Second French Indochina Campaign - The Coup

The Coup

In 1945, the Japanese feared an Allied offensive in French Indochina. The Vichy regime had ceased to exist in Europe, but its colonial administration was still in place in Indochina, though the governor Admiral Jean Decoux had recognized and contacted the Provisional Government of the French Republic

On the eve of the Japanese coup the French garrison of Indochina comprised about 65,000 men, of whom 48,500 were locally recruited tirailleurs under French officers.The remainder were French regulars of the Colonial Army plus three battalions of the French Foreign Legion. Since the fall of France in May - June 1940 no replacements or supplies had been received from outside Indochina. In August 1940 Admiral Decoux had signed an agreement under which Japanese forces were permitted to occupy bases across Indochina. At the beginning of 1945 approximately 30,000 Japanese troops were located in the country, a force that was substantially increased by reinforcements brought in from Burma in the following months.

In early March, Japanese forces were redeployed around many of the main French garrison towns, and on 9 March 1945, the Japanese delivered an ultimatum for the French troops to disarm, without warning. Those who refused were usually massacred. In Saigon, senior Japanese officers invited the French commanders to a banquet. The officers who attended were arrested and almost all were killed. In Saigon the two senior Vichy officials, General Emile-René Lemonnier and Resident Camille Auphalle, were executed by decapitation, after refusing to sign surrender documents. The most determined French resistance was at Dong Dang where a company of Tonkinese Rifles and a battery of colonial artillery held out for three days before being massacred.

The French upcountry garrisons fared better, however, and, under the leadership of Major-General Marcel Alessandri, a column of 5,700 French troops, including many Foreign Legionnaires fought its way through to Nationalist China.

The French administration was effectively dismantled. The Japanese pressed the Empire of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia to declare their independence. Emperor Bao Dai complied in Vietnam and collaborated with the Japanese. King Norodom Sihanouk also obeyed, but the Japanese did not trust the francophile monarch.

Nationalist leader Son Ngoc Thanh, who had been exiled in Japan and was considered a more trustworthy ally than Sihanouk, returned to Cambodia and became Minister of foreign affairs in May, then became Prime Minister in August. In Laos however, King Sisavang Vong, who favoured French rule, refused to declare independence, finding himself at odds with his Prime Minister, Prince Phetsarath Rattanavongsa.