The Battle of Dienbienphu ended the first Indochina war, and with it any hope of French control in Indochina and paved the way for the heavy American involvement in the area from 1965 to 1975. Late in 1953 the French occupied a small mountain outpost named Dienbienphu, located in the northern part of Vietnam near the Laotian border. The French hoped to cut Vietminh supply lines into Laos and to set up a base from which to attack. The Vietnamese, in control of the countryside, quickly cut off all roads to Dienbienphu, so the French could only be supplied from the air. The French remained quite confident of their position, and they were thus completely taken by surprise when General Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam surrounded their base with 40, 000 troops and used heavy artillery to batter the French lines. In spite of massive infusions of American aid, the outpost was overrun on May 7, 1954. By this time support in France for the war had virtually evaporated, and the American Congress refused any more aid to support a lost cause.
The French government sought an end to the fighting, and an agreement was signed in Geneva on July 21, 1954. The agreement also divided Vietnam in half along the 17th parallel. The Vietminh controlled the north, and the stage was set for their eventually successful attempt to conquer the south. French dismay at the defeat, which was soon to be followed by a similar turn of events in Algeria, led to the end of the French Fourth Republic in 1958. Research Battle of Dienbienphu
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Research Battle of Dienbienphu