Britain and the Origins of the Vietnam War: UK Policy in Indochina, 1943-50 is a very insightful examination of the complex relationship between Churchill and President Roosevelt. This is the insight with personal communications now published, reveal how they negotiated the future of Indochina.
To many Americans the Vietnam War was a long, slow nightmare with France. However T.O. Smith reveals letters between Churchill and FDR brings Britain into a very early negotiation supporting French recolonization of Indochina. Most strikingly is the timeframe of the letters exchanged.
Churchill and Roosevelt wrote about the future of Vietnam prior to the D-Day landings during World War II. Yes, one old white man pushing another old white man to allow France, a fading colonial empire to restart slavery across Indochina. All of this was a backdrop to their current role confronting Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in late 1943. Fascinating reading.
Clearly Britain found itself shifting from an imperial world power to a new, second class global role. England and all of the UK was weakened and bled by two world wars. Churchill could read as clearly as anyone else the coming shift in the new world that placed America atop the world.
Smith’s opening chapter “Churchill’s Conundrum”reveals a deep shift in relations between Churchill and Roosevelt prior to the Casablanca conference in January 1943:
British foreign policy towards Vietnam ultimately demonstrates the evolution of Britain’s position within world geopolitics following World War Two. It reflects the change of the Anglo-US relationship from equality to dependence.
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At the same time, Roosevelt’s shifting position of fighting two world wars would forever empower colonial territories the right to seek independence. This proved to be a short-term view:
Roosevelt believed that de Gaulle represented ‘“acute and unconquerable” nationalism and that France as a nation no longer had the status of a great power to shape the world – a view shared by his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and the State Department. US Indo-China policy served to accelerate Roosevelt’s policy of colonial liberation and to punish the French.
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To continue to lead a shift in global thinkingRoosevelt approached both Britain and France to change their colonial desires in Malaya and Indochina respectively:
On 7 January 1943, at a meeting of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Roosevelt expressed ‘grave doubts’ about restoring Indo-China to France, and ‘urged the British not to make further promises to restore the French Empire. Lord Halifax spoke with Hull who was embarrassed at the State Department’s exclusion from some of Roosevelt’s personal ‘predilections.’ Churchill despatched Eden to the US for three weeks ‘in order to facilitate the establishment of closer relations between the State Department and the Foreign Office.’
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The Foreign Office believed that the US motivation behind trustee-ship and the Atlantic Charter was ‘really the old Wilsonian principle of self-determination dressed anew….De Gaulle established a committee to consider the Indo-Chinese question for the allies and French participation in its liberation. The French requested representation on the Allied Pacific War Council. In response the State Department cautioned that ‘the President may possibly be averse to the idea’ and sought Britain’s perspective…..A refusal would confirm the French in their present suspicions that neither we nor the Americans (particularly the latter) wish to see them resume sovereignty over Indo-China. This would add to their sense of frustration and wounded pride.
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On 30 November Clement Attlee, Deputy Prime Minister, wrote to Churchill for guidance and clarification as to the Prime Minister’s position regarding the future of Indo-China. Churchill answered ‘Britain does not pre-judge the question of status of Indo-China any more than that of … British possessions’ and summarized his perception of Roosevelt’s position that the ‘President at the moment contemplates some changes in status of Indo-China but he has not yet formulated any definite proposal.’
De Gaulle continued to develop an Indo-China policy and issued a declaration affirming French sovereignty but sanctioning ‘collective development, in the form of a ‘free and close association between France and the Indo-Chinese peoples’. Nevertheless, Roosevelt proceeded to concoct his own policy for Indo-China. On 16 December in Washington at a meeting with Chinese, Turkish, Egyptian, Russian, Persian and British diplomats he announced that:
He had been working very hard to prevent Indo-China being restored to France who during the last hundred years had done nothing for the Indo-Chinese people under their care. Latter were still as poor and as uneducated as they had ever been and this state of affairs could not be allowed to continue. He thought that Indo-Chinese who were not yet ready for elective institutions of their own should be placed under some United Nations trusteeship, which would take them toward the stage when they could govern themselves.
