The Rise of the Tiger - Indochina Alt. History

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The Rise of the Tiger - Indochina

First things first. I wanted to do a new AAR after my old USA 41 AAR crashed on me. I will play as indochina, as you have probably already gathered via the title. It will be alternate history, in a sort of history book/gameplay style. Indochina is definately not your run off the mill type of nation, so it may be diffisult but i look forward to the challenge. Hope you read my AAR and enjoy it. Wish me luck. I will write the gameplay when 1.3 comes out but for now it will be the history of Indochina and the back ground to how we got to were we are in 1936.

Table of Contents


From Western Imperialism to Versailles

Part 1: The French Conquest I
Part 2: The French Conquest II
Part 3: The French Conquest III
Part 4: Resistence I
Part 5: Resistence II
Part 6: Pre Versailles


Post Versailles and Civil Disorder

Part 1: The End of French Rule

 

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Cool

 

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Part 1: The French Conquest I

After the French and English compelled the Chinese to make an agreement at Canton, a combined force of French and Spanish ships took over the forts at Danang in 1858. The city was abandoned, and the Europeans without supplies became ill. In February 1859 they went to Saigon and captured the rice granary. While most of the French went off to fight the Chinese, a garrison of a thousand men survived a siege by 12,000 Vietnamese for a year. Admiral Charner returned with 3,000 men in February 1861 and defeated the besiegers. By the end of the year the French had control of the lower coast of Cochinchina.

In June 1862 Emperor Tu Duc agreed to a treaty, ceding to France the provinces of Gia Dinh, Dinh Tuong, and Bien Hoa while promising to allow religious liberty and to pay a large indemnity over ten years. Before ratifying it, Tu Duc sent envoy Phan Thanh Gian to negotiate with Napoleon III in Paris. In December dissident mandarins led a general uprising in Cochinchina, and Admiral Bonard needed months and reinforcements to suppress the rebellion. He issued a decree on February 3, 1863 blaming the mandarins and giving all administrative and judicial powers to French inspectors. Admiral De La Grandiere inaugurated a justice system by decree in Cochinchina on July 25, 1864. The Gia-Dinh Bao newspaper began publishing in 1865 with the Romanized quoc-ngu letters. Tu Duc appointed Phan Thanh Gian viceroy of the three Cochinchina provinces. When De La Grandiere took them over in June 1866, the Viceroy committed suicide. That year a priest claimed to be a Cambodian prince named Pu Kombo and seized the province of Kanhchor until he was defeated by Cambodian and French forces.

Emperor Tu Duc​

After Tu Duc began spending much money and labor on the construction of his tomb, some plotted to overthrow him and were severely punished. In the 1867 treaty Siam gave up any claim to Cambodia except that the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap (Angkor) were recognized as theirs. That year the French military occupied the provinces of Vinh Long, An Giang, and Ha Tien. In 1868 Ngo Con led the plunder of Cao Bang, and White, Yellow, and Black Flags pillaged the mountains of Tonkin (northern Vietnam).

Francis Garnier led the exploration of the Mekong River but learned that it was not a useful avenue to China for trade. The merchant Jean Dupuis had more success getting to Yunnan on the Red River. When the mandarins at Hanoi would not trade salt to him, he and the Chinese and Filipinos with him took over part of the city by force. In February 1872 rebels killed a French officer and a missionary as the insurgency erupted in Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, and Vinh Long. Tonkin had been suffering from the Chinese refugees from the Tai Ping uprising. Admiral Jules-Marie Dupré in Saigon was ordered not to intervene but sent Garnier with 212 troops to Hanoi in 1873; Garnier led the assault and was killed. The French government disavowed the act of war, and Dupré sent inspector P. L. F. Philastre, who arrived in January 1874 and ordered the French to evacuate the forts.

