CIA Archives: Southeast Asia (1954)

The dark side of history: https://thememoryhole.substack.com/

Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina or the Indochinese Peninsula, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It includes the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Peninsular Malaysia.

The term Indochina (originally Indo-China) was coined in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing the historical cultural influence of Indian and Chinese civilizations on the area. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today's Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). Today, the term Mainland Southeast Asia, in contrast to Maritime Southeast Asia, is more commonly referenced.
Terminology
1886 map of Indochina, from the Scottish Geographical Magazine

The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as indo-chinois in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term Indo-Chinese to describe the area's inhabitants and their languages in 1808.[1] Scholarly opinions at the time regarding China's and India's historical influence over the area were conflicting, and the term was itself controversial—Malte-Brun himself later argued against its use in a later edition of his Universal Geography, reasoning that it overemphasized Chinese influence, and suggested Chin-India instead.[2] Nevertheless, Indo-China had already gained traction and soon supplanted alternative terms such as Further India and the Peninsula beyond the Ganges. Later, however, as the French established the colony of French Indochina (covering present-day Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), use of the term became more restricted to the French colony,[3] and today the area is usually referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia.[4]
Biogeography

In biogeography, the Indochinese bioregion is a major region in the Indomalayan realm, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Oriental Paleotropical Kingdom. It includes the native flora and fauna of all the countries above. The adjacent Malesian Region covers the Maritime Southeast Asian countries, and straddles the Indomalayan and Australasian realms.[5]
Geography
Mekong River

The Indochinese Peninsula projects southward from the Asian continent proper. It contains several mountain ranges extending from the Tibetan Plateau in the north, interspersed with lowlands largely drained by three major river systems running in a north–south direction: the Irrawaddy (serving Myanmar), the Chao Phraya (in Thailand), and the Mekong (flowing through Northeastern Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). To the south it forms the Malay Peninsula, located on which are Southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia; the latter is variably considered part of Mainland Southeast Asia or separately as part of Maritime Southeast Asia.[citation needed]
Culture
Ethnolinguistic groups of mainland Southeast Asia

Mainland Southeast Asia contrasts with Maritime Southeast Asia, mainly through the division of largely land-based lifestyles in Indochina and the sea-based lifestyles of the Indonesian archipelago and Philippine archipelago, as well as the dividing line between the Austroasiatic, Tai–Kadai, and Sino-Tibetan languages (spoken in Mainland Southeast Asia) and the Austronesian languages (spoken in Maritime Southeast Asia). The languages of the mainland form the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area: although belonging to several independent language families, they have converged over the course of history and share a number of typological similarities.[citation needed]

The countries of mainland Southeast Asia received cultural influence from both India and China to varying degrees.[6] Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand are all influenced by Indian culture, only Vietnam is influenced by Chinese culture but still has minor influences from India, largely via the Champa civilization that Vietnam conquered during its southward expansion.[citation needed]

Overall, Mainland Southeast Asia is predominantly Buddhist[7][8][9][10][11][12] with minority Muslim and Hindu populations.[13][14]
See also

iconAsia portaliconGeography portal

Southeast Asia
Maritime Southeast Asia

Related regional concepts

Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area
Southeast Asian Massif
Zomia

Sub-regions

Golden Chersonese
Golden Triangle
Greater Mekong Subregion

References

Vimalin Rujivacharakul; et al., eds. (2013). Architecturalized Asia : mapping a continent through history. Hong Kong University Press. p. 89. ISBN 9789888208050.
Malte-Brun, Conrad (1827). Universal Geography, Or, A Description of All the Parts of the World, on a New Plan, According to the Great Natural Divisions of the Globe: Improved by the Addition of the Most Recent Information, Derived from Various Sources : Accompanied with Analytical, Synoptical, and Elementary Tables, Volume 2. A. Finley. pp. 262–3.
Wesseling, H. L. (2015). The European Colonial Empires: 1815–1919. Routledge. ISBN 9781317895060.
Keyes, Charles F. (1995). The golden peninsula : culture and adaptation in mainland Southeast Asia (Pbk. reprint ed.). University of Hawaii Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780824816964.
"Biogeographic region – Fauna". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
Marion Severynse, ed. (1997). The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary Of Geography. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-86448-8.
"Malaysia". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 28 September 2016. Archived from the original on 15 October 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
"Thailand". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 28 September 2016. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
"Myanmar". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 28 September 2016. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
"Cambodia". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 28 September 2016. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
"Vietnam". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 28 September 2016. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
2008 Report on International Religious Freedom (Report). U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. September 2008. Archived from the original on 6 July 2019. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
SIDDIQUE, SHARON (1981). "Some Aspects of Malay-Muslim Ethnicity in Peninsular Malaysia". Contemporary Southeast Asia. 3 (1): 76–87. doi:10.1355/CS3-1E. ISSN 0129-797X. JSTOR 25797648. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 27 July 2021.

"The Minority Muslim Experience in Mainland Southeast Asia: A Different Path". Routledge & CRC Press. Archived from the original on 27 April 2023. Retrieved 27 July 2021.

Further reading

Bernard Philippe Groslier (1962). The art of Indochina: including Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Crown Publishers.
History of the mountain people of southern Indochina up to 1945 (Bernard Bourotte, i.e. Jacques Méry), U.S. Agency for International Development, 195? (PDF)

French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),[a][b] officially known as the Indochinese Union[c][d] and after 1947 as the Indochinese Federation,[e] was a grouping of French colonial territories in Southeast Asia until its demise in 1954. It comprised Cambodia, Laos (from 1899), the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan (from 1898 until 1945), and the Vietnamese regions of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the centre, and Cochinchina in the south. The capital for most of its history (1902–1945) was Hanoi; Saigon was the capital from 1887 to 1902 and again from 1945 to 1954.

The Second French Empire annexed Cochinchina in 1862 and established a protectorate in Cambodia in 1863. After the French Third Republic took over northern Vietnam through the Tonkin campaign, the various protectorates were consolidated into one union in 1887. Two more entities were incorporated into the union: the Laotian protectorate and the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan. The French exploited the resources in the region during their rule, but also contributed to improvements of the health and education system in the region. Nevertheless, deep divides remained between the native population and the colonists, leading to sporadic rebellions by the former. After the Fall of France during World War II, the colony was administered by the Vichy government and was under Japanese occupation until March 1945, when the Japanese overthrew the colonial regime. After the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh, a communist organization led by Hồ Chí Minh, declared Vietnamese independence, but France subsequently took back control of French Indochina with the help of the British. An all-out independence war, known as the First Indochina War, broke out in late 1946 between French and Viet Minh forces.

