Martin Shipway. The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944-1947. Providence, R.I. and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996. xii + 306 pp. $59.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-57181-894-2. Reviewed by Irwin Wall Published on H-France (July, 1997) This is an important book. It is not customary origins and "causes" beg for explanation. Martin to inquire into the origins of colonial wars; we Shipway, Professor of French at Birkbeck College, seem rather to take them for granted as part of an University of London, has gone a long way toward inevitable tide of postwar decolonization, their providing one. origins thus requiring no explanation. Yet despite, Shipway casts his net widely, situating Viet‐ or perhaps because of, these conflicts, much of nam in the context of the broader question of imperialism's end occurred peacefully, or amid postwar decolonization. The Dutch and British disturbances short of war. France's long and tor‐ also pursued the chimerical goal of bridging the tured Algerian conflict from 1954 to 1962 followed distance between nascent colonial nationalism immediately after the French termination of their and the preservation of empire, whether in the phase of the war in Indochina but obscures the si‐ form of commonwealth, federation, or ill-defined multaneous granting of independence to Morocco "union." But was the project for a French Union and Tunisia in 1956 and the progressive acts of bound to fail? Were the French pursuing an illu‐ legislation marking the end of the colonial depen‐ sion? To take such a position is to take the easy dence of French black Africa by 1960. The In‐ way out as an excuse for failing to examine the dochinese conflict was prelude to all of these specific reasons why this particular war broke out events, yet its significance is far greater. In its lat‐ where and when it did. Shipway shows that once er stages, the conflict was absorbed by the cold one gets into the specifics, the broader context of war, fnanced by the United States, and fnally decolonization appears increasingly problematic taken over by the Americans, stretching out into a as explanation. God is indeed in the details. thirty-year war that ended where it started, with The plan for a renewed and modernized Vietnam under the control of the Viet Minh, but French Union was laid down at the conference of with the United States altered almost beyond Brazzaville, French Congo, in 1944 and assumed a recognition and the cold war itself transformed. hallowed place in Gaullist mythology as a liberal Like all wars, however, it had a beginning, and its H-Net Reviews and progressive call for an end to imperialism, stroy the Fourth Republic in 1958. These three appropriate to de Gaulle's movement of Free constraints were relatively inoperative in 1944-45, French seeking to liberate metropolitan France allowing the parameters of a reasonably rational from the Nazi scourge. As a number of French Indochina policy to be laid down. Salience was scholars have shown, the Brazzaville conference low, Gaullism and Republicanism appeared part was nothing of the kind. It was a closed meeting of a unitary vision, and the colonial administra‐ of a small number of colonial administrators, ad‐ tion was in hand. Unfortunately this happy situa‐ mitting no representatives of subject peoples tion was not to last: colonial issues became part of themselves (Felix Eboue, the one assimilated internal Paris politics, Gaullism and Republican‐ black, was part of the French colonial administra‐ ism were to appear antithetical to one another, tion), which left an ambiguous legacy, advocating and the colonial bureaucracy went its own way by economic and cultural reforms but rigidly exclud‐ the war's outbreak in 1946. But this gets us ahead ing any idea of independence for France's former of our story. For even when these constraints colonies. Henri Laurentie, whose papers provide were not yet operative, Laurentie found his feder‐ a good deal of Shipway's most interesting source alist ideas running up against traditional French materials, sketched the plan for the French myths of the unity and indivisibility of the Repub‐ Union--which eventually categorized France's for‐ lic and the assimilation of colonial peoples into a mer colonies as Associated States, Territories, and nation of "100 million Frenchmen." France would Overseas Departments within the French Union-- not abandon its mission civilisatrice. but his ideas were rejected at Brazzaville. De Indochina was under a Vichy administration Gaulle took them over later and attributed them covered by a virtual Japanese protectorate for to Brazzaville, however, creating its myth, much most of the war; only in March 1945 did the Japa‐ as he did the myth of Vichy as the shield and the nese fnally push the Vichy administration aside Resistance the sword, both in some sense working in a coup d'etat. In March 1945, the French gov‐ for French