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| See also: | Other events of 1954 History of France • Timeline • Years | ||||
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| See also: | Other events of 1954 History of France • Timeline • Years | ||||
The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's colonial Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The United States was officially not a party to the war, but it was secretly involved by providing financial and material aid to the French Union, which included CIA contracted American personnel participating in the battle. The People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union similarly provided vital support to the Viet Minh, including most of their artillery and ammunition.
The First Indochina War was fought between France and Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 20 July 1954. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
Joseph Laniel was a French conservative politician of the Fourth Republic, who served as Prime Minister for a year from 1953 to 1954. During the middle of his tenure as Prime Minister Laniel was an unsuccessful candidate for the French Presidency, a post won by René Coty.
Henri Eugène Navarre was a French Army general. He fought during World War I, World War II and was the seventh and final commander of French Far East Expeditionary Corps during the First Indochina War. Navarre was in overall command during the decisive French defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.
Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries was the French commander at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Pierre Schoendoerffer was a French film director, a screenwriter, a writer, a war reporter, a war cameraman, a renowned First Indochina War veteran, a cinema academician. He was president of the Académie des Beaux-Arts for 2001 and for 2007.
Diên Biên Phu is a French 1992 epic war film written and directed by French veteran Pierre Schoendoerffer. With its huge budget, all-star cast, and realistic war scenes produced with the cooperation of both the French and Vietnamese armed forces, Dîen Bîen Phu is regarded by many as one of the more important war movies produced in French filmmaking history. It portrays the 55-day siege of Dien Bien Phu (1954), the last battle by the French Union's colonial army in the First Indochina War during the final days of French Indochina, which was soon after divided into North and South Vietnam. This was a prelude to the Second Indochina War, known in the United States as the Vietnam War.
The Battle of Mang Yang Pass was one of the last battles of the First Indochina War which took place on 24 June 1954. The battle was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Union forces, along with the battle of Dien Bien Phu shortly beforehand.
Pierre Charles Albert Marie Langlais was a senior French military officer who fought in World War II and the First Indochina War. Hailing from the Brittany region of France, Langlais was known as a tough and uncompromising character with an "unflagging devotion to his men."
René Cogny was a French Général de corps d'armée, World War II and French Resistance veteran and survivor of Buchenwald and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps. He was a commander of the French forces in Tonkin during the First Indochina War, and notably during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. His post-war private and legal conflict with superior General Henri Navarre became a public controversy. Known to his men as Le General Vitesse, and reputable for his military pomp, physical presence and skill with the press, Cogny was killed in the 1968 Ajaccio-Nice Caravelle crash in the Mediterranean near Nice.
The French Far East Expeditionary Corps was a colonial expeditionary force of the French Union Army that was initially formed in French Indochina in 1945 during the Pacific War. The CEFEO later fought and lost in the First Indochina War against the Viet Minh rebels.
Operation Brochet took place during the French Indochina War, between August and October, 1953. A combined arms operation, Brochet involved 18 battalions of the French Expeditionary and Vietnamese National Armies fighting against the 42nd and 50th Viet Minh Regiments, fighting in the southern reaches of the Red River Delta near Tonkin in North Vietnam. The 1st and 2nd Parachute Battalions of the French Foreign Legion (BEP), and the 1st and 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalions (BPC) took part, as did forces of the Vietnamese National Army. Their objective was to sweep the Delta and remove Viet Minh influence.
Operation Hirondelle took place during the First Indochina War in July 1953. It was an airborne raid on Viet Minh supply depots near Lạng Sơn, involving parachute units of the French Army and Vietnamese National Army. Raids near the junction of Route Coloniale 4 and Route Coloniale 1 revealed supply caches hidden in caves, which were photographed and destroyed.
The Battle of the Day River took place between late May and early June 1951, around the Day River Delta in the Gulf of Tonkin. Part of the First Indochina War, the battle was the first conventional campaign of Võ Nguyên Giáp, and saw his Việt Minh People's Army of Vietnam (VPA) forces tackle the Catholic-dominated region of the Delta in order to break its resistance to Việt Minh infiltration. On the back of two defeats at similar ventures through March and April that year, Giap led three divisions in a pattern of guerrilla and diversion attacks on Ninh Bình, Nam Định, Phủ Lý and Phat Diem beginning on May 28 which saw the destruction of commando François, a naval commando.
Operation Ceinture was a late 1947 military endeavour by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps against the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. A month-long effort that commenced on 20 November following the cessation of Operation Léa, Ceinture intended to rid the region between Hanoi, Thái Nguyên and Tuyên Quang of Viet-Minh infiltration. The French utilised 18 paratroop battalions and naval landing craft to engage the Viet-Minh's 112 Regiment, however the latter were able to for the most part slip through French cordons, abandoning weapon caches. The cumulative casualties after Operation Ceinture and Operation Lea were 1,000 for the French and 9,500 for the Viet Minh.
When 1954 began, the French had been fighting the insurgent communist-dominated Viet Minh for more than seven years attempting to retain control of their colony Vietnam. Domestic support for the war by the population of France had declined. The United States was concerned and worried that a French military defeat in Vietnam would result in the spread of communism to all the countries of Southeast Asia—the domino theory—and was looking for means of aiding the French without committing American troops to the war.
Paul Henri Romuald Ély was a French General and former Chief of the Defence Staff.
The following lists events that happened during 1954 in French Indochina.
The following lists events that happened during 1954 in North Vietnam.
Operation Pollux was a military operation during the First Indochina War by the French forces in northwest Vietnam in November and December 1953 was one of a twin operation, the other being Operation Castor. The names of these operations are based upon the mythological twins, Castor and Pollux. Operation Castor recaptured and then established a fortified airfield in Điện Biên Phu, in the north-west corner of Vietnam. Operation Pollux was the name of the second operation, which took place weeks later. These operations were developed by General Navarre who had replaced General Salan as Commander in Chief in early 1953 after the Viet Minh had conducted their successful offensive in the Black River area of northwest Vietnam and then subsequently invaded Laos in April 1953.
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