Philastre negotiated a treaty. Tu Duc agreed to recognize French sovereignty over six provinces in Cochinchina; he accepted a French resident at Hué and opened the ports of Quinonh, Hai Phong, Danang, and Hanoi to French trading with a consul at each; he allowed navigation in the Red River and promised to tolerate the Christians. The French released him from the unpaid indemnity and promised him gun-boats, weapons, and advisors to fight the Black Flag insurgents. A commercial treaty was also signed. However, after the French forces left Tonkin, Christian villages were set on fire. Tu Duc treated the French consuls badly, punished those who had supported Garnier, and continued the persecution of Christians. In addition to the Black Flags, Chinese bandits under Yellow Flags and Red Flags made the Red River too dangerous for trade. Tu Duc began negotiating closer diplomatic ties with China. Admiral Dupré allowed Philastre time to make a better translation of Gia Long’s law code. In the spring of 1874 Buddhists led a rebellion in Chaudoc, and another religious uprising occurred in 1878 in the Mytho region.

 

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Part 2: The French Conquest II

Nguyen Truong To (1827-71) learned French and visited Europe. During his last eight years as a provincial official he sent memoranda to Tu Duc proposing various reforms. He suggested reducing the number of provinces, districts, and officials while providing larger stipends for those remaining, separating the judicial functions from the administration, modernizing the military with western training, and increasing taxes on landlords, luxuries, and imported goods to encourage the native economy and Vietnamese cooperatives. Nguyen Truong To also suggested increasing literacy by using the Roman letters (quoc-ngu) for Vietnamese and distributing newspapers. He was sad that his ideas were not adopted because he saw that his country was heading toward disaster.

Luro directed the College des Stagiares in Saigon from 1874 to 1876, teaching administration and the Vietnamese language to the French. He believed it was a mistake to try to teach millions of Vietnamese French instead of having a few French learn Vietnamese. He died of illness in 1877, and the College folded the next year. The French decided in 1878 that after 1882 the quoc-ngu alphabet would be the only acceptable official form of writing in Vietnam. Admiral Lafont governed Cochinchina 1877-79, but disputes over his economic policies led to the first civilian governor of Cochinchina. Le Myre de Vilers (1879-82) established a Colonial Council that included the election of six Vietnamese, and he promulgated the French penal code in March 1880. In November he instituted the registration of all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 60 and lowered personal taxes. Governor Le Myre replaced the military men with French magistrates for the administration of justice, but their lack of experience in Vietnam and difficulties with translators caused many problems. He ordered the opening of more schools; but a lack of trained teachers caused most of them to be closed. In 1882 Le Myre had to use force to suppress rebellions by secret societies of Vietnamese and Chinese in Saigon, Tan An, Soc Trang, Sadec, Cantho, Tra Vinh, and Vinh Long.

Emperor Tu Duc appealed to the Chinese for help in suppressing the insurgents in Tonkin, and in 1880 Beijing sent armies to help their vassal. In July 1881 France’s Foreign Affairs minister De Freycinet persuaded both chambers of Parliament to renew their military campaign in Tonkin. Activities of the Yellow Flags and Black Flags the next year threatened the French at Hanoi. On March 13, 1882 Resident Superior Champeaux was arrested by the Black Pavilions sent by Governor Hoang Ke Viem of Annam. Two weeks later Col. Henri Riviere and 300 troops were sent on two warships to Hanoi. He called on Governor Hoang Dieu, who strengthened his citadel. After 250 more men arrived on April 25, Riviere demanded that Hoang Dieu surrender. One hour after the attack began, Hoang Dieu disbanded his forces, wrote a report, and then hanged himself. After Tu Duc reported to the Chinese that Hanoi had fallen, they sent 200,000 men who occupied Lang Son, Cao Bang, Bac Ninh, and Thai Nguyen in September. In response Ambassador Bouree signed an accord with Minister Li Hong Zhang giving China the northern portion of Tonkin; but this was not authorized by Paris, and Bouree was replaced by Tricou.

