What year was Vietnam colonized by the French?
Vietnam: The Origins of Revolution
The book, a revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation, chronicles the history of Vietnam from the nascent French colonization in 1885 to the August Revolution in 1945. These events serve as background to the revolution. The author's thesis is that the political events in the middle of the 20th century in Vietnam were not limited to an anti-colonial revolt, but constituted a pervasive political revolution.
Economic history of Vietnam
In the South (usually referred to as Đàng Trong), foreign trade started to emerge in the early 17th century, with Portuguese traders being first foreign businesspeople coming first to Hoi An port town near Đà Nẵng, almost the same period when the Dutch occupied Java islands of today's Indonesia in 1594. It was said that Jean de la Croix was the first Portuguese to have established a cannon molding mill–perhaps a lucrative business operation–in Thuận Hóa town, near Hue in the central region in 1614. The French arrived in Hội An port city in 1686. More importantly, French ship Machault embarked on Hội An in 1749 and presented a letter proposing first formal diplomatic relationship with Lord Nguyên, which received his warm regard.
Battle of Ky Hoa
The Battle of Kỳ Hòa (Trận Đại đồn Chí Hòa) on 24 and 25 February 1861 was an important French victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.
Phan Đình Phùng
Despite his prominent position in the Nguyễn Dynasty, little is known about Phan's personal stance on Vietnamese relations with France, which was in the process of colonising Vietnam. France had first invaded in 1858, beginning the colonisation of southern Vietnam. Three provinces were ceded under the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and a further three in 1867 to form the colony of Cochinchina. During the period, there was debate in the Huế court on the best strategy to regain the territory. One group advocated military means, while another believed in the use of diplomacy in addition to financial and religious concessions. By the time of Tự Đức's death in 1883, the whole of Vietnam was colonised, henceforth incorporated with Laos and Cambodia into French Indochina.
Economic history of Vietnam
Whatever economic progress Vietnam made under the French after 1900 benefited only the French and the small class of wealthy Vietnamese created by the colonial regime. The masses of the Vietnamese people were deprived of such benefits by the social policies inaugurated by Doumer and maintained even by his more liberal successors, such as Paul Beau (1902–07), Albert Sarraut (1911–14 and 1917–19), and Alexandre Varenne (1925–28). Through the construction of irrigation works, chiefly in the Mekong delta, the area of land devoted to rice cultivation quadrupled between 1880 and 1930. During the same period, however, the individual peasant's rice consumption decreased without the substitution of other foods. The new lands were not distributed among the landless and the peasants but were sold to the highest bidder or given away at nominal prices to Vietnamese collaborators and French speculators. These policies created a new class of Vietnamese landlords and a class of landless tenants who worked the fields of the landlords for rents of up to 60 percent of the crop, which was sold by the landlords at the Saigon export market. The mounting export figures for rice resulted not only from the increase in cultivable land but also from the growing exploitation of the peasantry.
Capture of Biên Hòa
The Capture of Biên Hòa (Vietnamese: Biên Hòa) on 16 December 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.
Vietnamese Cambodians
In 1880, the French colonial administration to provide subject status to Vietnamese residents in Cambodia. Over the next fifty years, large numbers of Vietnamese migrated to Cambodia. Population censuses conducted by the French recorded an increase in the Vietnamese population from about 4,500 in the 1860s to almost 200,000 at the end of the 1930s. When the Japanese invaded Indochina in 1940, Vietnamese nationalists in Cambodia launched a brief but unsuccessful attempt to attack the French colonial administrators. In 1954, a citizenship law was passed on the basis of knowledge in the Khmer language and national origin, and effectively excluded most Vietnamese and Chinese Cambodians. At the grassroots level, Vietnamese also faced occasional cases of violent intimidation from the Cambodians. During a Sangkum congress in 1962, politicians debated on the issue of citizenship on Cambodia's ethnic minorities and a resolution was passed not to grant naturalization of Vietnamese residents.
Bolaven Plateau
In 1893, the French first annexed territories east of the Mekong River and later annexed minor extensions of land to the west of the Mekong in 1904 and 1907. For the Bolaven Plateau, the period of French colonization in Laos is most significant because of the agricultural techniques acquired from the French by the inhabitants. According to the Historical Dictionary, “the French planted coffee and experimented with rubber, and the plateau has remained an important agricultural area growing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, as well as cash crops”. It was not until the French introduced farming to the region in the early 20th century that the residents of the Bolaven Plateau made the area an agricultural sector.
Việt Minh
Within days, the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalist) Army arrived in Vietnam to supervise the repatriation of the Japanese Imperial Army. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam therefore existed only in theory and effectively controlled no territory. A few months later, the Chinese, Vietnamese and French came to a three-way understanding. The French gave up certain rights in China, the Việt Minh agreed to the return of the French in exchange for promises of independence within the French Union, and the Chinese agreed to leave. Negotiations between the French and Việt Minh broke down quickly. What followed was nearly ten years of war against France. This was known as the First Indochina War or, to the Vietnamese, the French War.
Hoa people
Chinese economic dominance in Vietnam dates back to 208 B.C., when the renegade Qin Chinese general Zhao Tuo defeated An Dương Vương, the king of Âu Lạc in north Vietnam and conquered the Âu Lạc Kingdom, an ancient Vietnamese state situated in the northern mountains of modern Vietnam populated by the ancient Lạc Việt and Âu Việt. He annexed Âu Lạc into the Qin Empire the following year and declared himself the emperor of Nam Viet. A century later, the powerful Han dynasty annexed Nanyue (which in Chinese translates to "land of the southern barbarians") into the Han Empire and was ruled as a province for the next several hundred years. Sinification of Nanyue was brought about by a combination of Han imperial military power, regular settlement and an influx of Han Chinese refugees, officers and garrisons, merchants, scholars, bureaucrats, fugitives, and prisoners of war. By the end of the 17th century, a distinct Chinese community, known as the Hoa, formed within Vietnamese society. Ethnic Chinese enclaves and small Chinatowns took root in every major Vietnamese city and trading center. Large congregations of Chinese immigrants coupled with their economic power allowed the establishment of insttitions to their regulate business activities and protect their economic interests. Modern Chinese settlement and immigration in Vietnam came about from conducive opportunities for trade and business. Ethnic Chinese businessmen began to visit Hội An from the 16th century onward and initially traded black incense, silk, alum and Chinese medicinal products with the local Vietnamese. Dutch, Portuguese and French merchants who visited Hội An in the 17th century brought high quality European made brass utensils that attracted the attention of the Chinese. In turn, other Hoa manufactured goods such as porcelain, silver bars and various metals were traded. Around this time, the local Chinese community began to establish their own trading and social associations, the latter of which is referred to as "bang" in Vietnamese to protect their own economic interests. The bang also provided various welfare services for new Chinese immigrants, including financial services such as the collection of taxes. As more immigrants poured in the 19th century, the "bang" served as meeting points for Chinese community leaders to band together to pool seed capital and establish their own businesses.
Women in Vietnam
France desired trading freedom in Vietnam. They also wanted to bring more missionaries into the country. The Nguyen dynasty disliked French involvement in Vietnam, and executed several missionaries and Vietnamese coverts. This spurred the French Emperor, Napoleon III, to attack Vietnam and attempt to force the court to accept the title of "French protectorate." The French were successful despite the resistance they encountered, and by the 1880s Vietnam was officially a French protectorate.
French colonial empire
Following the Vietnamese victory Dien Bien Phu and the signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords. France agreed to withdraw its forces from all its colonies in French Indochina, while stipulating that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and the south becoming the State of Vietnam. The refusal of Ngô Đình Diệm (the US-supported president of the first Republic of Vietnam [RVN]) to allow elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, eventually led to the Vietnam War.
