Bao Dai and the French
From: Guillemot Francois via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2024 10:57 AM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Fwd: Bao Dai and the French (Christoph Giebel via Vsg)
Dear Shawn,
Thank you for quoting my work and others (Goscha, Lentz, Marr, Reilly...). I totally agree with you, Vietnamese independence was a process with multiple twists and turns and a dramatic civil war. This topic could make a good book: Which independence for Vietnam, 1945-1954 and even beyond ? with the various declarations, negotiations, regional views, political projects and failures.
I have no time to discuss the State of Vietnam of Bao Dai (in French état associé, bound hand and foot to the French) but Bao Dai himself wanted to play a key role in the unification of his country on the steps, he wrote, of the Emperor Gia Long. His lack of will, political practice and charisma undoubtedly played a part in his failure.
All the best
F
---
15 parvis René Descartes
BP 7000, 69342 Lyon cedex 07
www.ens-lyon.fr
Guillemot François
Historien, ingénieur de recherche CNRS
Institut d'Asie Orientale - UMR 5062
Tél. 04 37 37 62 41
francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr
Responsable des collections vietnamiennes
Référent ingénierie de projets
Membre du Bureau éditorial d'ENS éditions
----------------------------
Carnets de recherche & ressources
https://guerillera.hypotheses.org/
https://indomemoires.hypotheses.org/
https://indosources.hypotheses.org/
https://virtual-saigon.net/
From: Shawn McHale via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2024 9:11 AM
To: Nguyen Luong Hai Khoi <haikhoisp@gmail.com>
Cc: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Fwd: Bao Dai and the French (Christoph Giebel via Vsg)
Too many arguments over Vietnam have been going on for decades, divorced from recent or compelling research on the topic. Declarations of “independence” are confused with actual sovereignty. In fact, Vietnamese independence was a PROCESS. Analytic precision is necessary when talking about this process.
1. Yes, the Trần Trọng Kim government "declared" independence in 1945. Declarations are different from actual independence. Nguyen Ngoc Chau's piece slips between discussions of declaration of independence and claims of actual independence.
2. The Trần Trọng government had no significant budget, no army, and no national assembly. It ruled through decrees, as it did not have a law-making National Assembly.) All that being said, it took some initiatives, such as promoting mass movements, which were historically significant.
3. This Trần Trọng Kim government ruled because the Japanese military allowed it to rule. (A comparison helps here: Vietnam was no more independent of March 9,1945 to mid-August 1945 than Indonesia was.) Its declaration of independence only affected the two protectorates of Bắc Kỳ and Trung Kỳ. It had no impact on Nam Kỳ, which was a colony of France. (While we can argue that this government was a "puppet" regime, I prefer to see it as one more experimentation on the path to Vietnamese independence.)
4. According to political persuasion, narratives of modern Vietnamese independence post-1944 often fixate on different origin points, such as March 11,1945 or September 2, 1945. The only way to transcend such debates is to look at the entire process, one which saw multiple claims of independence from multiple actors between March 11, 1945 and mid-1954.
5. As archives have opened up more and more material, we can examine claims of independence and the rise of states in greater and greater detail. David Marr's book on Vietnam 1945-46 provides the most extensive examination of the crucial 1945-46 period, including extensive research based on primary sources on the conferences in Dalat and Fontainebleau. Chris Goscha has penned an excellent account of the rise of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, especially in the north and center. I discuss the process of creating the State of Vietnam, which morphed into Republic of Vietnam, in one chapter of my book on the First Indochina War. Brett Reilly's marvelous Wisconsin PhD dissertation from 2018 looks at this topic more broadly, again based on lots of archival materials and others. (an overview is available in "The Sovereign States of Vietnam, 1945-55” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 11, n.3-4 (Winter, 2016), 103-139.) I could go on -- for example, read Lentz! Read François GUILLEMOT! But the key point in all of these works is that they go beyond memoirs by participants in these wars, and heavily rely on archival sources in Vietnamese and French that were not available before, or were unused or underused.
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2024 9:05 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French (Nguyen Luong Hai Khoi via Vsg)
The official historical view in Vietnam considers a lot of things from other eyes.
Their brains are different, and their eyes too. Try to publish in Vietnam a book on Vietnam history, you will see...
