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"three colors, one flag, one empire"
Ho Chi Minh with French President Georges Bidault
in 1946, following
France's recognition of his Democratic
Republic of Vietnam. (A photo from academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu.)
Toward the end of World War II, Charles de Gaulle did not like talk from the Soviet Union and the United States about trusteeships. He foresaw the eventual independence of colonized people, but he considered what France did with its "dependencies" was France's business. He wanted France to bargain with its dependencies on its own timetable and to keep them as tied to France as much as possible. De Gaulle and his Free French still accepted the notion that the French had a civilizing mission to fulfill.
During the war the British let a force of de Gaulle's Free French enter the Syria-Lebanon region, and in late 1943 the French experienced opposition to their presence. In 1945 a clash between Syrians wanting independence and the French erupted in Damascus, with French troops attacking the Syrian parliament building and French aircraft dropping bombs. But it was in vain. The French lost Syria and Lebanon. The Syrians defied the French and created their own army. The UN recognized Syria and Lebanon as independent states and as members of the UN, and in April 1946 the UN Security Council won an agreement from Britain and France to withdraw their troops.
In Morocco, French colonialism was challenged in 1944 when a political party, the Istiqlal (independence) drafted a manifesto. The French responded by arresting its leaders, accusing them of collaborating with the Germans. French troops fired on crowds demonstrating in the city of Fés. France's Moroccan subjects were outraged. France's colonial governor, supported by French economic interests and backed by most of Morocco's European colons, adamantly refused to consider reforms. Official intransigence contributed to increased animosity between the nationalists and the colons and widened a split between Morocco's sultan and the colonial governor (resident general). In December 1952, a riot broke out in Casablanca. In the aftermath of the rioting, the resident general outlawed the Moroccan Communist Party and the Istiqlal. France exiled Sultan Mohammed V to Madagascar in 1953 and replaced him with the unpopular Mohammed Ben Aarafa, whose reign was perceived as illegitimate. Nationalists and those who saw the Mohammed V as a religious leader intensified their hostilities against French rule.
Algeria also developed into a problem for the French. Algeria was more than a colony. Legally it was one of France's provinces. It had more people of European heritage than had Tunisia or Morocco. Between 1872 and 1914 Algeria's European polulation had increased from 280,000 to 752,000, engaged in growing wine grapes, wheat alfalfa, citrus fruit and vegetables and in trade. Most Europeans in Algeria were born there and considered Algeria their homeland. They dominated Algerian politics and they were Christian and did not want to lose their power to the non-European, Moslem majority.
A small group of Muslim intellectuals had issued a manifesto back in 1943, calling for an end to Muslim assimilation with France and for an independent Algeria. On May 8, 1945, during the French celebration of Victory Day, in the Algerian city of Sétif, French police tried to stop a procession of Algerians carrying independence flags. The police fired on the demonstrators. A riot followed in which at least 22 died and 48 were wounded. The police action inspired the spread of disturbances to other towns across Algeria for several days, and according to official figures 1500 died - 15,000 according to Muslim figures. France's Communist newspaper, joined other Frenchmen in the denouncing the Muslim riots. The Communists were fixated on the struggle against fascism just ended and on the Communist Party's partnership with de Gaulle's provisional government. It denounced the Muslim rioters as would be sympathizers of Hitler and the Nazis. [note]
Tunisia and Vietnam were also concerns. In Tunisia in 1945 came calls for complete independence, and Tunisia's foremost advocate of independence, Habib Bourguiba, imprisoned by the French in the 1930s, had been released during the German occupation of Tunisia. And now he was drifting around out of reach of the French and speaking up for the cause of indpendence.
Japan was still In Vietnam in March 1945, when it revoked its treaty with France regarding Indochina and moved against the French there. The Japanese disarmed and imprisoned the small French force, seized administrative offices, banks, communications centers and industries. In June, under the noses of the Japanese, guerrillas known as the Viet Minh established revolutionary committees across the country. Under Communist leadership it established a provisional government. It abolished forced labor (the corvée), began training local militia and began giving to peasants the lands that had been owned by the French.
Relations between the Viet Minh and Americans were good, the Viet Minh having helped downed American pilots and U.S. military intelligence appreciating the Viet Minh's struggle against the Japanese.