To counter the Viet Minh, the State of Vietnam, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, was proclaimed by the French in 1949. French efforts to retake Vietnam were unsuccessful, culminating in defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. On 22 October and 9 November 1953, the Kingdom of Laos and Kingdom of Cambodia proclaimed their respective independences. Following the Geneva Accord of 1954, the French were forced to withdraw from Vietnam, which had been split into the two countries (until 1976), and French Indochina was no more.
History
Background
First French interventions
Main articles: France–Vietnam relations, French assistance to Nguyễn Ánh, and French conquest of Vietnam

French–Vietnamese relations started during the early 17th century with the arrival of the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes. Around this time, Vietnam had only just begun its "Push to the South"—"Nam Tiến", the occupation of the Mekong Delta, a territory being part of the Khmer Empire and to a lesser extent, the kingdom of Champa which they had defeated in 1471.[3]

European involvement in Vietnam was confined to trade during the 18th century, as the remarkably successful work of the Jesuit missionaries continued. In 1787, Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, a French Catholic priest, petitioned the French government and organised French military volunteers to aid Nguyễn Ánh in retaking lands his family lost to the Tây Sơn. Pigneau died in Vietnam but his troops fought on until 1802 in the French assistance to Nguyễn Ánh.
19th century
French conquest of Cochinchina
Main article: Cochinchina Campaign
See also: French Cochinchina and French protectorate of Cambodia
Expansion of French Indochina (violet)

The French colonial empire was heavily involved in Vietnam in the 19th century; often French intervention was undertaken in order to protect the work of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in the country. For its part, the Nguyễn dynasty increasingly saw Catholic missionaries as a political threat; courtesans, for example, an influential faction in the dynastic system, feared for their status in a society influenced by an insistence on monogamy.[4]

In 1858, the brief period of unification under the Nguyễn dynasty ended with a successful attack on Tourane (present day Da Nang) by French Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly under the orders of Napoleon III. Prior to the attack French diplomat Charles de Montigny's efforts to reach a peaceable solution had failed. Seeing no other recourse, France sent Genouilly forward in a military effort to end Vietnam's persecution and expulsion of Catholic missionaries.[5]

Fourteen French gunships, 3,300 men including 300 Filipino soldiers provided by the Spanish[6] attacked the port of Tourane causing significant damage and occupying the city. After fighting the Vietnamese for three months and finding himself unable to progress further in land, de Genouilly sought and received approval of an alternative attack on Saigon.[5][7]

Sailing to southern Vietnam, de Genouilly captured the poorly defended city of Saigon on 17 February 1859. Once again, however, de Genouilly and his forces were unable to seize territory outside of the defensive perimeter of the city. De Genouilly was criticised for his actions and was replaced by Admiral Page in November 1859 with instructions to obtain a treaty protecting the Catholic faith in Vietnam while refraining from making territorial gains.[5][7]

Peace negotiations proved unsuccessful and the fighting in Saigon continued. Ultimately in 1861, the French brought additional forces to bear in the Saigon campaign, advanced out of the city and began to capture cities in the Mekong Delta. On 5 June 1862, the Vietnamese conceded and signed the Treaty of Saigon whereby they agreed to legalize the free practice of the Catholic religion; to open trade in the Mekong Delta and at three ports at the mouth of the Red River in northern Vietnam; to cede the provinces of Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường along with the islands of Poulo Condore to France; and to pay reparations equivalent to one million dollars.[8][9][10]

In 1864 the aforementioned three provinces ceded to France were formally constituted as the French colony of Cochinchina. Then in 1867, French Admiral Pierre de la Grandière forced the Vietnamese to surrender three additional provinces, Châu Đốc, Hà Tiên and Vĩnh Long. With these three additions all of southern Vietnam and the Mekong Delta fell under French control.[9]
Establishment and early administration
Main article: Tonkin campaign
See also: Annam (French protectorate), Tonkin (French protectorate), French protectorate of Laos, and Guangzhouwan

In 1863, the Cambodian king Norodom had requested the establishment of a French protectorate over his country. In 1867, Siam (modern Thailand) renounced suzerainty over Cambodia and officially recognised the 1863 French protectorate on Cambodia, in exchange for the control of Battambang and Siem Reap provinces which officially became part of Thailand. (These provinces would be ceded back to Cambodia by a border treaty between France and Siam in 1906).[citation needed]
Siamese Army troops in the disputed territory of Laos in 1893
The Presidential Palace, in Hanoi, built between 1900 and 1906 to house the governor-general of Indochina

France obtained control over northern Vietnam following its victory over China in the Sino-French War (1884–85). French Indochina was formed on 17 October 1887 from Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina (which together form modern Vietnam) and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War in 1893.[citation needed]

The federation lasted until 21 July 1954. In the four protectorates, the French formally left the local rulers in power, who were the emperors of Vietnam, kings of Cambodia, and kings of Luang Prabang, but in fact gathered all powers in their hands, the local rulers acting only as figureheads.[citation needed]

Japanese women called Karayuki-san migrated or were trafficked to cities like Hanoi, Haiphong and Saigon in colonial French Indochina in the late 19th century to work as prostitutes and provide sexual services to French soldiers who were occupying Vietnam. Since the French viewed Japanese women as clean, they were highly popular.[11][12] Images of the Japanese prostitutes in Vietnam were put on French postcards by French photographers.[13][14][15][16][17] The Japanese government tried to hide the existences of these Japanese prostitutes who went abroad and did not mention them in books on history.[18][19]

Beginning in the 1880s there was a rise of an explicitly anti-Catholic French administration in French Indochina.[20] The administration would try to reduce Catholic missionary influence in French Indochinese society, as opposed to the earlier decades where missionaries played an important role in both administration and society in French Cochinchina.[20]

From 1 January 1898, the French directly took over the right to collect all taxes in the protectorate of Annam and to allocate salaries to the Emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty and its mandarins.[21] In a notice dated 24 August 1898, the Resident-Superior of Annam wrote: "From now on, in the Kingdom of Annam there are no longer two governments, but only one" (meaning that the French government completely took over the administration).[21]
Early Vietnamese rebellions
Further information: Cần Vương movement