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
Mes articles (plus de 30.300 vues)
https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2
From: Nguyen Luong Hai Khoi via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2024 6:19 AM
To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Fwd: Bao Dai and the French (Christoph Giebel via Vsg)
The official historical view in Vietnam considers the Tran Trong Kim Government to be a "puppet" and "minion" of Japan.
In an essay on Voice of America (VOA) Vietnamese, I argued with that view:
Học tập tư duy sử học qua câu chuyện Chính phủ Trần Trọng Kim
(Learning historical thinking skills through the story of the Tran Trong Kim Government)
https://www.voatiengviet.com/a/hoc-tap-tu-duy-su-hoc-chinh-phu-tran-trong-kim/6081625.html
Nguyen Luong Hai Khoi, US-Vietnam Research Center, University of Oregon
Managing Editor, US-Vietnam Review
VN: https://usvietnam.uoregon.edu/ EN: https://usvietnam.uoregon.edu/en/
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 11:46 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Fwd: Bao Dai and the French (Christoph Giebel via Vsg)
As you all know, the first non-communist government of an independent Viet Nam was constituted by Trần Trọng Kim some months before the 02/09/1945 declaration of Hồ Chí Minh:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r9znpdyMUkuk9puAWwtcOjQgG0ccfCBk/view?usp=sharing
Excerpt from the above article (which is an excerpt from my book):
Bảo Đại declared the independence of Việt Nam [1] on 11th March 1945, almost six months before Hồ Chí Minh, by repealing the French protectorates in the following words: « Given the world situation and that of Asia in particular, the Government of Việt Nam proclaims publicly that from this day the protectorate treaty with France is abolished and that the country regains its rights to independence ». He ended with a declaration of acceptance of Japan's support for the Sphere of Co-Prosperity of Greater East Asia.
[...]
Trần Trọng Kim retired as Chief Inspector of Studies in Hà Nội in 1942 and had no political ambition. He had been to the École Coloniale (Colonial School) in France and the École Normale of Melun and had written books on Confucianism, Buddhism and the history of Việt Nam. To avoid being arrested by the colonial government, he took refuge in Singapore in early 1944, and then in Bangkok, with Dương Bá Trạc, with whom he was writing a dictionary. For this, he had benefited from the help of the Japanese, who for some time had in mind several personalities who could play a role in the future. His recall of Việt Nam to organize a government was astonishing. He had initially refused the offer of Bảo Đại. Then, after knowing that his friend Hoàng Xuân Hãn had also been summoned to Huế, he went on 7th April 1945 for a face-to-face interview with the Emperor, and finally, he accepted his offer.
According to Hoàng Xuân Hãn who was interviewed by Thụy Khuê in September and October 1995 (in her article Nói chuyện với Hoàng Xuân Hãn và Tạ Trong Hiệp- Conversation with HXH et TTH), Trần Trọng Kim accepted Bảo Đại's offer because the latter had told him verbatim «Từ trước đến giờ, các anh muốn nước Việt Nam độc lập, bây giờ có cơ hội thì lại chối, mình không chịu độc lập, thế rồi sau này nói thế nào? (You have always wanted the independence of Việt Nam, now that we can have it, you want to refuse, you don’t want to get it, what shall we say to the people afterwards?) ».
On 17 April 1945, he presented a list of 10 ministers in the new government, young people, technocrats, and not from the previous Mandarinate or part of the pro-Japanese Vietnamese
Professor Trần Trọng Kim (1883-1953),
Prime Minister,
Polytechnician Hoàng Xuân Hãn
(1908-1996), Minister of Education
Doctor of Medicine Hồ Tá Khanh
(1908-1996), Minister of Economy
Lawyer Trịnh Đình Thảo (1901-1986),
Minister of Justice
Doctor of Medicine Vũ Ngọc Anh
(1901-1945), Minister of Health
Lawyer Trần Văn Chương (1898-1986),
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Doctor of Medicine Trần Đình Nam
(1896-1974), Minister of Interior
Lawyer Vũ Văn Hiền (1910-1961),
Minister of Finance
Lawyer Phan Anh (1912- X), Minister
of Youth and Sport
Doctor of Medicine Nguyễn Hữu Thi,
Minister of Supply
It was the first time since the creation of Indochina in 1887 that the Vietnamese formed an independent government to manage their country [4]. According to Hoàng Xuân Hãn, the government's objective was to « show the Allies at the end of the war a truly independent Việt Nam so that it would not return to the pre-status situation of a colony of France », and to perform three tasks:
Negotiation with the Japanese
to reclaim political and economic powers, and for the unification of the
country, by putting the South and the cities of Hà Nội, Hải Phòng and Đà Nẵng/Tourane
under the management of the Court of Huế.