Hoang Dieu​

The Black Flags paid by Tu Duc besieged Hanoi. Riviere was reinforced with 750 more men and took over the Hon Gay coalfield on March 12, 1883. Then he besieged Prince Hoang Ke Viem at Nam Dinh and met unexpected opposition. Captain Gosselin reported that the frustrated Riviere hanged fifty Chinese mercenaries and executed many Vietnamese prisoners despite his orders to spare their lives. Luu Vinh Phuoc called the French “petty bandits” and “foreign beasts who come to destroy our country” and warned that they should go home or they would die. His Black Flags joined the Vietnamese resistance movement. On May 19 Riviere and fifty other Frenchmen, including twenty officers, were killed by an ambush on the road to Son Tay.

Prime Minister Jules Ferry sent a strong expeditionary force under General Bouet followed by a fleet commanded by Admiral Courbet to conquer Vietnam. Courbet’s fleet attacked the forts guarding the mouth of the Hué River on August 18, 1883 and captured them in three days. Tu Duc had died the month before, and the Foreign Minister asked for a truce to negotiate. Commissioner Dr. François Jules Harmand and Resident Champeaux got the new Emperor Hiep-Hoa to sign a treaty on August 25 surrendering the forts and ships in the Hué area. Vietnam became a protectorate of France, and residents with garrisons were given jurisdiction over Vietnamese towns. Troops from Annam serving in Tonkin were to be recalled, and the French opened the Red River for commerce, suppressing piracy. Vietnam also ceded the southern province of Binh Thuan and agreed to pay for the French occupation.

China protested and sent troops from Yunnan to Son Tay and Bac Ninh while purchasing warships and ammunition from Europe and America. General Bouet marched toward Son Tay and treated the Vietnamese and Chinese as insurgents, beheading the prisoners. Bouet quarreled with Commissioner Harmand and left for France. Regent Ton That Thuyet got Hoang Ke Viem to attack Hai Duong. After being reinforced with 9,000 men, on October 11 Courbet tried to dislodge him and Luu Vinh Phuc to occupy Son Tay. More Chinese arrived, and Courbet waited for more troops. The Chinese besieged Bac Ninh on November 12, but the French made them retreat. With 16,000 men Courbet captured Son Tay from the Chinese in December.

 

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Part 3: The French Conquest III

In February 1884 General Briere de l’Isle’s forces drove the Chinese out of Bac Ninh, Yen The, and Thai Nguyen. On March 17 General Négrier took Hung Hoa as the Chinese and Black Flags fled into the mountains. Hoang Ke Viem fled to Hué, and on May 8 Col. Duchesne captured Tuyen Quang. The Black Flags retreated, but the Chinese still held Lang Son, Cao Bang, and Lao Kay. French naval Commandant Fournier met with his friend Li Hong Zhang in Beijing to discuss peace. In the convention they signed on May 11 the Chinese agreed to withdraw from Tonkin and allow French commerce in China’s southern frontier. However, others in the Chinese government wanted suzerainty over Vietnam and no southern trade with France. After a dispute about the withdrawal, Chinese forces defeated the French troops under Col. Dugenne at Lang Son. A new treaty with the Vietnamese on June 6, 1884 restored Binh Tuan and other provinces to Annam, which the French army was now permitted to occupy. The French also were to administer Tonkin. After Admiral Courbet’s navy destroyed the Chinese fleet at Fuzhou on August 22, Beijing declared war on France. Chinese reinforcements prevented Courbet from capturing the Jilong (Keelung) forts on Formosa in October.

General de Négrier took command and recaptured Lang Son on February 13, 1885. Courbet seized the Pescadores Islands in March. The Chinese defeated French forces at Lang Son on March 28 and wounded General Négrier; his troops panicked and fled to the mountains. Clemenceau criticized the war policy, and three days after this disaster the Ferry cabinet fell. A cease-fire was signed on April 4. Li Hong Zhang negotiated with the French ambassador Patenotre at Beijing, and on June 11 they signed the Tianjin Treaty. This confirmed the treaty of the year before, and France returned the Pescadores.