While the French were trying to establish control over Cambodia, a large scale Vietnamese insurgency – the Cần Vương movement – started to take shape, aiming to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam.[22] Between 1885 and 1889, insurgents, led by Phan Đình Phùng, Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Bội Châu, Trần Quý Cáp and Huỳnh Thúc Kháng, targeted Vietnamese Christians as there were very few French soldiers to overcome, which led to a massacre of around 40,000 Christians.[23] The rebellion was eventually brought down by a French military intervention, in addition to its lack of unity in the movement.[24][25][26]

Nationalist sentiments intensified in Vietnam, especially during and after World War I, but all the uprisings and tentative efforts failed to obtain sufficient concessions from the French.
Franco-Siamese War (1893)
Main article: Franco-Siamese War

Territorial conflict in the Indochinese peninsula for the expansion of French Indochina led to the Franco-Siamese War of 1893. In 1893 the French authorities in Indochina used border disputes, followed by the Paknam naval incident, to provoke a crisis. French gunboats appeared at Bangkok, and demanded the cession of Lao territories east of the Mekong River.[citation needed]

King Chulalongkorn appealed to the British, but the British minister told the king to settle on whatever terms he could get, and he had no choice but to comply. Britain's only gesture was an agreement with France guaranteeing the integrity of the rest of Siam. In exchange, Siam had to give up its claim to the Thai-speaking Shan region of north-eastern Burma to the British, and cede Laos to France[citation needed].
20th century
Further encroachments on Siam (1904–1907)
Occupation of Trat by French troops in 1904.

The French continued to pressure Siam, and in 1902 they manufactured another crisis.[clarification needed] This time Siam had to concede French control of territory on the west bank of the Mekong opposite Luang Prabang and around Champasak in southern Laos, as well as western Cambodia. France also occupied the western part of Chantaburi.

In 1904, to get back Chantaburi, Siam had to give Trat and Koh Kong to French Indochina. Trat became part of Thailand again on 23 March 1907 in exchange for many areas east of the Mekong like Battambang, Siam Nakhon and Sisophon.

In the 1930s, Siam engaged France in a series of talks concerning the repatriation of Siamese provinces held by the French. In 1938, under the Front Populaire administration in Paris, France had agreed to repatriate Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Siem Reap, Siem Pang, and the associated provinces (approximately 13) to Siam.[citation needed] Meanwhile, Siam took over control of those areas, in anticipation of the upcoming treaty. Signatories from each country were dispatched to Tokyo to sign the treaty repatriating the lost provinces.[non sequitur]
Anti-French revolts in the early 20th century

Although during the early 20th century calm was supposed to reign as the French had "pacified" the region, constant uprisings contesting French rule characterised French Indochina this period.[27] "There is ample evidence of the rural populations' involvement in revolts against authority during the first 50 years of the French colonial presence in Cambodia."[28] The French Sûreté was worried about the Japanese victory during the Russo-Japanese War and its lasting impression on the East as it was considered to be the first victory of "a yellow people over the white", as well as the fall of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty to the Xinhai Revolution which established the Republic of China.[27] These events all had significant influence on nationalist sentiments in the territories of French Indochina.[27]

The early 20th century saw a number of secret societies launch rebellions in Cochinchina, the Peace and Duty Society (Nghia Hoa Doan Hoi) was introduced to the region by the Minh Hương refugees following the Manchu conquest of China and the Vietnamese Heaven and Earth Society (天地會, Thiên Địa Hội).[29] The Peace and Duty Society was also active supporting anti-Qing insurgents in China.[29]

The majority of the traditional mandarin elites would continue to operate under the French protectorate being loyal to their new rulers, but as early period of the Pháp thuộc saw an influx of French enterprises significant changes to the social order of the day inspired new forms of resistance against French rule that differed from the earlier Cần Vương Movement.[29] The new social circumstances in French Indochina were brought about by the establishment of industrial companies by the French such as the Union commerciale indochinoise, the Est Asiatique français shipping company, the Chemin de fer français de l'Indochine et du Yunan railway company, as well as the various coal exploitation companies operating in Tonkin, these modern companies were accompanied by an influx of French tea, coffee, and rubber plantation magnates.[29]

Following the defeat of the Nguyễn loyalist Cần Vương Movement a new generation of anti-French resistance emerged, rather than being rooted in the traditional mandarin elites the new anti-French resistance leaders of the early 20th century were more influenced by international events and revolutions abroad to inspire their resistance and the issue of modernisation.[27] Some Vietnamese revolutionaries like Phan Châu Trinh traveled to the Western World (Đi Tây) to obtain the "keys" to modernity and hope to bring these back to Vietnam.[27] While others like the revolutionary leader Phan Bội Châu made the "Journey to the East" (Đông Du) to the Japanese Empire which they saw as the other role-model of modernisation for Vietnam to follow.[27] The Đông Du school of revoluties was supported by Prince Cường Để, a direct descendant of the Gia Long Emperor.[27] Prince Cường Để hoped that by financing hundreds of young ambitious Vietnamese people to go get educated in Japan that this would contribute to the liberation of his country from French domination.[27]

The Duy Tân Hội was founded in 1904 by Phan Bội Châu and Prince Cường Để.[30][31][29] The group in a broader sense was also considered a Modernisation Movement.[32][33][34] This new group of people consisted only of a few hundred people, with most of its members being either students or nationalists.[29] Notable members of the society included Gilbert Trần Chánh Chiêu.[35] The members of the Duy Tân Hội would establish a network of commercial enterprises to both gain capital to finance their activities and to hide their true intentions.[29] A number of other anti-French organisations would support the Duy Tân Hội such as the Peace and Duty Society and the Heaven and Earth Society.[29]

The Tonkin Free School (Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục), which was created in Hanoi in 1907 by the supporters of both Phan Châu Trinh and Phan Bội Châu was closed in the year of its founding by the French authorities because it was perceived as being anti-French.[27] The Tonkin Free School stemmed from the movement of the same name, which aimed to modernise Vietnamese society by abandoning Confucianism and adopting new ideas from both the Western world and Japan. In particular, it promoted the Vietnamese version of the Latin script for writing Vietnamese in place of classical Chinese by publishing educational materials and newspapers using this script, as a new vehicle of instruction. The schools offered free courses to anyone who wanted to learn about the modern spirit. The teachers at the school at 59 Hàng Đàn included Phạm Duy Tốn.[36]

in the years prior to World War I the French arrested thousands of people with some being sentenced to death and others being imprisoned at the Poulo Condore jail island (Côn Sơn Island).[27] Because of this Côn Sơn Island would become the best school for political prisoners, nationalists, and communists, as they were gathered together in large, common cells which allowed them to exchange their ideas.[27]