Vietnamization of the country's
administrative apparatus by replacing the French and Japanese with
Vietnamese at all levels
Creating a new national spirit and a
new love of the homeland by establishing a new educational system with the
Vietnamese as a language of instruction.
The government gave itself one year to 18 months to implement this three-point plan. However, he had only four short months, until 15th August 1945, the day of the Japanese surrender."
[1] Việt Nam: un État né dans la guerre 1945-1954 (Vietnam: a state established in the 1945-1954 war), Christopher Goscha.
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
Mes articles (plus de 30.300 vues)
https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2
From: Christoph Giebel via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 12:59 PM
To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>
Cc: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Dear Hue-Tam,
I don't understand what you mean by "North" and "South." With the exception of the short-lived Republic of Cochinchina--an (intended) obstacle, as detailed in Chau's post, to the goal of a united, independent country--Vietnamese visions of independence were of one Viet Nam, be that the DRVN, the ASVN, or the RVN. Of course there's a process, from declaration (or signature) to effectuation. For some, this process lasted from 1945 to 1975, for some this process lasted from (1947-) 1949-1954, for some this process began in 1955 and is still unfolding.
...and dear Pierre...
Please. Old tropes? How one "achieves" independence depends very much on the framing.
In one frame, colonialism, with its institutionalized racial hierarchies/apartheid, systematic looting, violent repression, and denial of human dignity, is evil and illegitimate per se and therefore irredeemable. It cannot but be unilaterally abolished, with independence declared and restored. In the eyes of those who follow this frame, independence is indeed achieved at the moment of the abolition of colonialism, by authorities deemed legitimate and representative. As proclaimed, "Viet Nam has the right to be free and independent and in fact it is so already" ("...sự thực đã thành..."). What follows thereafter is a process, of course, roughly encapsulated in the terms "neo-colonial occupation," "chiến đấu," and "giải phóng."
This is why Indonesia and Viet Nam celebrate their independence annually on 17 August (Sukarno and Hatta) and 2 September (Hồ Chí Minh et al.), respectively, regardless of the fact that 1945 was only the start of a tragic and bloody process of effectuation. Ditto 4 July 1776 of the US, not 3 Sep. 1783 (Treaty of Paris), when in Hue-Tam's and Pierre's readings a process would have ended and independence was "achieved." Or is 4 July 1776 now an old trope? (The US is actually a bad example, as it was a revolution by settler colonialists.)
In another frame, where titles and uniforms, treaties (no matter how unequal and imposed) and conferences, pomp and circumstances are the grandiose edifices with which imperialism and colonialism surround and obscure themselves, independence is only achieved at the moment when it is "granted" with the stroke of a pen, and only after the "natives" were deemed "ready" and "acceptable" and have asked nicely and shown sufficient gratitude. Diplomatic historians may be drawn to it more than to the other.
So supporters of the DRVN followed the first frame and supporters of the ASVN the second. (And my initial post reacted to the curious absence of 2/9/45 in Chau's and Shawn's exchange.) Interestingly, Ngô Đình Diệm on 26 Oct. 1955 acted much more in the first frame when the RVN abolished the ASVN and its remaining French vestiges and established and achieved "true" independence, followed by an envisioned but ultimately ill-fated process roughly encapsulated in the terms "occupation by international communism," "chiến đấu," and "bắc tiến/giải phóng."
My example of the fatally flawed Burns/Novick documentary was to show how even nowadays, through a process of endless acculturation, colonial thinking and related one-sided framing ("grant independence") still dominate Western thought. Where one can assign, with a straight face, Viet Nam to France in 1950 and completely ignore the DRVN and the ASVN, and be seen as respectable and serious.