Battles of Bouamlong
Beginning in 1946, France fought the Viet Minh insurrection in French Indochina, including the Kingdom of Laos. When it lost that war, Laotian neutrality was established in the 1954 Geneva Agreements. When France withdrew most of its military in conformity with the treaty, the United States filled the vacuum with purportedly civilian paramilitary instructors. A North Vietnamese-backed communist invaded during the opium harvest season of 1953. It settled in northeastern Laos adjacent to the border of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Hanoi
From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế, the imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802–1945). In 1873 Hanoi was conquered by the French. From 1883 to 1945, the city was the administrative center of the colony of French Indochina. The French built a modern administrative city south of Old Hanoi, creating broad, perpendicular tree-lined avenues of opera, churches, public buildings, and luxury villas, but they also destroyed large parts of the city, shedding or reducing the size of lakes and canals, while also clearing out various imperial palaces and citadels.
First Indochina War
The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina on December 19, 1946, and lasted until July 20, 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Việt Minh opponents in the south dated from September 1945. The conflict pitted a range of forces, including the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại's Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh and the People's Army of Vietnam led by Võ Nguyên Giáp. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
CIA activities in Vietnam
The people of Vietnam were completely against the return of the French in Vietnam. The Vietnamese experienced a lot of abuses by the French during their colonization of Vietnam in the mid 19th century. The people of North Vietnam especially rallied around revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh and looked to him to gain at long last, their independence.
Tonkin (French protectorate)
French colonial administration lasted until March 9, 1945, during Japanese occupation (1941–1945). Although French administration was allowed during Japanese occupation as a puppet government, Japan briefly took full control of Vietnam in March 1945 under the Empire of Vietnam and Tonkin became the site of the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 during this period. At the end of the war, the north of Vietnam (including Tonkin) saw a sphere of influence by China while the south was briefly occupied by the British for French forces to regroup and regain control. Harry Truman at the Potsdam Conference, stated an intention to hand the region back to French rule, a sharp contrast to Franklin D. Roosevelt's strong opposition to colonialism and commitment to support the Viet Minh. However, after the Japanese withdrew from Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Ba Đình Square. Hanoi was later reoccupied by the French and conflict between the Viet Minh and France broke out into the First Indochina War.
Nguyễn Trường Tộ
Upon returning to Vietnam in 1861, Tộ briefly served the French colonial forces in southern Vietnam, translating Chinese language documents for the French navy's Admiral Charner in the negotiations that eventually led to the "unequal treaty" signed by France and Vietnam in 1862. This came in the wake of a 1859 invasion by France and Spain of Vietnam. The Europeans had intended to attack Đà Nẵng and Huế in central Vietnam and to force Tự Đức to surrender, so that they could extract territorial and trade concessions. Since the central areas near the imperial fortress were heavily defended, the European forces diverted themselves to the southern region, and in 1862, the Nguyễn court ceded three southern provinces to the French. In addition, the free practice and propagation of Christianity was allowed, in addition to financial compensation.
Economic history of Vietnam
Some details in the Register of the British East India Company showed the busy activity of coin trade in Phố Hiến as follows.English traders also came to do business in Vietnam in 1672 or so, with the first ship Zant visiting and asking for licence of the first shop in Phố Hiến. They ceased to do trading here because the profit was not as expected and left in 1697. The French came in town in 1680, followed by the French ship Saint Joseph in 1682. Trading activity in the North (Đàng Ngoài)saw a sharp decline when Dutch businessmen stopped their operation in 1700. Foreign trade was further weakened by increasing religious conflicts between both Lord Trịnh and Lord Nguyễn with Roman Catholic missionaries and followers delivering their religious teachings in both Đàng Ngoài and Đàng Trong. After 1700, not much about trade with foreign businessmen was documented by historians, giving us a tacit understanding that the first 90-year efflorescence of foreign trade stopped by the early 18th century. Even with the most optimistic mind, we could not assume that this trade boom to have continued beyond 1750 since Vietnam, already divided by Nguyễn and Trịnh, was now engaged in a new long period of civil war among Trịnh, Nguyễn bloodlines and the rising Tây Sơn–which started gathering military strength from 1771–sometimes interfered by foreign military powers, namely the Siamese (1782-1785) and the Chinese Qing (1789). Nguyễn Huệ, later becoming King of the Nguyễn Tây Sơn Dynasty in 1788, defeated Siamese naval troops in 1785 and the Qing army, whose military assistances had been invited by Nguyễn Ánh and the last King of Lê Dynasty–Lê Chiêu Thống–in 1789. The Nguyễn Tây Sơn Dynasty lasted for only 14 years, put to an end by the rise to kingship of Lord Nguyễn Ánh in 1802.
Christianity in Vietnam
Roman Catholicism first entered Vietnam through Catholic missionaries in the 16th century and strengthened its influence when Vietnam was a French colony. France, through discriminatory methods, incentivized conversion to Catholicism.
Overseas Vietnamese
France was the first Western country to where Vietnamese migrants settled due to the colonization of Vietnam by France that began in the late 1850s. During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, as well as professional and blue-collar workers, with many settling permanently.
French Far East Expeditionary Corps
In 1946, nationalist, then communist popular rebellion movement rose up against established colonial rule in the French Indochina federation then including Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin (North Vietnam), the Annam (Middle Vietnam) and Cochinchina (South Vietnam), all states being protectorates excluding the latter which was a colony with Saigon as its capital. In 1946, they would become associated states within the French Union and by 1949 Tonkin, Annam and the Republic of Cochin China would merge as the State of Vietnam. The communist Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh overwhelmed its rival nationalist movements and organized itself as a guerilla army using guerrilla warfare, then in the 1950s support—using conventional warfare. The First Indochina War officially lasted from November 20, 1946 until July 20, 1954 and was settled by the Geneva Agreements.
Bombardment of Tourane
Harassment of the Christians eventually provided France with a pretext for attacking Vietnam. The tension built up gradually. During the 1840s, the persecution of Roman Catholic missionaries in Vietnam evoked only sporadic and unofficial French reprisals, such as that taken by de Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly in 1847. In 1857, however, the execution of two Spanish Catholic missionaries by the emperor Tự Đức led directly to French intervention in Vietnam. In September 1858, a joint French and Spanish naval expedition landed at Da Nang. Its commander was Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly, one of the two French naval captains involved in the 1847 incident. The resultant Cochinchina campaign inaugurated the era of French colonial rule in Vietnam.
Indochina Wars
Confucian isolationist policy led the Vietnamese to refuse industrial modernization, so that they were not able to resist military power of a French invasion. In August 1858, Napoleon III ordered the landing of French forces at Tourane, (present-day Da Nang), beginning a colonial occupation that was to last almost a century. By 1884, the French had complete control over the country, which now formed the largest part of French Indochina. It took the Vietnamese people almost a century to expel the last colonial influence in their country.
National Day (Vietnam)
The Japanese occupied Vietnam during World War II but allowed the French to remain and exert some influence. At the war's end in August 1945, a power vacuum was created in Vietnam. Capitalizing on this, the Việt Minh launched the "August Revolution" across the country to seize government offices. Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated on 25 August 1945, ending the Nguyễn dynasty. On 2 September 1945, at Ba Đình Square, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, declared Vietnam's independence under the new name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) in a speech that invoked the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
CIA activities in Vietnam
CIA activities in Vietnam were operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency in Indochina and then Vietnam from the 1950s to the late 1960s, before and during the Vietnam War. Historically, Vietnam became a part of French Indochina in 1887. Although Vietnam became independent after World War II, the French continued to rule the country until 1954. Also, the year of 1954 was when Ho Chi Minh was in power and the country started to be separated into two parts. While the north was controlled by the communist forces and under Ho Chi Minh's leadership, the south, with the assistance of the U.S., was anti-communist. The economic and military aid supplied by the U.S. to Vietnam continued until the late 1960s. In addition to paramilitary supplies, the U.S. CIA tried to block the Ho Chi Minh Trails, an important activity that strategically prevented the North Vietnamese from using the trail for combat. Ethnic minorities who allied with the anti-communist Vietnamese and the U.S. CIA included the Montagnards, Hmong, and Khmer. There are 174 National Intelligence Estimates dealing with Vietnam, issued by the CIA after coordination with the intelligence community of the US government.