In March 1908, mass demonstrations took place against the authorities demanding a reduction of the high taxes took place in the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin.[27]
The heads of Duong Be, Tu Binh and Doi Nhan decapitated by the French on July 8, 1908 in the Hanoi Poison Plot

In June 1908, the Hanoi Poison Plot took place where a group of Tonkinese indigenous tirailleurs attempted to poison the entire French colonial army's garrison in the Citadel of Hanoi.[27] The aim of the plot was to neutralise the French garrison and make way for Commander Đề Thám's rebel army to capture the city of Hanoi. The plot was disclosed, and then was suppressed by the French.[37][27] In response the French proclaimed martial law. The French accused Phan Châu Trinh and Phan Bội Châu of the plot, Phan Châu Trinh was sent to Poulo Condor, and Phan Bội Châu fled to Japan and thence, in the year 1910, he went to China.[38][39][27] In the years 1912 and 1913 Vietnamese nationalists organised attacks in Tonkin and Cochinchina.[27]

Using diplomatic pressure the French persuaded the Japanese to banish the Duy Tân Hội in 1909 from its shores causing them to seek refuge in Qing China, here they would join the ranks of Sun Yat-Sen's Tongmenghui.[29] While places like Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan were earlier in the French sphere of influence in China, these places would now become hosts of anti-French revolutionary activities due to their borders with Tonkin and Laos, being the primary places of operation for both Chinese and Vietnamese revolutionaries.[29] This allowed for members of the Duy Tân Hội to perform border raids on both Tonkin and Laos from their bases in China.[29]

In March 1913 the mystic millenarist cult leader Phan Xích Long organised an independence demonstration in Cholon which was attended by 600 peasants dressed in white robes.[40] Phan Xích Long claimed descent of the deposed Hàm Nghi Emperor and the Ming dynasty's emperor and declared himself to be the "Emperor of the Ming dynasty".[29]

The year 1913 also saw the Duy Tân Hội's second insurrection campaign, this campaign resulted in the society's members murdering two French Hanoi police officers, attacks on both militia and the military, and the execution of a number of Nguyễn dynasty mandarins that were accused of working together with the French government.[29] Another revolt also broke out in Cochinchina in 1913 where prisons and administrative hubs were attacked by crowds of hundreds of peasants using sticks and swords to fight the French, as the French were armed with firearms a large number of protesters ended up dying by gunshot wounds causing the protests to break up ending the revolt.[29]

During the early 20th century the French protectorate over Cambodia was challenged by rebels, just before it saw three separate revolts during the early reign of King Norodom, who had little authority outside Phnom Penh.[27]

During the early 20th century Laos was considered to be the most "docile" territory as it saw relatively little uprisings.[27] The French attributed this to them being more stable rulers than the Siamese who had ruled over them for a century before the establishment of the French protectorate over their country.[27] Both the traditional elite and the Laotian peasantry seemed largely content with French rule during this period.[27] Despite this, sporadic revolts occurred in Laos during the late 19th century and early 20th century. During the late 19th century Southern Laos saw upland minority communities rising up in revolt, these were led by Bac My and Ong Ma on the Bolaven Plateau, who demanded the restoration of the "old order" and led an armed insurrection against the French until as late as 1936.[41][27] The Phu Mi Bun Revolt revolt erupted in 1901 and was not suppressed until 1907. It was a "major rebellion by local Lao Theung tribes (the Alak, Nyaheun, and Laven) against French domination".[42][43] Though there is not extensive literature on these particular revolutionary revolts in the Bolaven Plateau, one can see that the native communities desired to rid the region of the extensive and overpowering influence of their colonisers.[44]
Introducing French education

On 16 May 1906 the governor-general of French Indochina Jean Baptiste Paul Beau issued a decree establishing the Councils for the Improvement of Indigenous Education.[45][46] These organisations would oversee the French policies surrounding the education of the indigenous population of French Indochina to "study educational issues related to each place separately".[45]

According to researcher Nguyễn Đắc Xuân, in 1907, the imperial court of the Nguyễn dynasty sent Cao Xuân Dục and Huỳnh Côn, the Thượng thư of the Hộ Bộ, to French Cochinchina to "hold a conference on education" (bàn nghị học chính) with the French authorities on the future of the Annamese education system.[47] This meeting was also recorded in the work Hoàng Việt Giáp Tý niên biểu written by Nguyễn Bá Trác.[46] The creation of a ministry of education was orchestrated by the French to reform the Nguyễn dynasty's educational system to match French ambitions in the region more.[46] As explained by the Resident-Superior of Annam Ernest Fernand Lévecque "Its creation is to better suit the times as more opportunities to study" opened up in the South to which this new ministry was best suited to help this transition.[46]

While the Nguyễn dynasty's Ministry of Education was nominally a part of the Nguyễn dynasty's administrative apparatus, actual control was in the hands of the French Council for the Improvement of Indigenous Education in Annam, which dictated its policies.[45] All work done by the ministry was according to the plans and the command of the French Director of Education of Annam.[46] The French administration in Annam continuously revised the curriculum to be taught in order to fit the French system.[46]
World War I
Main article: History of Vietnam during World War I
A report by the Viện cơ mật on the financial and military aid given by the Nguyễn dynasty to Great France in the year Khải Định 2 (1917). Note how the document ends with the phrases Đại Pháp vạn tuế, Đông Dương vạn tuế (大法萬歲, 東洋萬歲).

The French entry into World War I saw thousands of volunteers, primarily from the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, enlist for service in Europe, around 7⁄8 of all French Indochinese serving in Europe were Annamese and Tonkinese volunteers.[48][49] This period also saw a number of uprisings in Tonkin and Cochinchina.[50] French Indochina contributed significantly to the French war effort in terms of funds, products and human resources.[27]

Prior to World War I the population of French Indochina stood at around 16,395,000 in 1913 with 14,165,000 being Vietnamese (Tonkinese, Annamese and Cochinchinese), 1,600,000 Cambodians, and 630,000 Laotians.[51][27] These 16.4 million subjects were ruled over by only around 18,000 French civilians, militaries, and civil servants.[27]

During this period governor-general of French Indochina Albert Sarraut promised a new policy of association and a "Franco-Annamese Collaboration" (French: Collaboration franco-annamite; Vietnamese: Pháp-Việt Đề huề) for the wartime contribution by the French Indochinese to their colonial masters.[27] However, beside some liberal reforms, the French administration actually increased economic exploitation and ruthless repression of nationalist movements which rapidly resulted in a disappointment of the promises made by Sarraut.[27]

