Shadowing Practice: Destruction of French Rule in Vietnam - Battle of Điện Biên Phủ - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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In early 1954, a decisive battle took place at Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam.
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In early 1954, a decisive battle took place at Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam.
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It was the conclusion to a seven-year-long conflict between France and the communist Viet Minh for the future of Southeast Asia.
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The fighting would last for months and end in a catastrophic defeat
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that ended French rule in Indochina and pushed the United States one step closer to intervening in Vietnam.
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The story of the calamity at Dien Bien Phu began in May 1953,
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when a new French commander in chief arrived in South East Asia.
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General Henri Navarre was the latest in a long line of French commanders,
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none of whom had been able to bring the six year long war against the Viet Minh to a successful conclusion.
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The conflict had cost hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of French lives,
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and the political will in Paris to continue it was fading.
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The French government may well have already called time on its
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attempts to remain in control in South East Asia were it not for the massive involvement of the United States,
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which saw the conflict as a means of containing the spread of communism.
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By the middle of 1953,
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some 80% of the cost of the French war effort were being met by aid from the US.
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But despite this support, by the autumn of
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that year the power base of the Communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam extended over much of the north
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and centre of the country,
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with an ongoing guerrilla campaign in areas they did not control.
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Even with American support, the French government was beginning to think it was time to cut their losses
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and make a deal with Ho Chi Minh's communist state.
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But before they did, they they charged Navarre with leveraging France's still superior military power to strengthen their hand,
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and avoid any appearance of being forced to the negotiating table.
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The French general did not have to wait long for an opportunity for this to present itself.
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In November, the Communists began an offensive on Lai Chau province close to the border with China.
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They hoped to draw the French out from their defensive perimeter
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around Hanoi to fight a pitched battle at the end of extended supply lines.
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They had chosen Lai Chau because they believe
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that the French will be forced to come out and block any advance into Laos,
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as the colonialists could not risk the war spreading onto another new front.
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The Communists were right.
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On November 20th the French conducted airborne landings at Diem Bien Phu to the south-west.
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Navarre was confident.
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Previous battles at Narsan and Hwa Binh had shown
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that the Viet Minh were unable to successfully attack entrenched French positions
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and that a large force could be supplied solely by air for an extended period.
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Navarre would do what the French had done before.
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Fly in, build defences, smash the Vietnamese with intense artillery and airpower,
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and then evacuate, with the communist forces weakened.
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By the end of the year,
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12,000 troops were established at Dien Bien Phu,
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with an airfield, artillery, tanks, minefields and barbed wire.
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In command on the ground was Colonel Christian de Castri.
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But unfortunately for the French,
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the Viet Minh were ready to respond.
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Four communist divisions, over 50,000 troops were soon dispatched to Dien Bien Phu and encircled the French perimeter.
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Vo Nguyen Giap, the commander-in-chief of the People's Army of Vietnam,
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arrived to take personal command of the battle in early January 1954.
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Jap was determined to avoid the mistakes of previous battles where attacks had been launched prematurely and resulted in massive casualties.
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He ordered a lengthy and meticulous build-up.
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A huge effort was put into developing logistic routes for food and munitions for the army,
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and over the next two months,
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large amounts of artillery and new Chinese-supplied anti-aircraft guns were brought up and carefully sighted on the hills surrounding the French base.
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French aircraft and their own artillery was used to try and disrupt these,
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but the thick vegetation covering the hillside made spotting targets difficult
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and ground sorties ran into well prepared enemy positions and were ineffective.
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It took until the second week of March 1954 for communist preparations for an assault on Diem Bien Foe to be complete.
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Then, at about 5.20pm on March 13th,
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they began a massive artillery bombardment and pushed forward into a major attack.
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The battle that would decide Indochina's fate had arrived.
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The communist bombardment struck sights all over the battlefield,
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but focused on the north-eastern French strongpoints named Beatrice and Gabrielle.
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These two hilltops were, along with Anne Marie to the west,
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isolated further away from the main cluster of French positions.
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They were each held by a battalion.
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3rd Battalion 13th Foreign Legion on Beatrice,
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and 5th Battalion 7th Algerian Rifles on Gabriel.
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The communist attack began with Beatrice,
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at 6.30pm, with three battalions from 312th Division in the assault wave,
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while a fourth blocked the road to stop any potential reinforcements from reaching the area.
