The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam

Martin Windrow's effort of writing about the French Army struggling to hang onto their empire is an epic writing of a war most people really never understood. First of all don't let the title fool you. This book is not only about the siege at Dien Bien Phu. Windrow goes into how France got involved in the French Indo-China war. He explains the reasons for the beginning of hostilities and he brings in the mindset of not only how France went about executing its operations but also goes into how General Giap planned to defeat the French. The author gives us a great deal of detail as to the battle order and types of units that the French used in French Indo-China. The author also goes into great detail of the battle order, tactics and strategies of the Viet Minh. Giap's use of Mao's revolutionary warfare is discussed in great detail. Windrow explains the personalities and strengths and weaknesses of the leaders on both sides to include the Commander at Dien Bien Phu for the French forces by the name of General Christian de Castries. The author shows us the strategies of de Castries bosses General Cogny and General Navarre.As stated above, this book is not only about Dien Bien Phu. In fact the first half of the book is a general outline of the battles and strategies of how the French and the Viet Minh got to engage in the last great struggle and the French Indo-China War. The prevailing attitudes and the key battle of Na San which ended in a French victory gave much introspective thought and contemplation by General Giap which inspired him to plan the last major key battle to defeat the French. Windrow uses much of what Bernard Fall wrote about, but he uses it in a different way. His general outline which takes half the book is much more thorough than what Fall did. In fact Windrow contemplates the political spectrum and how it played in effecting what the French military and Viet Minh military were trying to do. The author writes very much about the junior field grade officers of the French who were very effective and insightful during this astounding and unforgettable siege. Such names as Marcel Bigeard and Pierre Langlais are two of these outstanding field grade officers. It is quite apparent that the strategies and tactics that were utilized in the whole of the French Indo-China spectrum were flawed. The French lacked mobility and the resources to fight this revolutionary war as constructed by General Giap. As was done in Bernard Fall's masterpiece Windrow also writes of the supposed stories which emanate from this great battle. One such story is explained by Windrow as he wrote "Their advance up the slope of Eliane I that night provided one of the legends of Dien Bien Phu, which is confirmed by several witnesses: onlookers were astonished to hear the legionnaires go into the attack singing the slow, Germanic cadence of their battalion marching song." This book is a masterpiece. If you want to learn about the first Vietnam War, this is your book. Excellent research, and it ranks right beside Bernard Fall's two classic books. Here's to those battling bastards of Dien Bien Phu!!!

the book just kind of grabbed me, twice.first when i saw it on the library shelf, i read "hell in a very small place" many years ago and have a continuing interest in vietnam and america's involvement there.the second time is when i started reading it, it reads like an excellent detective story, i sat and sat and finished it at one sitting, not a small feat considering it is over 700 pages long. This style is the first very notable characteristic.not only is the writing excellent, but the author is one of those people who you can imagine talking to. he appears to a military historian from his amazon authors page. writing since the 1970's with an accent on french and the foreign legion. But this book looks like a long term research project and literally a work of love. the detail and interest he displays puts it in a class almost by itself. the only other military history that i've been this impressed by is the boer war by pakenham. The research and simply put love that went into this book is evident thoughout and is a second notable item.there is something else that makes it outstanding, several places he shows some very unique and well thought out ideas. they are just snatches of his worldview: some pages about the wounds caused by military bullets, a couple of places where he talks about the relationships between politicians and military leaders, and his discussion about how men fight for their buddies next to them, not geopolitical big things. There are just a few of these rather tantilizing glimpses, enough to make me look for more of his books. This disclosure of the man behind the work and his ideas developed from a lifetime of study in history is remarkable and the 3rd item i wish to point out.I'd not a fan of military histories, nor an i particularly interested in the genre. But i do like his writing. I find the careful analysis of what happened, what lead up to it, how people responded fascinating and as yesterday proved, somewhat addictive. There is an overwhelming number of names, who went where and fought whom, etc, those datum that make up military history, but it is not so bad that it bores or obscures the ideas. He is a very careful documenter of the facts, desirous of completeness and setting the historical record straight. All elements which appear strongly in the book.There is another thing remarkable about the book and it's author, a desire to look at the facts and the events and truly learn from them. To see this part of our world, a somewhat dark one, filled with the dead and lost, and remember them not just for their sacrifices but what these things have to teach us about ourselves and the societies we find ourselves in. and the first place to find the meaning of events is to get them right, to be factual and see what happened and propose why. something that this book does in a uniquely interesting and useful way.i sure wish the militaries of the world had more thoughtful people like this author, either in their general staffs or in their officer universities. perhaps a significant dose of reality and history is what more of our military leaders need before embarking on disastrous campaigns.

This book is well written. Tells the story of France's involvement is south east asia. Well researchedand the writing style makes easy to get through the 700 plus pages. Recommended.

Martin Windrow is very readable. I like his extensive layout of the history and context of Dien Bien Phu. Since context is important, it deepens our understanding of the French defeat fifty years after the fact. I highly recommend it.

