5. The French Army’s Indochina War Oops
It did not take long for the French army to follow its WWII oops moment with another oops in the First Indochina War (1946 – 1954). As that conflict wore on, France’s grip on her Southeast Asian colonies was loosened by the increasingly assertive Viet Minh nationalist forces. The French had a massive advantage in firepower. However, they were unable to bring the lightly armed Viet Minh to offer the type of stand-up pitched battle in which superior firepower could prove decisive.
At wit’s end, the French hatched a plan to entice the guerrillas into massing for a pitched battle by offering them an irresistible lure. That lure would be French paratroopers airdropped into an isolated base, Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh, unable to resist the opportunity to destroy the isolated French, would flock to the area. The garrison, kept supplied by air, would resist, and draw in more and more Viet Minh into a battle of attrition in which they would be wrecked by superior French firepower. At least that was how the French thought it would go.