During the early days of the war around 6 million Frenchmen were drafted causing a severe labour shortage in France.[52] In response, the Undersecretary of State for Artillery and Munitions proposed to hire women, European immigrants, and French colonial subjects, these people were later followed with Chinese immigrants.[52] From 1915 onwards, the French war effort's manpower needs started to rise significantly.[29] Initially the French maintained a racial hierarchy where they believed in "martial races" making the early recruitment fall onus primarily on North Africa and French West Africa, but soon the need for additional manpower forced the French to recruit men from the Far East and Madagascar.[29] Almost 100,000 Vietnamese were conscripts and went to Europe to fight and serve on the French battlefront, or work as labourers.[53][54] Vietnamese troops also served in the Balkans[55] and the Middle Eastern front. This exceptional human mobility offered the French Indochinese, mostly Vietnamese, the unique opportunity of directly access to social life and political debates that were occurring in contemporary France and this resulted in their aspirations to become "masters of their own destiny" to increase.[27] Exposed to new political ideals and returning to a colonial occupation of their own country (by a ruler that many of them had fought and died for), resulted in some sour attitudes.[27] Many of these troops sought out and joined the Vietnamese nationalist movement focused on overthrowing the French.[56]

In 1925, communist and anti-French activist Nguyễn Ái Quốc (later known as Hồ Chí Minh) wrote "taken in chains, confined in a school compound... Most of them will never again see the sun of their country" and a number of historians like Joseph Buttinger and Martin Murray, treated his statement by Nguyễn Ái Quốc as an article of faith and believed that the Vietnamese men who participated in World War I were "forcibly recruited" by means of "terrorism", later historians would claim that the recruitment enterprise employed during this period was only "ostensibly voluntary".[48] While there is some truth to these claims, the vast majority of the men who volunteered for service in Europe were indeed volunteers.[48] Among the motivations of volunteering were both personal and economic ambitions, some French Indochinese volunteers wished to see what the world looked like "beyond the bamboo hedges in their villages" while others preferred the money and the opportunity to see what France actually looks like.[48] Their service would expose them to the brutality of modern warfare and many would change their perception about many social norms and beliefs at home because of their experiences abroad.[48]

Of the 93,000 French Indochinese soldiers and workers who came to Europe, most were from the poorest parts of Annam and Tonkin, which had been badly hit by famine and cholera, a smaller number (1,150) of French Indochinese soldiers and workers came from Cambodia.[27] In Northeast France around 44,000 Vietnamese troops served in direct combat functions at both the Battle of the Vosges and the Battle of Verdun.[57][27] French Indochinese battalions were also used in various logistics functions such as serving as drivers to transport soldiers to the front lines, stretcher bearers (brancardiers), or road crews.[27] Vietnamese soldiers were also used to "sanitise" battle fields at the end of the war, where they would perform these duties in the middle of the cold European winters without being provided with warm clothes, in order to let the (White) French soldiers return to their homes earlier.[27]

The financial expenses of the 93,000 French Indochinese labourers and soldiers sent to France during the war – salaries, pensions, family allocations, the levy in kind (mostly rice), and even the functioning of the Indochinese hospital – were entirely financed from the budget of French Indochina itself and not from France.[27]

One of the effects of World War I on French Indochinese society was the introduction of a vibrant political press both in French and in the indigenous languages that led to the political radicalisation of a new generation of nationalists.[27] Because most of the indigenous people that served in France and the rest of Europe during the War were Vietnamese these social and political developments affected the Vietnamese more.[27] Because French Cochinchina was a direct French colony it enjoyed favourable legislation concerning the press which fostered a public sphere of oppositional political activism.[58][27] Although these developments occurred throughout French Indochina they were more strongly felt in Cochinchina due to its more open society.[27]

The French Indochinese in Europe experienced much more egalitarian social relations which were strongly contrasted with the racial hierarchy they experienced at home.[27] In France the French Indochinese serving often engaged in comradery with the French and many had romantic relationships with French women, the latter being unthinkable in their home countries.[59]

During this period, the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin were initially ruled by the Duy Tân Emperor.[27] However, in 1916, the Duy Tân Emperor was accused by the French of calling for his subjects to resist French rule and after his deposition he and his father were exiled to the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean.[27] Thereafter, the Khải Định Emperor became the new monarch of Annam and Tonkin and he closely collaborated with the French administration.[27] At the same time Cambodia was ruled by King Sisowath who was crowned in 1904 and cooperated closely with the French administration in his territory.[27] King Sisowath attended the colonial exhibition in Marseilles in 1906 and was the King af the time of the retrocession of the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap to Cambodia by the Siamese in April 1907.[27] During the reign of King Sisowath there was "an inexorable increase in French control" and the French residents gained executive authority to issue royal decrees, appoint officials, and collect taxes.[60][27] The French protectorate of Laos at the time was ruled by King Sisavang Vong, who was crowned king in 1904.[27] King Sisavang Vong was trained at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat in Saigon and at the Colonial School in Paris.[27] In 1914, the French built a new palace in Luang Prabang for him, and a new agreement with the French administration signed in 1917 allowed him only formal signs of royal power with actual power over Laos being in the hands of the French.[27]

The Great War presented a number of opportunities for the indigenous French Indochinese people serving in the West that didn't exist before, notably for some individuals to obtain levels of education that were simply unattainable at home by acquiring more advanced technical and professional skills.[61] For example Dr. Nguyễn Xuân Mai, who in 1910 became one of the first indigenous auxiliaries to graduate the Hanoi medical school, hoped to gain his PhD in France so he enlisted to fight in the war.[61] In 1921 he would acquire his doctorate and he became one of the first Vietnamese doctors to enjoy the same rights as his French colleagues.[61]

While World War I saw a number of new economic sectors develop in French Indochina, namely rubber plantations, mines, and other forms of agriculture, these were all French owned and the local trade to the great export-import houses was in the hands of the Overseas Chinese communities.[62][27] Only a handful of Vietnamese landlords, moneylenders, and middlemen benefitted from the new economic opportunities that arose during this period as the colonial economy of exportation was designed to enrich the French at the expense of the indigenous population.[27] During this same period the average livelihood of the indigenous peasantry was drastically decreased due to both direct taxation and indirect taxes the French used to finance ambitious public works programmes constructed using the corvée system.[27]