liberation. ernment made its frst declaration on Indochina, Laurentie, the Director of Political Affairs in which had been targeted by U.S. President the ministry of colonies, pursued his ideas for a Franklin Roosevelt as a fagrant example of his‐ French Union against a backdrop of constraints torical French misrule. The declaration promised imposed, in Shipway's terms, by considerations of Indochina freedom within the context of the yet- salience, ideology, and institutional solidarity. to-be French Union. But the declaration bore little "Salience" referred to the degree of importance relationship to events on the ground, where Ho colonial affairs assumed in the domestic political Chi Minh and the nationalist Viet Minh had seized maelstrom of Paris from 1944 to 1947; "ideology" power in the wake of Hiroshima and the Japanese was defined by the parameters of the postwar defeat. Shipway tries too hard, I think, to portray Gaullist-Republican synthesis; and "institutional Laurentie as a relatively enlightened and liberal solidarity", which turned out to be the most criti‐ official. He undercuts his case by showing that cal of the three, involved the degree of control Laurentie's liberalism reflected a pragmatic con‐ Paris was able to exercise over its colonial bu‐ sideration born of French weakness rather than reaucracy. The Indochina war established the dis‐ any altruistic spirit of generosity. Laurenties's pol‐ astrous pattern of unauthorized actions by colo‐ icy reflected the French desire to salvage what it nial and military officials in the colonies later be‐ could. ing rationalized and "covered" by weak Paris The contradiction became at once apparent politicians preoccupied with domestic political when France returned to Indochina--prepared, to crises, the malady which eventually was to de‐ 2 H-Net Reviews be sure, to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh even to the the issue of the unity of Vietnam, and was point of uttering the fatal word "independence," shocked to discover that France meant to monop‐ however defined. But de Gaulle chose to send an olize the diplomatic representation of the Indochi‐ uncompromising Governor General in the person nese Federation. A "free" French Vietnam in the of the redoubtable Thierry d'Argenlieu, whose im‐ French Union in fact was intended to enjoy auton‐ perialism was held with all the fervor of his omous powers neither in defense, foreign policy, Catholicism (d'Argenlieu was a former monk and finances, or education. Ho frmly rejected these returned to the monastery when he retired). terms, counting on his ability to mobilize more D'Argenlieu was endowed with the traditional progressive support in Paris, but he arrived there powers equivalent to those of a dictator, and was in June 1946 to discover yet a further set of un‐ instructed to apply a program of "fve lands" in In‐ pleasant facts. The constitutional draft for the dochina, Cambodia, Laos, and a divided Vietnam Fourth Republic was in the process of being re‐ into three provinces or ky, Tonkin, Annam, and jected by the voters, a relatively progressive gov‐ Cochinchina. To back this up, the French came ernment of Socialist Felix Gouin gave way, after with four French divisions under the heroic Gen‐ new elections, to a government headed by colo‐ eral Philippe Leclerc, who wasted no time in es‐ nialist Georges Bidault of the Mouvement republi‐ tablishing a tenuous control in the South. Little cain populaire (MRP). And back in Vietnam, in a wonder that Ho Chi Minh proved so compliant policy of establishing new "facts" on the ground, and agreed to negotiate on the basis of indepen‐ d'Argenlieu declared an autonomous Republic of dence within the context of the French Union. A Cochinchina. Marius Moutet, Gouin's minister of consensus built of mutually pragmatic considera‐ colonies, approved d'Argenlieu's action and the tions drove the two sides into the accords of government's negotiator in Fontainebleau, Max March 6, 1946. Ho Chi Minh agreed to abide by Andre of the MRP, was the same person who had the results of free elections to determine the ques‐ refused any and all concessions at Dalat. Finally, tion of the unity of the three ky, and he accepted de Gaulle laid down his challenge to the restored the return of French troops to the North. Paris in "system" of political parties at Bayeux, calling for turn agreed that Vietnam would enjoy indepen‐ a strong executive, indicting it, among other defi‐ dence within the Indochinese federation and the ciencies, for its failure to affirm the integrity of French Union, and French troops would withdraw the empire, with none other than D'Argenlieu, within fve years. But both sides chafed under back in France for a strategic visit, at his side. these terms, and meanwhile de Gaulle resigned In this situation Ho discovered no more dis‐ and France entered a cycle of constitution mak‐ position to make concessions in Paris than had ex‐ ing, referenda, and elections.