Independently yours,
Christoph
********************
Christoph Giebel, PhD (he), Assoc. Professor, International Studies and History
Director of Graduate Studies, S.E. Asia Center, Jackson School of Int’l. Studies
The Howard and Frances Keller Endowed Professor in History, Dept. of History
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3650, USA, < giebel@uw.edu >
From: Pierre Asselin via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 9:59 AM
To: Christoph Giebel <giebel@uw.edu>
Cc: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Dear Christoph:
Ho and his comrades declared independence, but far from actually « achieved » it in 1945. Be care about recycling old tropes.
Pierre
Pierre Asselin
Professor of History - Dwight E. Stanford Chair in US Foreign Relations
San Diego State University
From: Hue-Tam Tai via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 9:29 AM
To: giebel@uw.edu; phanmarr@gmail.com
Cc: yakiribocou@gmail.com; vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
In 1945, independence was declared but not achieved, even in the North, since war broke out in December 1946. Shawn's observation about independence being a process applies to both North and South.
From: Christoph Giebel via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 10:47 PM
To: David Marr <phanmarr@gmail.com>
Cc: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Very interesting details indeed; thank you. In the eyes of many (most?) Vietnamese, of course, independence had already been unilaterally declared and achieved as of 2 Sep. 1945. The DRVN after all had "[broken] off all relations with France, repeal[ed] all treaties France signed on behalf of Viet Nam and abolish[ed] all French special rights." Hence there was nothing to negotiate about, and certainly nothing that France was supposedly in a position to "grant."
(NB: "to grant independence" -- I find it curious how we, in 2024, are still replicating terminology that normalizes Western colonialism and imperialist domination as legitimate and normative. Was this an act of benevolence? Were the colonized supposed to be grateful to be "granted" what had been violently taken from and long denied them? When the US "purchased" the independent Republic of the Philippines from Spain, with no Filipino involvement of course, in 1898/99, Mark Twain skewered it well: "we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell." What authority, other than a self-arrogated one, did Arthur Balfour have in 1917 to make declarations about Palestine?)
How normalized such retrograde Western colonialist thinking still is was shockingly made clear in the much-hyped but deeply flawed 2017 Burns/Novick documentary series. Endlessly self-congratulatory about how "inclusive of Vietnamese voices" and informed by "historical experts" it was, the documentary's first mention of any Vietnamese state was ...the 1955 Republic of Viet Nam (episode 1, 1:07:00, henceforth wrongly called "South Viet Nam"). Until then it is France all the way as the only putatively legitimate authority, with a passing, prejudicial mention of "Ho Chi Minh's insurgency" (ibid., 0:42:40), but not a single acknowledgment of the independent 1945 Democratic Republic or the 1949 Associated State.
A good example of this persistence of unreflected, Western-centric colonialist normativity is the screen grab below from Burns/Novick's episode 1 (1:45:25) of a map of Asia during the Korean War. Here, in 1950 [!], all of Viet Nam is assigned a French flag. No flag of the Associated State appears and only a much smaller DRVN flag, oddly placed outside Viet Nam and inside China's Guangxi Province. All of Viet Nam in 1950 is legitimately France's, this 2017 US-American documentary argues, and shared Vietnamese nationalist aspirations (across ideological divides) of an independent, indivisible Viet Nam are simply erased or lurk in alien, threatening places.
********************
Christoph Giebel, PhD (he), Assoc. Professor, International Studies and History
Director of Graduate Studies, S.E. Asia Center, Jackson School of Int’l. Studies
The Howard and Frances Keller Endowed Professor in History, Dept. of History
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3650, USA, < giebel@uw.edu >
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 9:43 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Fwd: Bao Dai and the French (David Marr)
My book in French was written in 2019 (prefaced by Pierre Brocheux) and in English in 2021 ( prefaced by Janet Hoskins).
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
Mes articles (plus de 30.200 vues)
https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2
From: David Marr via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 6:26 PM
To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
This is an interesting exchange on 1945-54. I’m surprised there is no mention of Christopher Goscha, The Road to Dien Bien Phu, Princeton, 2022.
David Marr
From: Shawn McHale via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 4:55 PM
To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Chau,
Many thanks.
