National historical memory in France has often given rise to violent polemic. Controversial episodes of national history, such as the Second World War and Algerian conflict, have attracted considerable attention. Yet despite its obvious importance as a particularly violent war of decolonization and precursor to the Vietnam War, the First Indochina War (1946-54) has largely been ignored. In the context of decolonization and the beginning of the Cold War, however, Indochina offers a unique example of the complex relationship between event, commemoration, and memory. This dissertation examines state commemorations, official and unofficial sites of memory, film and other media representations of the war, and several “flashpoint” events that have elicited particularly heated debates over the legacies of the war. The thematic structure allows me to bring together various vehicles and artefacts of memory, from monuments to commemorative ceremonies to veterans’ associations, along with less tangible expressions of memory expressed through public debates and film. I also analyze the tangible legacy of colonialism in the metropole: the ‘repatriate’ camps that housed primarily French citizens of Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian origin after 1956. This chapter makes an important contribution to the history of immigration to France, which is critical to understanding issues currently facing this multicultural society. Two dominant narratives emerge from my analysis. The first is maintained by a majority of veterans and elements of the political right and extreme right, and is characterized by themes of heroic soldiers combating communism and a belief in their abandonment by the metropolitan government and public. In some cases, a sense of duty to protect ‘Greater France’ is invoked, and in others, the duty to fight with the independent Vietnamese against their communist oppressors. The second narrative casts the conflict as a ‘dirty’ war of colonial reconquest. Though the primary goal of the dissertation is to elucidate the construction of particular narratives of war, I argue that this memorial process is inherently intertwined with the re-evaluation of the colonial project. The fundamental disagreement over the nature of the war, as either a battle against communism or a war of colonial reconquest, has prompted extensive debates over the relative merits of the colonial project and its putative resurrection in 1945.

National historical memory in France has often given rise to violent polemic. Controversial episodes of national history, such as the Second World War and Algerian conflict, have attracted considerable attention. Yet despite its obvious importance as a particularly violent war of decolonization and precursor to the Vietnam War, the First Indochina War (1946-54) has largely been ignored. In the context of decolonization and the beginning of the Cold War, however, Indochina offers a unique example of the complex relationship between event, commemoration, and memory. This dissertation examines state commemorations, official and unofficial sites of memory, film and other media representations of the war, and several “flashpoint” events that have elicited particularly heated debates over the legacies of the war. The thematic structure allows me to bring together various vehicles and artefacts of memory, from monuments to commemorative ceremonies to veterans’ associations, along with less tangible expressions of memory expressed through public debates and film. I also analyze the tangible legacy of colonialism in the metropole: the ‘repatriate’ camps that housed primarily French citizens of Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian origin after 1956. This chapter makes an important contribution to the history of immigration to France, which is critical to understanding issues currently facing this multicultural society. Two dominant narratives emerge from my analysis. The first is maintained by a majority of veterans and elements of the political right and extreme right, and is characterized by themes of heroic soldiers combating communism and a belief in their abandonment by the metropolitan government and public. In some cases, a sense of duty to protect ‘Greater France’ is invoked, and in others, the duty to fight with the independent Vietnamese against their communist oppressors. The second narrative casts the conflict as a ‘dirty’ war of colonial reconquest. Though the primary goal of the dissertation is to elucidate the construction of particular narratives of war, I argue that this memorial process is inherently intertwined with the re-evaluation of the colonial project. The fundamental disagreement over the nature of the war, as either a battle against communism or a war of colonial reconquest, has prompted extensive debates over the relative merits of the colonial project and its putative resurrection in 1945.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation examines the latter stages of the Second Indochina War through the lens of geography, spatial contestation, and the environment. The natural and the manmade world were not only central but a decisive factor in the struggle to control the population and territory of South Vietnam. The war was shaped and in many ways determined by spatial / environmental factors. Like other revolutionary civil conflicts, the key to winning political power in South Vietnam was to control both the physical world (territory, population, resources) and the ideational world (the political organization of occupied territory). The means to do so was insurgency and pacification - two approaches that pursued the same goals (population and territory control) and used the same methods (a blend of military force, political violence, and socioeconomic policy) despite their countervailing purposes. The war in South Vietnam, like all armed conflicts, possessed a unique spatiality due to its irregular nature. Although it has often been called a "war without fronts," the reality is that the conflict in South Vietnam was a war with innumerable fronts, as insurgents and counterinsurgents feverishly wrestled to win political power and control of the civilian environment throughout forty-four provinces, 250 districts, and more than 11,000 hamlets. The conflict in South Vietnam was not one geographical war, but many; it was a highly complex politico-military struggle that fragmented space and atomized the battlefield along a million divergent points of conflict. This paper explores the unique spatiality of the Second Indochina War and examines the ways that both sides of the conflict conceptualized and utilized geography and the environment to serve strategic, tactical, and political purposes. / History

No description available.