Citadel of Saigon
The process of Vietnam's colonisation began in 1858 when a Franco-Spanish force landed at Da Nang in central Vietnam and attempted to proceed to the capital Hue. After becoming tied down, they sailed to the less defended south, targeting Saigon. The southern offensive started on February 10, 1859 with a naval bombardment of Vũng Tàu. Within six days, the Europeans had levelled 12 Vietnamese fortresses and three river barriers. They then sailed along the Saigon River to the mouth of the Citadel of Saigon and opened fire with naval artillery from close range. The fort was manned by 1,000 soldiers and stored enough rice to feed 10,000 defenders for an entire year.
Ho Chi Minh City
Colonized by France and Spain in 1859, and ceded to France by the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, the city was influenced by the French during their colonisation of Vietnam, and a number of classical Western-style buildings and French villas in the city reflect this. Saigon had, in 1929, a population of 123,890, including 12,100 French.
Vietnam
The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, from 111 BC to AD 939. An independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following Vietnamese victory in the battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese imperial dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonised by the French in the mid-19th century. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War. On 2 September 1945, President Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France under the new name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In 1954, the Vietnamese declared victory in the battle of Điện Biên Phủ which took place between March and May 1954 and culminated in a major French defeat. Thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam (officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (officially the Republic of Vietnam). Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War with heavy intervention by the United States on the side of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. The war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished and politically isolated. In 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) initiated a series of economic and political reforms that began Vietnam's path toward integration into the world economy.
Sino-French War
French interest in northern Vietnam dated from the late 18th century, when the political Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine recruited French volunteers to fight for Nguyễn Ánh and help begin the Nguyễn Dynasty, in an attempt to gain privileges for France and for the Roman Catholic Church. France began its colonial campaign in 1858, annexing several southern provinces in 1862 to form the colony of Cochinchina.
History of Vietnam since 1945
After World War II and the collapse of Vietnam's monarchy, France attempted to re-establish its colonial rule but was ultimately defeated in the First Indochina War. The Geneva Accords in 1954 partitioned the country temporarily in two with a promise of democratic elections in 1956 to reunite the country. However, the United States and South Vietnam insisted on United Nations supervision of any election to prevent fraud, which the Soviet Union and North Vietnam refused. North and South Vietnam therefore remained divided until The Vietnam War ended with the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
Immigration to Vietnam
During the French rule of Vietnam between 1925 and 1933, nearly 600,000 Chinese emigrated to North Vietnam, and in the Second Sino-Japanese war that took place from 1937-1941, many Chinese left for South Vietnam. Tensions between newly reunified Vietnam and China led to a mass exodus in 1978, when 150,000 ethnic Chinese fled Northern Vietnam for China due to fears of imminent war and Vietnamese persecution. In the aftermath of the subsequent 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, the Vietnamese government made considerable efforts to drive out remaining ethnic Chinese residents, but many remained in the country; resulting in large Chinese communities in Vietnam that persists today.
French Protectorate of Cambodia
After the Fall of France in 1940, Cambodia and the rest of French Indochina were ruled by the Axis-puppet Vichy France government and despite an invasion of French Indochina, Japan allowed French colonial officials to remain in their colonies under Japanese supervision. In December 1940, the French-Thai War erupted and despite French resistance against the Japanese backed Thai forces, Japan compelled French authorities to cede Battambang, Sisophon, Siem Reap (excluding Siem Reap town) and Preah Vihear provinces to Thailand.
Vietnamese people
When Vietnam gained its independence from France in 1954, a number of Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government also migrated to France. During the partition of Vietnam into North and South, a number of South Vietnamese students also arrived to study in France, along with individuals involved in commerce for trade with France, which was a principal economic partner with South Vietnam.
Vietnamese people in France
The largest influx of Vietnamese people arrived in France as refugees after the Fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Early Vietnamese refugees who settled in France largely consisted of professionals who made up the middle class and elite in South Vietnam, along with those with high levels of education and those with family already present in the country. Larger waves of refugees later included South Vietnamese from different social standings, although their average level of education and affluence was still higher than their peers who settled in North America, Australia, and the rest of Europe.
Vietnam
The colonial administration was ended and French Indochina was dissolved under the Geneva Accords of 1954 into three countries: Vietnam and the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam was further divided into North and South administrative regions at the Demilitarised Zone, approximately along the 17th parallel north, pending elections scheduled for July 1956. A 300-day period of free movement was permitted, during which almost a million northerners, mainly Catholics, moved south, fearing persecution by the communists. The partition of Vietnam was not intended to be permanent by the Geneva Accords, which stipulated that Vietnam would be reunited after elections in 1956. However, in 1955, the State of Vietnam's Prime Minister, Ngô Đình Diệm toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu, and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam. At that point the internationally recognised State of Vietnam effectively ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Vietnam in the south and Hồ Chí Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north.
Yên Bái mutiny
Shortly after midnight on 10 February, about 50 Vietnamese soldiers ("Tirailleurs indochinois") of the 4th Regiment of Tonkinese Rifles within the Yên Bái garrison turned on their French officers with assistance from about 60 civilian VNQDĐ members who invaded the camp from the outside. The mutiny failed within 24 hours when the majority of the Vietnamese soldiers in the garrison refused to participate and remained loyal to the colonial army. Further sporadic attacks occurred across the Delta region, with little impact. French retribution to the attack was swift and decisive. The main leaders of the VNQDĐ were arrested, tried and put to death, effectively ending the military threat of what was previously the leading Vietnamese nationalist revolutionary organisation.
Vietnam had gradually become a French colony between 1859 and 1883. The first phase started in 1859, when French and Spanish] forces began an invasion of southern Vietnam, leading to the ceding of three southern provinces to form the colony of Cochinchina under the Treaty of Saigon in 1864. In 1867, the French seized three further provinces and by 1883, the process was complete, when northern and central Vietnam were conquered and made into the French protectorates of Tonkin and Annam and incorporated into French Indochina. Initially, military resistance to French rule came through the Cần Vương movement led by Tôn Thất Thuyết and Phan Đình Phùng, which sought to install the boy Emperor Hàm Nghi at the head of an independent nation. However, with the death of Phùng in 1895, military opposition effectively ended. The only other notable incidents after this came in 1917 with the Thai Nguyen rebellion. The lack of militant activity changed in the late 1920s with the formation of the VNQDĐ, or Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The party began to generate attention among French colonial authorities and was blamed for the assassination of Bazin on 9 February 1929, a French labour recruiter despised among the populace, leading to a heavy French crackdown. The French purges caused considerable detriment to the independence movement in general and the VNQDĐ in particular. Nearly 1000 VNQDĐ members were arrested; the demolition of many of the Party's facilities ensued. The VNQDĐ decided to abandon its clandestine philosophy and engage in open attacks against the French, hoping to foment a general uprising among the people. A minority felt that even though there was a danger that French crackdowns would irreparably weaken the party, they should try and bide their time and go into hiding in the mountainous Hoa Binh Province and focus on writing propaganda books and pamphlets, and take an extended period to prepare a large armed attack. It has also been alleged that Ho Chi Minh had tried to contact the VNQDD leadership to try and advise them to bide their time.
Coloniality of gender
In the year 1893-1907, the French had colonized Laos along with Vietnam and Cambodia incorporating into French Cochin China. During the colonisation, the country is popular among French colonials by the interest of accommodating by Lao women or Annamite mistresses. The French did not want to live in traditional Lao way and look at Lao women as temporary wives, they expect Lao women to adapted to European style and European architectural. In addition, most women and girls are serve as servant or mistress.