Shawn McHale
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 4:45 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Shawn,
1) About your question "why did BaoDai sign the 1949 treaty?", the answer is in my article https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YJKvkM7A4LFyy-T6p4T71gcahuGYUYM7/view?usp=sharing
2) Hereafter are some excerpts from the Chapter "The State of Viet Nam-From limited Independence to full Independence (1949-1954)" of my book.
The Việt Nam State – from limited Independence to full Independence (1949-1954)
1. The limited Independence of the State of Việt Nam
The construction of the Union Française (French Union) integrating the countries of Indochina, which was the aim of the return of the French, needed to be completed.
The negotiations with the Việt Minh ended in a game of dupes, the agreement of 6th March 1946 and the secret modus vivendi of 14th September 1946 were quickly trampled on following the bombing of Hải Phòng on 23rd November 1946. Now that they had sent Hồ Chí Minh back to the mountains, the French needed another entity representing the three parts of Việt Nam to form the States of the Indochinese Federation. Apart from the Việt Minh, there were only the nationalists, but these had always been anti-French [1] and did not have the flexibility of Hồ Chí Minh. How to bring them together? In 1932, the French had thought of Bảo Đại. Therefore, he was solicited again [2].
[…]
Bollaert was convinced that peace could only be restored by granting independence to Việt Nam, with the full agreement of the Việt Minh. Had not Hồ Chí Minh declared on 26th January 1947 on the radio that « the people of Việt Nam wanted peace, friendly cooperation with France, its independence and its territorial unity within the French Union » [3]. But this “independenceˮ was the one of the Vietnamese vision of the French Union already expressed in the Đà Lạt and Fontainebleau conferences (see 7.8 and 7.9). And the fierce opposition of General Valluy came from his understanding of the French Union which was the one of the French Government.
Paul Mus, whom Bollaert sent on 12th May 1947 to meet with Hồ Chí Minh to propose a ceasefire and negotiations, returned empty-handed. The conditions demanded by Valluy, which corresponded to letting the French army control the Việt Minh troops, i.e. to a refusal of the independence requested by the Vietnamese, were not acceptable to him: he had to hand over half of his armament, prisoners, deserters and hostages to the French; to give the French forces the means to move easily in his territories; and to regroup his military forces at designated locations.
This led Bollaert to declare on 15 May that France would welcome the proposals of all parties: «It does not recognize in any group the monopoly of the representation of the Vietnamese people ». Then he sent a person from the French Consulate in Hong Kong to contact Bảo Đại.
[…]
Bollaert's 10th September 1947 speech
The speech of Bollaert on 10 September 1947 in Hà Đông did not convey an unilateral ceasefire. France had remained consistent in its position. Negotiations would be made based on a Việt Nam « free in the French Union». “Freeˮ (tự do) or “autonomousˮ (tự trị)) - and not “independentˮ (độc lập) as Hồ Chí Minh demanded. The difference for the Vietnamese was significant, the first two relating to themselves (tự = self, do = resulting from, trị = to govern) and the third referring to one's position vis-à-vis others (độc = unique, lập = establish, foundation). Defence, foreign affairs and administrative responsibilities such as customs, issuance of money, justice concerning French citizens, etc. remained the power of France. The whole package was to take or leave it. The application required the provision to France of the Việt Minh army – which Valluy already demanded – and the coordination of Hồ Chí Minh and his team with France on the subject of international relations, which could only be unacceptable to them. The call was addressed to « all the spiritual and moral families » of Việt Nam.
Bollaert's statements began to interest Bảo Đại, who thought that if he was able to obtain from the French a status similar to the British “dominionˮ applied to India, he would have the support of the Vietnamese people. He then called on the country's parties and movements to find a solution with him.
The prospects of organizing a nationalist coalition that could deal with the French were more favourable than they had been the previous year. After the emotions aroused by the love of the homeland during the first moments of the independence declaration of Hồ Chí Minh, the number of disappointed people increased considerably because of the numerous assassinations of the Việt Minh. Some of those who joined the resistance zone, when they could, returned to the city to wait for better days. With the encouragement of the French, Provisional Administrative Committees (Ủy ban Hành chánh lâm thời) appeared on 12th April 1947 in Huế covering the management of three provinces, Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên et Quảng Nam, and the following year in Hà Nội to manage territories held by the French armed forces in the north. On 24 May 1947, the former palace of the governor of Cochinchina, the former Gia Long Palace, was handed over to the government of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina.
