ABSTRACT
The British and Americans were, of course, instrumental in returning French forces to Indo-China in 1944–1945, both to assist in the final defeat of Japan and to oust the Democratic Republic of Vietnam announced by Ho, with his famous emulation of the US declaration of independence on 2 September 1945. Schemes formulated by the British government and the Free French national committee altered in response to the mixed messages about Indo-China sent out by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. In many respects, Free French inability to make any strategic impact upon French Indo-China between 1940–1943 merely repeated a familiar refrain in French Far Eastern policy. In France, detailed accounts of Free French plans for Indo-China tended to draw upon personal recollection rather than the archival record. The creation of separate interim British and Chinese administrations in southern and northern Indo-China respectively once again marginalized the French in Indo-China.