A la fin de l’année 1946, la Marine française franchit une étape importante dans la reconstruction débutée avant la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, avec la réapparition d’une aviation navale embarquée. En même temps, le Viêt-minh, mouvement nationaliste vietnamien, se soulève à Hanoï marquant le début d’un conflit qui va se poursuivre jusqu’en 1954. C’est dans ce contexte que la Marine française engage en Indochine peu après, son aviation embarquée renaissante par des campagnes se succédant pendant les deux tiers du conflit. La première série de campagnes ayant lieu entre 1947 et 1948 se révèle modeste mais riche de promesses pour l’avenir. La seconde série ayant lieu entre 1951 et 1954 se traduit par un engagement beaucoup plus important de l’aviation embarquée grâce à l’aide américaine reçue dans le cadre du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord et montre les capacités d’intervention de l’aviation embarquée à l’intérieur des terres. L’engagement de l’aviation embarquée en Indochine ne modifie pas l’issue du conflit, mais se révèle avoir un impact positif important sur la renaissance de la Marine française. Elle l’aide après dix années d’efforts infructueux, à obtenir le lancement de la construction en France non seulement de deux porte-avions modernes mais aussi celle des avions d’assaut et de reconnaissance embarqués à réaction qui leur sont indispensables. / At the end of 1946, the French Navy revival achieves a significant step with the rebirth of a carrier-borne aviation. In the same time, the Viet Minh revolts in Hanoi, which marks the beginning of a ten years conflict. In such a context, the French Navy engages shortly after, her just reborn carrier-borne aviation during the two thirds of the first Indochina war. The first series of campaigns between 1947 and 1949 appears modest but full of promises for the future. The second series between 1951 and 1954, shows a bigger involvement of the carrier-borne aviation with the assistance of the military assistance program from United States within the North Atlantic Treaty and reveals a power projection capability of carrier-borne aviation. The involvement of the carrier-borne aviation does not change the outcome of the conflict, but had a very positive impact on the French Navy revival in process. It helped her, after ten years of unsuccessful attempts to obtain the building of two carrier vessels as well as the production of carrier-borne strike and recon jet aircraft.

Durant la guerre dite « d’Indochine » (1945-1954), plus de 20 000 combattants français, légionnaires et africains, sont portés « prisonniers et disparus ». Pour la majorité prisonniers de guerre (PG) de la République démocratique du Vietnam (RDV), ils sont soumis à un régime alimentaire et sanitaire qui, s’il est proche de celui des Vietnamiens, fait des ravages dans leurs rangs. Mais le rythme terrible des morts n’est pas le seul choc qui les attend en captivité, où ils se voient imposer une éducation politique visant à leur ouvrir les yeux sur la condition du prolétariat militaire qu’ils forment ainsi que sur celle du peuple vietnamien exploité par le colonialisme français. Désorientés par ces conditions de captivité, les PG voient leurs repères sociaux et moraux singulièrement mis à l’épreuve. Les PG se voient en effet contraints, pour survivre, de « jouer le jeu » de la propagande de leurs geôliers, enfreignant de ce fait leur devoir de soldat. Dans chaque camp, des microsociétés de captifs s’agrègent et se désagrègent, occasionnant entre eux d’importants clivages – encore sensibles aujourd’hui. Tous ensemble, ces éléments contribuent à assoir dès les années 1950 une analyse à charge de la captivité : les PG auraient été « exterminés » par leurs geôliers, fortement « soupçonnés » par leur hiérarchie après leur libération, et immédiatement « oubliés » de leurs compatriotes. Cette triple lecture – ici sensiblement nuancée – forge ainsi, pour les décennies à venir, les conditions de possibilité pour les anciens PG de la RDV de s’ériger en victimes.Mais l’expérience n’est pas également douloureuse chez tous les PG : au contact des Vietnamiens, ils deviennent également les sujets d’une expérience inter-nationale hors normes ; certains estiment même avoir retiré de cette expérience « une certaine vision enrichissante », à tout le moins font-ils part de leur soif de comprendre l’extraordinaire expérience qu’ils viennent de vivre. Pour les cadres militaires notamment, cette expérience est porteuse d’un premier « devoir de mémoire ». Plus jamais pareille défaite réclament ainsi nombre d’« anciens d’Indochine » basculant dans la « Guerre d’Algérie », modélisant « l’action psychologique » subie en captivité dans la perspective d’une « contre-insurrection » à la française. « Plus jamais ça ! » clament également nombre d’anciens PG, munis de la légitimité d’un anticommunisme empirique, pour condamner en France le mouvement de mai 1968, l’Union de la