Meanwhile intrigue caused turmoil in the succession over the throne at Hué. Although Tu Duc had passed over the depraved Duc Duc to name the younger Kien Phuc his successor, the three regents (Ton That Thuyet, Nguyen Van Tuong, and Tran Van Thanh) suppressed his will and named Duc Duc emperor. When he ignored mourning customs and invited his vulgar friends to court, Ton That Thuyet had the will read at the inauguration ceremony. Duc Duc was put in prison where he died of poison or hunger 68 days after Hiep Hoa was enthroned on July 30, 1883. Hiep Hoa signed a treaty with Harmand on August 25 that gave the French control over Vietnam. He lost respect for the regent Ton and was going to dismiss the regents; but Ton had Hiep Hoa arrested on November 28 while Resident Champeaux was away from Hué. Hiep Hoa was forced to abdicate and chose the method of death by opium and vinegar the next day.

Before dawn on December 1 the regents enthroned 15-year-old Kien Phuc. When the ill boy learned that his adopted mother Hoc Phi and the regent Nguyen Van Tuong were lovers and were running the government, he threatened to behead them. That night Hoc Phi put poison in his medication, and Kien died at dawn on August 1, 1884. That year Ton That Thuyet took the bronze coins to build up his fortress at Tan So, causing inflation. Ton blamed a Chinese official and had him beheaded.

Kien Phuc​

Prince Gia Hung was head of the imperial family council, and in early 1885 he tried to investigate Kien Phuc’s death secretly, but Ton That Thuyet removed his titles and sentenced him to death in May. Resident Rheinart intervened, and Gia Hung was banished to Quang Tri and disappeared. Kien Phuc’s younger half-brother Ham Nghi lived with his poor mother in the Hué suburbs, but the regents found him and quickly made him emperor. Furious Rheinart threatened the court with a gunboat and artillery if they did not provide a written application. Ham Nghi began his reign by sentencing his cousin Ky Phong to life imprisonment. In May 1885 Ton had cannons installed around the imperial palace aimed at the French citadel. The diplomatic General Lemaire replaced Rheinart, and he persuaded Ton to remove the guns. Ton secretly had them and the royal treasury moved to his Tan So fortress in June.

On May 31 Roussel de Courcy arrived from Hanoi to be governor of Tonkin and resident general in Annam. Lemaire resigned and left for France. In Paris the cabinet disapproved of De Courcy’s aggressive policy, but he planned to arrest Ton That Thuyet and demanded Ham Nghi pay 200,000 gold ingots, 200,000 silver ingots, and 200,000 francs within three days. That night Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet opened fire on the French quarters, but the French captured six of Vietnam’s cannons and turned them on the garrison.

On July 5, 1885 Ton That Thuyet with 5,000 soldiers took Ham Nghi and three empresses to the mountains of Laos. The French found a large quantity of silver ingots in Empress Tu Du’s quarters that Nguyen Van Tuong had refused to transfer to Tan So. Ton and Ham Nghi went to Tan So and tried to defend it with two thousand peasants from Quang Tri. De Courcy sent Tuong and Ton’s father to the penal colony at Poulo Condore on September 6. The French made Ham Nghi’s older brother Dong Kanh emperor on September 19. Tuong still plotted revolts, and in October the French seized his property, finding 14.5 million piastres. Tuong was sent to Tahiti, where he died in 1886. Ton fled to China for aid and died there years later at the age of 75. Ham Nghi was eventually turned over to the French by a Muong leader. The Muongs, Thais, and Thos supported the French because they had suffered discrimination from the Vietnamese for so long. Ham Nghi was banished to Algiers in January 1889.

 

[stnylan]

Good scene setting thus far.

 

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Part 4: Resistance I

The regents Ton That Thuyet and Nguyen Van Tuong had passed over Dong Khanh for his less legitimate younger brother Ham Nghi because of his sympathy for the French. Dong Khanh began his reign in 1885 by thanking De Courcy and sentencing the two fleeing regents to death. Paul Bert was the first resident general with full power, and he reassured the Vietnamese that their customs and laws would be respected. Unfortunately his policies ended with his death after nine months in November 1886.