Prior to the year 1914, the mise en valeur (development and improvement) of French Indochina was primarily financed by European French public loans, French private capital, and higher taxes on the local populations.[27] But during the war French Indochina became completely responsible both for financing itself and the people they sent to Europe to fight in the war as investment funds from Metropolitan France completely stopped.[27] This meant that taxation increased, more rice was being exported, and the locals purchased war bonds.[27] French Indochina provided a Metropolitan France with large financial aid; between the years 1915 and 1920 of the 600,000,000 francs that France received from its colonial empire 367,000,000 francs were sent by French Indochina.[27] Though historian Patrice Morlat places the initial financial contribution of French Indochina at 381,000,000 gold francs (valued at 997,000,000 euros in 2017), roughly 60% of all financial contributions Metropolitan France received from its colonial empire (excluding Algeria).[29] Morlat further noted that French Indochina supplied 340,000 tonnes of raw materials to France during the course of the war, which amounted to 34% of all raw supplies that Metropolitan France received from its colonies.[29] The shipping of these materials was threatened by the presence of German submarines.[29]

World War I also saw the colonial government of Cochinchina authorising the creation of Vietnamese-language newspapers in 1916, this was done to secure popular support for the war effort, the colonial authorities hoped that this would create a loyal indigenous group of politically active people.[27] The Cochinchinese colonial government offered financial support to these loyalist newspapers, but kept close control on the contents written in them to ensure a prevailing pro-French narrative.[27] The editors of these newspapers were often retours de France (people back from France) and were kept under close surveillance as they often had connections to anti-French dissidents and activists. Among these newspapers was La Tribune indigène (The Indigenous Forum) launched in 1917 by the agronomist Bùi Quang Chiêu working together with the lawyer Dương Văn Giáo and journalist Nguyễn Phan Long.[27] Afterwards they created La Tribune indochinoise (The Indochinese Forum) and in 1919 these three men would found the Indochinese Constitutionalist Party in Saigon.[27] Because of these activities the French Surêté regarded their nationalism as dangerous.[27]

The French invoked a supposed "German connection" between the Vietnamese revolutionaries and the German Empire, alleging that Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Beijing were the sight of German agents hoping to help the Vietnamese revolutionaries as they shared the same goal, namely to defeat the French.[29]

World War I also saw a number of rebellions throughout French Indochina, in 1914 3 major uprisings happened throughout Vietnam, followed by a number of revolts in Cochinchina.[27] From 1914 to 1917 members of the Tai Lue people led by Prince Phra Ong Kham (Chao Fa) of Muang Sing organised a long anti-French campaign, Hmong independence movements in Laos also challenged French rule in the country.[27] 1914 also saw bands of Yunnanese revolutionaries invade French Indochina, who crossed the border and started attacking French military posts parading Chinese Republican flags, these rebels were later joined by various Laotian ethnic minorities (Lao, Kha and Black Tai).[63] The joint Yunnanese and Laotian ethnic minority rebels spread misinformation claiming that "Paris has been crushed by the German Army" to make the French seem weaker.[63] The motivations of this revolt are disputed as contemporary French colonial officials attributed it to Chinese opium smugglers, while the Canadian historian Geoffrey C. Gunn thinks that it was a political revolt.[63] In February 1916 in Cochinchina supporters of Phan Xích Long marched on the Saigonese penitentiary where he was held demanding his release, this coincided with other uprisings in the Mekong Delta.[27] The mandarin Trần Cao Văn engaged with he Duy Tân Emperor to try and stage a large rebellion in Annam in 1916, but their conspiracy was discovered and foiled by the French.[27] In 1916 the Kingdom of Cambodia saw a 3 month uprising organised by between 30,000 and 100,000 peasants against both the mandatory corvée and the increased taxes, Australian historian Milton Osborne refers to this uprising as "The 1916 Affair", the circumstances leading up to this large revolt were directly caused by the war.[27] 30 August 1917 saw the beginning of the Thái Nguyên uprising, which lasted until 1918.[64]

The large amount of uprisings and rebellions that occurred during the war would inspire the creation of a political security apparatus that was used to find and arrest political dissidents in the post-war period.[27]
Relations with Japan during World War I
See also: France–Japan relations, Japan–Vietnam relations, Cambodia–Japan relations, and Japan–Laos relations

On 27 August 1914, Japan officially entered the war on the side of the allies (also known as the Entente Powers), Japan invaded and took the German colony of Tsingtao and the rest of the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory.[27] In November 1914 Japan supplanted the German sphere of influence in southern China with its own political and economic influence, putting it in direct competition with French Indochina.[27] Even though the Japanese openly supported a number of anti-French secessionist movements, such as Prince Cường Để's Duy Tân Hội, the French situation in Europe was bad enough for prime minister Georges Clemenceau to ask the Japanese for their help.[27]

The war situation in Europe was so bad that in 1914, the French considered exchanging French Indochina with Japan for both financial and military support, but this idea was quickly abandoned.[27]

Clemenceau asked the Empire of Japan to aid them with the transportation of the travailleurs et tirailleurs indochinois to Europe and by sending its own forces to help fight in Europe.[27] Clemenceau also wanted Japanese help intervene in Siberia to fight the Bolshevik forces during the Russian civil war to prevent the loss of the many French-Russian loans, which were important for the French post-war economy.[27]

In 1918, the idea of selling French Indochina to Japan was raised again and, like the first time that it was proposed, it was abandoned again.[27]

Both during and after the war the economic relations between France and Japan strengthened as Japan became a creditor of France following the latter's financial difficulties which came as a result of the war.[65][27]
Expansion of the security apparatus
A 1920 report by the Sûreté générale indochinoise on Nguyễn Tất Thành (阮必誠), who would later be known as Hồ Chí Minh (胡志明).

