Sixty years ago this week, French t

Sixty years ago this week, French troops were defeated by Vietnamese forces at Dien Bien Phu. As historian Julian Jackson explains, it was a turning point in the history of both nations, and in the Cold War - and a battle where some in the US appear to have contemplated the use of nuclear weapons.
"Would you like two atomic bombs?" These are the words that a senior French diplomat remembered US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asking the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in April 1954. The context of this extraordinary offer was the critical plight of the French army fighting the nationalist forces of Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu in the highlands of north-west Vietnam.
The battle of Dien Bien Phu is today overshadowed by the later involvement of the Americans in Vietnam in the 1960s. But for eight years between 1946 and 1954 the French had fought their own bloody war to hold on to their Empire in the Far East. After the seizure of power by the Communists in China in 1949, this colonial conflict had become a key battleground of the Cold War. The Chinese provided the Vietnamese with arms and supplies while most of the costs of the French war effort were borne by America. But it was French soldiers who were fighting and dying. By 1954, French forces in Indochina totalled over 55,000.
At the end of 1953, French commander in chief Gen Navarre had decided to set up a fortified garrison in the valley of Dien Bien Phu, in the highlands about 280 miles from the northern capital of Hanoi. The valley was surrounded by rings of forested hills and mountains. The position was defensible providing the French could hold on to the inner hills and keep their position supplied through the airstrip. What they underestimated was the capacity of the Vietnamese to amass artillery behind the hills. This equipment was transported by tens of thousands of labourers - many of them women and children - carrying material hundreds of miles through the jungle day and night. On 13 March the Vietnamese unleashed a massive barrage of artillery and within two days two of the surrounding hills had been taken, and the airstrip was no longer usable. The French defenders were now cut off and the noose tightened around them.
It was this critical situation which led the French to appeal in desperation for US help. The most hawkish on the American aide were Vice-President Richard Nixon, who had no political power, and Admiral Radford, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also quite hawkish was the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was obsessed by the crusade against Communism. More reserved was President Eisenhower who nonetheless gave a press conference in early April where he proclaimed the infamous "domino theory" about the possible spread of Communism from one country to another.

"You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly," he said. "So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."
Saturday 3 April 1954 has gone down in American history as "the day we didn't go to war". On that day Dulles met Congressional leaders who were adamant they would not support any military intervention unless Britain was also involved. Eisenhower sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warning of the consequences for the West if Dien Bien Phu fell. It was around this time, at a meeting in Paris, that Dulles supposedly made his astonishing offer to the French of tactical nuclear weapons.
In fact, Dulles was never authorised to make such an offer and there is no hard evidence that he did so. It seems possible that in the febrile atmosphere of those days the panic-stricken French may simply have misunderstood him. Or his words may have got lost in translation.

"He didn't really offer. He made a suggestion and asked a question. He uttered the two fatal words 'nuclear bomb'," Maurice Schumann, a former foreign minister, said before his death in 1998. "Bidault immediately reacted as if he didn't take this offer seriously."
According to Professor Fred Logevall of Cornell University, Dulles "at least talked in very general terms about the possibility, what did the French think about potentially using two or three tactical nuclear weapons against these enemy positions".
Bidault declined, he says, "because he knew… that if this killed a lot of Viet Minh troops then it would also basically destroy the garrison itself".
In the end, there was no American intervention of any kind, as the British refused to go along with it.
The last weeks of the battle of Dien Bien Phu were atrociously gruelling. The ground turned to mud once the monsoon began, and men clung to craters and ditches in conditions reminiscent of the battle of Verdun in 1916. On 7 May 1954, after a 56-day siege, the French army surrendered. Overall on the French side there were 1,142 dead, 1,606 disappeared, 4,500 more or less badly wounded. Vietnamese casualties ran to 22,000.
In this year marked by two other major anniversaries - the centenary of the outbreak of World War One and the 70th anniversary of D-Day - we should not forget this other battle that took place 60 years ago. In the history of decolonisation it was the only time a professional European army was decisively defeated in a pitched battle. It marked the end of the French Empire in the Far East, and provided an inspiration to other anti-colonial fighters. It was no coincidence also that a few weeks later a violent rebellion broke out in French Algeria - the beginning of another bloody and traumatic war that was to last eight years. The French army held so desperately on to Algeria partly to redeem the honour it felt had been lost at Dien Bien Phu. So obsessed did the army become by this idea that in 1958 it backed a putsch against the government, which it believed was preparing what the generals condemned as a "diplomatic Dien Bien Phu". This putsch brought back to power Gen de Gaulle who set up the new presidential regime that exists in France today. So the ripples of Dien Bien Phu are still being felt.

