Military Art of People's War. Vo Nguyen Giap

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ resistance, but not of long duration; and negotiation, when the time has come to negotiate.

      We have not chosen resistance of long duration because the international situation is not favorable to us. France has signed a treaty with China, America has joined the French clan. England has been with France for many months. Therefore, we are nearly isolated. If we had resisted, we would have had all the powers against us.

      Then, in some places where the revolutionary movement has not penetrated deeply, many people have not taken it seriously, and if we had prolonged the resistance, there would have been a collapse of certain sectors or even loss of combative spirit. By continuing the military struggle we would have lost our forces and, little by little, our soil. We would have been able to hold only some regions. To resist in this fashion would have been very heroic, but our people would have endured terrible sufferings, for which we cannot foresee whether they would be recompensed.

      From the economic point of view, from the fact that a resistance of long duration is accompanied by scorched-earth tactics, wherever we would have drawn back, it would have been necessary to destroy everything. Provisions and houses would have been turned into ashes. The whole population would have to be evacuated. Life would have become impossible. As we don’t yet have solid economic bases, a resistance of long duration would present economic dangers which would grow a little graver every day. So the Government has not chosen this way, so that the people may avoid grievous sacrifices.

      If we had wished to make a resistance of some months, we would equally have succumbed, for France has every modern arm at her disposal.… So we have chosen the third way, that of negotiations.

      We have elected to negotiate in order to create favorable conditions for the struggle for complete independence, to be able to await the occasion of total independence.

      Negotiations have already led to the cessation of hostilities and have avoided a bloodbath. But we have above all negotiated to protect and reinforce our political, military and economic position. Our country is a free country, and all our freedoms are in our hands. We have all the power and all the time (we need) to organize our interior administration, to reinforce our military means, to develop our economy and to raise the standard of living of our people. Soon the three Ky will be reunited. The rice of Cochin China will be able to come up to Tonkin, the specter of famine will disappear.

      When we consider world history, we see that numerous peoples in a bad position have been able to surmount difficulties by knowing how to wait for an occasion more favorable to their progress. Russia, for example, signed Brest-Litovsk in 1918 to stop the German invasion, in order to be able, by means of the truce, to strengthen its army and its political power. Hasn’t Russia become very strong thanks to this treaty?

      The guiding idea, the goal of government is peace for progress. The way opened by the agreement is that of independence, near at hand and total, and it remains our goal.⁴⁰

      The French strategy is clear in retrospect. First they sought to hold on to Cochin China, where most of their investments in Indochina were concentrated in rice plantations, rubber estates, and the vast commercial network. Their promise of a referendum to determine the future status of this region was patently unenforceable. Likewise, the undertaking given in the military annex signed by Giap, Sainteny, and Gen. Raoul Salan to withdraw French troops within five years rested solely on the honor of the French. The crucial point is that the French were permitted to introduce troops into Tonkin. The Vietminh had promised to maintain order as this occurred; that is, to insure that popular resentment against the French would be restrained. On the over-all question of military forces, the agreement specified: “The whole of these forces will be placed under superior French command, assisted by Vietnamese delegates.”⁴¹

      The French commander treated the delegated Vietnamese with contempt. When Giap left the first delegation to meet with Leclerc in Haiphong on March 6, the French general saw them for only five minutes and explained simply, “I would have come with or without your assent.” When Giap returned to meet Leclerc the following day, he was more than diplomatic. He introduced himself as the “first partisan of Vietnam” and called Leclerc the “first partisan of France.” He went on to speak of Paris as a capital of culture and liberty and stressed the impact of its liberation on his forces in Tonkin. Leclerc was unmoved. He emphasized that he was happy to have the cooperation of the Vietminh, that they should think of him as a friend but one who regarded himself as French before all else. When Giap left Leclerc and headed back to Hanoi by road, he was stunned by the sight of the tanks and armored cars pouring out of the LST’s onto the beaches surrounding Haiphong.⁴²

      In the days that followed Giap struggled with determination to exact as much as possible from the guarantees of the March 6 accord and its Military Annex. He asserted his right to be consulted about all French troop movements. But the Vietminh could do little more than stall for time. The French took over the functions of the Kuomintang forces in Tonkin. All the Frenchmen imprisoned by the Japanese were liberated and rearmed. The Vietminh worked hard to prevent provocative incidents which would be exploited by the French. At the same time, they prepared for the inevitable flight back to the old guerrilla bases in the hills.⁴³

      At a rally on March 22, Leclerc and Giap lay wreaths on the graves of French and Vietnamese dead and reviewed their troops together. Diplomacy and negotiation had not yet ended. On April 3, Giap and Salan signed the Convention d’État-Major, dealing with the application of the Military Annex of the March 6 accord. Points won and lost in these agreements were to matter little in the future. The political future of South Vietnam remained the crux of the issue, as it has ever since. The penultimate attempt at a negotiated settlement came at Da Lat, where Giap emerged as a brilliant politician.⁴⁴

      The conference opened on April 17. The French delegation was unimpressive and asserted immediately that it had no authority to discuss the question of the South. When the French denied that hostilities continued in Cochin China (claiming that there were only occasional “police operations”), Giap intervened forcefully:

      To say that there are no longer hostilities in Cochin China is a defiance of truth. In fact, attacks continue everywhere in Nambo. It can certainly be said that they were launched against lawbreakers and that distinctions are difficult to make.

      Thus, our elements would be assimilated into bands of lawbreakers for the sole reason that they fight in the maquis, that they possess fearless souls and shoeless feet. On this score, your FFI would also be irregulars. Radio Saigon speaks only of Vietminh troops. Our elements are Vietnamese soldiers of the Vietnamese Army…. We shall never give up our arms…. We want peace, yes, but peace in liberty and fairness, a peace which conforms to the spirit of the March 6 convention, and not peace in resignation, dishonor and servitude….

      Our position is clear. A month and a half after the March 6 convention, we demand that hostilities cease against our troops in Nambo, with preservation on both sides of their respective positions. We demand that an armistice commission be established in Saigon, for this tragic ignominy must cease….

      The talks soon deadlocked on the precise nature of the federal assembly to be established for the new Indochinese Federation. On the key question of the future of Cochin China, the French would only equivocate. Giap argued tirelessly, and on June 25 Le Monde described him as “a political man in every sense of the word.” When the conference ended, Giap wept. He knew that there would be no peace.⁴⁵

      In late May, President Ho departed for Fontainebleau for further talks with the French. These negotiations dragged on through the summer, and the stratum from which the French delegation was drawn made clear that they attached little importance to the conference. In Vietnam, Giap was a de facto head of state. As chairman of the Supreme Council for National Defense, he worked to strengthen and consolidate the Vietminh position. A modus vivendi was reached at Fontainebleau in September, СКАЧАТЬ