Gauche, ou les massacres commis au nom du marxisme ailleurs dans le monde. Pour certains, l’expérience de la captivité est même sublimée en une forme d’éthique pratique qui contribuera à conduire certains d’entre eux jusqu’aux plus hautes sphères, d’où ils participeront à initier le combat qui prendra son essor à partir des années 1980 pour la reconnaissance et la réparation des traumatismes subis par les PG de la RDV.Dans l’air du temps de la fin du XXe siècle, les témoins vont en effet mobiliser le traumatisme comme ressource pour la mobilisation initiée au nom de la mémoire de leur expérience. Le témoignage devient alors, tout à la fois, un matériau d’expertise historique avec la thèse de l’ancien PG R. Bonnafous en 1985, d’expertise médicolégale après l’adoption en 1989 du « statut de prisonnier du Viet-Minh », et d’expertise judiciaire lors de l’« affaire Boudarel ». La chute du bloc soviétique, l’affaissement du tiers-mondisme et de l’anticolonialisme et l’avènement de « l’ère de la victime », autorisent en effet les anciens PG de la RDV, dont le collectif s’institutionnalise et s’élargit avec la création en 1985 de l’ANAPI, à se reconnaître en tant que victimes et à travailler à être reconnus comme tels. Cette lecture victimaire de la captivité de guerre en Indochine offre au final la clé d’une patrimonialisation relative de leur expérience sur le mode paradigmatique de la mémoire des crimes et génocides nazis… le tout sur fond de réhabilitation de la colonisation française. / During the Indochina war (1945-1954), more than 20,000 French combatants, legionnaires and Africans, are listed "prisoners and missing". Prisoners of war (POW) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) for the majority, they are subjected to a food and health regime that, if it is close to that of the Vietnamese, wreaks havoc in their ranks. But the terrible rhythm of the dead is not the only shock awaiting them in captivity, where they are forced to undergo a political education aimed at opening their eyes to the condition of the military proletariat they form, as well as to that of the Vietnamese people exploited by the French colonialism. Disorientated by these conditions of captivity, the POWs find their social and moral landmarks singularly put to the test. In order to survive, the POWs are forced to "play the game" of their jailers' propaganda, thereby violating their duty as soldiers. In each camp, captive micro-groups aggregate and disintegrate, causing important cleavages, still sensitive today, between them. This triple reading - here considered with nuance - thus forges, for decades to come, the conditions for the possibility of the former POWs of the DRVN becoming victims.But the experience is not as painful for all the POWs: when they come into contact with the Vietnamese, they also become subjects of an extraordinary international experience; some feel that they have even gained "a certain enriching vision" from this experience, at least they express their wish to understand the extraordinary experience they have just had. For officers in particular, this experience take the form of a first "duty to remember". Never again such defeats claim many Indochina veterans who fall into the "Algerian War", modeling "psychological action" suffered in captivity with the prospect of a French-style "counter-insurgency". "Never again!", claim many former POWs with the legitimacy of an empirical anti-communism, condemning, in France, the May 1968 movement, the "Union de la Gauche", or the massacres committed in the name of Marxism elsewhere in the world. For some, the experience of captivity is even sublimated into a form of practical ethics that will help to lead some of them to the highest political level, from where they will participate in initiating the fight that will take off from the 1980s onwards for the recognition and repair of the traumatisms suffered by the DRVN's POWs.In the spirit of the late twentieth century, witnesses mobilize trauma as a resource for mobilization initiated in the name of the memory of their experience. The testimony then becomes, at the same time, a material of historical expertise with the thesis of the former POW R. Bonnafous in 1985, of medico-legal expertise after the adoption in 1989 of the "prisoner of Viet Minh" status, and of judicial expertise during the "Boudarel affair". The fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Third World and the anti-colonialism, and the advent of the "era of the victim", indeed, allow the former POWs of the DRVN, whose collective is institutionalised with the creation of the ANAPI in 1985, to recognize themselves as victims and to work to be recognized as such. This victimized reading of the war captivity in Indochina ultimately offers the key to a relative patrimonialization of their experience on the paradigmatic mode of memory of Nazi crimes and genocides... all against a background of the rehabilitation of the French colonization.

