The Indochina War – The end of French colonial rule in Vietnam (Part 1/2) | DW Documentary

The Indochina War was one of the bloodiest chapters in French colonial history. Beginning in 1946, the Vietnamese fought to gain their independence from France. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the fighting.

During the Second World War, Japan occupied large parts of Indochina — present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Vietnamese Viet Minh group attempted to create an independent, Communist Vietnam. Under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, this was initially hoped to be achieved peacefully.

But the French government wanted to hold on to its colony and sent troops to Southeast Asia. The ensuing battles between the Viet Minh and the French forces, including local soldiers fighting on the side of the French, were marked by extreme ferocity. While the Viet Minh were soon supported by Communist China, the USA became involved in the conflict on the French side.

The documentary tells the story of this war of independence, which ended in 1954 with the defeat of the French. The film also looks at how this led first to the division of Vietnam and then to the Vietnam War.

Part 2: https://youtu.be/yjw2SBvJQvI

[This video was reuploaded due to technical issues.]

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32 comments

  1. A film with a wealth of valuable materials. Truly an excellent production by DW. History always requires a multidimensional, comprehensive, and thorough perspective.

  2. it's actually more complicated Viet Minh before they purged the nationalist parties (which drove them into the French arms) tried to negotiate a deal but the French we're too stubborn, that's when war broke out. The Viet Minh post WW2 to winning hte First Indochina War was relatively weak until China and Soviet could help them.

  4. I am always proud of Vietnam, and being a Vietnamese. Thank DW for posting this documentary film, it helps me know and understand more about the history of war in my country Vietnam.

  8. The movie is so valuable. It tells the truth about the war. It's amazing, unbelievable, the Vietnamese won. Oh my god..👋👌👌🤟

  9. If a war broke out between Thailand and France, at that time France was not trusted. On the Burmese side, England remained more silent. During the Vietnam war, the leaders secretly came to Thailand, Nong Khai side, to ask for help with weapons, which we helped secretly, but in terms of weapons, Thailand helped a little. When France left, America came, but during the time when Thailand and the United States fought together in the Vietnam War, the establishment of a military base in Thailand came without asking for permission during that period, but the government at that time just let it go.

  10. Indochina wars makes me realize that nazi germany were not truly ruthless and cruel..its the french and soviets…germany would not provoke ww2 had in not for that fucking unfair treaty of versailles after ww1

  11. the myth that the japanese exploited the indochinese is a lie, they instead used their anger in order to get compliance, by setting them free and turning them on their former european masters, examples of this are also seen in indonesia where they turned the indonesians on their former european rulers like a bunch of wild pitbulls that have been set free upon sight of fresh meat, its one of the big reasons of the following indonesian conflict.

    even can be seen in india, or the "RAJ" where gandhi has famously fought alongside with the japanese to decolonize india

    you can even see in documents right now it was official doctrine for the japanese to make use of the oppression in the colonies for their own good by making the indochinese or indonesians for example, which was the majority of the population, happy by releasing them and letting them take revenge on europeans which were still in the country by the time of occupation where they turned around the roles and made europeans the oppressed

    but DW obviously wont say anything about this because Japan is bad and has never done anything good during its ww2 period.

  14. 29:45 sai hoàn toàn, những người đối địch là đi ngược lại lợi ích quốc gia, là phản quốc, nếu những người đó là đa số thì bây giờ Việt Nam vẫn làm nô lệ cho Pháp, tác giả nói như thế để tẩy trắng cho tội ác của Pháp và đồng minh, Việt Nam không thể có độc lập tự do nếu chính phủ không đi theo lợi ích của nhân dân, tác giả đang cài cắm những chi tiết nhằm tẩy trắng lịch sử!

  15. And what's crazy is how today Vietnam and the US are sort of buddies out of convenience due to the geopolitics with China. Such a pointless war and pointless loss of life.

  18. are the French colonies in Africa watching or listening 👂 what one does to a colonial power ??? vive AES and long live AES my motherland Ivory Coast 🇨🇮 joint AES to liberate our peoples/country

  19. I've strongly believed VN'd have filnally obtained independence without any violent conflicts. Communism was the core agent that caused all the bloodshed!

  22. As a Vietnamese, I would say that French brought to Viet Nam a lot of things changing the new face of Viet Nam from poverty to the modern country. All citizens really didn't want to revulate like Viet Minh propaganda. We are always grateful what French has done for Viet Nam.

  25. Set up a puppet government and you call a invasion war is a civil war, so the German soldiers who came to Paris in June 1940 just tourists and that was France's civil war? How did France treat the French who supported the German army? US provided support to French in 1948, then they suppoes that Vietnam received support from the Soviet union and china in 1950 is join the cold war???, US lost and wrote history in a deceitful way.

  26. Frankly speaking, communism came to power because of France. France's refusal to even work with moderate figures, instead only insisted on trusting puppets, caused their demise. And for those who claimed communism "hasn't done wrong" on Vietnam, it was because Vietnamese state abandoned communism all but political power since 1986. Even China has given up communism except politics.

  27. So France helped enabling the communists to gain power in the end. It helped explaining why Vietnamese don't even bother understanding why communism is bad. Hence they have never been able to relate themselves with Eastern Europeans, who survived the communist terror. France's mismanagement and the US' missed opportunity fuelled this, especially when the Soviets and Chinese never wanted Vietnam to become unified state.

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