Vietnamese Americans
Some Vietnamese Americans are Eurasians: people of European and Asian descent. They are descendants of ethnic Vietnamese and French settlers and soldiers (and sometimes Hoa) during the French colonial period (1883–1945) or the First Indochina War (1946–1954).
Vietnamese people in France
During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, which largely consisted of members from the elite class and royal household. Professional and blue-collar workers also migrated from Vietnam during this period, with some settling permanently. One of the few monuments dating back to these earliest waves of Vietnamese arriving in France is the Temple du Souvenir Indochinois, originally erected in 1907 and subsequently relocated to the Jardin tropical de Paris in the Bois de Vincennes.
Cần Vương movement
French involvement in Vietnam begins as early as the 17th century, with missionaries such as Alexandre de Rhodes spreading the Catholic faith. This situation was to remain until the late 18th century, when a popular uprising against heavy taxation and corruption, known as the Tây Sơn uprising, toppled the ruling Nguyễn family in 1776. A Nguyen prince, Nguyễn Ánh managed to escape. In an attempt to regain power, Nguyễn Ánh sought the assistance of France through French missionaries in Vietnam. Though he did not receive formal military assistance, he was supplied with sufficient aid by sympathetic merchants and was able to reclaim the throne. Although not officially sanctioned by the French government, this was to heighten French interest in Vietnam and mark the start of increasing intervention.
Bombardment of Tourane
The Bombardment of Tourane (15 April 1847) was a naval incident that took place during the short reign of the Vietnamese emperor Thiệu Trị (1841–47), which saw a considerable worsening of relations between France and Vietnam. The French warships "Gloire" and "Victorieuse", which had been sent to Tourane (now Da Nang) to negotiate for the release of two French Catholic missionaries, were attacked without warning by several Vietnamese vessels. The two French ships fought back, sinking four Vietnamese corvettes, badly damaging a fifth, and inflicting just under 1,200 casualties. In response to this and other provocations, the French eventually decided to intervene actively in Vietnam, and a decade later launched the Cochinchina Campaign (1858–62), which inaugurated the period of French colonial rule in Vietnam.
Vietnamese language
When France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, French gradually replaced Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as "đầm" (dame, from "madame"), "ga" (train station, from "gare"), "sơ mi" (shirt, from "chemise"), and "búp bê" (doll, from "poupée"). In addition, many Sino-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French.
French Indochina
After the Fall of France during World War II, the colony was administered by the Vichy government and was under Japanese occupation until March 1945, when the Japanese overthrew the colonial regime. After the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh, a communist organization led by Hồ Chí Minh, declared Vietnamese independence, but France subsequently took back control of French Indochina. An all-out independence war, known as the First Indochina War, broke out in late 1946 between French and Viet Minh forces.
Filipinos in the French military
In 1858, when the Philippines was a Spanish colony, France and Spain invaded Vietnam. A number of French troops involved in this campaign became casualties as a result of contracting illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, tropical diseases, and rickets. In order to deal with the manpower shortage which resulted from this situation, the French consul in Manila, the colonial capital of the Philippines, was given permission by the Spanish government to recruit nine hundred Indians, as Filipinos were then known, for the French navy and a sufficient number of men to form an infantry company and a cavalry squadron. It is said that one-third of the entire French force in this campaign consisted of mercenaries from the Philippines, who distinguished themselves in action and were well adapted to the environment.
Phan Bội Châu
When Phan was thirteen, his father sent him to another teacher with a better reputation. Since the family lacked the money for Phan to travel far away, he studied with a local "cử nhân" graduate who was able to borrow a range of books from wealthier families in the area. In 1883, the French finished the colonization of Vietnam by conquering the northern part of Vietnam, and the country was incorporated into French Indochina. Phan drafted an appeal for "putting down the French and retrieving the North" ("Binh Tây thu Bắc"). He posted the anonymous appeal calling for the formation of local resistance units at intervals along the main road, but there were no responses and the proclamations were soon torn down. Phan realized no one would listen to a person without the social status ensured by passing mandarin examinations.
Vientiane
When King Anouvong raised an unsuccessful rebellion, it was obliterated by Siamese armies in 1827. The city was burned to the ground and was looted of nearly all Laotian artifacts, including Buddha statues and people. Viangchan was in great disrepair, depopulated and disappearing into the forest, when the French arrived. It eventually passed to French rule in 1893. It became the capital of the French protectorate of Laos in 1899. The French rebuilt the city and rebuilt or repaired Buddhist temples such as Pha That Luang, Haw Phra Kaew, and left many colonial buildings behind. During French rule, the Vietnamese were encouraged to migrate to Laos, which resulted in 53% of the population of Vientiane being Vietnamese in the year of 1943. As late as 1945, the French drew up an ambitious plan to move massive Vietnamese population to three key areas, i.e. the Vientiane Plain, Savannakhet region, Bolaven Plateau, which was only discarded by Japanese invasion of Indochina. If this plan had been implemented, according to Martin Stuart-Fox, the Lao might well have lost control over their own country.
Empire of Vietnam
During World War II, after the fall of France and establishment of Vichy France, the French had lost practical control in French Indochina to the Japanese, but Japan stayed in the background while giving the Vichy French administrators nominal control. This changed on 9 March 1945 when Japan officially took over. To gain the support of the Vietnamese people, Imperial Japan declared it would return sovereignty to Vietnam. Emperor Bảo Đại declared the Treaty of Huế made with France in 1884 void. Trần Trọng Kim, a renowned historian and scholar, was chosen to lead the government as prime minister.
North Vietnam
After about 300 years of partition by feudal dynasties, Vietnam was again under one single authority in 1802 when Gia Long founded the Nguyễn dynasty, but the country became a French protectorate after 1883 and under Japanese occupation after 1940 during World War II. Soon after Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945, the Việt Minh in the August Revolution entered Hanoi, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 2 September 1945: a government for the entire country, replacing the Nguyễn dynasty. Hồ Chí Minh became leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt had spoken against French rule in Indochina, and the U.S. was supportive of the Viet Minh at this time.
Nguyễn dynasty
In 1885, France conquered the rest of Vietnam and promoted development of the Mekong Delta by the Vietnamese. The Nguyễn dynasty nominally ruled the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, which were (like Cochinchina) territories of French Indochina. France added new ingredients to Vietnam's cultural stew: Catholicism and a Latin-based alphabet. The spelling used in the Vietnamese transliteration was Portuguese, because the French relied on a dictionary compiled earlier by a Portuguese cleric.
Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone
The First Indochina War (also called the French Indochina War) was fought in French Indochina from 1946 through 1954 between France and the French-controlled State of Vietnam on the one side, and the Communist-dominated independence movement, the Viet Minh, on the other. The Viet Minh won the war, gaining effective control of all northern Vietnam except an enclave around Hanoi.
National Museum of Vietnamese History
The museum building used to be the archaeological research institution of the French School of the Far East under French colonial rule (Louis Finot "École française d'Extrême-Orient" EFEO), which opened in 1910. This was extensively refurbished in 1920, and redesigned between 1926 and 1932 by the architect Ernest Hébrard. It is considered a blend of French colonial and traditional Vietnamese architecture, also called Indochina architecture. The museum was acquired by the Government of Vietnam in 1958 and then the artifact collections were expanded to cover eastern arts and national history. It was formally opened for public viewing on 3 September 1958. The museum's exhibits highlight Vietnam's prehistory (about 300,000–400,000 years ago) up to the August 1945 Revolution.