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Yet the British institutions would not budge in their estimation that they remain along with France a world power and that Roosevelt’s term was ending and therefore a lame duck. This is quite a biting commentary by England on the US position:
The Foreign Office remained vehemently critical of Roosevelt and US policy which it felt was driven by a combination of a delusion of power and dollar imperialism. President Roosevelt is suffering from the same kind of megalomania which characterized the late President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George (the latter to a lesser extent) at the end of the last war and proved the former’s undoing … I trust that we shall not allow ourselves to quarrel with the French, without being on very strong grounds, for the benefit of a United States President, who in a year’s time, may be merely a historical figure. If Indo-China is not restored to France on the ground that ‘the poor Indo-Chinese’ have had no education and no welfare (I have never heard that the Indo-Chinese were anymore unhappy than the share croppers of the Southern United States), the Dutch and our-selves may later on be told that the oil resources of the Netherlands East Indies and Borneo have never been properly developed, nor the rubber resources of Malaya, that the natives are insufficiently educated according to Washington standards and that these territories must be placed under United Nations trusteeship (perhaps with United States oil and rubber controllers).
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On 18 January Roosevelt met with Halifax in Washington. Roosevelt appeared not at all embarrassed by his position on Indo-China, jovially retorting that he hoped his ideas would be reported back to the French. In presenting his case for trusteeship Roosevelt confirmed, contrary to Churchill’s doubts, that Chinese intentions were that the President Chiang Kai-Shek did not want to acquire Indo-China and that Stalin regarded trusteeship as the best solution.
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Eden supported the argument but Churchill was not going to be pushed into taking any action. He lambasted Eden:
It is hard enough to get along in SEAC when we virtually have only the Americans to deal with. The more the French can get their finger into the pie, the more trouble they will make in order to show they are not humiliated in any way by the events through which they have passed. You will have de Gaullist intrigues there just as you now have in Syria and the Lebanon. Before we could bring the French officially into the Indo-China area, we should have to settle with President Roosevelt. He has been more outspoken to me on that subject than any other colonial matter, and I imagine it is one of his principal war aims to liberate Indo-China from France. Whenever he has raised it, I have repeatedly reminded him of his pledges about the integrity of the French Empire and have reserved our position. Do you really want to go and stir all this up at such a time as this?
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Ah yes… the slavery integrity of the French empire. The Brits were again biting on their share croppers statement above. However much of this is again set in the period just after D-Day:
On 28 July, due to the changed military situation following D-Day and the destruction of Vichy France, the War Cabinet COS Committee reconsidered the question of a French mission being established with SEAC. As the relationship between the French colonists and Japanese in Indo-China began to deteriorate Churchill agreed to a French military mission as well as the French Corps Leger military unit being established at SEAC.
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However even Churchill saw internal views from Eden who attempted to persuade France to accept the role of attendee at a forthcoming Allied conference at Yalta in mid-February 1945:
Writing to Churchill, Eden reminded him that many of France’s imperial interests complemented those of Britain. Stating ‘we must plan for the future’ Eden pressed that it was necessary to have French co-operation; France was a member of the European Advisory Commission, it was due to administer one of the German occupation zones after the war and was to have one permanent Security Council seat at the UN. However, Churchill was not convinced of the need to include France at Yalta: ‘we shall have the greatest trouble with de Gaulle, who will be forever intriguing and playing two off against the third’. Churchill doubted that France’s rehabilitation was complete and declared that it could not ‘masquerade as a great power for the purpose of the war’.
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Make no mistake the French pushed England to the edge as Churchill, in a personal outburst shared his true opinion of de Gaulle:
‘I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and impossible than having this menacing and hostile man in our midst, always trying to make himself a reputation in France by claiming a position far above what France occupies, and making faces at the allies who are doing the work’
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Did France see the writing on the wall? No actually. Yet it did in the smallest of ways suggest France needed to change. Meanwhile the French Government issued the Brazzaville Declaration to unite the aims of France with the Indo-Chinese Federation as part of a new French Union. It was intended as a progressive statement of direction. The Union would be the basis for French post-war relationships with its Empire; however ‘liberty’ was only permitted within the Union….
Liberty only within the Union? So indicated the limits of French power during a period when their own county was ruled by Germany. And so to prove the old world view of colonialism:
It was important for Britain to defend the interests of all the colonial powers over both trusteeship and voluntary trusteeship lest a precedent be established that would destroy all colonial relationships. However, this represented much more than the future of colonial territories: the stability and security of post-war Western Europe were at stake, also economic regeneration and political harmony would be needed to face the potential threat from Russia.
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When Mountbatten arrived at SEAC he discovered first hand the ‘Anglo-American relations in this theatre were far and away the worst I have ever come across.’ He found Stilwell to be ‘entirely anti-British’:
US personnel within SEAC quipped that it stood really for ‘Save England’s Asian Colonies.’
