Vo Nguyen Giap - Nghe thuat quan su

Interview with Vo Nguyen Giap Viet Minh Commander
Q: Was Diên Bin Phû a conventional military victory or was it a victory for military warfare?
Giap: The victory at Diên Bin Phû was a victory for the people. But then, of course, while the concept of a people`s war and guerrilla warfare are not entirely separate, they are separate nonetheless. In this case, it was the people`s war that was victorious. And guerrilla warfare was one aspect of that people`s war. It`s all quite complicated.... What is the people`s war? Well, in a word, it`s a war fought for the people by the people, whereas guerrilla warfare is simply a combat method. The people`s war is more global in concept. It`s a synthesized concept. A war which is simultaneously military, economic and political, and is what we in France would call "synthesized." There`s guerrilla warfare and there`s large-scale tactical warfare, fought by large units.
Q: What was new about the idea of the "People`s War"?
Giap: It was a war for the people by the people. FOR the people because the war`s goals are the people`s goals -- goals such as independence, a unified country, and the happiness of its people.... And BY the people -- well that means ordinary people -- not just the army but all people.
We know it`s the human factor, and not material resources, which decide the outcome of war. That`s why our people`s war, led by Ho Chi Minh, was on such a large scale. It took in the whole population. /
Q: What do you think about the significance of Diên Bin Phû for the world?
Giap: The history of the Vietnamese people goes back thousands of years. During that time we`ve repelled thousands of invaders. Only, in former times the countries that tried to invade us were on the same economic level as we were. Theirs, like ours, was a feudal society. That was the case, for example, when we fought the Chinese in the 13th century. But Diên Bin Phû was a victory in another era. What I mean is that in the latter half of the 19th century, when western imperialism divided the world into colonies, a new problem emerged. How could a weak, economically backwards people ever hope to regain its freedom? How could it hope to take on a modern western army, backed by the resources of a modern capitalist state? And that`s why it took us 100 years to fight off the French and French imperialism. Diên Bin Phû was the first great decisive victory after 100 years of war against French imperialism and U.S. interventionism. That victory that put an end to the war and marked the end of French aggression. From an international point of view, it was the first great victory for a weak, colonized people struggling against the full strength of modern Western forces. This is why it was the first great defeat for the West. It shook the foundations of colonialism and called on people to fight for their freedom -- it was the beginning of international civilization.
Q: Was Diên Bin Phû an easy victory because the French made so many mistakes?
Giap: It`s not as simple as that. We believed that in the French camp, French general staff and the military chiefs were well informed. They`d weighed up the pros and cons, and according to their forecasts, Diên Bin Phû was impregnable. It has to be said that at the beginning of the autumn of `53, for example, when our political headquarters were planning our autumn and winter campaigns, there was no mention of Diên Bin Phû. Why? Because, the Navarre plan didn`t mention it either. They had a whole series of maneuvers planned.
For us, the problem was that Navarre wanted to retain the initiative whereas we wanted to seize it. There is a contradiction that exists in a war of aggression whereby you have to disperse your forces to occupy a territory but rally your mobile forces for offensive action. We took advantage of this contradiction and forced Navarre to disperse his forces. That`s how it all started. We ordered our troops to advance in a number of directions, directions of key importance to the enemy although their presence wasn`t significant. So the enemy had no choice but to disperse their troops. We sent divisions north, northwest, toward the center, towards Laos; other divisions went in other directions. So to safeguard Laos and the northwest, Navarre had to parachute troops into Diên Bin Phû, and that`s what happened at Diên Bin Phû. Before then, no one had heard of Diên Bin Phû. But afterwards, well that`s history, isn`t it? French General Staff only planned to parachute in sufficient troops to stop us advancing on the northwest and Laos. Little by little, they planned to transform Diên Bin Phû into an enormous concentration camp, a fortified camp, the most powerful in Indochina. They planned to draw our forces, break us, crush us, but the opposite took place. They`d wanted a decisive battle and that`s exactly what they got at Diên Bin Phû -- except that it was decisive for the Vietnamese and not for the