On August 21, 1945, a few days after the war with Japan ended, Charles de Gaulle flew to Washington. There he talked with President Truman for about seven hours and pledged eventual self-determination for France's dependencies. Concerning Indochina, Truman spoke of the U.S. not opposing a French return - amid de Gaulle's assurances that independence would be granted after the pre-war status quo was restored - as the U.S. had planned for the Philippines.
On August 25, the Viet Minh took control of Saigon, and Japan's puppet emperor there, Bao Dai, abdicated to the provision government of the Viet Minh. On August 28 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was announced. On September 2, the president of the provisional government, Ho Chi Minh, read the Declaration of Vietnamese Independence to a crowd of 500,000 gathered in Hanoi. And Ho Chi Minh appealed for recognition by the Allied powers.
On September 12, British troops arrived in Saigon to receive the surrender of the Japanese and to find out what was happening in Vietnam. The Viet Minh did not want to start killing the British and instead tolerated their presence. But fighting did erupt against the French, and, on September 22, the British took it upon themselves to free French troops who had been imprisoned by the Japanese.
In accordance with an Allied agreement, Chinese troops arrived in North Vietnam. Their purpose according to the agreement with the Allies was to restore order. It was another faulty Allied decision. The Nationalist Chinese were not to contribute to order in Vietnam but to chaos. They did not interfere with Ho Chi Minh's government, but they were seen by the Vietnamese as a swarm of locusts, stealing what they could.
Eighty thousand French troops arrived at Saigon in early October, with orders from de Gaulle to stay in the southern half of Vietnam. By December, the French controlled the southern half of Vietnam - to the 16th parallel. In March 1946, after having accomplished nothing, the Chinese in Vietnam returned to China, where they had problems enough.
Ho Chi Minh was seeking favor from the Allied powers. Rather than warring against Westerners, he wanted them to recognize his government and Vietnam's independence. With the French he entered into discussions. The French recognized Ho as Vietnam's chief of state and Vietnam as a part of an Indochinese federation and the French Union. In May, 1946, France's commissioner in Vietnam, Admiral Thierry d'Angenlieu, proclaimed northern Vietnam for Ho and the Viet Minh and he proclaimed south Vietnam as "Provisional Republic of Cochin China." The Vietnamese felt they were being betrayed. Talks between Ho and the French broke down. In November the French tried to seize the custom's office at the port of Haiphong, near Hanoi. In December, French naval units, claiming that they had been attacked, bombarded the city, killing 6,000. War in Vietnam was now a reality. Ho warned the French that "for every ten men that you kill, we will kill one of yours. It is you who will have to give up in the end." Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh returned to guerrilla warfare.
The French had trouble with their colony on the island of Madagascar. During the war British forces took the island of Madagascar from Vichy France and delivered it to de Gaulle's Free French. The French were not popular among the people of Madagascar, and on March 29, 1947, with their prestige at low ebb, the French faced an uprising on the eastern side of the island - by an independence movement: the Mouvement Democratique de la Renovation Malagache (MDRM). Support for the uprising spread quickly, the French losing control over a third of the island, with some Malagasians expecting help from the United States. It took more than a year for the French to regain control over the island, while as many as 11,000 Malagasians died in the fighting. The French executed 20 of the rebel military leader, and 5,000 to 6,000 others are reported to have been tried and sentenced to penalties ranging from brief imprisonment to death.
Back in Tunisia, in 1949 Bourguiba returned to reorganise the his independence movement and resume his direct contact with his fellow Tunesians by visiting small towns and villages throughout the country. Bourguiba's movement was comprised largely of moderates - people largely from educated and business families who wished for little more than political independence. France's government refused to concede self-rule to the Tunisians and Bourguiba toughened his stand by calling for unlimited resistance and general insurrection. The French found him in January 1952 and imprisoned him again and banned his movement.
The following year the French moved against agitation for independence in Morocco by deposing its leading advocate there, the Sultan of Morocco, Mohammad V. Instead of solving the issue for the French, repression made matters worse for them in Morocco. And repression in Tunisia was making rule for them harder. There guerrilla warfare arose, and during the next couple of years guerrillas in rural areas were winning support from peasants. The independence movement in Tunisia had not only turned violent, it was expanding and becoming more revolutionary. Under increasing pressure in Vietnam and in Algeria, the French felt pressured to let Tunisia go. In 1954 its released Bourguiba from prison and lifted the ban on his political party.