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And Smith reveals the rather blunt move by England to manipulate the US position with Chiang Kai-Shek:
Mountbatten attempted to end the conflict of personalities both within SEAC and between it and the China Theatre. Mountbatten met Chiang Kai-Shek in Chungking which resulted in a Gentleman’s Agreement concerning Indo-China. The Gentleman’s Agreement permitted Mountbatten to attack Siam and Indo-China and if successful transfer Siam and Indo-China from China Theatre into SEAC….However, Mountbatten’s personal letter to Roosevelt merely informed him of a congenial meeting with Chiang Kai-Shek to remove distrust and barriers between the commands but did not specifically mention the Gentleman’s Agreement….Roosevelt seemed pleased with both SEAC and Mountbatten and expressed confidence in the resolution between the commands, a success that he personally accredited to Mountbatten; but had he, Churchill and Brooke been misled?
The essence of the Gentleman’s Agreement was confirmed in a further verbal agreement between Mountbatten and Chiang Kai-Shek in September 1944. However the questions of the theatre boundaries and the Gentleman’s Agreement would continue to reverberate in parallel with the matter of French participation in the war in the Far East throughout 1944 culminating in the spring of 1945
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Despite the long-standing Gentleman’s Agreement between Mountbatten and Chiang Kai-Shek, the senior British liaison officer to China Theatre, Lt.-General Adrian Carton de Wiart, felt that ‘only a decision from the Combined Chiefs of Staff will alter his [Wedemeyer’s] position’. Despite Chinese reassurances to Britain, Chiang Kai-Shek had imperial ambitions for Tonkin and therefore often ‘told Mountbatten one thing and Wedemeyer the other’. The growing disagreement over clandestine operations in Indo-China was complicated further when two British aircraft were shot down by US night fighters over Northern Indo-China having failed to give the US in Kunming ‘previous warning’ of their operation.
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The next day, amidst the growing crisis both in Indo-China and between Mountbatten and Wedemeyer, Churchill decided to act, although not decisively. He requested a brief from Ismay as to the course of events within Indo-China since the start of the war. Churchill appeared unaware as to whether Indo-China was still a Vichy province, or part of de Gaulle’s France, or if there were French troops located there. Confusion certainly existed as Indo-China was the only French area not to rally to support de Gaulle following the Allied liberation of France, but considering it was co-habitant with the Japanese this was unsurprising. Churchill concluded: ‘I have not followed the affairs in the country for some time.
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Ten days after the Japanese overthrow of the French in Indo-China, Churchill appeared to want to take decisive action to assist French forces in Indo-China but instead of raising the matter with Roosevelt he instructed Wilson to convey to the US COS through Marshall that: ‘The Prime Minister feels that it would look very bad in history if we were to let the French force in Indo-China be cut to pieces by the Japanese through shortage of ammunition, if there is anything we can to do save them. He hopes therefore that we shall be agreed in not standing on punctilio in this emergency’. Eden agreed. A day later Churchill acted, he instructed Ismay that Mountbatten should take ‘emergency action’ to assist the French. By coincidence Marshall informed Wilson that US General Claire Chennault had been ordered to fly ammunition to the French forces. Ironically whilst the policy debate raged between London and Washington, US Major-General Robert McClure in the absence of Wedemeyer, and SOE Force 136 had already separately aided the French in Indo-China before Churchill and Marshall’s intervention, although by 16 March the US Army Air Force had resumed normal bombing missions and would not supply French forces without permission from Washington.
On 22 March the limited French resistance in Indo-China requested further equipment and the resumption of intervention by the US Air Force. General Alessandri expected that his position at Son La would fall within two days. Five days later, having successfully reinforced and held Son La with additional French units fleeing the Japanese, the French requested finances and medical supplies for the besieged forces. The JSM held that ‘it was embarrassing and unfortunate that the Combined Chiefs of Staff should continue to give the French no encouragement’. Britain arranged to send the money and medical supplies requested by the French forces in Indo-China. Chennault protested to Marshall about the lack of co-ordination for operations within Indo-China.
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Churchill would not subject Mountbatten’s operations in Indo-China to Wedemeyer’s approval and bluntly warned Roosevelt that ‘it would look very bad in history if we failed to support isolated French forces … or if we excluded the French from participation in our councils as regards Indo-China’. Churchill had boldly aligned British military and political policy over Indo-China with his post-Yalta policy of defending the colonial possessions of European nations. Unfortunately Roosevelt did not have an opportunity to reply as he died the next day. Roosevelt’s death and the ascension of Vice-President Harry Truman to the presidency marked a watershed in US policy and Indo-China, in particular.
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This opening chapter clearly reveals both Britain and France, two aging colonial empires struggling to maintain imperial control of former territories.
France would forever lose Indochina within four years in a new post World War II age of democracy, freedom from tyranny, and self-rule.