Military history of Thailand
Under Napoleon III, France escalated the military pressure on Siam from the east. France's naval interventions in Vietnam in the 1840s gave way to a concerted imperial campaign. Saigon fell in 1859, with French ascendancy in Vietnam being confirmed in 1874. France took Cambodia in 1863, combining it with Vietnam to form the colony of Indochina in 1887. From the south, Britain's involvement in the Larut and Klang wars of the 1870s increased both its grip over and political investment in the Malay states. From the north, Britain, triumphant in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, ultimately concluded its conquest of Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War and had incorporated the Kingdom of Burma into the British Raj by 1886. European military dominance was driven largely by the dominance of European naval power, coal powered vessels, increasingly iron clad, eclipsing the local brown water navies. Nonetheless, European campaigns remained limited by the difficulties and costs of logistics and the climate, especially the threat of malaria.
Vietnam
Guerrillas of the royalist Cần Vương movement massacred around a third of Vietnam's Christian population during the colonial period as part of their rebellion against French rule, but were defeated in the 1890s after a decade of resistance by the Catholics as a reprisal of their earlier massacres. Another large-scale rebellion, the Thái Nguyên uprising was also suppressed heavily. The French developed a plantation economy to promote the export of tobacco, indigo, tea and coffee, however, they largely ignored the increasing demands for civil rights and self-government. A nationalist political movement soon emerged, with leaders such as Phan Bội Châu, Phan Châu Trinh, Phan Đình Phùng, Emperor Hàm Nghi, and Hồ Chí Minh fighting or calling for independence. This resulted in the 1930 Yên Bái mutiny by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ) which was suppressed heavily by the French. The mutiny caused an irreparable split that resulted in many leading members of the organisation becoming communist converts. The French maintained full control over their colonies until World War II, when the war in the Pacific led to the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in 1940. Afterwards, the Japanese Empire was allowed to station its troops in Vietnam while permitting the pro-Vichy French colonial administration to continue. Japan exploited Vietnam's natural resources to support its military campaigns, culminating in a full-scale takeover of the country in March 1945 and the Vietnamese Famine of 1945, which caused up to two million deaths.
Western imperialism in Asia
France remained determined to retain its control of Indochina. However, in Hanoi, in 1945, a broad front of nationalists and communists led by Ho Chi Minh declared an independent Republic of Vietnam, commonly referred to as the Viet Minh regime by Western outsiders. France, seeking to regain control of Vietnam, countered with a vague offer of self-government under French rule. France's offers were unacceptable to Vietnamese nationalists; and in December 1946 the Việt Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949, the conflict turned into a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons supplied by the United States and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the France granted the State of Vietnam based in Saigon independence in 1949 while Laos and Cambodia received independence in 1953. The US recognized the regime in Saigon, and provided the French military effort with military aid.
China–Vietnam relations
In 1884, during the time of Vietnam's Nguyễn Dynasty, Qing China and France fought a war which ended in a Chinese defeat. The resulting Treaty of Tientsin recognized French dominance over Vietnam and Indochina, spelling the end of formal Chinese influence on Vietnam, and the beginning of Vietnam's French colonial period.
Chinese diaspora in France
After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, ethnic Chinese from Vietnam were heavily persecuted by the new communist government and faced expulsion from the newly reunified country. This led to a wave of emigration to France, as Vietnamese Chinese joined other ethnic Vietnamese refugees from South Vietnam and largely resettled in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region. Ethnic Chinese from Laos and Cambodia, the other two former French Indochina colonies, also arrived in France after this period of conflict for similar reasons.
France–Thailand relations
In the meantime, France was establishing a foothold in neighbouring Vietnam, putting it on a collision course with Siam. Under the orders of Napoleon III, French gunships under Rigault de Genouilly attacked the port of Da Nang in 1858, causing significant damage, and holding the city for a few months. de Gnouilly sailed south and captured the poorly defended city of Saigon in 1859. From 1859 to 1867, French troops expanded their control over all six provinces on the Mekong delta and formed a French Colony, Cochin China. In 1863, France and King Norodom of Cambodia signed a treaty of protection with France, which transferred the country from Siamese and Vietnamese overlordship to French colonial rule. A new treaty was signed between France and Siam on 15 July 1867.
French colonial empire
It was only after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and the founding of the Third Republic (1871–1940) that most of France's later colonial possessions were acquired. From their base in Cochinchina, the French took over Tonkin (in modern northern Vietnam) and Annam (in modern central Vietnam) in 1884–1885. These, together with Cambodia and Cochinchina, formed French Indochina in 1887 (to which Laos was added in 1893 and Guangzhouwan in 1900). In 1849, the French concession in Shanghai was established, lasting until 1946. The French also had concessions in Guangzhou and Hankou (now part of Wuhan).
Ethnic groups in Cambodia
Prior to the Cambodian Civil War which lasted from between 1970 until the Khmer Rouge victory in April 17, 1975, there were an estimated 30,000 "colons", or French citizens living in the country. After the civil war began most left to go back to France or to live in the United States. Cambodia was ruled by the French for nearly a century until independence in 1953 and French language and culture still retains a prestigious position amongst the Khmer elite.
Commercial Import Program
During World War II, Imperial Japan attacked Indochina and wrested control from France, but when they were defeated by the Allies in 1945, a power vacuum resulted. The communist-dominated Vietminh of Ho Chi Minh fought for Vietnamese independence, while the French attempted to regain control of their colony by creating the French Union-allied State of Vietnam. Up until 1954, the First Indochina War raged. In 1954, the French lost the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference was held to determine the future of French Indochina. The Vietminh were given control of North Vietnam, while the State of Vietnam controlled the territory south of the 17th parallel. The Geneva agreements, which the State of Vietnam did not sign, called for reunification elections to be held in 1956. The State of Vietnam received support from the US and other anti-communist countries in the midst of the Cold War, which saw it as a partner in a fight against the spread of communism.
Trương Định
The process of Vietnam's colonisation began in September 1858 when a Franco-Spanish force landed at Da Nang in central Vietnam and attempted to proceed to the capital, Huế. After becoming tied down, they sailed to the less-defended south. The French and Spanish quickly captured the imperial Citadel of Saigon in February 1859—the fortress's commander committed suicide. The citadel was razed and the substantial supplies were confiscated. The leaderless and defeated imperial troops fled in disarray. The attacks were ordered by French Emperor Napoleon III. French diplomats, naval officers, merchants and missionaries had long advocated the expedition. The missionaries wanted the French administration to facilitate their work converting the Vietnamese to Roman Catholicism, while military and business figures saw commercial opportunities in Vietnam. Napoleon's motivations were primarily imperial, strategic and commercial, but he found it convenient to cite "freedom of religion" as his justification for taking action. The Nguyễn Dynasty was Confucianist and had restricted the activity of missionaries. The belief system of Christianity was incompatible with the Confucian belief that the monarch was the "son of heaven".
Cochinchina
During the French colonial period, the label moved further south, and came to refer exclusively to the southernmost part of Vietnam, controlled by Cambodia in prior centuries, and lying to its southeast. The capital of the French colony of Cochinchina was at Saigon. The two other parts of Vietnam at the time were known as Annam (Central Vietnam) and Tonkin (Northern Vietnam).
Cần Vương movement
In 1858, for ostensibly religious reasons, France took military action against Vietnam. French interest in Vietnam had not waned since Nguyễn Ánh's request for assistance. After the 1848 revolution, the French government now had sufficient support from commercial, religious and nationalistic sources to stage its conquest of Vietnam. A force led by Admiral Rigault de Genouilly attacked and occupied the Vietnamese town of Da Nang. This was followed up with the capture of the Saigon in the Mekong Delta region in 1859. However, Vietnamese reinforcements from nearby provinces soon put both French positions under siege. Despite the tenuous situation of the French, Vietnamese forces were unable to force the foreigners out of the country.
France–Vietnam relations
Vietnam obtained independence following the First Indochina War. In 1945, Hồ Chí Minh declared an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was recognized by the fellow Communist governments of China and the Soviet Union. Fighting lasted until March 1954, when the Việt Minh won the decisive victory against French forces at the grueling Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. This led to the partition of Vietnam into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north, under Việt Minh control, and the State of Vietnam in the south, which had the support of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. It was at the 1954 Geneva Conference that France relinquished any claim to territory in the Indochinese peninsula. Laos and Cambodia also became independent in 1954, but were both drawn into the Vietnam War.
