The Presidents: The Vietnam War Edition

[Mr. Sometimes]

Hope the folks stay this way, its the best way, to do nothing there, but then this AAR would get boring , so I guess the next president will invade...

The Presidents: Vietnam Non-intervention and peace in the south east Edition

[Nathan Madien]

Timmie0307: I have a feeling that the next President, Democrat or Republican, will have no choice but to intervene. Sparkman has the luxury of kicking this down the road.

Mr. Sometimes: Taking the peace approach would render my title meaningless, wouldn't it?

[Mr. Sometimes]

Which is why I proposed a new title to you

[trekaddict]

Mr. Sometimes: Taking the peace approach would render my title meaningless, wouldn't it?

I do suggest though that you head over to alternatehistory.com and check it out, because thanks to the search function you will find lots of ideas on alt-Vietnams.

[El Pip]

I wonder how McCarthy is getting on at the moment. OTL he drank himself to death after his fall from grace, TTL he's now back in the limelight after the Oppenheimer affair so may well live well past 1957 in good health.

If he is still alive and kicking what is his view on Vietnam? Loud, shouty and counter-productive is my guess, but on which side I've really no idea.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Ironically, in OTL USA began by doing nothing in Vietnam and ended doing too much

[Andreios II]

Sparkman's made the sensible decision here I think. There's a short article in the book What If? that argues the bombing of Viet Minh positions would have tipped things in the French's favour, but even then what could France hope to do? Hold on for a few more tense, dangerous years, constantly chasing the Commie's scattered remnants until they ignominiously withdraw and let a native democratic government (badly) handle it instead?

No, while it means Vietnam will be partitioned etc, from the viewpoint of a 1950s American policy-maker the French should be left to their fate...

[c0d5579]

None of this would've happened if the Comte de Hauteclocque had been allowed to do his job properly...

[Nathan Madien]

Mr. Sometimes: Which I politely have to decline using.

trekaddict: Thank you. I will keep that in mind.

El Pip: McCarthy is up and about, trying to figure out how to annoy the Administration...and how to avoid being a one-trick pony.

I think McCarthy's view on Vietnam would be something along the lines of "We can't trust the Democrats to manage this. They will just hand the country over to the Communists."

Kurt_Steiner: That's true.

Andreios II: I have that book. My favorite section is the one about the couple different ways the American Civil War could have been done differently.

I think Lightning Joe did an invaluable service to his country by recommending France be allowed to wither on the vine.

My next update will cover the partitioning which won't be much different than historically. The only big difference about TTL Geneva Conference is making it shorter by taking out the decision-making (or lack of) in regards to the two Koreas. That, and making Dean Acheson feel awkward about being there.

c0d5579: Who?

[Kurt_Steiner]

c0d5579: Who?

Philippe François Marie, comte de Hauteclocque, also know as Philippe Leclerc

[Nathan Madien]

Kurt_Steiner: What should I know about this person?

[Kurt_Steiner]

Kurt_Steiner: What should I know about this person?

Leclerc, who leaded the 2nd Armoured Division form Normandy to Paris, commander of the French Forces in Indochine in the 50s, proposed to negotiate with the Vietminh instead of making a big mess of it. Of course, he was sacked for such a heretical idea.

[El Pip]

Leclerc, who leaded the 2nd Armoured Division form Normandy to Paris, commander of the French Forces in Indochine in the 50s, proposed to negotiate with the Vietminh instead of making a big mess of it. Of course, he was sacked for such a heretical idea.

If he was commander of French Forces in Indochine in the 50s I think he was probably sacked for being dead - He died in 1947!

That said Zombie Leclerc could not have made a bigger hash of it than the OTL French commanders, he'd get my vote (but not my brains). IN fact as he died in a planecrash in OTL perhaps he isn't dead TTL, that would be an interesting butterfly.

[Kurt_Steiner]

If he was commander of French Forces in Indochine in the 50s I think he was probably sacked for being dead - He died in 1947!

That said Zombie Leclerc could not have made a bigger hash of it than the OTL French commanders, he'd get my vote (but not my brains). IN fact as he died in a planecrash in OTL perhaps he isn't dead TTL, that would be an interesting butterfly.

For being a zombie, for negotiating with the Viets... those Frenchies are a pack of sissies, if you ask me.

Seriously now I mixed the dates and made a mess with Leclerd and de Lattre's period of command.

[Nathan Madien]

Kurt_Steiner: Hmm...I haven't found any mention of him in my research of Vietnam so far. That must have been quite a sacking.

El Pip: That's a good reason for getting sacked.

Alas, it is too late to introduce Zombie Leclerc. The Dien Bien Phu show is almost over.

Kurt_Steiner: Is it any wonder Lightning Joe didn't want to help them?

They are both dead, so that should equal things out quite nicely.

[c0d5579]

I refer to him as Hauteclocque for my own Bonapartist conspiratorial reasons.

And yes, it was quite a sacking. The French admiral who was sent as political envoy was a Gaullist glory-of-France nut, thought that the idea of negotiating with the natives was beneath the dignity of France. He essentially did everything in his power to ruin Leclerc's mission and get him recalled to France. In the process, Leclerc, who was an eccentric but extremely competent officer, died of an acute case of aircraft poisoning in Algeria in '47.