While fleeing to the mountains on July 13, 1885 Ham Nghi issued the imperial Can Vuong (Loyalty to the King) Edict throughout Vietnam, declaring that they could not accept the conditions imposed by the French by force of arms. As the French seized the forts at Dong-Hoi and Vinh, resistance by the peasants quickly developed in Quang-Binh province. Regent Ton That Thuyet allowed the destruction of churches in the Gianh River valley, and the French retaliated by burning pagodas. Nguyen Xuan On led the insurgents in the Nghe An province and attacked the French garrison at Vinh in December. He continued to lead guerrilla efforts until he was captured in May 1887. In the first three years the Can Vuong movement was strongest in Thanh Hoa province. By January 1887 the French had moved in 1,500 of their own men plus a thousand native troops and five thousand peasants from the Catholic village of Phat-Diem. In February the insurgent leader Pham Banh surrendered to free his mother and children and then committed suicide, but most of the 75 officers and 2,250 soldiers that had been defending Ba Dinh escaped. The three villages of Ba Dinh were razed, and the Government removed their names from maps.

Vietnamese civilians after the French capture Dong-Hoi fort​

The rebellion in Cochinchina began in January 1885, inflicted heavy French losses, and lasted eighteen months. Because of the fighting in Tonkin and Cambodia, Saigon was left with only 300 troops. Tong-doc Tran Ba-Loc was loyal to the French and led partisans and a few regulars to pacify the provinces of Binh Thuan and Phu Yen. In October 1887 the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin were put under the Minister of Marine and Colonies in Paris, and the Indochinese Union combined together Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, and Cambodia. Powerful French interests in Cochinchina, which had large revenues, managed to separate it from the general budget within a year.

Three weeks after Ham Nghi was banished to Algiers, Emperor Dong Khanh died on January 28, 1889. Thanh Thai was the son of Duc Duc and was ten years old when he was put on the throne on February 1. He adopted western customs but spent his time in his harem and acted so erratically that he was considered mad or pretending to be mad. Jean-Marie de Lanessan became governor-general in June 1891 and gave back local administration to the Vietnamese, but he was criticized for a 12-million franc deficit in Tonkin’s budget. He struggled against the opponents of a central administration and was recalled in October 1894.

In the north De Tham (Hoang Hoa Tham) had five hundred well trained men by 1889 and tried to help the poor. He cooperated with Luong Tam Ky’s Black Flags and the Thai warlord Deo Van Tri. De Tham’s mobility avoided the French pincers. He captured the Avenir du Tonkin editor Chesnay and negotiated a ransom of 15,000 francs plus French withdrawal from Yen The so that he could levy taxes for three years. In 1890 Col. Frey with 1,300 men defeated the forces of De Nam, but four hundred of them fled and joined De Tham. They attacked Bac Ninh in 1895 and escaped from Col. Gallieni into the jungle. In 1897 De Tham agreed to a treaty with the French that acknowledged his control over 22 villages in Yen The.

Despite efforts by Nguyen Quang Bich to communicate with leaders in six provinces, the insurgency was never well coordinated. The rebellion in the Red River delta was suppressed by 1892 as Nguyen Thien Thuat fled to China, Doc Ngu was killed, and De Kieu surrendered. De Lanessan described how the French destroyed support for the insurgents by beheading chiefs and burning down villages. Resistance continued in the western mountains, and the French built a ring of forts around the base camps. Col. Fernand Bernard noted that a militia inspector executed 75 notables in two weeks but that the revolt continued. The French lost no men in Haidung but beheaded 64 people without a trial.

 

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Part 5: Resistence II

Dr. Phan Dinh Phung and Cao Thang led the insurrection in central Vietnam. Cao Thang even managed to manufacture three hundred guns by copying French rifles, but he was killed while assaulting the No fort in Nghe An on September 9, 1893. Phan Dinh Phung replied to Governor-General J. M. A. de Lanessan’s letter by reminding him that Vietnam had successfully struggled against the Han, Tang, Song, Mongol, and Ming dynasties of China. Phung in December established his headquarters on the mountain Va Quang overlooking the French fortress at Ha Tinh. Phung had several thousand men organized into twelve military districts. In July 1895 French commanders brought together three thousand troops to defeat the insurgents led by Phan Dinh Phung, who died of dysentery in January 1896.

