VietNamNet Bridge – Following the bitter defeat of the French expeditionary corps by Vietnamese soldiers in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French government established a body, Catroux Commission, to seek the truth behind the failure.

The Catroux Commission, established at General Henri E. Navarre’s request on March 31, 1955, held a total of 22 confidential inquiries into the fall of the battle and the final conclusions had been classified for 50 years.

Those directly involved at the front lines of the battle, including General De Castries, Commander-in-chief in Indochina General Navarre, and his assistant – military commander in North Vietnam - General Réné Cogny, were summoned for inquisition.

Detailed inquiries were fastidiously transcribed and carefully preserved in 9 document cases coded GR1R 229-237 at the historical archive centre under the French Ministry of Defence.

General Navarre’s appeal

In an exclusive interview granted to a Paris-based VOV correspondent, Captain Ivan Cadeau, an official of the historical archive centre, said General Navarre insisted the Catroux Commission be established to decode the French military’s failure in Dien Bien Phu, seeking an ‘honourable exit’ to the French military in Indochina.

Captain Ivan Cadeau (R) talked about the Catroux Commission's documents classified as top secret by the French government

Cadeau said after the fall of France in the battle, General Navarre felt hurt, incorrectly judged and mistreated. He was denied a promotion promised by the French government prior to the military operation. In late 1954, Navarre lodged an appeal to  the minister in charge of war affairs, demanding a body comprising military officers be set up to inquire about the accountability of those involving in the operation.

“Navarre wanted to make clear that the root cause of the defeat lied in decisions made by politicians and that politicians should be held responsible for the defeat,” captain Cadeau said.

“However, the government of Prime Minister Mendes France refused the request, reasoning France wanted to forget the saga.”

For its legal and political ramifications, Navarre’s proposal was hotly debated among senior military officers, and was finally turned down. General Navarre did not give up his hope.

In January 1955 a series of controversial arguments erupted when General Réné Cogny, one of Navarre’s close aides, wrote several newspaper articles, attributing the failure of the French military operation in Dien Bien directly to deficient decisions made by Navarre.

Cogny’s statement immediately provoked Navarre’s anger, and in a series of interviews published in the daily French newspaper Le Figaro, Navarre said he would uncover the naked truth. His strong determination prompted the French government to take action.

On January 22, 1955, PM Mendes France received General Navarre, and they both agreed that Navarre would cease publishing articles in Le Figaro in return for the establishment of an independent inquiry.

On February 5, 1955 the French News Agency AFP reported the establishment of the Catroux Commission on March 31, 1955 to look into the cause of the French defeat in the Dien Bien Phu battle.

Classified documents

General Georges Catroux, who presided over the Commission, and other members were senior military officers in the French military. They were permitted to access the Defence Ministry’s classified documents and question key leaders of the Dien Bien Phu battle.

Tapes recording the detailed inquiries of French generals

Classified as top secret, the French government did not disclose the commission’s conclusions until 2005.

The commission concluded that in context with the power of the Viet Minh (Vietnamese military) growing substantially and supported by China, other French generals could not have performed any better than what General Navarre or Cogny did in Dien Bien Phu.

“After inquiries, there was high consensus in the military that key figures in the inquiries could not be considered the main culprits of the French failure in Indochina. The defeat was the result of a series of wrong decisions, from political to military,” said captain Cadeau.

However, the results of the inquiries were not disclosed to the public, as politicians wanted to elude the responsibility and a number of military agencies did not want the truth revealed. They reasoned France was still confronted with other wars in North Africa.

In late 1955 General Navarre requested a copy of the conclusions but his request was summarily dismissed, and the inquiries were kept as top secret.

In its conclusions, the Catroux Commission noted that it was a strategic disadvantage for the French Military to conduct a large scale battle in Dien Bien Phu which was about 400km from the coast, 300km from French air bases, and near China’s border.

It was France’s wrong decision that General Navarre might not have encountered if he had sufficiently more time to evaluate the logistic potential of Viet Minh, as well as other characteristics of the battlefield.

Obviously the commission was playing down the defeat of the French military in Dien Bien Phu by describing it as an “inevitable failure” and they did not dwell with any seriousness on mistakes by the French administration and military.

Conflicts unveiled

Many French veterans said they had little knowledge about the Catroux Commission. Colonel Jacques Allaire, who was then a lieutenant in Dien Bien Phu, said the commission later revealed in part a big conflict between General Navarre and General Cogny.

“When the operation began, French soldiers did not know anything about the feud between these two Generals. Only after I was released by Viet Minh, did I hear about the presence of the Catroux Commission and the two Generals’ disagreement,” said Allaires.

“I read several documents of the commission and found that the commission seemed to reprimand Cogny more severely than Navarre.”

“But I think both Generals made mistakes. If Navarre trusted Cogny blindly, he would keep an eye open on Cogny’s operations in Dien Bien Phu.”

With the 50-year passing of the Catroux Commission’s conclusions, it seems as if the government, military and people of France wanted questions regarding the cause of their bitter defeat of the 1954 Dien Bien Phu battle to fall into oblivion.

Yet, the search was resuscitated and the quest for truth given new life when classified documents were made public in 2005.

Source: VOV