The Japanese Coup of 9 March 1945 in Indo-China

Home , Jean Decoux, March 1945

• First published in International Studies (STlCERD, LSE) (1 985), pp. 1-29

his is not the first time I have dealt with the Japanese coup de force of 9 March, T 1945, in French Indo-China. In my book End of the War in Asia (Hart-Davis, 1976) one of the chapters gives an account of the surrender of the Japanese Southern Army in Saigon, the entry of British forces under General Gracey into Indo-China south of the 16th parallel and of the Chinese forces under Lu Han north of it. But the emphasis was on the period August-September 1945, and the description of the coup de force was an introduction to that period. I therefore owe Professor Ian Nish a debt of gratitude for the invitation to take part in this seminar on South-East Asia in 1945 which enables me to explore in greater depth the events of 9 March and what led up to them, and also for the information he passed on to me about the colloquy on de Gaulle and Indo-China held at the Institut Charles de Gaulle in 1981, the published reports of which have provided me with wider evidence on French attitudes than was previously available. It is, of course, possible to regard the Japanese take-over of the French administration and garrisons as of no great significance in view of the more shattering events which were to characterise the politics of Indo-China in the 1960s and 1970s; as something, in fact, which was both inevitable and did not radically alter the course of history. For some later historians, only the war between Viet-Nam and the United States has any real standing. What went before it serves as a prelude to be glanced at merely, whether the protagonists were French, Vietnamese, British or Chinese. Against this, a case has been made for the crucial role of General Gracey and the 20 Indian Division in the autumn of 1945, by George Rosie in his The British In Vietnam (London, Panther Books, 1970) 1 and as far as the coup de force itself is concerned, several French writers persist in regarding it not merely as a minor episode in the war in the Pacific but as a hinge of fate in the relations between France and her possessions in Indo-China. Fresh contributions have been made to this side of the case, and some, but by no means all, of the Japanese record has been made available, so that it is possible to judge what motivated the coup in the first place. My paper proposes to look briefly at some French accounts, and then compare the version derived from them with that obtainable from Japanese sources. The causality of the coup is not the only historical issue. Inevitable or not, the

46 THE JAPANESE COUP OF 9 MARCH 1945 IN INDO-CHINA question arises: once it had occurred, did it fundamentally affect the future course of developments in South-East Asia? That particular question is not one which affects Vietnamese, as they are now. The same thing happens in their case as in the case of the Burmese when historians consider the campaigns fought in Burma between 1942 and 1945: the native peoples across whose territory the war was fought are a secondary issue. What happens is the clash between first-class powers who act for their own reasons, and to whom, whatever they may say, the welfare of the native peoples of a given territory is not the first consideration. So although Annam, Cochin-China, Cambodia and Laos may be the ultimate stake of the game, they are not the prime players, though both sides have to take them into account. So there is a French question, put by the historian Philippe Devillers: did a certain form of resistance ... work for the benefit of the Japanese by its imprudence, or was the Japanese coup inevitable? (De Gaulle et l'Indochine, p. 66) And there is also the Vietnamese question: did the issue of independence for the peoples of Indo-China arise in the course of preparation for the coup, and, whatever the answer to that question, did the coup materially affect the issue of independence? There is, that is to say, a debate on the topic which is one aspect of the continuing debate in French historiography on the relations between Resistance and Collaboration, re-stated in another form and for another geographical area. This debate is, in literary terms, the opposition CreoniAntigone, between the supposed wisdom of the patient, all-seeing and prudent sage leader, and the impetuous, gallant, but futile and ineffective young subject. There is also the debate in Japanese historiography about the Pacific War, on the extent to which it can be considered as a war for the liberation of the peoples of Asia, or whether the purposes of an imperialist Japan were paramount, and the notion of liberation merely a propaganda screen for them. Let us glance first, briefly, at the prehistory. To cut a main source of supply to Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist China, and thus bring about the end of the China Incident, the Japanese used the isolated and weakened condition of French Indo China after the fall of France in June 1940 to insist that the route Haiphong-Yunnan be cut, and that the cut be supervised by Japanese forces. The then Governor General, Catroux, who could expect no help from the mother country and none from Great Britain or the United States, gave in. The Vichy regime promptly replaced him by Admiral Jean Decoux, who remained in power until the Japanese coup in March 1945. In his turn, Decoux was called to give in to Japanese pressure to occupy airfields and other installations, this time in the south ofIndo-China, in the summer of 1941, after Japan had shown she was capable of using force by an assault on French troops at Langson on the Chinese border in January; at the same time, Japan insisted on acting as mediator between Siam and France after an ignoble little war in which the French army was defeated and the French navy sank the Siamese fleet, the result being the cession of Cambodian territory to Siam at Japan's behest. The military occupation of southern French Indo-China was not, of course, anything to do directly with the China Incident. It was part of the Japanese plan to extend bases as near to Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies as possible for a southward advance, and indeed the Guards Regiment which invaded Malaya was stationed in Cambodia, and the bombers which sank the Prince of Wales and the Repulse flew from airfields in French territory. Nonetheless, the Japanese did not unseat the French regime. There was no need. As long as order was maintained (and it was as much in the French interest as in the Japanese to do this), as long as