The Affair in Indochina
Introduction
The conflict between the French and the Empire of Japan during the Great War found its origins before the official start of the conflict. Although the war would not officially be declared until 1938, skirmishes between the French and Japanese in Indochina began in earnest in 1935, with the bombing of the Franco-Japanese Hanoi-Hong Kong railway by communist agitators. This rail network acted as the main byway between the Japanese and French Markets in Hong Kong. The controversy of the rebel attack happening in British territory prompted the Japanese to send a military force to Indochina to defend their economic interests.
History
Before the communist uprisings set the jungles of Indochina ablaze, the colonial government of French Indochina, maintained a rather amicable relationship with the Japanese. French colonial efforts in Indochina had been profitable, and the Japanese conflict with Joeson had opened up a fortuitous trade relationship with the Japanese as a way to access the Cantonese market without having to deal with British tariffs. Although the Japanese had close ties with the English throne, their relationship with France’s colonies remained cordial, as neither party wanted to disrupt the other's colonial extraction in eastern China.
Colonization and Exploitation
French colonial presence in Indochina dates back to the late 1800s, as the Bonapartian government sought to expand their colonial influence on Earth rather than reach out into the Aether. After a short military campaign, they began their occupation of Indochina, and began extracting its resources from the indigenous population. Conditions in Indochina were particularly grim, and the colonial exploitation that occurred there remained a point of contention in the French parliament until the New Revolution of 1928, in which the Socialist Party peacefully seized control of the French political system. Immediately after the Revolution, long-time Vietnamese activist and founding member of the French Communist Party, Nguyễn Tất Thành began lobbying parliament for more equitable treatment of the French colonial provinces, particularly those in Indochina. Thành’s efforts fell on deaf ears with the ultimate passing of the Great Lakes Trade Agreements. The agreement, in an effort to secure a pro-business policy with the United States, excluded French colonial provinces from benefiting from the new progressive labor laws that were instated in Europe. Although the intention of this law was to ease business tensions with US corporatists in French Canada, the result of it was the unintentional continuation of exploitative business practices in Indochina. Disillusioned with the failures of the new government to implement worker-oriented policies overseas, Nguyễn Tất Thành returned to Indochina to begin organizing a more radical campaign to secure the rights of the Vietnamese.
When Thành returned to French Indochina after his many years of travel, he found the country in largely the same state that he left it. The old vanguard of the Bonapartian government was still in charge of the colony, despite the supposedly radical efforts of the New Revolution to purge the conservatives from political office. In many ways, the situation for the working class in Indochina was made worse by the Great Lake Trade Agreement, as French businesses in Europe began flocking to Indochina in an attempt to subvert the new labor laws passed by the Socialist government. Due to these factors, Thành decided that instead of appealing to the French government, the best future for his fellow workers would be to resist their colonial oppressors.
Organization
Thành began organizing workers and other revolutionaries across Indochina. Resistance movements against French Colonialism in the region had existed since its initial colonization, but what made Thành’s efforts unique was his ability to coordinate the efforts of so many while maintaining relative secrecy. By 1932, Thành had organized multiple strikes and demonstrations demanding better rights for indigenous workers in colonial farms and factories. Although unions were illegal in the colonies, Thành had managed to organize a collectivized workers' front into a general strike across multiple professions on October 15, 1932, in the form of a massive walkout. Although the intention of the walkout was meant to be nonviolent, the strike quickly escalated into localized violence, leading to the deployment of the French Armée Coloniale. Although some of the protests across the colony during the strike remained peaceful, there were in total 87 civilian casualties along with 5 casualties on the Colonial side. In addition, multiple corporations reported massive damages to company property during this time.
The result of the general strike was the immediate branding of Nguyễn Tất Thành as an enemy of the state, forcing him into hiding. The colonial government began cracking down even harder on protesting workers, and was extremely aggressive in its efforts to capture Thành, who had retreated to the mountainous countryside in an effort to evade the authorities. Official press coverage of the general strike maintained a pro-corporate/pro-colonial attitude, painting the workers as the aggressors. However, the imposed censorship on press outlets mixed with the crackdown that ensued after it likely contributed to the revolutionary sentiment that had been brewing. Although the peaceful protests were successful in making the plight of colonial workers more visible, they did little to improve the situation for those workers, as the Socialist government in France did little to change their colonial policies. This was likely due to the dismal state of the French economy, but it did little to inspire support in the new socialist regime.
Radicalization
Disillusioned once more by the failures of his efforts, Thành began to plot a more violent approach. He began organizing his network of disgruntled workers into guerilla militias, training them in secret. In the years following the general strike, the Bonapartian colonial government assumed that Thành had fled the country, with some reports claiming he had died in Russia, as the number of strikes significantly decreased. The truth however, was that he had begun procuring weapons and supplies for his guerilla army from his disgruntled neighbors in Joeson, who had themselves been waging a colonial war against the Japanese for many years. On November 1st, 1935, Thành led an attack on the Hanoi-Hong Kong rail line in multiple simultaneous strikes both in Indochina and English-controlled Canton. These attacks marked the beginning of Thành’s communist uprising against the French colonial powers, and these attacks would continue up until he ultimately seized control in 1938 at the start of the Great War.