The Wikipedia article on Leclerc actually sums it up pretty well in a few paragraphs. If you wanted to point to a modern Frenchman as a case for France not being culturally incompetent on the battlefield, my vote would be for Leclerc.

[Nathan Madien]

c0d5579: Thanks for the info.
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Endgame
The American decision not to intervene effectively eliminated whatever slim chance the French had at success. In early September, the Viet Minh concentrated their massed assaults against enemy positions at Dominique, Eliane, Claudine, and Huguette. For a month, the two sides seesawed back-and-forth in absolutely fierce fighting. Every time one side held the upper hand, the other side found a way to counter it. The French grew increasingly exhausted with dwindling reserves, their planes providing reinforcements being regularly blown out of the sky by relentless enemy anti-aircraft fire. Meanwhile, the Viet Minh had their own problems to deal with: most notably a lack of advanced medical care in which to treat the wounded. However, it was the French who were being grinded away. On September 22nd, their main airfield was captured; with that gone, their main source of aerial resupply was now cut off.

The fighting lasted until October 7th. Exhausted, their defenses completely overrun, and supplies hard to come by, the French decided enough was enough. Faced with over 25,000 enemy soldiers, General Christian de Castries – the French commander at Dien Bien Phu – chose not to needlessly slaughter his remaining forces. At 5:30 PM, de Castries radioed his superiors in Hanoi one final message:
“The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything [that could be of use to them]. Vive la France!”
The next day, Dien Bien Phu surrendered to the Viet Minh. Almost 12,000 defenders were now prisoners-of-war. France had put everything on the line to defend this base…only to be humiliated once again.

Just as Collins predicted, the focus after this battle shifted quickly from war to peace. By a twist of timing, a previously-arranged international meeting was convened the day before Dien Bien Phu fell in Geneva, Switzerland to bring the First Indochina War to an end. At the time, the French Government knew it needed to extract itself from the quagmire and somehow get out intact. News of the French defeat in Vietnam greatly undermined their negotiating position heading into the talks. Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, attended the conference with the understandable mindset of a victorious leader who held the upper hand. Secretary of State Dean Acheson also attended the Geneva Conference as the American representative. He was under strict orders from the President not to commit to anything at the conference. Acheson was there only to observe diplomatic dealings between the French and the Viet Minh – in keeping with America’s public “this is France’s problem” message. Barred from having any significant role in the proceedings, Acheson – from the moment he descended from the plane in Geneva – couldn’t help but look uncomfortable during the conference. By nature he was a doer, not a bystander.

In the negotiations that followed, Vietnam was partitioned into two zones along the 17th Parallel: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Emperor Bao Dai, the French puppet ruler, would remain in charge of the Southern half (named the Republic of Vietnam) while the Viet Minh would get the Northern half (ironically named the Democratic Republic of Vietnam). It would be a temporary partition until nationwide elections could be held at a latter date to determine the future government and bring about national unification. Both halves of Vietnam would be barred from entering into military alliances with her other Indochinese neighbors and couldn’t seek military aid beyond basic self-defense requirements. Any international force still within Indochina had to completely withdraw as soon as possible. With those peace terms, the First Indochina War was finally over.

In the aftermath of the cessation of hostilities, a mass migration occurred. French forces withdrew to South Vietnam from the North while the Viet Minh headed to North Vietnam from the South. The United States played a role in the mass migration, using her navy to transport 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers, and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from the North to the South. In all, almost one million Northerners fled south to avoid living under Communist rule while nearly 200,000 Southerners headed north to embrace Ho Chi Minh’s new government. Catholics in particular fled south to avoid impending religious persecution under Communism.

1955, which began with a colonial struggle between France and the Viet Minh over the future of Vietnam, ended with Vietnam divided into two countries separated by the 17th Parallel. North of the line, Ho Chi Minh set up shop in Hanoi. South of the line, staunch anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem was sworn-in as Prime Minister in Saigon. The main fighting was now over…but American involvement in the region had only just begun.
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Before I get to Ngo Dinh Diem, I need to travel back in time to May 1955 to do an Europe update covering Germany and Yugoslavia. Since this is 1955, I need to borrow Marty McFly's DeLorean.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Well, the stage is set por Westmoreland and his boys. In due time, of course.

[Leviathan07]

Very interested to hear about Germany and Yugoslavia.

Now what may Chiang be thinking about all this? Chiang may be happy to have the French removed from his doorstep, but in the long run a Vietnamese unification under the communists is really not in his best interests, is it? Should the Vietnam war develop as in OTL, I would expect him to close the supply lines for Hanoi around 1972, to make sure that South Vietnam remains intact. The neighbour of your neighbour is your natural ally, your neighbour is your natural enemy, and all that... Also the Vietnamese are notorious for wanting to rule all of Southeast Asia (ever since the 18th century), and looking on China as the oppressive big brother...

[El Pip]

While I know it is almost compulsory for a communist dictatorships to ironically call itself "The Democratic Republic of.." (or even worse "The People's Democratic Republic" :shudder: ) in this case they may have had a point. After all compared to the shenanigans in South Vietnam they probably were the more democratic, they could hardly been any worse.