Cette thèse est une biographie de l’amiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu (1889-1964), en religion le père Louis de la Trinité de l’ordre des Carmes déchaux.Entré à l’Ecole navale en 1906, il sert d’abord au Maroc où il rencontre Lyautey, puis en Méditerranée pendant la Grande Guerre. À l’issue du conflit, il quitte la Marine pour entrer au Carmel, aboutissement d’un cheminement débuté avant le conflit. Provincial de son ordre en 1932, ce catholique intransigeant, un temps séduit par les thèses de l’Action française, est l’un des principaux artisans du renouveau connu par l’ordre dans l’entre-deux-guerres. Mobilisé en 1939, il est fait prisonnier lors de la reddition de Cherbourg. Il s’évade et rallie le Royaume-Uni dès la fin juin 1940. De Londres à Dakar et du Gabon à la Nouvelle-Calédonie, il est aux avant-postes de la France Libre. Premier chancelier de l’Ordre de la Libération, ce très proche du général de Gaulle devient un amiral incontournable dans la Marine. En août 1945, il est nommé haut-commissaire de France en Indochine. Son mandat est marqué par l’impossibilité de parvenir à un accord avec Hô Chi Minh et par le déclenchement du conflit. Rappelé en 1947, il renouvelle ses vœux, puis reprend une existence monastique.Fondée entre autres sur les papiers inédits de Georges d’Argenlieu, cette thèse à la croisée de l’histoire navale, religieuse, politique et coloniale, ambitionne de retrouver l’unité d’un homme et l’intransigeance d’une vie. Elle permet d’interroger les rapports politico-militaires, l’acculturation des officiers à la République, la place des chrétiens dans la Cité, mais aussi la vision et les pratiques coloniales de la France de la Libération. / This dissertation is a biography of French Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu (1889-1964), whose religious name was Father Louis de la Trinité, of the Order of Discalced Carmelites.After joining the École Navale in 1906, he took part in the campaign in Morocco and served in the Mediterranean during the First World War. After the conflict, he left the Navy and entered the order of the Discalced Carmelite Friars; this was the consequence of a personal evolution that had started before the war. In 1932, he was elected Provincial Superior of the Order. He was one of the main contributors to the renewal of the Order between the wars. He was mobilised in 1939 and captured during the defence of Cherbourg, but he escaped shortly after and joined De Gaulle in London. From London to Dakar and from Gabon to New Caledonia, he held major positions in the Free French Forces. As the first Chancellor of the Order of the Liberation and a close friend of Général De Gaulle, he had a prominent status in the Navy. In August 1945, he was appointed High Commissioner in Indochina. His mandate was marked by the impossibility to reach an agreement with Hô Chi Minh and the beginning of the First Indochina War. He was recalled to France in 1947 and resumed religious life.This dissertation is notably based on Georges d’Argenlieu’s unpublished personal papers; it aims to provide consistency to the itinerary of a complex man who led an uncompromising life. It explores politico-military relations, the role of Christians in secular society, the relations between senior officers and the French Republic as well as the colonial vision and mores of France at the time of the Liberation.

En 1945, le génie militaire français est devenu l’arme des communications. À leur arrivée en Indochine, malgré la pauvreté de leurs effectifs, les formations du génie œuvrent donc au rétablissement des itinéraires. Cependant, la nature même de la guerre d’Indochine et les caractéristiques propres au milieu physique des pays de la péninsule indochinoise obligent le génie à s’adapter, tout en assurant de plus en plus de responsabilités. À partir de 1951, la menace chinoise comme le renforcement du corps de bataille viêt-minh font apparaître de nouvelles missions qui se traduisent par l’équipement du théâtre d’opérations, rendu possible par l’arrivée de l’aide américaine. En dépit de la montée en puissance du génie d’Extrême-Orient, la perte progressive de la liberté d’action du corps expéditionnaire se solde par la défaite des Français. Enfin, entre 1954 et 1956, les sapeurs accueillent les réfugiés et les unités du corps expéditionnaire en provenance du Nord-Vietnam puis, procèdent à l’évacuation de l’Indochine. / In 1945, French army engineers became the routes building branch. From the moment they arrive in Indochina, engineers reestablish itineraries, in spite of a limited number personnel. However the deep nature of the Indochina war and the particular of south-eastern Asian terrain force the engineers to adapt while they take more and more responsibilities. By 1951, the Chinese threat and the reinforcement of the Viet-Minh result in new missions which necessitate a development of infrastructures on the theatre, thanks to American support. Despite the increasing presence of the engineers, the French defeat is caused by a progressive restrain of the movement for the expeditionary corps. Eventually between 1954 and 1956, the engineers gather the refugees and the expeditionary corps units from North-Vietnam and manage the evacuation from Indochina.