A memorial in Dien Bien Phu commemorates the French soldiers who died there
It was also in 1954 that France began working on its own independent nuclear deterrent.
For the Vietnamese, however, Dien Bien Phu, was only the first round. The Americans, who had refused to become directly involved in 1954, were gradually sucked into war - the second Vietnam War - during the 1960s.
Listen to The Siege of Dien Bien Phu written and presented by Julian Jackson on the BBC iPlayer
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Kết quả (Việt) 1:

Sáu mươi năm trước đây trong tuần này, quân đội Pháp bị đánh bại bởi các lực lượng Việt Nam tại điện biên phủ. Như sử gia Julian Jackson giải thích, nó là một bước ngoặt trong lịch sử của cả hai quốc gia, và trong cuộc chiến tranh lạnh - và một trận chiến nơi mà một số ở Mỹ dường như đã dự tính sử dụng vũ khí hạt nhân."Bạn có muốn hai quả bom nguyên tử?" Đây là những lời rằng một nhà ngoại giao Pháp cấp cao nhớ chúng tôi thư ký của nhà nước John Foster Dulles yêu cầu bộ trưởng ngoại giao Pháp, Georges Bidault, trong tháng 4 năm 1954. Bối cảnh này cung cấp đặc biệt là hoàn cảnh quan trọng của quân đội Pháp đánh nhau với quốc gia thành phố Hồ Chí Minh tại điện biên phủ Tây nguyên Việt Nam về phía tây bắc.Chiến dịch điện biên phủ vào ngày hôm nay làm lu mờ bởi tham gia sau này của người Mỹ tại Việt Nam trong thập niên 1960. Nhưng trong tám năm từ năm 1946 đến 1954 người Pháp đã chiến đấu cuộc chiến đẫm máu riêng của họ để giữ cho đế chế của họ tại Viễn Đông. Sau khi chiếm giữ quyền lực bởi những người cộng sản tại Trung Quốc vào năm 1949, cuộc xung đột thuộc địa này đã trở thành một chiến trường chính của chiến tranh lạnh. Trung Quốc cung cấp người Việt Nam với vũ khí và tiếp liệu trong khi hầu hết các chi phí của Pháp chiến tranh đã được borne của Mỹ. Nhưng nó đã là Pháp binh sĩ đã chiến đấu và chết. Năm 1954, quân Pháp ở Đông Dương totalled hơn 55.000.Cuối năm 1953, Pháp lệnh Gen Navarre đã quyết định thiết lập một đơn vị đồn trú tăng cường trong thung lũng điện biên phủ, ở Tây Nguyên khoảng 280 dặm từ thủ đô Bắc Hà Nội. Thung lũng được bao quanh bởi vành đai của đồi rừng và những ngọn núi. Vị trí là chóng giư cung cấp người Pháp có thể giữ cho các ngọn đồi bên trong và giữ vị trí của họ cung cấp thông qua sân bay. Những gì họ đánh giá thấp là khả năng của người Việt Nam trong việc tích lũy pháo phía sau những ngọn đồi. Thiết bị này được vận chuyển bằng hàng chục ngàn người lao động - nhiều người trong số họ phụ nữ và trẻ em - mang vật liệu hàng trăm dặm qua các khu rừng ngày và đêm. Ngày 13 tháng 3 người Việt tung một loạt lớn các pháo binh và trong vòng hai ngày hai trong số các ngọn đồi xung quanh đã được thực hiện, và sân bay đã không còn có thể sử dụng. Hậu vệ pháp bây giờ đã được cắt bỏ và hôn nhân quan hệ thắt chặt xung quanh họ.Nó đã là tình hình quan trọng này khiến người Pháp kháng cáo trong tuyệt vọng để được giúp đỡ Hoa Kỳ. Hawkish đặt trên các phụ tá người Mỹ đã là phó tổng thống Richard Nixon, đã không có quyền lực chính trị nhà nước, và đô đốc Radford, chủ tịch của tham mưu. Cũng khá hawkish là các US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, người đã bị ám ảnh bởi cuộc thập tự chinh chống lại chủ nghĩa cộng sản. Hơn dành riêng được tổng thống Eisenhower người tuy nhiên đã cho một cuộc họp báo vào đầu tháng tư nơi ông tuyên bố "thuyết domino khét tiếng" về có thể lây lan của chủ nghĩa cộng sản từ một quốc gia khác."You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly," he said. "So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."Saturday 3 April 1954 has gone down in American history as "the day we didn't go to war". On that day Dulles met Congressional leaders who were adamant they would not support any military intervention unless Britain was also involved. Eisenhower sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warning of the consequences for the West if Dien Bien Phu fell. It was around this time, at a meeting in Paris, that