British historian takes brilliant look at French fall in Vietnam
In the fall of 1953, alarmed by the growing strength of Viet Minh guerrilla forces, French military leaders in Vietnam decided to establish a fortified base in the colony's northern highlands. The base was to be at Dien Bien Phu, a narrow valley among the jungle hills where over a period of just 56 days, one of the decisive battles of modern times would be fought.
Decisive because, as British military historian Martin Windrow writes in the powerful and sharply detailed ''The Last Valley," ''this was the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle." And beyond that, decisive because the 1954 victory of the Viet Minh -- the pejorative term ''Viet Cong," more familiar to Americans, was not coined until 1960 -- was ''the first step down a road that only ended with the departure of the last helicopters from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon in April 1975."
Readers of a certain age will recall the vivid contemporary account of this battle by French historian and journalist Bernard Fall, who was killed in Vietnam in 1967. Still a valuable source, its title, ''Hell in a Very Small Place," virtually defines the 1954 battle. French paratroopers secured Dien Bien Phu, lightly defended by Viet Minh forces, on Nov. 20, 1953. After clearing a landing strip, a French-led force that would eventually number some 15,000 established a base camp with fortified positions, or strongpoints, on the surrounding hills. Meanwhile, the Viet Minh assembled a force of some 22,000 soldiers plus some 30,000 support troops, manhandling howitzers and mortars through the jungles and emplacing them in the hills beyond the French positions.
By March 1954, both sides were prepared for the decisive battle. The French, Windrow writes, saw Dien Bien Phu as ''a carefully designed killing ground where they could destroy the enemy as he at last came out to fight them." The Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap had originally held ''deeply rooted misgivings" about committing his elusive guerrilla forces to a frontal assault on a heavily fortified position, but a victory would be a political advantage for the Viet Minh during negotiations in Geneva to settle the Vietnam conflict.
So it was that the aristocratic French commander Christian de Castries, noting the increasing number of ranging shots from Viet Minh artillery and the encircling approach of assault trenches, told his senior officers at a briefing on the evening of March 12: ''Gentlemen, it's tomorrow, at 5 p.m." To observers in the strongpoints just before that hour, it seemed as if the hillsides themselves were moving as Viet Minh battalions swept toward the French positions. And as ''the [Foreign Legion] mortarmen adjusted their sights, the world went mad" as ''the full weight of General Giap's artillery fell on Dien Bien Phu for the first time."
The effect, writes Windrow, ''was stunning, both physically and psychologically." Here is Windrow's muscle-clenching prose and attention to detail. It is sometime after 7 p.m. at the ''Batrice" strongpoint:
''Viet Minh shells fell murderously around the battery positions, and the [command post] of Lieutenant Lyot's 5th Battery was knocked out. At 6th Battery, Lieutenant Jean-Marie Moreau saw a fireball rise from his No. 3 pit, from which a blood-boltered African NCO staggered, roaring with pain: two shells had fallen right on the 105 [howitzer], destroying it, decapitating Sergeant Chief Scarpellini, killing one other man and wounding the rest of the crew." Wave after wave of assaults continued into the night. Then, sometime after 10 p.m., a captain radioed from Batrice ''the final message that every artilleryman hopes he will never hear: 'It's all over -- the Viets are here. Fire upon my position. Out.' "
By dawn, both Batrice and its companion strongpoint Gabrielle -- both said to be named for de Castries's mistresses -- had fallen. The base itself, within a steadily shrinking perimeter and under constant artillery bombardment -- its defenders were calling it ''la cuvette" (the toilet bowl), -- held out until May 7. That morning, Windrow writes, there was ''[an] indistinct fading away of the fighting" and the battle ''just . . . stopped."
When the news reached France that day, about noon because of the time difference, ''the Archbishop of Paris ordered a solemn mass," writes Windrow. ''Radio entertainment programs were replaced with solemn classical music such as the Berlioz 'Requiem.' "And people ''felt obscurely that they should cancel social engagements as a mark of respect." ''The Last Valley" stands on its own as a brilliant piece of military history. But readers will not be blamed if they read it against their own memories of Vietnam -- or their fears and misgivings about Iraq.
By Michael Kenney - The Boston Globe - January 4, 2005
The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, by Martin Windrow, DaCapo, 734 pp., $30
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