Battle of Mạo Khê

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At the Battle of Mạo Khe , the Viet Minh tried to break through the defensive ring of the Red River Delta by attacking regular troops. The French colonial troops managed to repel the attack in the fighting from March 27 to March 30, 1951. On the Vietnamese side, the fighting went under the name Operation Hoanh Hoa Tham II.

prehistory

Power relations in the Indochina War 1950

The Vietnamese military leadership under Vo Nguyen Giap saw itself in a position to carry out increasingly regular military operations in the Indochina War thanks to the arrival of Chinese military aid since 1950 . In 1950, the Vietnamese leadership tried to advance from the rural regions they controlled into the densely populated Red River delta. At the Battle of Vĩnh Yên in January 1951, the French troops under Jean de Lattre de Tassigny were able to prevent such an attempt and inflicted heavy losses on the Viet Minh.

course

Giap wanted to make another attempt to attack the delta. He selected the village of Mao Khe as the target. This was about 20 kilometers northwest of the main port of Tonkin Haiphong . Giap put 21 battalions from divisions 308 , 312 and 316 on the march.

On the French side, Mao Khe was defended by around 400 men. The troops were mostly made up of pro-French partisans of the Thổ people. There was also a company of Senegalese colonial infantry and an armored car company of the Régiment d'infanterie coloniale du maroc . On March 27, the Viet Minh attack began with mortar fire and the use of death volunteers with explosives. The French side brought in paratroopers from the 6e BPC . The French troops received massive support from the air and from ship artillery. The French troops succeeded in repelling the attacks by the Viet Minh. On March 30th, they withdrew.

consequences

The exact casualty figures of the Viet Minh are unknown. French troops counted around 400 bodies left behind on the battlefield. The French side stated their losses as 40 dead and 150 wounded. Giap continued to pursue his strategy of breaking into the delta. This was followed by the battle of the Đáy River in the summer of 1951.

Individual evidence

  1. Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, pp. 268-274
  2. Frederick Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam , New York 2013, p. 271
  3. ^ A b c Martin Windrow: The Last Valley - Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam , Cambridge 2004, p. 114
  4. a b Bernhard Fall: Street without Joy, 4th edition, Harrisburg, 1994, pp. 41-43