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On the northern side of the hill,
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heavy French artillery fire succeeded in blunting the advance of the 428th Battalion as it crossed the Nam Yom River,
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but to the south-east 11th Company found itself overrun by determined attacks at 8.30.
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Its flank compromised, 9th Company was forced to pull back two hours later,
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setting up a fierce defence of Beatrice's western positions.
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For the next four hours the French troops fought for their lives,
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crushing the attack of the 11th Battalion in the north-west
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and holding off the reserve 16th Battalion after it was committed to the attack.
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Only after another large artillery bombardment did the resistance falter,
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with the hill captured around 2.30am.
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110 French troops were able to escape,
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with the rest dead or taken prisoner.
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It was the first time in the entire war that a French battalion in prepared positions had been overrun by the communists.
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Viet Minh losses had been heavy,
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particularly in the 428th and 11th which had lost more than 50% of their strength.
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The victory was worth the losses though,
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as holding Beatrice allowed Jaap to mass troops to the east of Gabriel,
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which now looked very isolated.
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Gabriel was the best sighted and most well dug in strong point in the line,
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with extra heavy mortars and a company of local auxiliaries attached.
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Jaap did not hesitate.
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On March 14th he attacked with five battalions,
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and despite fierce resistance from the defenders,
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swept the Algerians from the hill by the following morning.
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The loss of two major strongpoints on consecutive nights badly damaged French morale.
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It caused more than 250 troops on Anne-Marie to the west to desert,
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and forced that strongpoint to be abandoned.
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The French hierarchy too was badly Colonel Peroth,
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the commander of the camp's artillery,
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was so devastated at his gun's failure to suppress the Vietnamese artillery during the fighting that he killed himself.
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Colonel de Castry too fell into a degree of despair,
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and it fell to Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Langlais to stabilise their position,
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which he did with the help of Major Marcel Bajard's elite 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion,
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which was dropped into Diambien Phu as reinforcements.
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De Castry and Longley wanted another battalion on top of this,
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but the French general in command of troops in North Vietnam,
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René Cogni, refused to dispatch it,
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concerned about wasting more troops on a futile cause.
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He told Colonel De Castry that a battalion could only be provided on the condition
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that the integrity of the fortified camp be guaranteed.
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De Castry replied, The situation will be difficult to restore without reinforcements from outside.
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We are doing the impossible.
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The problem for the French commander was that without the extra troops,
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they were unable to stop the Viet Minh from using its successive north to site artillery
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and anti-air guns closer to the airfield,
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the only supply link the French troops had.
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The insertion of an extra battalion at this stage may have given Longley the strength he needed to ease this pressure,
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especially considering the substantial losses two of Jap's divisions had suffered in the fighting over Beatrice and Gabrielle.
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But without them, by March 28th the anti-air fire had grown so intense that the airfield had to be closed entirely,
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meaning all resupply for the French forces would now have to arrive by parachute,
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dropped from a minimum height of 6,500 feet and thus scattered over a wide area.
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Weak French counter-attacks were unsuccessful,
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and the Vietnamese soon came again,
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lining up a large offensive at the end of the month.
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Jap, in concert with his commanders,
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plotted an assault on the eastern side of the valley,
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designed to destroy the French strongpoints Dominique and Eliane in a single night.
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The whole of the 312th Division was deployed,
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including the units that took part in the assault on Gabrielle and Beatrice for a total of 14 battalions.
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Facing them was an increasingly disparate set of French troops from a variety of different units and nationalities.
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Facing intense pressure to cover a wide front line against a much more numerous enemy,
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battalions and even companies were split up to hold different strongpoints.
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For the purpose of this video,
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the coloured stripe on each unit icon denotes the unit to which it it belongs.
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Battalions on the French side, regiments on the Communists.
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All told, the French forces here came from seven different infantry and one cavalry battalions,
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but by no means were the full strength of all of these units deployed in this location.
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The offensive began at 6.30pm on March 31st across a wide front.
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The first hill to fall was Eliane 1,
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held by a single Moroccan company,
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overrun by the 215th Infantry Battalion by 725.
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To the north, a battalion each of Vietnamese paratroopers
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and Algerian infantry faced the full force of three communist regiments and were swept from Dominique's 1 and 2 by 10 pm,
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forcing the subsequent retreat of troops from Dominique's 6 sandwiched between them.
