The Last Pitched Battle Fought By A European Colonial Power In Southeast Asia
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 7:19 am
Captured French soldiers from Dien Bien Phu, escorted by Vietnamese troops, walk to a prisoner-of-war camp
Jay Hemmings
Feb 8, 2019
The fierce battle between around 15,000 French troops and 40,000 Viet Minh guerrillas resulted in around 4,800 French troops wounded, along with 1,600 killed and an equal number missing.
After almost two months of intense fighting in the valley of Bien Dien Phu, the Viet Minh army – a force that consisted largely of poorly-trained but determined peasants – crushed the French army in what historian Jean-Pierre Roux described as “the only pitched battle to be lost by a European army in the history of decolonization.”
The French colonial administration, initially confident in their ability to quash what was seen as little more than a peasant uprising, soon realized that the fight was going to be a lot harder and bloodier than they had imagined. Regardless of how many Viet Minh troops they killed, their determined opponents simply refused to give up.
Seeing his chance to encircle and crush the French and achieve a decisive victory, General Giap moved as much artillery as he could muster into the surrounding hills. He also set up masses of anti-aircraft guns on the hills, knowing that if he could prevent French helicopters and supply planes from getting close, he could effectively cut off French supplies. Over the next few months, he succeeded in doing this.
After initially trying to hold off the seemingly unstoppable waves of Viet Minh infantry with machine guns, as more French troops fell and the Viet Minh advanced, the final stages of the fight became brutal hand-to-hand combat in the trenches and the ruins of the fortification.
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