Free Embers of War by Fredrik Logevall Page A

occupied, for although they forced the Viet Minh to begin the assault farther from the airstrip, the battalions that ostensibly defended them would have been better used to launch counterattacks from the central position. Such counterattacks often showed good results when Bigeard and Langlais launched them and indeed were a major reason the garrison held out as long as it did. The U.S.-supplied Chaffee tanks proved crucial in these raids, and it seems undeniable that de Castries should have demanded, and received, another dozen tanks—or as many as could have been flown in and reassembled. But de Castries seems never to have grasped the importance of the counterattacks, both to retake hill positions once they had been lost and to get at the Viet Minh’s antiaircraft artillery, much of which was close to the airstrip and an ideal target for sallies from the main position. Though a courageous and intelligent commander, he was miscast for this role, being inadequately attuned to the particulars of trench warfare—and Dien Bien Phu was, in Bernard Fall’s words, “in many ways a piece of Argonne Forest or Verdun transported into a tropical setting.” 56
    Even matters so basic as strengthening the gun pits and reinforcing the roofs of the essential service installations, including that of the hospital, would have made a big difference. Most of the bunkers were too weak to stand up to the Viet Minh artillery fire, or for that matter to the monsoons; nor was any effort made to camouflage them. The meager resources of the valley didn’t help in this regard—even wood, it will be recalled, was not readily available—but certainly de Castries and his engineering commander should have done much more than they did to prepare the position for the assault they knew was coming. As it was, the flimsy fortifications made the garrison much more vulnerable than it should have been.
    Finally, mention must be made of the personal schism between Henri Navarre and René Cogny, which grew deeper and wider as the spring progressed (and which, after the war, led the latter to file suit—unsuccessfully—against the former). By the end, the two men felt a profound and abiding mutual disdain and were barely speaking, a situation hardly conducive to nimble and imaginative decision making. Nor was Navarre willing to relieve Cogny of his command in favor of someone with whom he could work. Instead, in a stunning failure of leadership, he allowed the feud to fester, week after crucial week.
    How the battle would have run had some or all of these problems on the French side been rectified is of course impossible to know, but it’s not fanciful to imagine a different outcome. Giap scored a tremendous victory and showed tactical brilliance in his use of antiaircraft and artillery and his employment of World War I siege tactics and techniques. The sequence in which he attacked the three northern strongpoints—first Béatrice, then Gabrielle, then Anne-Marie, which the demoralized Tai abandoned without a fight after seeing at close hand the fall of the two stronger outposts—has been justly praised by military historians, and did much to shape the outcome of the battle. Nevertheless the French could have held Dien Bien Phu, if not indefinitely, then certainly through the rainy season and into the autumn. Even with the shortcomings and the mistakes on the French side, Giap was compelled to use the whole range of his resources, and his forces were severely bloodied by the end. He had his hands full throughout, even though the enemy had 3,000 to 4,000 “internal deserters” who decided to sit out the battle. (What if all these Rats of Nam Youm, or even half of them, had chosen instead to fight?) Had the fortress held out even just a few more days, Giap might have been compelled to order another pause—which in turn would have allowed the Condor column to arrive from Laos to bolster French defenses.
    To argue for this counterfactual is not to say