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This opened up a gap in the French line and the Viet Minh poured through,
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bypassing Dominique 5 to begin attacks on Dominique 3, close to the river.
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In the south, the key position of Eliane 2 was attacked by two Vietnamese battalions.
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Intense resistance by the defenders was not enough,
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and by 11pm the French troops were sheltering from their own artillery fire,
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called in in a desperate attempt to halt the communist advance.
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But after midnight, the tide began to turn,
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as two parachute companies reinforced and pushed the attackers back,
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forcing the Vietnamese to bring up a reserve battalion just to hold onto the easternmost part of the strongpoint.
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It was a similar story elsewhere.
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On Eliane IV, a company of paratroopers virtually destroyed the 215th battalion during repeated assaults on its position,
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and the defenders of Dominique III managed to keep their assailants at bay.
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The French forces managed to hold the line,
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gust, but throughout the rest of April they were stuck in a slow death spiral of dwindling supplies and reinforcements,
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while the communists were able to call on thousands of replacements
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and a carefully prepared logistics chain pulling in supplies from other areas,
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which remained resilient in the face of French bombing.
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The French garrison was steadily weakened by attrition,
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supply and food shortages, and low morale.
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When a third major offensive began at the start of May,
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it was too much for the depleted French forces and their position collapsed.
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By May 7th, the French were forced to withdraw from all positions east of the river,
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placing the remainder of the camp in an untenable position.
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At 5.30pm, the newly promoted Brigadier General de Castry announced a unilateral ceasefire
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and the surrender of the French garrison at Diem Bien Phu to the People's Army of Vietnam.
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The garrison at Diem Bien Phu totalled in the end around 15,000 troops,
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including reinforcements and replacements.
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Of these, about 8,000 had become casualties prior to the surrender, including 1,142 dead.
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The rest became prisoners.
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On the communist side,
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numbers are very hard to come by due to the tendency of the Vietnamese to understate their losses even to this day.
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Officially, 4,020 Viet Minh fighters were killed and 9,800 wounded or missing,
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for a total of just under 14,000 casualties.
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But later estimates by historians range up to the 25,000 mark,
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not including civilian porters and other logistical personnel killed by French bombing while manning supply lines to the battlefield.
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The communists had paid a high price,
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but had won a decisive and convincing victory over a French force
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that in its overconfidence had hopelessly overextended itself and invited its own destruction.
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It was a defeat that proved fatal to any hopes the French had about achieving an honourable exit.
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Negotiations at a peace conference in Geneva opened just as the battle at Dien Bien Phu was reaching its conclusion
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and the impact of defeat was huge leverage for the communists.
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Talks ended with a ceasefire between the French and Vietnamese in July 1954,
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under the terms of which Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel,
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between a communist north and a capitalist south Vietnam.
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The French would leave Indochina entirely.
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In the south of the country,
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the influence of France was swiftly replaced by that of the United States,
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which was determined to keep newly created South Vietnam out of communist control come what May and established as its firm ally,
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the new Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem.
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American aid flooded into South Vietnam,
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rising from $1 million in 1954 to $322 million the following year.
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It was a commitment which would escalate to unthinkable levels and shape the future of Vietnam for the next two decades.
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Context & Background
The video titled "Destruction of French Rule in Vietnam - Battle of Điện Biên Phủ" explores a pivotal moment in history that reshaped Southeast Asia. It recounts the events leading up to and during the decisive battle in 1954, which marked the end of French colonial rule in Vietnam. The narrative highlights the prolonged conflict between the French forces and the communist Viet Minh, who fought for control over the region. As an English learner, understanding such historical contexts can enhance your listening skills and cultural knowledge, which are crucial for effective communication in English.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “The conflict had cost hundreds of thousands of lives.” - Use this phrase to discuss the impact of wars or major events.
- “The power base of the Communist Democratic Republic extended over much of the country.” - This can be helpful when talking about political dynamics.
- “The French government was beginning to think it was time to cut their losses.” - A useful expression when discussing financial or personal situations.
- “They hoped to draw the French out from their defensive perimeter.” - This phrase can be employed when discussing tactics in various situations.
- “Before they did, they charged Navarre with leveraging military power.” - Ideal for discussions about leadership and responsibility in challenging contexts.
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