Vietnam War (First Indochina War)

The First Indochina War was fought from December 1946 to July 1954 between the French Union and the Viet Minh, the communist-led nationalist coalition headed by Ho Chi Minh and its military commander Vo Nguyen Giap. It is sometimes labeled the "French Indochina War" or, in Vietnamese historiography, the "Anti-French Resistance War," and is distinct from the later Second Indochina War (the American phase, c. 1955–1975).

Tensions escalated after Japan's 1945 surrender, when Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi on 2 September 1945. France, seeking to restore its prewar colonial position, negotiated briefly with the Viet Minh before fighting broke out in Haiphong and Hanoi in late 1946. The conflict combined conventional engagements with rural guerrilla warfare across Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, Laos, and Cambodia.

The war's character shifted sharply after 1949–1950. The victory of the Chinese Communists gave the Viet Minh a sanctuary and arms supplier, while the United States—viewing the conflict through a Cold War lens after the outbreak of the Korean War—began funding the French effort, eventually covering a large share of its costs. France in parallel established the Associated State of Vietnam under former emperor Bao Dai in 1949.

The decisive engagement came at Dien Bien Phu (March–May 1954), where Viet Minh forces overran an entrenched French garrison in the highlands near the Laotian border. The defeat collapsed French political will and shaped the concurrent Geneva Conference. The resulting Geneva Accords of 21 July 1954 ended hostilities, recognized the independence of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and provisionally partitioned Vietnam at the 17th parallel pending nationwide elections that were never held—setting the stage for U.S. involvement and the subsequent Vietnam War.