Search results
drama of General Catroux’s final days in office in Hanoi in July 1940, his successor, Admiral Decoux, quickly stamped his authority upon the administration of French Indo-China. Indeed, Catroux was lucky to escape the federation. In early August, his temporary refuge at the Dalat hill station – a six-hour ride from Saigon – was under surveillance by Sûreté officials, and it was
Between 1940 and 1945 the French empire divided against itself. This book presents the events in the French empire in the 1940s, and traces the period of wartime French imperial division, setting it within the wider international politics of the Second World War. It discusses the collapse of France's metropolitan forces during the second week of June 1940, which became a calamity for the French empire. The final breakdown of the Anglo-French alliance during the latter half of 1940 was played out on the African continent, in heavily defended French imperial territory of vital strategic importance to Allied communications. The Vichy empire lost ground to that of the Charles de Gaulle's Free French, something which has often been attributed to the attraction of the Gaullist mystique and the spirit of resistance in the colonies. Indo-China was bound to be considered a special case by the Vichy regime and the Free French movement. Between late 1940 and 1945, the French administration in Indo-China was forced by circumstances to plough a distinctive furrow in order to survive intact. The book discusses the St Pierre and Miquelon affair, and the invasion of Madagascar, and deals with the issue of nationalism in North Africa, before and after the Operation Torch. The contradiction between the French commitment to constitutional reform and the few colonial subjects actually affected by it was echoed in the wartime treatment of France's colonial forces.
Africa and AOF all faced incipient crisis by the time the Fighting French assumed control. Systematically drained of its resources by the Japanese, the economic situation in French Indo-China was still more appalling by 1945. Perhaps then we should be less surprised at the limited scope of Gaullist reform than at the apparent confidence with which the FCNL and the Paris provisional government contemplated the
injected remedy – subcutaneous strychnine – this chapter furthermore affirms that well into the 1890s there was no certitude that vivisection would succeed clinical experience as the fundamental epistemology underscoring colonial medical practice. Concluding with the outbreak of World War I, Chapter 6 reprises the authority claims outlined in Chapter 4 . Contrasting Australia with India and French Indo-China
Minister of Colonies, Georges Mandel, conjured an image of recruitment procedures based upon the concept of the ‘nation of 100 million’ en marche , In French Indo-China, large numbers of young men are leaving the countryside and coming to Saigon or Hanoi to offer their services, and
1930 and reissued in translation as The Royal Way; and The Quiet American , by Graham Greene, which appeared in 1955, just after the end of French rule. These two are not the only novels to deal in English with French Indo-China. But their literary merit greatly exceeds that of, say, the thrillers of Jean Hougron or Jean Lartéguy, which have been translated at various times; or of Clotilde
the island’s local mayors and conseillers-généraux . 27 Similarly, the arrival of Robert’s cruiser, Jeanne d’Arc , in Guadeloupe heralded a round-up of Gaullist sympathisers which intimidated the island into obedience. 28 Colonial support for Free France: Indo-China In spite of the prevailing
Rajahs) and North Borneo (now combined in Malaysia) and Singapore. The Dutch held the massive Indies (now Indonesia); the French, Indo-China; and the Americans, the Philippines, which they acquired from Spain in 1898. From 1897 Germany too claimed an Asian sphere of influence. In understanding this period of near total European ascendency, and its literature, it is important to remember that as
] The French imperial position in 1942 The unhappy Free French experience in Syria and Lebanon indicated that, where Gaullist interests clashed with Allied strategic and political requirements, French imperial control was liable to be thrown into crisis. A similar pattern would emerge in French Indo-China once de Gaulle’s supporters set about
rush of reinforced fervour through our gathering’, Peng later recalled. While Sharkey did not at any time urge those gathered ‘to take up arms against the British’, what he said ‘was pivotal in its overall effect’.15 Armed struggle had undoubtedly come more sharply into focus.16 Peng thought Sharkey’s words ‘inspiring’, and ‘It was within this context and in this mood that we went on to accept we had no option now but to wage war for our principles’.17 Sensing that the moment was ripe for action – and against the backdrop of Communist insurgencies in French Indo-China