That year the French ended the Can Vuong revolt by subduing the Yen The area. Casualties included 40,000 Catholic converts, 18 French missionaries, 40 Viet priests, and 9,000 churches. The Can Vuong movement had little chance of defeating the French, but the spirit of patriotic sacrifice reflected in their desperate resistance and eloquent poetry would inspire later generations to struggle for Vietnamese independence.

Because of the insurgency France spent 168 million francs on Tonkin from 1887 to 1891. By 1895 the colonial war in Vietnam had cost the French 750 million gold francs. Tonkin had a huge deficit and doubled taxes between 1890 and 1896, increasing them again fifty percent in the next two years. In 1895 Governor-General Paul-Armand Rousseau went to Saigon and demanded a settlement of Tonkin’s debts, a loan for public works, and more administrative powers for his position. He went to Paris and planned to resign, but his conditions were granted. He died in Hanoi on December 10, 1896.

French troops in Tonkin​

Paul Doumer had been minister of Finance, and he was appointed on December 27. He abolished the office of viceroy in Tonkin and decreed that the Emperor of Vietnam would be represented in Tonkin by the French resident superior, who was under Doumer. Paris decreed in July 1897 that the Governor-General would head a new Superior Council of Indochina. Two months later Doumer replaced the Emperor as head of the administration and dissolved his Secret Council (Co Mat), replacing it with a council of ministers with a Frenchman for every Vietnamese. Annam was also governed by a French resident superior.

In November 1897 Cochinchina’s Colonial Council refused to contribute to the general budget and appealed to Paris, which authorized the general budget on July 31, 1898. In August the French took over the collecting of all taxes in Annam, as they already had in Tonkin and Cochinchina. Doumer held the second meeting of the Superior Council in September and added ministers of the General Services. Provincial and county governors in Tonkin were replaced by French residents. Doumer raised revenues by monopolizing the production and sale of opium, alcohol, and salt while increasing customs duties. In the second year Tonkin ran a surplus of 4 million piasters. Annam’s tax receipts went from 83,000 piasters to two million. Cochinchina contributed forty percent of the revenue, but by 1900 all five states (including Laos since 1893) had balanced budgets. Doumer had to overcome the opposition of Saigon’s Mayor Paul Blanchy. In 1899 Doumer founded the Ecole Française d’Extreme Orient, which was well respected for its scholars and protection of historical monuments.

Governor-General Doumer used most of the central administration’s revenue of 20 million piasters in 1899 for public works. When he contributed 14 million piasters annually to France for the colony’s military budget, he was able to secure a loan of 200 million francs for Indochina. Doumer planned two long railway lines. One went from Haiphong to Hanoi to the Chinese border at Laokay and two years later to Yunnan-Fou. The other Trans-Indochinese line went from Hanoi a thousand miles to Saigon. The Superior Council adopted these plans on September 14, 1898, and the French Assembly approved them. More than 25,000 Vietnamese and Chinese would die working on less than 300 miles of the Yunnan-Fou line. In the 1880s the French had spent five years building fifty miles of railway south from Saigon, and the Phulong-Tuong line begun in 1893 in Tonkin ran only 72 miles and had been even more of a fiasco. Because Doumer did not encourage the development of industries and mining, the railways had little business, and the railroads he planned would not become economically viable until after World War I. In the decade from 1901 to 1910 Indochina’s annual debt payments increased sixfold. In the twelve years up to 1911 they constructed 1,300 miles of railroads, but in the next seventeen years only 200 miles of railway were built.