The Along Treaty and the secret protocol (5th June 1948)
The twenty-four [4]representatives of the parties and groups who responded to the former emperor's call by coming to Hong Kong to meet him turned their initial rejection of Bollaert's proposals into a request to Bảo Đại to find, « through a co-operation with France, a solution for the Việt Nam-France problem based on equality and equity ». This choice of not cutting the bridges immediately, nor accepting the French proposals, was expressed by Bảo Đại on 18 September 1947.
In France, on 27 November 1947, a right-wing government led by Maurice Schumann replaced that of Ramadier, and the new Minister of Overseas France, MRP Paul Coste-Floret, was hostile to Hồ Chí Minh. Thinking that the time was right for negotiations, Bảo Đại agreed to see Bollaert on 6th December 1947, in Hải Phòng, on the flagship Duguay-Trouin. The negotiations that followed resulted in a joint declaration, in which France recognized Việt Nam's right to “independenceˮ and the freedom of the Vietnamese people to choose its unification. However, a secret protocol accompanied the treaty with a list of limitations of this independence, including those in the fields of defence and foreign affairs. Bảo Đại signed the convention because the word “independenceˮ was accepted by the French, but he wrote only his initials VT (for Vĩnh Thụy) on the protocol that specifies the ways to implement it. On 27 December 1947, in the form of a declaration, the French made it known that they were no longer negotiating with the Việt Minh and that they turned to Bảo Đại.
On his return to Hong Kong, Bảo Đại noticed, after discussions with the representatives of the parties, all of whom were against these limitations, that he had been tricked by Bollaert. He left Hong Kong on 26th December 1947 and, after a visit to London, moved to Geneva. Bollaert came to Geneva and the five meetings that took place from 7th to 13th January 1948, came to nothing. Bảo Đại informed Bollaert that he did not have the power to sign a treaty that committed the Vietnamese nation and that what the French wanted to impose prevented the Vietnamese people from joining the nationalists.
He returned to France to visit his family and discovered that what Bollaert was doing had the support of only a part of the right-wing. The left and the extreme left wanted to include the Việt Minh in any negotiations, and the RPR (Rassemblement pour la République) created by de Gaulle in April 1947, was opposed to any concession on France's sovereignty over Indochina. Any treaty that was intended to be viable had to be ratified by the French National Assembly.
In early 1948, the Liên Minh Quốc Gia Việt Nam (National Alliance of Việt Nam or Liên Minh), an alliance of nationalist parties, the Hòa Hảo, the Cao Đài of Tây Ninh and the Bình Xuyên, was formed under the leadership of Lê Văn Hoạch, which aimed to support Bảo Đại in his negotiations with the French. On 22nd February 1948, a large assembly was held in Sài Gòn, bringing together representatives of the Liên Minh, the provisional Cochinchina Autonomous Government, and the north and centre Ủy Ban Hành Chánh (Administrative Committee) to create a provisional government for the whole of Việt Nam, but in the end, it was decided to wait for the return of Bảo Đại.
In March 1948, Bollaert was the target of an assassination attempt in Nha Trang [3]. Who could have wanted him dead?
On 26 March 1948, Bảo Đại proposed the formation of a “provisional central governmentˮ that would make the transition and participate in the last negotiations for independence.
On 24 April 1948, he chose General Nguyễn Văn Xuân to form this government. The position had been refused by Ngô Đình Diệm who wanted France to accept the English-style “dominionˮ. Nguyễn Văn Xuân (1892-1989), the first Vietnamese to graduate from the French famous École Polytechnique (1912 class), an appointed brigadier general in 1947, was the first Vietnamese general in the French army. He became head of the government of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina on 1st October 1947 after renaming it the “provisional government of South Việt Namˮ.
On 3rd May, Bollaert agreed not to oppose the creation of the Nguyễn Văn Xuân government, on the condition that Bảo Đại declared it as his own and that he signed the treaty already negotiated, with the secret part of the independence limitations. This was done on 5th June 1948, in Hạ Long (Along) Bay, Bảo Đại countersigning the treaty signed by Nguyễn Văn Xuân. Việt Nam « to whom it belongs to realize its unity» was a State associated with France within the French Union, a “limited independenceˮ accepted for the time being by Bảo Đại and the nationalists. On 11th July 1948, however, he sent a letter to Bollaert stating that he would not return to Việt Nam as long as Cochinchina remained a colony, and as he did not obtain sufficient guarantees on the independence of Việt Nam.
