On This Day: Vietnam declares independence from France and triggers decades of fighting

SEPTEMBER 2, 1945: North Vietnam declared independence from France on this day in 1945 – triggering what led to three decades of conflict.

The proclamation was delivered by communist revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on the same day that the country’s occupiers Japan surrendered in World War II.

Japanese forces had entered what was French Indochina in 1940 but allowed the Nazi puppet regime of Vichy France to continue its rule before taking over in March 1945.

Now, with the Far Eastern invaders laying down their arms and leaving, the newly liberated free French government was determined to regain Vietnam as a colony.

But Ho, whose Viet Minh insurgents bloodied the Japanese and built a proto-state with U.S. weapons, was determined that his country would also have its freedom.

Most of the people, some of whom are seen bearing anti colonialist placards and banners in a 1945 demonstration filmed by British Pathé, were equally adamant.

In proclaiming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ho told a crowd of thousands in Hanoi ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution made in 1791 states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.”

‘Those are undeniable truths.

‘Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens.

‘They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.’

He also said that Vietnam, having ‘fought side by side with the Allies against the fascists’, had earned its ‘right’ to independence.

 [On This Day: Vietnam War ends]

And he vowed that his people were ‘determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer the country.’

Yet days later, Chinese nationalist forces, who were also fighting communists at home, took over the north while British troops occupied territory south of the 16th parallel.

France, which had first established a colony in Vietnam in 1862, was given the south by the British and traded concessions to get the north from China.

Ho, believing the French were weak and fearing China might end up ruling Vietnam like it had for 1,000 years before the Europeans arrived, agreed to the deal.

At the time, he famously said: ‘I prefer to sniff French s*** for five years than to eat Chinese s*** for the rest of my life.’

Ho initially helped French forces tackle anti-communist insurgents before declaring war against the European colonists in late 1946.

By 1954, after a wave of French defeats, the country was split between a communist North Vietnam and capitalist South Vietnam.

 [On This Day: Thousands of anti-Vietnam protesters clash with police in London]

After this, Ho’s government then began a terrifying land redistribution programme by killing 172,000 alleged landlords – with up to 500,000 others dying as a result.

After encouraging and supporting a Viet Cong popular communist uprising in the South, North Vietnam invaded its capitalist rival in 1964.

The following year the U.S. sent combat troops to the country in a bid to repel the insurgents and dissuade other communist revolutions elsewhere in the world.

Ho died just as the war was beginning to look unwinnable for the Americans, despite them committing 500,000 soldiers.

His death, from heart failure at age 79, on September 2, 1969, came exactly 24 years after he read out the declaration of independence.

 [On This Day: Ho Chi Minh dies]

In 1973, the U.S., which lost 58,000 lives during the controversial Cold War conflict, pulled all its forces out in what was seen as a deeply humiliating exit.

The war, which led to the deaths of up to 3.1million people, ended on April 30, 1975 after the North seized Saigon, which is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.