Informative and interesting

This book is well written and very easy to read, it is not some dry tome and carries the reader along with an excellent narrative and engaging style.The French war in Indochina has lived in the shadow of the later war which America fought in Vietnam yet the French war was also a bloody and brutal war. The first third or so of this book sets the story for the battle of Dien Bien Phu as it charts the French involvement in Indochina, the Japanese occupation of WW2 and the post war evolution of the Vietnamese Communists, France's re-occupation of it's colony and the steady escalation of the war. The tragedy for both France and Indochina was that France was neither prepared to grant her Indochinese possessions (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) independence after WW2 nor make the necessary effort to fight the Communists effectively with the result that the worst possible policy was pursued - fighting a war which completely inadequate resources as a political fudge. The fundamental failure of France was that despite being unable or unwilling to fight for their colonies in Indochina (for example, French conscripts were forbidden by law from being sent to Indochina and her colonial army in Indochina was largely recruited locally or relied on North African and foreign legion troops with French officers and technical specialists) they refused to consider the alternative options despite the wise advice of General Leclerc in 1946.One of the positives of the book is to make clear that the French commanders were not the incompetent fools sometimes claimed, hey had fought with distinction in WW2 and were men of great courage. Whatever mistakes were made at Dien Bien Phu have to be seen in the context of the conflicting demands placed on them, poor government leadership/policy and inadequate resources. The author also challenges the commonly held story of the paratroop officer putsch which is alleged to have replaced Colonel de Castries by force, the author posits that Pierre Langlais and de Castries enjoyed a good relationship and that de Castries gave battlefield command to Langlais whilst retaining overall command as a sensible division of responsibility based on recognising the needs of the moment and the qualities of Langlais. I must admit, I find the authors version of events much more convincing than the version offered by Bernard Fall which has subsequently became accepted as "fact".After following the evolution of the first Indochinese war the story then becomes a detailed account of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. In hindsight it may appear obvious that inserting a arrison of over 10,000 into a remote valley dominated by surrounding hills and with what we can see to have been grossly inadequate air support capability (made worse by the fact the handful of French bombers, fighter bombers and the transport fleet still had to support other French operations and the defence of the Delta, Annam etc) was not a good idea but French officers were pretty convinced that the position of the Dien Bien Phu garrison was solid and that they would beat the Viet Minh army if they could induce them to fight a battle on French terms. Unfortunately, what they actually did was induce a battle on Viet Minh terms since the Viet Minh were able to significantly outgun and outnumber the French, maintain better logistic support and deploy their artillery in very strong emplacements which were almost invulnerable to French artillery counter barrage. The French air force and navy aircraft were grossly inadequate for the tasks of interdicting Viet Minh supply routes, attacking the Viet Minh base areas, suppressing artillery and providing close air support as well as provisioning a garrison of such size so far from the Delta base areas. Two squadrons of B26 medium bombers and six Privateer naval heavy bombers plus a similar force of F8F fighter bombers and the air group of the carrier Aromanches seems an almost pitiful force compared to the staggeringly potent that the USA would deploy in South East Asia to support their war in Vietnam. This was made worse by the low sortie rate of the French bomber force.The battle itself was a ghastly affair. Inadequate materials meant the French positions were not able to withstand artillery bombardment and the airfield was knocked out of use early meaning the garrison was reliant on air drops. The garrison included some of the best French units in Indochina, however when saying French it should be remembered that almost three quarters of the garrison were North African, Indochinese, foreign legion and West African. Both sides fought with great courage and it was a battle much more reminiscent of WW1 than WW2 or the later Vietnam war, a battle of positional warfare against trench systems. The narrative of the battle is gripping and brings out the human tragedy and suffering.So why three stars and not five? I found that after a very balance start the book became quite tendentious and it tells a French story with the Viet Minh story presented in quite pejorative terms in many places. For example, the book points out the atrocities of the Viet Minh towards POWs and the North Vietnamese after they took control, but is less pointed on the disgraceful abandonment of Montagnard groups after the Genève accords and similar abandonment of other people in Tonkin that had served France loyally and who had been assured of French support. The book also presents a sorry picture of Vietnamese troops in the AVN yet many Vietnamese and other Indochinese fought for France at Dien Bien Phu with great courage and when well led the Vietnamese were good soldiers. If the AVN was poorly trained, even more poorly led then it seems churlish to denigrate the human material. The book also just sort of fades away with no post battle analysis of what happened and what went wrong and deeper investigation of the events. Ultimately it all feels rather like a defence of the superiority of European values over Asian ones and a requiem for a French defeat rather than for a human tragedy.So, 3* seems fair, I'd stress this is not a "bad" book and elements are very good, superb, it is just let down by a rather unfortunate feeling of being rather tendentious.

This book is not only covering the battle at Dien Bien Phu but it has an extensive lead up to the event and is probably the most comprehensive book on the French Indochina War that combines many battles and backstories to orientate the reader. Coming in at 600 pages, the first 300 are dedicated to the story of the Vietnamese people, the landscape and climate, early battles and political situation. You can sometimes forget you're reading a book that is meant to be covering Dien Bien Phu, but as someone who is interested in all aspects of Vietnam it was a pleasant surprise for me to have all this information in one place and learn about the failed strategies in the years prior which would shape the mindsets of the commanders at Dien Bien Phu.If you've read Bernard Fall's book on the battle there might not be much new information in the later half of The Last Valley, although I prefer Windrow's writing style as I was able to picture the events taking place much clearer and in contrast Fall's book comes across more broad whereas The Last Valley has a more on-the-ground perspective at times. Many maps are included and by the time you finish the book you'll be able to go to the real location and point out landmarks yourself I'm sure of it.My only gripe was at times, mainly in the early parts of the book, I felt the author was trying to tell me that the French shouldn't be there as if I can't make my own mind up. The Viet Minh are sometimes presented as superior in their conduct while not mentioning that villagers were threatened sometimes with death if they didn't join their revolution. At the end of the book it does broadly go over the mass killings once the Viet Minh achieve victory but I never felt the book did enough to differentiate the two-faced aspect of the Viet Minh leadership and how they used nationalism as a cover for their communist ideological beliefs, and why some Vietnamese chose to fight with the French and the many others that fled south once the mask slipped. Some South Vietnamese troops who were former Viet Minh left the movement once the killings started and they're on record stating they realized this wasn't about Vietnam for the Vietnamese.