Word: indo-china
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Double Trouble. This wasting war costs France more than Indo-China ever did. With the U.S. paying 60%, the French share in Indo-China was $1,100,00 a day; in Algeria France has no outside help, and costs run close to $1,700,000 a day. In Indo-China France fought with a professional army (Africans. German Legionnaires), of which less than 100,000 were Frenchmen, against a Viet Minh army operating, for the most part, out of clearly defined zones that could be attacked by tanks, artillery, and bombers. In Algeria twice as many French soldiers are engaged...
...fanatic life. At 17, hot-eyed Ba Cut swore he would fight to the death against the French, and he cut off the tip of his forefinger to seal his oath. At 21, he switched, began fighting the Viet Minh. The Geneva conference gave half of Indo-China to the Viet Minh, but Ba Cut refused to accept the decision, swore he would never cut his hair until Viet Nam was reunited...
General Henri Navarre, whose bold plan to take the offensive in the Indo-China war might have saved the day if he had got enough backing, told how he outlined his plan to the Defense Committee in July 1953, pointing out, among other things, that he did not have enough troops to defend Laos. Four days later details of what he said were published in the left wing weekly L'Observateur. The Viet Minh duly invaded Laos. They were unopposed. In May 1954, soon after the fall of Dienbienphu, Chief of Staff General Paul Ely outlined France...
...result of all such duplicity, said Old Soldier Navarre, was that he had to lay down an astonishing rule in Indo-China: "Paris must never be kept informed. We knew, in fact, that any military operation known in Park, would not surprise the enemy. It was?about like handing the burglar the combination of the safe he was going to crack. Treason was everywhere...
Prompted by Nehru, Sihanouk next visited Red China's Premier Chou En-lai in Peking. Up to that moment Cambodia (the most serene of the three states that once made up French Indo-China) had been one of the few remaining countries in Southeast Asia where overseas Chinese, controlling most of the country's transport, banking and merchandising, appeared to retain a basic sympathy with Nationalist China. Said Sihanouk, stepping out of the plane on his return from Peking three weeks ago: "There are two Chinas, but the only China to which Cambodians go is Communist China." Almost...