Why the French Indochina War?

[lonestarcharlie]

Had a blast this weekend at Rusk. While we were all sitting around recapping on the event and I was listening to you guys talk about your unit, it made me curious. Seems like everyone in the unit has their own reasons for choosing to be specifically involved in reenacting the French Indochina war. I'd love to hear what some of your personal reasons for choosing this impression are.

[oggy]

It's not something that gets done that much over here. My interest arose from a conversation I had with Ausdig - we were casting around for a period that could be unique, but involve very little financial outlay.
After a lot of research we got deeper and deeper into the period (mind you, I have yet to source some of my uniform for my BEP Impression)

[sapper44]

I just found it an easy offshoot of my WWII DBLE impression and the more I looked into it, the harder it was to find any good info on and that just made me want to do it more.
Christian

[lt13demi]

It just seemed like the "NEXT" thing to do. I did 18th century French colonial for years, then the WWII French stuff. Legion, 13eDBLE and event have my 1940 kit. Indochine was next. I have to say that this past weekends event was just about the most intense tactical I've experienced in over 35 years in the reenacting hobby.

It seems all the factors for a true experience fell into place, weather, terrain, mud, unknowns, attrition, the works! The French forces found themselves dealing with several real situations that had to be dealt with thru improvisation and adaptation! Totally added to the experience!

I hate to say it, but it's just another era of history unknown, overlooked and totally mis-understood by 98% of the American public. Ask an American if they know anything about the conflict and it's usually just Dien Bien Phu! And how the French got their "A** kicked" there.... Or that ridiculous potrayal of GM 100 in "We Were Soldiers" , with it's "French Army, what's that?" comment....... It's sad to think that here was a conflict that was to later affected a whole generation of Americans and post-world war II politics, and so little is understood about it here!

I suppose that's my reason for doing it. There's a story to tell and to learn from.

Renault

[soldatsoucy1]

My response is in many ways similar to Lt. Renault.

Indochine provides me a different perspective on this period of history and a better understanding of the US involvement in the same place. I can read the books but reenacting Indochine with a group of individuals that places accuracy, history as important aspects of the event is paramount. Im impressed with their level of knowledge, experience, and their understanding of the history of both the French and the US involvements....both from an individual soldiering perspective but also the overarching political and social character of the times. Thus far it has augmented what I have read but to have even a small slice of understanding from the soldiers perspective is priceless.

And I cannot imagine doing this with any other group.

I am happy that I joined and look forward to many more years of Indochine!

Charles Soucy
Etrangere Voluntaire

[fmf]

as a kid I always enjoyed watching Captain Gallent of the Foriegn Legion on TV , I can remember the photos of Indo China from Life Magazine even tho was very young I was interested in Military things , later when I served in Viet Nam I started wondering about all the French things I saw there and became interested in that era , I have met some very interesting people reenacting and especialy reenacting Indo China

[lt13demi]

Another very interesting aspect is the strikingly similar parallels between the way the returning French vets were treated and their later American counterparts. Not to mention the parallels in public opinions and politics. I think one of the major differences is at least the French communist in their government never hid the fact they were, well,,,, communists!

Hope that last statement doesn't get me banned from the board! ;D

Renault

[Legion Etrangere]

Your banned! ;D

(It's always good to one up an officer! LOL)

Bob: You hit the target on the head - our "peace activists" were neither activists or peace-oriented. They were usually white, educated, from parents of moderate to liberal political backgrounds, somewhat wealthy who became, in essence, quasi-Marxists from the enlightened professors at the major universities.

At least in France, the Communists were ... commies; in fact I remember several accounts of communists who served in the army beleiving that had to serve the nation in order to bring about the "revolution."

[savoy6]

while i don't classify myself as a reenactor.......i've had an interest in the FICW since reading "Street without joy" back when i was about 17.....(school library of all places to find that book)...and it was rekindled when i read "Hell In A Very Small Place" about 4 years ago.i just haven't found any real interest on the subject until the last year or so..and in my hobby,(airsoft), getting history, in general, into the mix has been hard enough for the 10 years i've been doing it.....i started doing a generic US army,PTO type set up ,using a FUSAG unit as a starting point.....(i could do a whole post on why i think airsofters shouldn't emulate actual units with real vets...it has more to do with players general attitudes than anything else...but i digress....).....back then WW2 was something only a handfull people were doing back in 2001..
now we have large communities of WW2 Airsofters in Europe,the UK and the US as well as a quickly growing VN/SICW community....with growing kit levels as well...so i'm hoping to generate more interest in the FICW by doing what has worked before...i.e. just going to regular skirmishes in period kit and field questions from folks on it....it's just hard fighting the whole "french" thing that is still in place over here....

[Legion Etrangere]

savoy6,

Great post.

