Started a thread on the history of how South Việt Nam was created, and *meant* to finish it by the end of this month.

But... as my mom says, "mưu sự tại nhân, thành sự tại thiên," March and April have completely wiped me out doing community work on the ground.

(Mưu sự tại nhân, thành sự tại thiên roughly means plans depend on humans, but accomplishment of plans depends on god. Thiên technically means the sky bc we don't have just one god but that's another story.)

So, in lieu of that, I'm going to tweet a *very* truncated version of Việt history from french colonization until 1975.

I will skip over and omit *a lot* of things. I also probably won't have all the usual memes and vpop ss to break up the potential dryness of history.

I know lots of Viet Americans & diasporic Viets *want* to know our history and for various reason we are disconnected from it.

So am tweeting in the hope of providing *just a starting point* for our own personal exploration and also as a communal dialog bc the past is present.

Ok here we go.

1858: Napoleon the III ordered the attack of Đà Nẵng in central VN. Đà Nẵng has great beaches and is where that bridge with giant hands is now. Also where my dad's family is from.

To understand the background for the attack of Đà Nẵng, you can read up on Gia Long, the Nguyễn dynasty's founder, the French missionary Pigneau de Behaine, and the 1787 Treaty of Versailles. https://twitter.com/ximuoicay/status/1349157497781641217?s=20

1859: the French captured Sài Gòn under the pretext of protecting the Catholic faith in Vietnam (prev Việt emperors had banned Catholic missionaries, observing that wherever Catholicism went, European colonialism followed.)

1862: the last precolonial Viet emperor Tự Đức was forced to sign the Treaty of Saigon to allow Catholic missionaries to enter VN, to open trade to the French in the Mekong Delta, and to pay France the equivalent to one million dollars for "reparations."

The Treaty of Saigon in 1862 gave the French Saigon and three of the southern provinces, the French would have protectorate over VN's foreign relations. Five years later France would conquer the rest of what it would call Cochinchina, the southern third of VN.

1887: France gained control of VN from North to South, annexing Annam and Tonkin and established its colony French Indochina. All Viet emperors from that point on are considered puppets (though some resisted the French to their demise).

1940: Nazi Germany invaded France. Their surrender in France weakened the French colonial government in VN which had to concede to Japanese demands to let Japanese troops enter. (Bc Japan wanted to control China’s southern border.)

Between 1941 and 1945: Japan occupied VN but left the French colonial government in place. French colonial authorities engaged in a policy of “coexistence” with the Japanese (similar to the French Vichy regime that governed occupied France in collaboration with the Nazis.)

March 1945: the Japanese removed the French from power in VN and invited emperor Bảo Đại to declare Vietnamese independence, making VN a Japanese colony run by a puppet government.

By August 1945: VN resistance movement (Việt Minh) was stronger than ever. The US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japanese surrender, which weakened Japanese occupation in VN.

September 2, 1945: the last emperor of Việt Nam, Bảo Đại, abdicated, Hồ Chí Minh declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam - DRV.

You can read the proclamation here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Independence_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_Vietnam

HCM declared: "... from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character w/ France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of VN, & we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland"

"The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer the country."

"A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent!"

Yet, on 23 September 1945, Franco-British troops took control of Saigon and declared French authority restored in Cochinchina (southern VN).

(The French also occupied ports in China. Pls read about treaty ports, bc Chiang Kai-shek took KMT troops into north VN following Potsdam Conference to disarm Japanese troops, then withdrew in exchange for France to leave the Chinese ports they occupy.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_ports

I also won't go into it but pls know that there were *lots* of factions in VN, divided among religious groups, ethnic groups, and ideological lines, including: Hòa Hảo, Cao Đài, Nationalist Party of VN (nationalist & anticommunist), Democratic Republic of VN (communist), etc.

After a year of guerrilla fighting, in December 1946 the First Indochina War broke out btwn:

- France + former emperor Bảo Đại's Vietnamese National Army (South VN), supported by the US

vs.

- The People's Army of Vietnam (North VN) supported by USSR, China, & East Germany

March 1949: France gov put former emperor Bảo Đại back in power, as the ruler of a newly established State of Vietnam aka South VN.

May 1954: the Việt Minh defeated the French at Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, leading to the Geneva Conference in July 1954.

France had to leave Indochina, & three successor states were created:
- The Kingdom of Cambodia
- The Kingdom of Laos
- Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Geneva Accords Agreements:

- VN would be split at the 17th parallel. This was intended to be temporary, pending a nation-wide democratic election within two years to reunify the country.

- No foreign troops could enter VN within the two year period.

- The new socialist French gov agreed to give Việt Minh control of North Vietnam above the 17th parallel

- The State of Vietnam in the south would be ruled under Bảo Đại.

South VN refused to sign the Geneva Accords, but, since it was a French puppet state, and France had agreed to leave and no longer interfere in VN, this was not seen as a major concern.

The United States also refused to sign, but did commit itself to abide by the agreement.

I cannot say enough that even tho the conflict in VN is often simplified into two sides, there were in fact many w different agendas. There were communist AND anticommunist anti colonial groups. There were communist factions that fought fiercely and even k*ll*d each other.

I cannot and will not do history justice in this thread but I wanna reiterate that this was a deeply volatile time of power grabbing and dominance, which largely grew out of the British force takeover in Saigon after WWII.

Pls read up more on it but basically, at the Potsdam conference in July 1945, the Allies decided to divide Indochina in half:

1. Chiang Kai-shek would receive the Japanese surrender in the North

2. the French would receive the surrender in the South

The Allies decided that France would still own French Indochina like before, but since they were weak militarily at this point, the British would help France install a provisional government to re-establish control.