In October 1948, the transfer of sovereignty expected by the Nguyễn Văn Xuân government formed on 20 May was still not done. The governments of Robert Schuman, André Marie, and Henri Queuille who succeeded each other from 19th July to 11th September 1948, had other things to do. Disheartened, Bollaert did not renew his mandate on 19th October and was replaced on 21st October 1948 by Léon Pignon. The latter worked with the GGI Pierre Pasquier when the French wanted to use Bảo Đại after the revolt in 1930. A political advisor to Argenlieu, he was involved from the outset in this second “Bảo Đại solution”.
A “limited independence”: the Élysée Agreements (8th March 1949)
Finally, on 8th March 1949, President Vincent Auriol, acting as President of the French Union and on behalf of the French government, and Bảo Đại, the Head of State of Việt Nam, signed the Elysée Agreements which referred to the agreements of 5th June 1948. France recognized Việt Nam as an associate State member of the French Union, and pledged, de jure and de facto, not to prevent the return of the South to Việt Nam provided that its people had been consulted beforehand. The peoples of the Highlands would have a special status to be negotiated between France and Việt Nam. On the country's independence, the limitations remained in the fields of defence and foreign affairs. On the French and nationals of the French Union and countries with special rights, French law applied to the former and the French-Vietnamese mixed courts to the latter, etc.
Việt Nam was not in favour of being part of the French Union, whose central bodies were the Presidency, the High Council, and the Assembly of the Union. The President was the President of the French Republic, and therefore the associated States had no power concerning him. The High Council, which was made up of representatives of France and the associated States, had only an advisory role. The Assembly of the Union was an advisory assembly called upon to give opinions on the issues submitted to it either by the French government or Parliament or by the associated governments. It could also refer the matter to the French executive, the National Assembly and the High Council for suggestions and proposals, provided that the problems raised concerned only the legislation specific to overseas countries. Thus, the associated States could only issue opinions, the power remaining in the hands of France alone.
The return of the South to Việt Nam being an essential condition imposed by Bảo Đại for his return to Việt Nam, a law was passed by the French parliament for the creation of a Southern Parliament (Nghị Viện Nam Kỳ). On 25th April 1949, this 64-member Parliament (48 Vietnamese and 16 French members) voted to reintegrate the South into Việt Nam. The following month, the French National Assembly ratified this decision. « Because the Vietnamese people fought heroically for the independence of their homeland, they will have the right to choose the future regime of the country », Bảo Đại said. On 2nd July 1949, the State of Việt Nam was officially established.
[1] Jean Sainteny wrote about the nationalists in Histoire d'une paix manquée (History of a missed peace) : « Until 9th March 1945 [...] the French retained in hand the police and the forces sufficient to neutralize, or at least thwart, the turbulent nationalist parties that had never ceased, since the beginning of the French establishment, to fight the authority of France. »
[2] The main initiator of this solution was Charles-Henri Bonfils, a director under Pasquier and Decoux who became Political Advisor to Bollaert, then in 1948 to Leon Pignon. D'Argenlieu, of whom Pignon was the political advisor, was also convinced of the solution before his recall to France.
[3] Biography of Émile Bollaert written on 26th February 2017 by Alain Bollaert, his youngest son - chapter 9 attempts at peace in Vietnam/ and chapter 8 Indochina in March 1947
[4] Ngô Đình Diệm was among them.
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
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From: Shawn McHale via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 1:34 PM
To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Châu,
You do not mention the 1949 treaty of so-called independence. In fact, there is a strong tendency among scholars and others to ignore the 1949 “independence” treaty that Bảo Đại and the provisional state of Vietnam signed. On the one hand, there are some good reasons to ignore it -- it provided “independence” within the framework of the "French Union," and no one, whether French, Cambodian, Laotian, or Vietnamese, quite knew what this meant. But this "50% independence," as Sihanouk called it, was a crucial step to independence: 1) it saw the slow rise of the State of Vietnam, which over time, to 1954, gained control over more and more ministries 2) it saw the creation of the Vietnamese national army. And, conversely, it saw 3) the slow decline of French power over a civilian state 4) all sorts of issues, such as who could be a citizen of the State of Vietnam, began to be worked out in this time.