Doumer also had the largest bridge in Southeast Asia constructed over the Red River at Hanoi; it was completed just before he left in March 1902. He was criticized for building an opera house in Hanoi instead of sewers for the city. Doumer greatly increased the number of French administrators, but he did little to promote the education of the Vietnamese. The people suffered tremendously from the higher taxes and the forced labor on railroad construction, and they had little purchasing power. Hungry families had to give up a quarter of their rice crop for taxes.

 

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Part 6: Pre Versailles

Governor-General Wladislas Klobukowski did not reach Vietnam until September 1908 and began by closing the University of Hanoi. In April 1909 the French Chamber of Deputies adopted the colonial policy of association with the Vietnamese to replace assimilation. General Théophile Daniel Pennequin even called for a Vietnamese army. Klobukowski took a hard line, abolishing the Directorate of Public Education and several consultative assemblies. He did try to abolish the alcohol monopoly, and he was criticized by the colonial press. Klobukowski sent the army after De Tham’s rebel forces and reduced them to forty by September 1909. He put a price on his head, and De Tham was killed by bounty hunters in 1913.

Phan Boi Chao was under police surveillance and left Tokyo in March 1909 for Hong Kong. He arranged to buy 500 rifles left over from the Russo-Japanese war, but he could not raise the money to pay smugglers to import them. So he gave them to Sun Yat-sen’s older brother Sun Shou-ping. Prince Cuong De had been studying in Japan, and in November he escaped to Shanghai and then Hong Kong. In 1910 Phan lived in Canton by selling his books. He went to Siam in 1911 and wrote a patriotic drama about the Trung sisters. After the Chinese revolution, he and Cuong De went to Canton and gave up monarchy for the goal of a republic, forming the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam (Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi). They even formed a government in exile with Cuong De as president and Phan as minister of foreign affairs and representative of Annam. Tonkin was represented by Nguyen Thuong Hien, and Cochinchina by Nguyen Than Hien. Phan met with Sun Yat-sen in 1912 and sent a dozen followers to military academies in Beijing and Guangxi.

Phan Boi Chao​

Klobukowski was recalled, and 21 months elapsed before his replacement Sarraut arrived in October 1911. Counting interim governors Indochina had the head of its administration changed 52 times in its first forty years. In the same period between 1886 and 1926 Cochinchina had 38 governors; Annam had 32 residents superior, and Tonkin 31. France had a similar turnover with 46 heads of colonial affairs between 1886 and 1930. Riceland in Cochinchina more than quadrupled between 1880 and 1930, but the average peasant held less land in 1930 than before the French came. Taxes and debt created a large class of landless tenants while the wealthy had become richer. Tenants had to give up to half their crop to their landlords.

Albert Sarraut was a Radical-Socialist, and his first edict forbade colonials from hitting natives. This was not enforceable, and he promoted the sale of alcohol and opium. He had highways constructed and enlarged the harbors of Saigon and Haiphong. By 1913 Vietnam had 175 medical facilities for a population of 25 million with only one doctor per 38,000 people.

After meeting with a hundred activists in the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam in early 1913, Phan Boi Chao and Mai Lao Bang stayed in Canton, helping forty Vietnamese students. Others went to Hong Kong to manufacture explosives. The British captured Nguyen Than Hien, and others were turned over to the French. In March bombs placed in Saigon failed to explode, and unarmed peasants marching to the gates of Saigon were brutally dispersed by the French. Hundreds of suspected nationalists were arrested, and 34 got long sentences for insurrection. On April 13 the high official Nguyen Duy Han was murdered in Thai Binh, and two weeks later a bomb killed two French colonels in the Hotel Hanoi. Sarraut revived the Criminal Commission, and the French arrested 254 people, executing 7 and imprisoning 57.

Sarraut had to leave his position because of bad health in January 1914. That month Guangdong’s Governor Long Jiguang arrested Phan Boi Chao and Mai Lao Bang and asked the French for a ransom. Phan wrote his first autobiography, Prison Notes (Nguc Trung Thu), and a historical novel about the struggle against colonial rule during the Ming dynasty. In December an armed insurrection failed in Tonkin, and in April 1915 the French executed 28 men in Phu-Tho. In January 1916 peasants attacked recruiters in Cochinchina. Three hundred armed nationalists tried to free prisoners in Saigon on the night of February 14 but failed. The French War Council rounded up hundreds and executed 51. In May young Emperor Duy Tan left the palace in Hué and tried to lead an insurrection that quickly collapsed. He was exiled to Réunion. The organizer Tran Cao Van and four others were executed. When Sun Yat-sen gained power in southern China in 1917, Phan Boi Chau and the refugees were released.

