No partition of Vietnam

[Chris S]

So I tried using the search function to find threads on this but the search function isn't working for me and I haven't been finding threads which address this specifically.

Inspired by the recent Vietnam thread which were very informative, I've been wondering if there was any way for the partition (or rather intended temporary division) of Vietnam in 1954 to have been avoided.

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

A more decisive outcome for the First Indochina War is my best guess. Either France manages to crush the Viet Minh, and the State of Vietnam is the unified government, or France concedes control after receiving a much bloodier nose than OTL.

I'm not sure how to pull either off, since France was too heavily invested in preventing decolonization. Maybe China gives more direct aid to the Viet Minh?

 

[Michel Van]

one Idea of mine has to do with China, It get divide in 1949 after civil war
north to Maoist, south to the Kuomintang.
in the 1950s south China invade north Vietnam for two reason:

Because the Communist Viet Minh and the historical claim on north Vietnam as former Chinese province of Chiao chin

it would keep the USA out of conflict and Chinese have to deal with Viet Cong

 

[Chris S]

A more decisive outcome for the First Indochina War is my best guess. Either France manages to crush the Viet Minh, and the State of Vietnam is the unified government, or France concedes control after receiving a much bloodier nose than OTL.

I'm not sure how to pull either off, since France was too heavily invested in preventing decolonization. Maybe China gives more direct aid to the Viet Minh?

Well in reading the Pentagon Papers on the Geneva Conference it would seem that you are right and that the latter option (the French receiving a bloodier nose) was the more likely.

I suppose if FDR's policy towards the French in Indochina or the attitude of the isolationists in the American parties had managed to have more traction then less American aid to the French might have resulted in a more significant French defeat and a total French withdrawal from Vietnam leaving the Viet Minh free to the defeat the Vietnam National Army and overthrow Bao Dai's State of Vietnam and establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam across the entirety of Vietnam....

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Somebody posted sometime back the idea that the original french negotiator, an admiral iirc, died and was replaced by a much harder line ?general?. If this is correct, a negotiated autonomy might have happened before all those lives had been lost.

Another possibility is us pressure. The oss worked with ho in the final stages of WWII, iirc. If american antiimperialism trumped the us need for another, possibily unreliable, ally in europe, the us could have pushed for an independent, unified vietnam.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

The USA was in a real pickle of its own design in 1954 vis-a-vis Vietnam.
Our rhetoric was anti-imperialist, promoting self-determination, democracy, etc.
Our policy from John Foster Dulles on was containing Communism by any means necessary. So we ended up supporting France's attempt to sort things out.
Partially we wanted France fully on-side with NATO, which wound up failing for a variety of reasons in the 1960's. Partially we wanted to stop Communism in SE Asia long before the domino theory made the rounds.

IMO, respecting the elections in 1954 throughout Indochina re: who's supposed to be in charge of the whole of Vietnam, where HCM and the Viet Minh won in a landslide, would've butterflied a lot of BS and bloodshed IMO.
It would be naive to expect the VNQDD or other parties to be respected partners or loyal opposition in a united Vietnam.

YMMDV from mine but that's my take on it.