Military Reforms Resulting From The Yen Bai Mutiny - Military Reforms Precipitated By The Mutiny - Military Intelligence Reforms

Military Intelligence Reforms

In addition to punishing soldiers, tightening dismissal regulations and reducing the number of Vietnamese servicemen in France, the French decided to improve the military intelligence service. This was to be achieved by strengthening military intelligence through closer coordination with the Sûreté, and by raising internal standards. In terms of coordination, an inquiry into the mutiny at Yen Bai showed that cooperation between Resident Massimi and Commandant Le Tacon did not exist despite multiple requests, and that this was partly responsible for the failure to prevent the uprising. Although the relationship between the civilian authorities in Tonkin and the military were traditionally marked by rivalry, Yen Bai stood out in the total lack of military–civilian cooperation. Further VNQDD conspiracies to foment mutinies in other garrisons, such as Kien An, were detected and scotched at late notice. Although the performance of the intelligence service was regarded as being substandard at Yen Bai, the army command in Vietnam realised, under criticism from civil authorities who claimed they had not been sufficiently cooperative in the past, that the teamwork with the Sûreté had to be raised to greater heights to prevent future Yen Bai style rebellions. For such reasons, Patrice Morlat wrote that the mutiny at Yen Bai allowed the Sûreté to "penetrate indirectly into the military sector which had till then been inaccessible".

However, this indirect penetration in the aftermath of the Yen Bai mutiny seems to have been the evolution of a process that had begun at least six months earlier. Several sources indicate that this was triggered by the French crackdown on the VNQDD and other revolutionary independence organisations in early 1929. The crackdown had uncovered the extent of the VNQDD's systematic infiltration of the army, and had prompted a military crackdown on troops with connections to such organisations. By October 1929, after heavy civilian criticism of the military's information policy in July, army authorities had realised the need to systematically gather intelligence to deal with the threat from new forms of anti-colonial organisation. As such information could be collected only by the Sûreté, the implication was that the military had to work more closely with the colonial political police. Three weeks before Yen Bai, Governor General Pasquier had congratulated General Commandant Superior Aubert on the "most favourable results" of "close collaboration".

The events at Yen Bai mutiny and the discovery that the VNQDD had infiltrated many other units reinforced the need for closer military–civilian relations and fast tracked the process of improved relations. According to Morlat, the Sûreté's indirect penetration of military affairs involved linking the military intelligence service (SRM) to the Sûreté and the information provided by it, thereby making itself dependent on the political information and even political judgement and agenda of the civilian authorities. The central SRM then relayed this information to its local branches as part of its SRM Bulletin. There, "ALL OFFICERS (and not just those of the SRM" were to be participate in the study of the revolutionary groups. As a result of the uprising, the SRM became more closely linked to the Sûreté and its methodology and philosophy in of analysing Vietnamese anti-colonial activity. The number of recipients of such intelligence increased markedly due to the decision to have all officers involved in studying revolutionary parties. The focus thus widened from observing only internal army activities to include developments among Vietnamese anti-colonial organisations at large.

As rivalries continued to exist between military and civil authorities, the military intelligence service did not completely fall under the sway of the Sûreté, but it was strongly influenced by the institutionalised cooperation and the Sûreté's style of analysing Vietnamese anti-colonial politics: it also benefited from an improved flow of information between the two intelligence agencies. Whether the institutionalised sharing of intelligence and enhanced understanding of anti-colonial organisations would lead to more effective prevention, depended largely on the internal operations of the military intelligence service. The mutiny had exposed flaws in the local and central SRM, the result of both personal and institutional deficiencies. Commandant Le Tacon, who had been responsible for organising the local SRM, had been unable to understand the graveness of the predicament despite several warnings. The central SRM may have prevented the mutiny if the officer responsible for Yen Bai, Slouchez, had informed his local contact, Tran Uc Sinh, about his leave of absence or if he had taken the required precautions of arranging cover during his absence. These oversights were particular to Yen Bai, whereas planned VNQDD mutinies in many other garrisons, such as Kien An, Phu Lang Thuong, Nam Dinh and Sept-Pagodes, were prevented at the last moment. The intelligence failure at Yen Bai did not reflect weaknesses in the overall organisational hierarchy of the SRM, or failures in the decentralisation measures which had started in early 1929 but which had not yet been finished.

Although Yen Bai was the exception, this did not mean that the SRM ran smoothly or that the performance standards could not be higher. A month after the mutiny, General Commandant Superior Aubert circulated SRM Notice 660, on March 11, 1930, to describe (and prescribe) the morale and techniques needed for an effective intelligence service. It stressed the importance of understanding the objectives and organisational structure of anti-colonial parties and then advised on the ways in which the revolutionary threat could be nullified. The note also deemed it necessary to remind its recipients about two earlier intelligence communications – of February 25 and October 17, 1929 – thus indicating that they had not been taken on board completely. One of the reasons given for this was what was seen as the complacent attitude of many officers, in assuming that they could "preserve units from revolutionary propaganda" and related to this, the low morale of many European warrant officers who regarded "their role as ending when their working hours are over". Apart from indicating what officers should be giving their due diligence, Aubert's note also indicated the means by which critical intelligence information could be obtained. This largely depended on close collaboration with Vietnamese warrant officers who had an important intelligence role in their position as a conduit between their French masters and their Vietnamese troops. The flow of intelligence between French officers and Vietnamese warrant officers was not as smooth as desired. The French were often not tactful and discreet enough; more notably, many were not, due to a lack of language skills or interest, "in real contact with the indigenous warrant officers". On the other hand, the Vietnamese were not very open with regard to the provision of information, and thus did not take (co-)responsibility "for the maintenance of the troops’ good spirit". Despite the air of good appearance and behaviour of the Vietnamese warrant officers and tirailleurs, they often misled ltheir French superiors about their knowledge of subversive activities. This posed a major problem in intelligence gathering, necessitating the cross-checking of information, as well as threatening harsh penalties if information was withheld.

Historical consensus notes that irrespective of whether military duty in the France was productive or not, the time spent by the Vietnamese soldiers in France had a profound transformation on them in both the social and individual sense. Inside as well as outside the barracks, the Vietnamese servicemen were often treated more equitably than in their home country. They encountered intellectual thought not openly promulgated in Vietnam. They could relate to Frenchmen, have relations with French women, and with other colonised peoples present in France. Furthermore, they could see that France too was in a state of change. As a result of their overseas service, at least some of the returning troops would attempt to rationalise the differences between their experiences in the two countries. Coupled with the differences in colonial and metropolitan discipline, this is postulated to have bred a more critical stance towards their superiors and a more critical attitude towards the colonial order.

In addition to the measures intended to help identify, isolate or eliminate soldiers of suspect loyalty, the regulations for dismissal were liberalised. The French military authorities had long complained that the rules were biased in favour of the soldiers. They complained that while the chief French provincial administrator could dismiss a native Garde indigène without notice if they were regarded as suspect, this was virtually impossible in the army due to legal constraints. They blamed this for the higher rate of mutiny in the army. The military managed to have the regulations changed. A decree of April 8, 1930 permitted the General Commandant Superior "to discharge those soldiers who had been the object of convictions in excess of three months imprisonment by a military tribunal, or who would have rendered themselves guilty of activities contrary to military duty". While the guidelines for sacking remained narrow, with only the highest officer in Indochina allowed to authorise these measures, and only under certain conditions, the last clause in the decree of April 8 could be interpreted freely.