Immigration to France
Although there was a presence of, Vietnamese in France since the late 19th century (mostly students and workers), a wave of Vietnamese migrated to the country after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords, which granted Vietnam its independence from France in 1954. These migrants consisted of those who were loyal to the colonial government and those married to French colonists. Following the partition of Vietnam, students and professionals from South Vietnam continued to arrive in France. Although many initially returned to the country after a few years, as the Vietnam War situation worsened, a majority decided to remain in France and brought their families over as well.
Vietnamese community in Paris
Following Vietnam's independence from France in 1954, the former colonial ruler was still an important destination for Vietnamese seeking educational and economic opportunities abroad. However, due to the partition of Vietnam and the isolationism imposed by the North, the vast majority of Vietnamese coming to France during this time were from the South. In 1964, in response to the significant number of Vietnamese students in Paris and lack of representation, the "Association Générale des Etudiants Vietnamiens de Paris" (AGEVP, General Association for Vietnamese Students of Paris) was founded as the oldest overseas Vietnamese youth association.
Capture of Mỹ Tho
The Capture of Mỹ Tho () on 12 April 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.
History of Vietnam since 1945
The Japanese occupied Vietnam during World War II but allowed the French to remain and exert some influence. At the war's end in August 1945, a power vacuum was created in Vietnam. Capitalizing on this, the Việt Minh launched the "August Revolution" across the country to seize government offices. Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated on August 25, 1945, ending the Nguyễn dynasty. On September 2, 1945, at Duc Anh Ba Đình Square, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh organization, declared Vietnam's independence under the new name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) in a speech that invoked the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Ho sent several letters to the US government asking to be recognised as the government of Vietnam and offering friendship to America, but none were ever answered.
Asian French
The Vietnamese form the most established Asian ethnic group in France, with a presence in the country dating back to the start of French colonialism in Vietnam in the latter half of the 19th century. As of 2012, the population of the community is estimated to be about 300,000, the second largest overseas Vietnamese population outside eastern Asia.
1940–1946 in the Vietnam War
1940—1946 in the Vietnam War focuses on events influencing the eventual decision for military intervention by the United States in the Vietnam War. French Indochina in the 1940s was divided into five protectorates: Cambodia, Laos, Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina. The latter three made up Vietnam. In 1940, the French controlled 23 million Vietnamese with 12,000 French soldiers, about 40,000 Vietnamese soldiers, and the Sûreté, a powerful police force. At that time, the U.S. had little interest in Vietnam or French Indochina as a whole. Fewer than 100 Americans, mostly missionaries, lived in Vietnam and U.S. government representation consisted of one consul resident in Saigon.
Hà Giang Province
to Bình Nguyên in 1473, and later renamed châu Vị Xuyên.
The French occupied this region in 1886, establishing their military garrison on the east bank of the Lô River and which became later in 1905 one of the four major military establishments in French Indochina in North Vietnam. The Vietnamese Dao tribals rebelled against the French colonial rule first in 1901 led by Triệu Tiến Kiến and Triệu Tài Lộc, which was quelled, and the former was killed in the war. However, in 1913, Triệu Tài Lộc organized another rebellion with the help of Triệu Tiến Tiến, another member of his clan, which lasted for two years till 1915. Their slogan was "No Corvees, no taxes for the French; drive out the French to recover our country; liberty for the Dao." This revolt was known as the "White Hat Revolt" since the Vietnamese carried a white flag engraved with "four ideograms to Quốc Bách Kỹ" (meaning "White Flag of the Fatherland"). The rebellion spread to Tuấn Quang, Lào Cai and Yên Bái. In 1915 the French ruthlessly suppressed the rebellion, deporting many Vietnamese and hanging at least 67 "rebels".
French language in Vietnam
The influence of the French language in Vietnam slowly began to decline after World War II as revolutionary movements increased and their works began to be written more in Vietnamese. Poorer and generally, more rural populations began to resist French rule and guerrilla forces, the Viet Minh attacked the French and sparked the First Indochina War. 
The French language however, continued its presence in government, education and media in areas not held by the Viet Minh. At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Viet Minh defeated the French and Vietnam gained its independence, though the nation was soon divided into a communist, Soviet-oriented north, and a free government in the south. Fearing persecution by the communist government, hundreds of thousands fled to the south, including French-educated and speaking elite. Despite the Vietnam War erupting shortly afterwards, French continued a healthy presence in South Vietnam, where it was an administrative and educational language. The sharpest decline of the French language in Vietnam was after the Fall of Saigon in 1975 as the communist government imposed Vietnamese as the sole official and educational language on the entire nation, including the south, which was in a transitional phase until 1976.
Hoa people
Chinese immigration into Vietnam visibly increased following the French colonisation of Vietnam from 1860 onwards following the signing of the Convention of Peking whereby the rights of Chinese to seek employment overseas were officially recognised by the Chinese, British and French authorities. Unlike their Vietnamese predecessors, the French were very receptive of these Chinese immigrants as it provided an opportunity to stimulate trade and industry, and they generally found employment as labourers or middlemen. The French established a special Immigration Bureau in 1874 requiring Chinese immigrants to register with the Chinese clan and dialect group associations and eased trade restrictions that were previously in place. Historians such as Khanh Tran viewed this as a divide-and-rule policy, and the intention of its implementation was to minimise the chances of any internal revolt against the French authorities. The Chinese population nevertheless witnessed an exponential increase in the late 19th century and more so in the 20th century; between the 1870s and 1890s, some 20,000 Chinese settled in Cochinchina. Another 600,000 arrived in the 1920s and 1930s, and peaks in the migration patterns was especially pronounced during the 1920s and late 1940s when the effects of fighting and economic instability arising from the Chinese Civil War became pronounced.
French colonial empire
French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since the 17th century, when the Jesuit priest Alexandre de Rhodes opened a mission there. In 1858 the Vietnamese emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty felt threatened by the French influence and tried to expel the missionaries. Napoleon III sent a naval force of fourteen gunships, carrying three thousand French and three thousand Filipino troops provided by Spain, under Charles Rigault de Genouilly, to compel the government to accept the missionaries and to stop the persecution of Catholics. In September 1858 the expeditionary force captured and occupied the port of Da Nang, and then in February 1859 moved south and captured Saigon. The Vietnamese ruler was compelled to cede three provinces to France, and to offer protection to the Catholics. The French troops departed for a time to take part in the expedition to China, but in 1862, when the agreements were not fully followed by the Vietnamese emperor, they returned. The Emperor was forced to open treaty ports in Annam and Tonkin, and all of Cochinchina became a French territory in 1864.
Rice production in Vietnam
Its present status under the Vietnamese is, however, as a very large swathe of green carpet of rice paddy. This development is attributed to the French who colonized Vietnam in the middle of the 19th century with the basic objective of exporting rice grown in the delta to meet its large costs of colonisation. They developed a maze of canal system in the delta to grow three rice crops in a year.
Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Vietnam became a colony of France in the late 19th century, but during World War II, Japan occupied Vietnam. During this period the Viet Minh fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese and were to a degree supported by the Americans in 1945 via the Office of Strategic Services.
Cochinchina Campaign
The Cochinchina Campaign (; ; ; ); is the common designation for a series of military operations between 1858 and 1862, launched by a joint naval expedition force on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty. Initially a limited punitive action against the persecution and execution of French (and to a lesser extent Spanish) catholic missionaries in Indochina, the ambitioned French emperor Napoleon III however, authorized the deployment of increasingly larger contingents, that subdued Annamese territory and established French military and economic dominance. The war concluded with the founding of the French colony of Cochinchina and inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Second French Empire
From 1861 to 1863 France embarked on colonising experiments in Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) and Annam (central Vietnam). The conquest was bloody but successful, and supported by large numbers of French soldiers, missionaries and businessmen, as well as the local Chinese entrepreneurial element.
