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Dien Bien Phu is a town in Vietnam. In 1954 the communist Vietnamese nationalists defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, and the French surrendered to Ho Chi Minh.

Dien Bien Phu (sometimes Dienbienphu) is a town in northwest Vietnam, famous as the site of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

 

By 1954, Vietnamese nationalists under the leadership of Hồ Chí Minh had been waging a guerrilla war against the French colonial government of what was then French Indochina since 1946. The Vietnamese insurrection was receiving significant military aid from China, which had officially become a communist state in 1949. The United States, at the time staunchly committed to stopping the spread of communism as per the containment doctrine, was in turn financing 80% of the French war effort.

 

Dien Bien Phu was intended to be a French bridgehead in the mountainous north of the country, which had long been a stronghold for the Viet Minh. However, Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp was able to quickly assemble a large force, including a minimum of sixty thousand men and a large amount of heavy weaponry. The French troops, outnumbered five to one and cut off from supplies, finally surrendered after a grueling two-month siege.

 

The battle proved decisive in ending support for an already unpopular war, leading to a treaty and the division of French Indochina into Cambodia, Laos, and North and South Vietnam. Ultimately, the outcome of the war would provoke the similar Vietnam War a decade later.