 

[stnylan]

All is not well in Indochina.

 

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Part 1: The End of French Rule

The treaty of Versailles did nothing to aid France's ongoing struggle in Indochina. Although the French were victorious the increasing pressure the government in Paris had been placed under by US President Woodrow Wilson to disband forces in it's colonies had built up for long enough. The French government disbanded the majority of it's forces in Africa but refused to minimise it's amount of troops in Indochina because of the recent struggle for power in the region. They pleeded to the rapdily industrializing USA to allow them a force in Indochina. The US accepted the plea.

When news of this colonial demilitarization everywhere but Indochina broke out in Saigon, riots occured. The newly formed ICCM(Indochinese Communinst Movement) began to contact foreign powers. The Soviet Union was the first nation Dhung Hi Lou, leader of the new movement, consulted for aid that he wished would arrived in the form of munitions and arms. He planned to rid Indochina of the French and declare independance. He had had enough of the French militants executing the people of Indochina. Many had failed before him but he was determined to throw the French out of his homeland. His socialist background evolved from being brought up and raised in the slums of Saigon and being unable to get a job at an early age, consiquence of his poor background. He soon followed in his fathers footsteps and joined a communist militant group, fighting for the right of the workers and lower classes. They soon gained a powerful influence in Saigon and Southern Vietnam before the death of his father in 1920.

In late 1920, his secret plea to the Soviets succeded and shipments of weapons would soon be arriving in Saigon. Hi Lou first needed to gain control of the port in Saigon. The French controlled the port at the moment but with the weapons and men he had he launched an assault on the port. The small French garrison was defeated and Hi Lou had all 80 french troops gaurding the port executed. This was a bold statement directing his intentions for the future of the French colony. He then claimed control of Saigon and cleared the city of French forces on 4 December 1920. He had claimed control of the most important city in Indochina, a major morale booster for him and his followers.

Communist troops in the center of Saigon​

He soon began recruiting troops for a struggle against France in January 1921. The 40,000 troops he recruited within the first month was more than he expected and so he set up his government headquarters in central Saigon. The convoys rolled in at the start of 1921 supplying his troops with modern Russian rifles. Lenin's Soviet Union sought a chance to gain an ally in South East Asia and so backed any form of communist movement in the area. He suppied Hi Lou with rifles and machine guns in hope that he would return him a favor in joining the Comintern when he was victorious. Although no formal agreement was made, Hi Lou was a man of his word.

After securing Saigon, Hi Lou moved his foces northward aiming for Da Nang, nearly halfway to Hanoi. He faced no real resistance until reaching Da Nang in February. He battled long and hard to secure the city. His troops fought their way towards the center of the city lossing many comrades along the way. 10,000 casulties were suffered in the first week of combat for the ICCM in Da Nang but the plus was that the French were lossing an equal amount of troops. Hi Lou had only reached the inner suburbs of the city by the end of February. More fighting lay ahead for the troops of the ICCM.

Meanwhile, in France a new government was on the rise. A less imperailist goverment was winning the election. Seemingly the French wished not to hold Indochina with the vast cost of life required. The public wished not to send more troops to their death in South East Asia and they wished to pull out. In a poll held in Paris in February 1921, after the crisis in Da Nang, 94% of the voters wished not to fight on and wanted the French to pull out. After winning the election the Social Liberal party agreed to pull out of Indochina in March. Hi Lou met with a French representative in Saigon on March 5th. A ceasfire was signed and later in the month the French agreed to Indochinese independance, signing the Saigon Treaty.

 

[stnylan]

So, independence gained.