French Colonial Experience

Along with other Asian countries, Vietnam fell to European colonialism. The 1862 Treaty of Saigon gave the French government control over Vietnam. Although Vietnamese nationalism developed slowly, it was a tenacious and fierce form of nationalism that directly opposed France's ruthlessness. In the nineteenth century, Vietnamese people were often sharply divided between those who wished to make peace with foreign rulers and those who wished to expel them. By the twentieth century, however, the Europeans were at a disadvantage in domestic Vietnamese politics.

As is true elsewhere in Asia, the Vietnamese were much influenced by Japan's success over Europeans in the latter's 1905 war with Russia. The Japanese Meiji reforms became a model for Vietnamese reformers aiming at independence.

World War I provided a boost for Vietnamese independence because the colonial government sent thousands of Vietnamese to France to fight in the conflict. The Vietnamese who returned home after the war brought their impressions of the freedom that citizens had in independent states as well as contempt for what was perceived as the decadence of European society.

After World War I the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia stimulated a Marxist movement in Vietnam. One of the most successful leaders was Ho Chi Minh, who first came to international attention when he attempted to petition the Versailles Peace Conference for Vietnamese independence. Although Ho's petition was rejected, the Soviet communist elites saw in Ho a very promising Southeast Asian leader. From that point on, Ho was a committed communist who wanted to expel all foreigners and destroy existing aristocratic elites.

In line with other nationalist revolutionaries, Ho was tactically opposed to the strongest non-Vietnamese forces trying to dominate his native country. Between the two world wars, he opposed the French. During World War II, he fought the Japanese. For a

Brief time after World War II, he resisted the Chinese Nationalist army that sought to accept Japan's surrender in Vietnam, fearing Chinese conquest. At that point, Ho actually invited in the French as a counterweight to the Chinese.