was carried out by the French infantry in house-to-house combat and lasted for several months. The French side massively bombed the old town, the main defense area of the Viet Minh. At the beginning of the battle, the Viet Minh forces in the city were supported by regular forces outside the city who tried to fire the approach routes.
With the withdrawal of the Capital Regiment on February 17, 1947, the Viet Minh's military resistance in Hanoi ended the following day. During the fighting, the Viet Minh evacuated several thousand officials and civilian specialists from the capital to the countryside, where they were to remain permanently in the guerrilla areas. The motive for breaking off the resistance in Hanoi was an imminent French general attack on the remaining Viet Minh territories in the city.
Follow
The Viet Minh troops in the city recorded losses of around 1,000 combatants. The French put their losses at around 500 men.
The battle, and in particular the use of French artillery, led to severe destruction in the city and the civilian population to flee. The population did not begin to recover again until 1948/49 when people returned or moved to the area. The old town remained almost completely uninhabited until 1948. After the end of the battle, the Viet Minh let their former police units continue to operate covertly in the city in order to attack locals who were cooperating with the colonial power.
After the battle, the French expeditionary force quickly managed to occupy the remaining cities in the former DRV territory in Tonkin and Annam.
After the troops of the expeditionary corps had secured the cities of Tonkins and Annams, the leadership of CEFEO around Valluy turned its attention to the military destruction of the Viet Minh structures in his rural retreat in the Viet Bac region. This ultimately led to the unsuccessful Opération Léa in autumn 1947.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954). Copenhagen, 2011, pp. 199f
- ↑ a b c d e Christopher Goscha: Vietnam - A New History. New York 2016, p. 223
- ^ A b c William J. Duiker: The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Boulder, 2nd Edition, 1987, 1996, pp. 137
- ^ Jacques Dalloz: La guerre d'Indochine, Paris, 1987, pp. 114–117