Dulles supposedly made his astonishing offer to the French of tactical nuclear weapons.In fact, Dulles was never authorised to make such an offer and there is no hard evidence that he did so. It seems possible that in the febrile atmosphere of those days the panic-stricken French may simply have misunderstood him. Or his words may have got lost in translation."He didn't really offer. He made a suggestion and asked a question. He uttered the two fatal words 'nuclear bomb'," Maurice Schumann, a former foreign minister, said before his death in 1998. "Bidault immediately reacted as if he didn't take this offer seriously."According to Professor Fred Logevall of Cornell University, Dulles "at least talked in very general terms about the possibility, what did the French think about potentially using two or three tactical nuclear weapons against these enemy positions".Bidault declined, he says, "because he knew… that if this killed a lot of Viet Minh troops then it would also basically destroy the garrison itself".In the end, there was no American intervention of any kind, as the British refused to go along with it.The last weeks of the battle of Dien Bien Phu were atrociously gruelling. The ground turned to mud once the monsoon began, and men clung to craters and ditches in conditions reminiscent of the battle of Verdun in 1916. On 7 May 1954, after a 56-day siege, the French army surrendered. Overall on the French side there were 1,142 dead, 1,606 disappeared, 4,500 more or less badly wounded. Vietnamese casualties ran to 22,000.In this year marked by two other major anniversaries - the centenary of the outbreak of World War One and the 70th anniversary of D-Day - we should not forget this other battle that took place 60 years ago. In the history of decolonisation it was the only time a professional European army was decisively defeated in a pitched battle. It marked the end of the French Empire in the Far East, and provided an inspiration to other anti-colonial fighters. It was no coincidence also that a few weeks later a violent rebellion broke out in French Algeria - the beginning of another bloody and traumatic war that was to last eight years. The French army held so desperately on to Algeria partly to redeem the honour it felt had been lost at Dien Bien Phu. So obsessed did the army become by this idea that in 1958 it backed a putsch against the government, which it believed was preparing what the generals condemned as a "diplomatic Dien Bien Phu". This putsch brought back to power Gen de Gaulle who set up the new presidential regime that exists in France today. So the ripples of Dien Bien Phu are still being felt.A memorial in Dien Bien Phu commemorates the French soldiers who died thereIt was also in 1954 that France began working on its own independent nuclear deterrent.For the Vietnamese, however, Dien Bien Phu, was only the first round. The Americans, who had refused to become directly involved in 1954, were gradually sucked into war - the second Vietnam War - during the 1960s.Listen to The Siege of Dien Bien Phu written and presented by Julian Jackson on the BBC iPlayerFollow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on FacebookShare this story About sharingEmailFacebookTwitterIn today's MagazineWould you be beautiful in the ancient world?10 January 2015More Magazine storiesWould you be beautiful in the ancient world?10 January 2015Read full article Would you be beautiful in the ancient world?VIDEO 5:21South Dakota's underground music boom9 January 2015Read full article South Dakota's underground music boomWho first said 'The pen is mightier than the sword'?9 January 2015Read full article Who first said 'The pen is mightier than the sword'?Top StoriesHunt for French terror accomplicesSpaceX rocket recovery test failsAirAsia plane tail lifted from seaFeatures & AnalysisThe bottom lineWould you have been considered beautiful in the ancient world? 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