The Hanoi–Hong Kong railway itself was a part of a larger rail network that distributed goods from French Indochina to Canton, Joseon, Japan, and aetherports in the Earth’s orbit. Due to international economic regulations in Hong Kong, Japanese and French merchants were allowed to trade freely, avoiding naval tariffs imposed by Great Britain. As a result, the maintenance of this rail line was vital to the Japanese, as it acted as their only mainland economic connection to the French. Thành’s targeting of this critical infrastructure not only struck a blow to the French economy, but also seriously disrupted trade with the Japanese. Thành and his rebels were unconcerned with the international effects of their actions, as they hoped to spark communist uprisings throughout East Asia.
Intervention
The railway bombing made international news, but was felt particularly hard by the Japanese military, who feared that these insurgent attacks would spark fiercer resistance in their campaign against Joeson. The debate over how to respond to the Communist agitators was mixed, but the upper brass in the Japanese army were convinced that an immediate incursion into Indochina to quell the rebellion was the only course of action. A particularly strategic course of action presented itself at the Michelin rubber plantation in Indochina. In the weeks leading up to December 31st, Thành and his rebels had led an assault on the Michelin rubber plant and its plantations 75 kilometers northwest, with his forces now occupying them both. The Michelin company was the world's leading producer of rubber, right behind Kuroki, the Japanese subsidiary of the American Ford Motor Company headquartered on Kyokoku. On December 31st, the Japanese army launched a strategic bombing campaign on both the plantations and the plant. They soon after released a statement to the public that their attack was in an effort to quell the rebels based there in response to their bombing of the Hanoi-Hong Kong railway.
Despite the public statement of intent, the attack on the Japanese’s main competitor in the rubber industry was not lost on the international community, with many publicly condemning the Japanese for their bombing efforts. Furthermore, the Japanese launched their attack completely without notice, and many French colonial forces were caught in the bombing as they were engaged with the rebels. However, despite the blatant violation of international law, Emperor Showa and Prime Minister Léon Blum did not escalate the conflict with a declaration of war, instead preferring to tactfully refer to the engagements in the press as “The Affair in Indochina”.
The Affair itself quickly evolved into a very messy conflict, with little in the way of organization. After burning out Michelin’s presence in Indochina, the Imperial Japanese Army deployed the 5th Infantry Division into North East Indochina. The Japanese Army's assault into Indochina quickly attracted the attention of French colonial forces, who clashed with them along the border. This stretched the colonial forces thin across the subcontinent. This was fortuitous for the guerillas, as they began marching through the countryside disrupting supply lines and pulling more citizens into their revolutionary fighting force. Although their raids were successful in hampering the colonial forces, the guerrillas did not have the manpower to meet enemy forces in any prolonged engagement, or to hold territory. As a result, despite their many victories, the guerrillas struggled to make any meaningful gains until later in the conflict.
In contrast, the seasoned Japanese veterans had little trouble against the poorly armed French colonial forces, and for the most part were spared attacks by the militants led by Nguyễn Tất Thành. What they were not prepared for however were the attacks by Joseon's own communist rebels further into their supply lines. Thành had anticipated a response by the Japanese following the attack on the Hanoi-Hong Kong railway, and as such had in the years prior began cultivating anti-colonial and communist sentiment amongst the working class in Joseon. Despite the ease of the Japanese advance into Indochina, they were constantly having to double back to repair their supply lines, as both militant groups attacked their rear. However, these rebel attacks only further justified Japanese involvement in the region as they validated their fears that brought them into the conflict in the first place.
Political Struggles
In addition to the frustratingly slow progress of the conflict for all sides involved, the Affair in Indochina proved to be particularly gruesome in how it was carried out. Due to the guerrilla fighters being mostly composed of former civilians, and their lack of uniforms, multiple atrocities were committed against the indigenous populations in Indochina by the French colonial army in their effort to root out the rebels. The nightmarish accounts of these events became highly publicized internationally due to their horrific nature. The stories of the conflict appalled much of the French populace, who began in earnest protesting the conflict and demanded the removal of the Bonapartian officials who governed the province. However, due to the necessity of the colony in propping up the dying French economy, Prime Minister Léon Blum could do little to change the situation, further enraging the French public. The French Communist Party issued a public statement deeming Blum a moderate, a traitor to the revolution, and a disgrace to Socialists everywhere for his inaction during the conflict. Furthermore, The French Communist party heralded Nguyễn Tất Thành a hero. Thành’s status as a founding party member, combined with his general charisma and increasing public support gained the French Communist Party many new members and much popularity in the years leading up to the Grand Revolution.
Although Thành’s campaign was at its core a rebellion against the French government, by the time of the launch of the Grand Revolution in France, he was known as a folk hero of near epic proportion, with French political cartoons depicting him single handedly destroying a Japanese tank company using his bare hands. As a result, it is of no surprise that after the revolution, the new People's Republic of France declared Indochina a French commune with Thành as its leader.
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