The French like General Leclerc truly did not understand, in 1945, what they were getting into in Vietnam. Bảo Đại was right about that. But then the question is: why did Bảo Đại signed the 1949 treaty? Was he duped, or did he see this act as a step on the road to full independence? Should we see Vietnamese independence not as dating from 1954, but part of a process?
I write about some of these issues in one chapter of my 2021 book, but there is much more to be written on this topic.
Shawn McHale
George Washignton University
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 12:24 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Bao Dai and the French
Bảo Đại: "Really the French didn't understand what happened in the Far East."(*)
70 years have passed since the battle of Điện Biên Phủ and the Geneva Conference in 1954 ended.
The world had moved on and France refused to realize it: the United States had granted independence to the Philippines in 1946; India had become independent in 1947, a true independence that gave hope to the countries of the region still under colonial rule; Burma officially became independent from the British on 4 January 1948; and the Indonesians from the Dutch on December 1, 1949. The ex-emperor Bảo Đại, who had done all he could, lamented: "Really the French did not understand what happened in the Far East."
The French did not want to understand that the sacrifices of all Vietnamese since 1858, whatever the tendencies, were aimed at "full" independence, not the "freedom under French domination" advocated by the General. A transitional position as a tactic could be envisaged, but it would only be a springboard to go further. Hadn't the long history of Việt Nam amply demonstrated this? Hadn't France itself fought to free itself from the Germans completely? Father Cao Văn Luận (1908-1986), future rector of Huế University, who was in Paris at the time of the liberation in 1944, was moved to tears to see the joy of the French people after a few years of German domination. He was thinking about what the Vietnamese would be like after a hundred years of French rule [1], a feeling that the General did not accept to understand even though he had taken part in the liberation of his own country.
On 19 August 1945, Bảo Đại appealed to de Gaulle "from a friend and not from a leader" to recognise the country's independence. « […] The Vietnamese people no longer want, can no longer tolerate any foreign domination or administration. […] Please understand that the only way to safeguard French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indochina is to recognize the independence of Viet Nam frankly and to renounce any idea of re-establishing French sovereignty or administration here in any form. [2] »
He also sent a telegram to U.S. President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
On August 24, ignoring this message from the Vietnamese emperor or probably to answer him, Charles de Gaulle reaffirmed in a press conference in Washington [3], by an appeal from "the motherland to her children", the will of France to recover its sovereignty over Indochina. The illusion that France was the motherland of the Vietnamese remained alive among the French. One may wonder why.
Lord Mountbatten, the head of the South-East Asia Command (SEAC) told General Leclerc: "Reconquering Indochina is not serious. The world has changed. You won't make it. ».
It was only on April 28, 1954, two days after the start of the Geneva Conference, nearly two months after the beginning of negotiations (March 3, 1954), and probably in response to Bảo Đại's declaration of April 25, that the Bửu Lộc delegation and the French side managed to agree to issue a joint declaration on the "complete independence" of Việt Nam. Two treaties, one on independence ("France recognizes Việt Nam as a fully independent and sovereign state"), and the other, on future relations between the Việt Nam state and France, were finally signed on 4 June 1954, almost a month after France's defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ (7 May 1954).
No one thought that France would be able to grant complete independence to Vietnam if it had not been defeated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu with the surrender of 11,721 soldiers at the hands of the Viet Minh.
[1] Bên giòng lịch sử, Hồi ký 1940-1965 (Next to the Course of History, Memoirs 1940-1965), Father Cao Văn Luận. Ed Trí Dũng
[2] The Struggle for Indochina 1940 – 1955, Vietnam and the French Experience by Ellen J. Hammer, Stanford University Press, 1966.
[3] End of Empire: One Hundred Days in 1945 that Changed Asia and the World – 2016, David P. Chandler (Editor), Robert Cribb (Editor), Li Nagangoa (Editor).
(*) Excerpts from my book "Vietnam-History of the two wars"
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
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