As Sarraut was determined to secure French rule over the country he created a strong political surveillance apparatus that functioned throughout French Indochina.[27] He centralised all local police forces and developed an intelligence service, these policies would lead to the creation of the Sûreté générale indochinoise, which sought to monitor and police anti-French activities both inside and outside of French Indochina.[66][27]

French security was expanded because of fears of German involvement with their enemies in the Far East, Gaston Ernest Liébert, the French consul in Hong Kong and a major player for the intelligence services coordinated by the political affairs bureau of French Indochina, noted that Vietnamese revolutionaries and Germany both shared the same interest (the defeat of the French).[29][67] Liébert argued that French Indochinese who rebelled should be treated according or as traitors to France.[29] Another reason for the expansion of the security state was that the French feared that such a large expulsion of French soldiers to fight against the Germans would inspire a general uprising similar to what the British experienced in Egypt.[68]

In April 1916 the administrator of civil services at the Political Affairs Bureau in Hanoi launched two voluminous reports that went into great detail about the parallel histories of what he referred to as the "Annamese Revolutionary Party" (how he called the Duy Tân Hội) and of the secret societies of French Cochinchina. These two reports proved to be very important to the Political Affairs Bureau as they would trigger a full-scale reform of the organisation making it into an umbrella organisation.[29] The reform policies were enacted to help control the narrative around French rule through policing and surveillance.[29] The colonial police forces were connected with "the general control of Indochinese workers and riflemen" (Contrôle général des travailleurs et tirailleurs indochinois), a political police force, as the military presence was reduced to allocate more soldiers to the home front.[27] In Metropolitan France these nascent surveillance organisations were put in charge of policing the 100,000 French Indochinese present to help fight the Central Powers.[29]

Both domestically and internationally, the French Indochinese police maintained a sizeable network of informants, countries where they operated included not only Metropolitan France, but also neighbouring countries like China and Siam as well as Japan, which was a common refuge for Vietnamese nationalists.[27] The French Indochinese police often got foreign authorities to arrest anti-French activists, e.g. Phan Bội Châu who was hiding in China since 1909 was arrested there in 1917.[27] Phan Bội Châu admitted to being in contact with German and Austro-Hungarian ministers, noting that the Germans and Austro-Hungarians promised his revolutionary activities financial support in the form of 10,000 Siamese ticals (approximately 55,000 euros in 2017).[29] Phan would later be arrested abroad again in 1925, when he arrived in Shanghai on what he thought was a short trip on behalf of his movement. He was to meet with Hồ Chí Minh, who at that time used the name Lý Thụy, one of Hồ's many aliases. Hồ had invited Phan to come to Canton to discuss matters of common interest. Hồ was in Canton at the Soviet Embassy, purportedly as a Soviet citizen working as a secretary, translator, and interpreter. In exchange for money, Hồ allegedly informed the French police of Phan's imminent arrival. Phan was arrested by French agents and transported back to Hanoi.[69][70][71][72]

Following the communist victory in the October Revolution the security apparatus of French Indochina was strengthened to fight the "Bolshevik danger" in the colonies.[27] While the Sûreté générale was created during World War I, in 1922 it was expanded to become a better instrument to surveil and repress any potential Bolshevik elements, first in Metropolitan France and later in French Indochina.[27] The activities of the Sûreté générale indochinoise were managed by the newly created Department of Political Affairs.[27] The Sûreté générale indochinoise would be used as the paramount tool to gather intelligence of subversive elements within French Indochinese society and to conduct large-scale union-wide registration by the colonial police forces of suspects and convicts.[27]

The increase in surveillance and repression was accompanied with a propaganda campaign aimed to convince the indigenous populations of the "enlightenment" of French colonialism.[29] Both the indigenous peasantry and the elites had to be won over by being told of the many "advantages of colonialism".[29] The Political Affairs Bureau assembled a umber of Vietnamese elites belonging to the indigenous intelligentsia through the French School of the Far East to aid in the pro-French propaganda effort.[29]

While the French hoped to isolate political dissidents by locking them up in prisons, these prisons would ironically turn into "schools" for nationalism and Communism as concentrating a large number of political enemies together would allow them to communicate with each other, which contributed to the growth of Communism within French Indochina.[73][27]
1920s
A Bảo Đại 3 (1928) issue of the bimonthly Du-học-báo (遊學報) magazine issued by the Société d'encouragement aux études occidentales (Vietnamese: Annam như Tây du học bảo trợ hội; Hán-Nôm: 安南如西遊學保助會), an organisation set up by the Southern Court to bring Annamese students to France to study the latest scientific literature.

As French Indochina was supposed to be a self-financed colonie d'exploitation économique (colony of economic exploitation) most of its budget during this period was financed through revenue collection, taxes on the local populations, and consumption quotas for monopolised goods such as opium, salt, and alcohol.[74][27] In 1920 44% of the French Indochinese government budget came from opium, salt, and alcohol alone.[27]

During the 1920s France allowed more Vietnamese to enter Metropolitan France for both studying and work purposes.[75][52] Both legal and illegal immigrants entered France from French Indochina working various types of jobs, such as sailors, photographers, cooks, restaurant and shop owners and manual labourers.[52] In France many Vietnamese immigrants and their organisations aligned themselves with the French Communist Party (PCF) who promised to represent them both in legal and political matters.[52] As returnees from France were more skilled and spoke fluent French the French colonists in Indochina would hire them to perform better paying jobs and often brought ideas of the successful Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.[52] In provinces like Thanh Hoá, Nghệ An, and Hà Tĩnh where around twenty thousand returnees lived pro-Bolshevik activities would increase during this decade and this region saw the creation of many pro-Bolshevik parties.[52]

A number of Vietnamese men would serve in occupied parts of Weimar era Germany after the war.[48] Seeing how the French treated the German inhabitants of the occupied regions, some Vietnamese soldiers would empathise with the German people.[48] Official reports on the French Occupation of the Rhineland summarised the contents of the letters written by the soldiers during that period this way: "The French oppress the Germans in the same way they have the Annamites [sic]."[48]

After the Great War former governor-general Albert Sarraut became the French minister of the colonies, Sarraut was the architect of the collaboration Franco-annamite which characterised French colonial policy during the interwar period.[27] Regarding the internal security of the French apparatus in the Far East Sarraut stated "I have always estimated that Indochina must be protected against the effects of a revolutionary propaganda that I have never underestimated, by carrying out a double action, one political, the other repressive."[76][27] indicating that he saw repressing subversive elements as paramount to the continued French domination of the region.[27] His policies benefited collaborators while they were instrumental in repressing dissidents.[27] Sarraut boasted the image of himself as a liberal indigenophile who benefited the indigenous people of French Indochina.[27]

Albert Sarraut presented the collaboration Franco-annamite as a necessity of the French protectorate over their countries, the collaboration Franco-annamite was attractive to the Westernised indigenous elites of French Indochina as it would build a framework of mutually beneficial partnership between France and the Vietnamese before full sovereignty for the latter could be restored.[27] In the colony of Cochinchina a handful of indigenous people were involved in the decision-making processes through political bodies that were established to serve as representative assemblies (Cochinchina's Colonial Council, Saigon Municipal Council, among other local bodies).[27]