Religion in Vietnam
The first Jews to visit Vietnam likely arrived following the French colonization of the country, in the latter half of the 19th century. There are a handful of references to Jewish settlement in Saigon sprinkled through the pages of the "Jewish Chronicle" in the 1860s and 1870s.
Charles de Gaulle
At the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was not invited, a decision was made to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence. Soon after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, de Gaulle sent the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to re-establish French sovereignty in French Indochina. However, the resistance leaders in Indo-China proclaimed the freedom and independence of Vietnam, and a civil war broke out that lasted until France was defeated in 1954.
Tonkin
During French colonial rule within French Indochina, Hanoi was the capital of Tonkin protectorate, and in 1901 became the capital of all French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, & Vietnam). French colonial administration ruled until 9 March 1945, with 1941-1945 during the World War II Japanese occupation of Vietnam. French administration was allowed by the Japanese as a puppet government. Japan briefly took full control of Vietnam in March 1945, as the Empire of Vietnam. Tonkin became a site of the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 during this period.
Economic history of Vietnam
Apologists for the colonial regime claimed that French rule led to vast improvements in medical care, education, transport, and communications. The statistics kept by the French, however, appear to cast doubt on such assertions. In 1939, for example, no more than 15 percent of all school-age children received any kind of schooling, and about 80 percent of the population was illiterate, in contrast to precolonial times when the majority of the people possessed some degree of literacy. With its more than 20 million inhabitants in 1939, Vietnam had but one university, with fewer than 700 students. Only a small number of Vietnamese children were admitted to the lycées (secondary schools) for the children of the French. Medical care was well organized for the French in the cities, but in 1939 there were only 2 physicians for every 100,000 Vietnamese, compared with 76 per 100,000 in Japan and 25 per 100,000 in the Philippines.
Northern and southern Vietnam
After the Tay Son Wars (1770–1802) and the founding of the Nguyễn dynasty, the country started getting the present shape with the center of power now switched to Huế in Central Vietnam. During French colonialism, the French divided the country into three parts, directly ruling over Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) while establishing protectorates in Annam (central Vietnam) and Tonkin (northern Vietnam). Consequently, Cochinchina was more directly influenced by French culture than the other two regions. Hanoi, being the capital of French Indochina, was the only place in Northern Vietnam with significant French influence.
France–Vietnam relations
French–Vietnamese relations started as early as the 17th century with the mission of the Jesuit father Alexandre de Rhodes. Various traders would visit Vietnam during the 18th century, until the major involvement of French forces under Pigneau de Béhaine from 1787 to 1789 helped establish the Nguyễn Dynasty. France was heavily involved in Vietnam in the 19th century under the pretext of protecting the work of Catholic missionaries in the country. France progressively carved for itself a huge colony, which would form French Indochina in 1887. France continued to rule Vietnam as a colony until France's defeat in the First Indochina War and the proclamation of Vietnam's independence in 1954.
History of Vietnam
During World War II, Japan invaded Indochina in 1940, keeping the Vichy French colonial administration in place as a puppet. In 1941 Nguyễn Ái Quốc, now known as Hồ Chí Minh, arrived in northern Vietnam to form the Việt Minh Front, and it was supposed to be an umbrella group for all parties fighting for Vietnam's independence, but was dominated by the Communist Party. The Việt Minh had a modest armed force and during the war worked with the American Office of Strategic Services to collect intelligence on the Japanese. A famine broke out in 1944–45. Japan's defeat by World War II Allies created a power vacuum for Vietnamese nationalists of all parties to seize power in August 1945, forcing Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate and ending the Nguyễn dynasty. Their initial success in staging uprisings and in seizing control of most of the country by September 1945 was partially undone, however, by the return of the French a few months later.
Hmong people
Vietnam, where their presence is attested from the late 18th century onwards, is likely to be the first Indochinese country into which the Hmong migrated. During the colonization of 'Tonkin' (north Vietnam) between 1883 and 1954, a number of Hmong decided to join the Vietnamese Nationalists and Communists, while many Christianized Hmong sided with the French. After the Viet Minh victory, numerous pro-French Hmong had to fall back to Laos and South Vietnam.
At the 2009 national census, there were 1,068,189 Hmong living in Vietnam, the vast majority of them in the north of the country. The traditional trade in coffin wood with China and the cultivation of the opium poppy – both prohibited only in 1993 in Vietnam – long guaranteed a regular cash income. Today, converting to cash cropping is the main economic activity. As in China and Laos, there is a certain degree of participation of Hmong in the local and regional administration. In the late 1990s, several thousands of Hmong started moving to the Central Highlands and some crossed the border into Cambodia, constituting the first attested presence of Hmong settlers in that country.
Geography of Vietnam
The boundary with Laos, settled on both an ethnic and geographical basis, between the rulers of Vietnam and Laos in the mid-seventeenth century with the Annamite Range as a reference, was formally defined by a delimitation treaty signed in 1977 and ratified in 1986. The frontier with Cambodia, defined at the time of French annexation of the western part of the Mekong Delta in 1867, remained essentially unchanged, according to Hanoi, until some unresolved border issues were finally settled in the 1982-85 period. The land and sea boundary with China, delineated under the France-China treaties of 1887 and 1895, is "the frontier line" accepted by Hanoi that China agreed in 1957-58 to respect. However, in February 1979, following China's limited invasion of Vietnam, Hanoi complained that from 1957 onward China had provoked numerous border incidents as part of its anti-Vietnam policy and expansionist designs in Southeast Asia. Among the territorial infringements cited was the Chinese occupation in January 1974 of the Paracel Islands, claimed by both countries in a dispute left unresolved in the 1980s.
Asian French
During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, as well as professional and blue-collar workers, with a large number settling permanently. Following Vietnam's independence, a number of Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government also emigrated to France. However, the largest influx of Vietnamese people arrived in France as refugees after the Fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Chinese diaspora in France
Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, a large number of ethnic Chinese from the former French colonies in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) emigrated to France to escape the communist takeover of their countries and persecution by the new governments. The population of this community was about 150,000 as of 2010. Their origins from former French colonies resulted in a strong background of French language and culture upon their arrival and their level of assimilation into French society has been largely quick and successful, being the most integrated Chinese community in France. As in their former countries, ethnic Chinese from Indochina are heavily involved in commerce, especially among the generation of immigrants, and average income levels are above the national median.
French Indochina
In order to create a political alternative to the Viet Minh, the State of Vietnam, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, was proclaimed in 1949. On 9 November 1953 the Kingdom of Cambodia proclaimed its independence. Following the Geneva Accord of 1954, the French evacuated Vietnam and French Indochina came to an end.
