The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944-1947 (Contemporary France (Paper), Vol 2)

How did France become embroiled in Vietnam, in the first of long wars of decolonization? And why did the French colonial administration, in late 1946, having negotiated with Ho Chi Minh for a year, adopt a warlike stance towards Ho's régime which ran counter to the liberal colonial doctrine of liberated France? Based on French archival sources, almost all of them previously unavailable to the English-speaking reader, the author assesses the policy that emerged from the 1944 Brazzaville conference; and the doomed attempt to apply that policy in Indo-China. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTE ON TEXT Map of Indochina, 1945 INTRODUCTION PART I THE EXTERNAL AND DOMESTIC PARAMETERS OF COLONIAL POLICY MAKING 1 THE BRAZZAVILLE CONFERENCE AND ITS ORIGINS, 1940–1944 Policy Formulation and Myth Making on the Congo 2 THE REPUBLIC STRIKES BACK, 1944–1945 Brazzaville Policy and the Metropolitan Critique 3 ‘WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF COLONIAL CRISIS’ The Response to International and Colonial Change 4 THE DOMESTIC PARAMETERS OF COLONIAL POLICY MAKING AFTER THE LIBERATION, 1944–1946 PART II POLICY MAKING IN INDOCHINA AND ITS BREAKDOWN, 1945–1947 5 CALCULATING THE STAKES The Brazzaville Policy and the ‘Return’ to Indochina, December 1943–September 1945 6 THE PRIMACY OF ACTION From the ‘Return’ to Saigon, October 1945, to the Signing of the Accords of 6 March 1946 7 WHO RULES: PARIS OR SAIGON? The Dalat Conference and the Cochinchina Policy, March–June 1946 8 ‘A ROUND OF THE BATTLE WE ARE FIGHTING’ The Fontainebleau Conference, June–September 1946 9 THE NARROWING OF FRENCH POLICY OPTIONS, AUTUMN 1946 The Accords Policy Abandoned? 10 ‘THE TONKIN VESPERS’, DECEMBER 1946 Burying the Accords Policy CONCLUSION APPENDIX I The Administrative Structure of the French Empire, 1945 APPENDIX II Chronology of Events in France and Indochina, 1944–1947 BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX How did France become embroiled in Vietnam, in the first of long wars of decolonisation? And why did the French colonial administration, in late 1946, having negotiated with Ho Chi Minh for a year, adopt a warlike stance towards Ho's regime that ran counter to the liberal colonial doctrine of liberated France? Based on French archival sources, almost all of them previously unavailable to the English-speaking reader, the author assesses the policy that emerged from the 1944 Brazzaville Conference, and the doomed attempt to apply that policy in Indochina. The author explores the true purpose of the 1944 Brazzaville Conference, suggesting that it was an attempt to find a means to reconcile France's search for international grandeur with the resurgence of colonial nationalism