In 1920, the French established provincial advisory councils in the Kingdom of Laos.[27] In 1923 this was followed by an indigenous consultative assembly, which served an advisory role.[27] Despite the Laotian indigenous consultative assembly not having any real political power, it served as an organisation that brought people from all over Laos together and contributed to the later formation of a modern Laotian national consciousness where prior they associated themselves more with their region.[27]

In 1923, Cochinchina saw the creation of the Parti Constitutionnaliste Indochinois led by Bui Quang Chiêu, which was founded to obtain the right of political participation for the indigenous people in Cochinchina.[27] As a member of this party Nguyễn Phan Long was elected a member of Cochinchina's colonial council.[77]

In Kopong Chang, Cambodia the French resident Félix Bardez was assassinated in the year 1925 by disgruntled indigenous people.[78] Félix Bardez visited the village at a time when its inhabitants were frustrated with the colonial policies of the French in Cambodia as the French raised the taxes to finance the Bokor mountain resort, when Bardez visited he refused to free prisoners who were arrested for being unable to pay their debts, this agitated a crowd of around 700 angry peasants who then killed him, his interpreter, and the militiamen present during his visit.[78] This assassination was a sign of the wider political unrest that characterised Cambodia during this decade.[78]

In March 1925 the French built a war monument resting on two sculpted Asian elephants to commemorate those that died fighting in World War I in the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh, the opening ceremony brought together a crowd which contained "people of all races and all religions".[79][80]

On 6 November 1925 a "Convention" (Quy ước) was established after Khải Định's death that stated that while the sovereign is abroad a council (Hội đồng phụ chính) had the power to run all affairs of the Southern court, with the signing of the convention only regulations related to custom, favours, amnesty, conferring titles, dignitaries, among others are given by the emperor.[81] Everything else is up to the French protectorate government.[81] This document also merges the budget of the Southern court with the budget of the French protectorate of Annam and that all the meetings of the Council of Ministers (Hội đồng thượng thư) must be chaired by the resident-superior of Annam.[81] Thus, in this document, the French colonialists completely took over all the power of the government of the Southern dynasty, even in Trung Kỳ.[81]

In 1927 Vietnamese World War I veterans staged an unsuccessful rebellion in Bắc Ninh province using vintage World War I era weapons and tactics.[48]

According to American historian David G. Marr the 1920s marked the transition of what he termed the "traditional" to the "modern" nation-consciousness among the Vietnamese people, indicating a shift among both the elites and the peasants.[82] Marr argues that the Vietnamese retours de France "urbanised" and "politicised" Vietnamese nationalism during the 1920s and 1930s, inspiring more "modern" movements to take up the struggle against French domination.[27] This decade saw the emergence of the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDĐ) and the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) which were often middle class in nature and proved to be more successful in transcending class and geographical divisions to mobilise against the French than earlier movements, relying on better and more organized communication structures than their predecessors.[27]

During the 1920s the contestation of French colonial power in Cambodia and Laos was mostly aimed at the corvée and tax policies, continuing from the war period.[27] The early years of this decade were characterised by widespread violence and a lack of order and security in rural Cambodia, as recorded by French residents in the provinces.[27] Contemporarily Upper Laos was referred to as being "violently agitated" by the French administrator Paul Le Boulanger between the years 1914 and 1921.[27] While the nature of Vietnamese resistance changed radically during the 1920s and the 1930s due to various major socio-cultural changes that were occurring at the time by a small, but growing, urbanised Vietnamese middle class, the rebellions in Cambodia and Laos remained to be "traditional" in their style and execution in contrast to the more "modern" political activism and radicalism that characterised what is now Vietnam during this period.[27]
Yên Bái mutiny (1930)
Further information: Yên Bái mutiny
French Indochina around 1933.

On 10 February 1930, there was an uprising by Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army's Yên Bái garrison. The Yên Bái mutiny was sponsored by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDĐ).[83][84] The VNQDĐ was the Vietnamese Nationalist Party.[85] The attack was the largest disturbance brewed up by the Cần Vương monarchist restoration movement of the late 19th century.

The aim of the revolt was to inspire a wider uprising among the general populace in an attempt to overthrow the colonial authority. The VNQDĐ had previously attempted to engage in clandestine activities to undermine French rule, but increasing French scrutiny of their activities led to their leadership group taking the risk of staging a large scale military attack in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.
Left opposition and the 1940 uprising in Cochinchina

In Cochinchina where French rule had the distinction of being direct and therefore more sensitive to political shifts in Paris, it was punctuated by periods of relative liberalisation. The most significant was during the 1936–1938 Popular Front government led by Leon Blum which appointed as governor-general of Indochina Jules Brévié.[86] Liberal-minded, in Cochinchina Brévié tried to defuse an extremely tense political situation by amnestying political prisoners, and by easing restrictions on the press, political parties,[86] and trade unions.[87]

Saigon witnessed growing labour unrest culminating in the summer of 1937 in general dock and transport strikes.[88] In April of that year the Vietnamese Communists and their Trotskyist left opposition ran a common slate for the municipal elections with both their respective leaders Nguyễn Văn Tạo and Tạ Thu Thâu winning seats. The exceptional unity of the left, however, was split by the lengthening shadow of the Moscow Trials and by growing protest over the failure of the Communist-supported Popular Front to deliver constitutional reform.[89] Colonial Minister Marius Moutet, a Socialist commented that he had sought "a wide consultation with all elements of the popular [will]," but with "Trotskyist-Communists intervening in the villages to menace and intimidate the peasant part of the population, taking all authority from the public officials," the necessary "formula" had not been found.[90]

In April 1939 Cochinchina Council elections Tạ Thu Thâu led a "Workers' and Peasants' Slate" into victory over both the "bourgeois" Constitutionalists and the Communists' Democratic Front. Key to their success was popular opposition to the war taxes ("national defence levy") that the Communist Party, in the spirit of Franco-Soviet accord, had felt obliged to support.[91] Brévié set the election results aside and wrote to Colonial Minister Georges Mandel: "the Trotskyists under the leadership of Ta Thu Thau, want to take advantage of a possible war in order to win total liberation." The Stalinists, on the other hand, are "following the position of the Communist Party in France" and "will thus be loyal if war breaks out".[92]

With the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the local communists were ordered by Moscow to return to direct confrontation with the French. Under the slogan "Land to the Tillers, Freedom for the workers and independence for Vietnam&quo