Haiphong incident
After World War II, the future of the Vietnamese territory was in question. After being under years of French colonial rule followed by Japanese rule during the war, Vietnam began to seek independence. Specifically, the Japanese renounced French claims to the Vietnamese territory on March 9, 1945, officially declaring Vietnam independent over France and under the control of Emperor Bảo Đại. This was quickly counteracted by a rebellion on September 2, 1945, when Ho Chi Minh and his guerilla army declared the official birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh became the leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and demanded complete autonomy from Europe. The French disregarded these claims of autonomy and quickly moved to resettle Vietnam as a member for the French Union. However, complete colonization was no longer an option due to power dynamics in the west and on March 6, 1946, after receiving pressure from the western allies, Jean Sainteny, French Commissioner for Northern Indochina met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and signed the Ho–Sainteny agreement. The agreement officially gave Vietnam independence as "a free state with its own government, parliament, army and finances, forming part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union". Additionally, the treaty allowed for the French to have a military presence in Vietnam for the following five years. At the time of the signing, it was widely thought that Ho Chi Minh had given many concessions to the French. By allowing the continued presence of the French army, Chi Minh allowed for a continuation of the French colonial control of the past. The Communist newspaper "Les Temps modernes" criticized the signing of the deal, calling the agreement "the lamentable surrender of all our [Communists] ideological and political plans". On the French side, Thierry d'Argenlieu illustrated French optimism regarding the treaty in a communiqué he wrote to the Parisian government: "On the French level, the armed forces are assured of a friendly reception and we are pre-empting any reproach for opening hostilities ... We are fully safeguarding French economic and cultural interests now and for the future." Vietnamese worries in regards to the agreement soon came to fruition as France began to exert the same colonial authority it had formally denounced in the treaty. France created a virtual naval blockade of Haiphong by continuing to have a strong naval presence in the Gulf of Tonkin. This led the Vietnamese to reach out for peace talks in order to curb French influence in the region. These peace talks came in the form of the Fontainebleau Agreements which occurred at the Palace of Fontainebleau and were led by Phạm Văn Đồng for the Vietnamese and Max André on the side of the French, beginning on July 6, 1946. The conference at the palace was held to discuss the provisions of the Ho-Sainteny Agreement. At the conference, the French refused to revise the original treaty in any way. The Vietnamese leadership, led by Ho Chi Minh, settled to sign a modus vivendi, postponing talks to a later date. These talks never occurred due to the outbreak of violence in November.
History of Vietnam since 1945
The Geneva Conference of 1954 ended France's colonial presence in Vietnam and partitioned the country into two states at the 17th parallel pending unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections. Ngô Đình Diệm, a former mandarin with a strong Catholic and Confucian background, was selected as Premier of the State of Vietnam by Bảo Đại. While Diệm was trying to settle the differences between the various armed militias in the South, Bảo Đại was persuaded to reduce his power. Diệm created a referendum in 1955 to depose Bảo Đại and declared himself president of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was proclaimed in Saigon on October 26, 1955. The United States began to provide military and economic aid to the RVN, training RVN personnel, and sending U.S. advisors to assist in building the infrastructure for the new government.
History of French foreign relations
At the international Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954 the new socialist French government and the Việt Minh made an agreement that was denounced by the government of Vietnam and by the United States, but which effectively gave the Communists control of North Vietnam above the 17th parallel. South Vietnam, with heavy American support. continued under Emperor Bảo Đại. In 1955 Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Soon an insurgency backed by the North developed against Diệm's government. The conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War.
France–Trinidad and Tobago relations
France colonized Trinidad and Tobago during the seventeenth century. France occupied the colony from August 1666 to March 1667. On 6 December 1677, the French destroyed the Dutch colony and claimed the entire island before restoring it to the Dutch by the first Treaty of Nijmegen on 10 August 1678. In 1751, the French settled colonists on the island, but ceded it to Britain in the Treaty of Paris of 10 February 1763. Nevertheless, most "of the settlers were French, and French influence became dominant." It was again a French colony from 2 June 1781 to 15 April 1793, nominally part of the Lucie département of France from 25 October 1797 to 19 April 1801, and once again a French colony from 30 June 1802 to 30 June 1803.
Operation Passage to Freedom
At the end of World War II, the Viet Minh had proclaimed independence under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in September 1945. This occurred after the withdrawal of Imperial Japan, which had seized control of the French colony during World War II. The military struggle started in November 1946 when France attempted to reassert control over Indochina with an attack on the northern port city of Haiphong. The DRV was recognised by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC). On the other hand, the western powers recognised the French-backed State of Vietnam, nominally led by Emperor Bảo Đại, but with a French-trained Vietnamese National Army (VNA) which was loyal to the French Union forces. In May 1954, after eight years of fighting, the French were surrounded and defeated in a mountainous northern fortress at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. France's withdrawal from Indochina was finalised in the Geneva Accords of July 1954, after two months of negotiations between Ho's DRV, France, the PRC and the Soviet Union. Under the terms of the agreement, Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel north pending elections in 1956 to choose a national government that would administer a reunified country. The communist Viet Minh were left in control of North Vietnam, while the State of Vietnam controlled the south. French Union forces would gradually withdraw from Vietnam as the situation stabilised. Both Vietnamese sides were unsatisfied with the outcome at Geneva; Ngo Dinh Diem, Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, denounced France's agreement and ordered his delegation not to sign. He stated "We cannot recognise the seizure by Soviet China . . . of over half of our national territory" and that "We can neither concur in the brutal enslavement of millions of compatriots". North Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng expressed bitterness after his Soviet and Chinese backers threatened to cut support if he did not agree to the peace terms; Dong had wanted to press home the Viet Minh's military advantage so they could lay claim to more territory at the negotiating table.
France–Vietnam relations
In 1680, the French East India Company opened a factory in Phố Hiến. The famous Frenchman Pierre Poivre visited Vietnam from 1720.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Tây Sơn rebellion overthrew the Nguyễn family, but one of its members Nguyễn Ánh, future Emperor Gia Long, with the aid of the French Catholic priest Pigneau de Béhaine, titular bishop of Adran, obtained a treaty of alliance with the French king Louis XVI: the Treaty of Versailles, signed on November 21, 1787. In return Gia Long promised to cede Pulo-Condore to the French and to give a concession to the French in Tourane (modern Da Nang), as well as exclusive trading rights. That treaty marks the beginning of French influence in Indochina, but the Governor in Pondicherry, Count de Conway refused to follow through with the implementation of the treaty, leaving Pigneau de Béhaine to his own means.
Yên Bái Province
Vietnam had gradually become a French colony between 1859 and 1883. Initially, military resistance to French rule came through the Cần Vương movement led by Tôn Thất Thuyết and Phan Đình Phùng, which sought to install the boy Emperor Hàm Nghi at the head of an independent nation. However, with the death of Phùng in 1895, military opposition effectively ended. The only other notable incidents after this came in 1917 was the Thái Nguyên rebellion. The lack of militant activity changed in the late 1920s with the formation of the VNQDĐ, or Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The VNQDĐ attempted clandestine activities to undermine French rule, which resulted in French scrutiny of their activities. This led to their leadership group taking the risk of staging a large scale military attack in the Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam. It was only on 10 February 1931 that VNQDĐ could, in collaboration with civilian supporters, launch the Yên Bái mutiny, an uprising of Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army. Thus, Yên Bái was the first of the battles during the First Indochina War. Yên Bái and Thái Nguyên were key military posts of the Việt Minh, which were supplied with arms from China to fight the French during this War.
Vichy France
In June 1940, the Fall of France made the French hold on Indochina tenuous. The isolated colonial administration was cut off from outside help and outside supplies. After negotiations with Japan, the French allowed the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina. This seemingly subservient behaviour convinced Major-General Plaek Pibulsonggram, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, that Vichy France would not seriously resist a campaign by the Thai military to recover parts of Cambodia and Laos that had been taken from Thailand by France in the early 20th century. In October 1940, the military forces of Thailand attacked across the border with Indochina and launched the Franco-Thai War. Although the French won an important naval victory over the Thais, Japan forced the French to accept Japanese mediation of a peace treaty that returned the disputed territory to Thai control. The French were left in place to administer the rump colony of Indochina until 9 March 1945, when the Japanese staged a "coup d'état" in French Indochina and took control, establishing their own colony, the Empire of Vietnam, as a double puppet state.
Sino-Vietnamese War
On the urging of the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly reestablishing their control across the area, although still under British control until hostilities had ceased. Once hostilities had ended the British handed over the territory to the French. In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam. On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a "free" republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation. British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the control of the French. The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city. Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the first Indochina War.
France–Vietnam relations
French Indochina was officially formed in October 1887 from Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina (which together form modern Vietnam) and the Kingdom of Cambodia following the Sino-French war (1884–1885). Jean Antoine Ernest Constans became the first Governor-General of French Indochina on 16 November 1887. Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War of 1893.