Thank you for taking the time to explain who you are and why you got into FICW.

As for the "French thing" --- thats an innate characterstic here in the U.S. Its unfortunate since its based on ignorance (real or imagined) but seems to be prevalent mainly among those who simply hate France. Within reenacting I've found its centered mainly among GI reenactors who have a visceral dislike of De Gaulle and from that has come a distorted attitude. At various displays, when I tell people that nearly 92,000 French, French Union, Legion and Vietnamese were casualties from the First Indochina War they are at first shocked, "My word, I didnt know." If you educate people when your conducting a display, you will be amazed at how many will actually listen and then walk away from your display with a different viewpoint.

This past weekend, more than half of the Vietnamese that approached our display table had no clue the French fought a guerilla war in their country.

[marsouin]

Hmmm,this is a sensitive topic....Well I first collected US vietnam war and then went on exploring the Indochina period and Algeria....
First it is a part of my country's history,then,when reading more books about the subject (Bernard Fall,Marcel Bigeard,Erwan Bergot and Jean Larteguy...) I began to slightly perceive what soldiers might have felt while being there.Larteguy shows it perfectly with his book "Le Mal Jaune" -the yellow disease-which describes the spell that stroke all the persons living/fighting in Indochina....Westmoreland told US troops in 1965 "Do not make the same mistake as the french did,do not fall in love with this country"...This helps to explain the "french thing",-I'm playing the devil's advocate-US wanted to erase the french past while coming there:some of the SVN veterans having fought with the french had to throw their ranks and decorations in fire...But even here,the billions $ spent did not help in winning...
Regarding the echoes of the war in France,it was very hard times...France was just coming out of a devastating 2nd World War-ration card were used by civilians untill 1946- and getting involved in 1 of the first decolonisation war against a communist foe....Needless to say that,the difficulty of the war was huge:fast no credit to finance it;The communist party being very powerful;the war got a quite unpopular call :communist workers sabotaging weapons,ammo,vehicles sent to the troops in Far East (handgrenades filled with papers teeling to stop the "sale guerre" (dirty war)...)
France was war weary and Indochina the Pearl of Extreme Orient was so far away,so not that really interesting ,furthermore when the home situation is not that brilliant....Nevertheless France did find the strength to send a battalion to Korea still (the context was this time quite different)...the soldiers making it back were not welcomed as "heroes",just sent to the other place where another fire was starting,on the other side of the mediterranean sea....The Viet Minh camp conditions were totally ignored....and the communists then went on to denounce the new "dirty war" in Algeria and gave full support to the algerian FLN...
Having tried to get in the officers school and having been 1 year in a military school,Indochina was quite a mythologic theme among us pupils:the countless airborne drops,the fight against a mighty foe,holding a post against all odds to the utmost with a ratio of 1 against 20....Difficult to explain,but a mix of horror,heroism,cowardice,romance....That might help to understand why french people loved and fought for this country,why they tried to do that much with so little.....

[savoy6]

well ,here in the US there is a feeling among a segment of the general public against France due to their refusal to contribute troops to pres. bush's initial Iraq invasion.....even to the extent of asinine crap like restaurants calling french fries.."freedom fries"...lol..so it really has nothing to do with the US/VN experience..a lot of those attitudes are present in many hyper-patriotic airsofters...as with the reenactors that Legion Etrangere alluded to ..so doing a french impression from any time period will draw a "who'd want to be the french?" reaction from many players...i was just struck by the whole story of the war in Indochina...like at DBP when the FFL and colonial units were fighting to the end on the strong points,ragged squares of wounded and dying men fighting to the end against thousands of VM,the battles at Tu Leh,etc.,etc.
from a military history perspective it's just very interesting...especially since the US seemed to learn nothing from the FICW....

[cookie]

I think the very best English language book to capture the social and political turmoil in France during the later stages of Indochina and throughout Algeria is Alastair Horne's 'A Savage War of Peace'. This is an excellent book that delves right into the many and varied factions within French society and the military at that time. It is, if nothing else, an amazingly interesting and chaotic period of history - and one that is criminally neglected by US and British academics.
I grew interested in the subject of modern French military history (Indo/Algeria/Suez) as it was a challenge. There is far too much coverage given to WWII. You only have to walk into a book shop to see how vast the section on this war is compared to every other period. I grew tired of reading endless books about WWII US paratroopers at D-Day or the British Airborne at Arnhem.
The anti France attitude is amazingly prevalent amongst US and British historians and reenactors. Mostly it is generated from an ignorance of history and a misplaced arrogance based on football style jingoism in which the French are depicted as 'cheese eating surrender monkeys'. The people who tend to propagate this rubbish are the beer tent and burger van crowd. It is a shame they are so numerous.

[ponchardier]

Very interesting topic, I read all of you...really great...thank you.