VIET NAM: NEGLECTED
ANTECEDENTS
(An unpublished manuscript from about 1969)
By Ira Bodry
CONTENTS: Background Introduction Letter From A Dead Man page 1, 2 Chapter I Stubborn and patient National Resistance page 10 Chapter II Modern Viet Nam: Product of or Reaction to the Spanish Inquisition page 16 Chapter III "Mad Jack" Disguised as Uncle Sam Draws First Blood page 44 ------------ Letters to and from Captain John Percival, Captain, USS Constitution page 58 Chapter IV The American Revolution and War of Independence page 90 Chapter V Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God page 95
CHAPTER I. STUBBORN AND PATIENT NATIONAL RESISTANCE
It was the century of Marco Polo and Magna Carta. Far from England and Rome a new breed of conquerors, the swiftest in all history, was overrunning China. Mongols under Kublai Khan and his cousins stirred dreadful awe from Old Japan to medieval Poland. An Asiatic Horde came close to spilling over into the Elbe valley, and might have reached the Netherlands but for a battle in Silesia. There, Germanic knights blunted a thrust, withdrawing unbowed in gory honor, unaware how much blood the foe had lost in winning the field. For the Mongols veered toward the fertile Hungarian plain, and Europe was spared the fate of Russia...of Russia and China. "... but the Mongols were the first to extend their sway over the whole country. The subjugation of China was the work of Kublai, grandson of Genghis, who came to the throne in 1260, inheriting an empire more extensive than Alexander or Caesar had dreamed of.
In 1264 the new Khan fixed his court
at Peking and proceeded to reduce the provinces to subjection. Exhausted and
disunited as they were, the task was not difficult, though it took fifteen years
to complete." * With the pacification of China coming to a close, the troublesome
Vietnamese with their little Kingdom of Annam found themselves facing invasion.
Hanoi (known then as Thang-Long) was captured, but the invaders were so worn
out by the climate, diseases and resistance they were too exhausted to
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* The Awakening of China, by W.A.P. Martin, D.D., LL.D., formerly
President of the Chinese Imperial University. N.Y., 1910. p. 131. Dr. Martin
spent over fifty years in China, from 1850 on. He adds to the above quotation:
"Ambition alone would have been sufficient motive for the conquest, but
his hostility was provoked by perfidy -- especially by the murder of envoys
sent to announce his accession. 'Without good faith no nation can exist"..."
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plunder as they retreated to Yunnan. Vietnamese country folk, observing this unseemly reticence, derisively spoke of them as "Buddhist warriors."* The only tangible trophy of conquest was a vague promise by the Tran ruler of An Nam to pay triennial tribute to Peking. A decade passed, and Kublai Khan received no tribute. He let it be known that her was willing to accept the following six-point program instead of the tardy tribute:
1. The Tran King (Tran Thanh Tong) must appear in person at Xanadu (near Peking).
2. His children or brothers must remain as hostages.
3. A nationwide census must be taken in An Nam. (See points 4 and 5).
4. Vietnamese must serve in the Imperial Army, and pay taxes.
5. The Chinese overseers already in the country must remain.
Almost another decade passed before
a Vietnamese envoy went to China and bluntly told the Yuen that the Kingdom
of An Nam was not a primitive country, that foreign supervision was no longer
needed. Kublai Khan's response was an attempt to install Chinese officials down
to the provincial and district lever. These unwelcome guest were soon chased
back across the border. It was war once again. In 1283, Tran Hung Dao was made
Commander-in-Chief. As the Mongols advanced irresistible, ravaging and killing,
the King took a small boat to Hai Duong. There he summoned Tran Hung Dao, and
told him he could no longer bear the sight of his suffering people. The Monarch
meant to surrender. Tran Hung Dao replied: "If your majesty wishes to surrender,
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*Nguyen Van Thai & Nguyen Van Mung, A Short History of Viet Nam.
p. 98. This little volume is described as the "first history of Viet Nam
written in English by Vietnamese using Vietnamese sources." It was published
in 1958 by the Times of Vietnam, a highly pro-Diem newspaper run by an American
couple. It was deliberately selected as the source for this section because
neither the author nor the publisher could in any way be considered sympathetic
to the Left in Viet Nam, or anywhere else.
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please, Sire, First cut off my head." This revived the King's courage. Patiently holding out until terrain, climate and disease had weakened the invader, Tran Hung Dao attacked with fresh, healthy forces. By June, 1285, the Mongol armies had been decisively beaten. Postponing and invasion of Japan, the Great Khan sent a far stronger force to deal with these upstart Southerners. This time 300,000 men and 500 ships attacked a country roughly the size of what is nod DRVN territory. By October, 1288, these forces also had been routed. Only then did King Tran dispatch an envoy to Xanadu: the tribute he bore was purely symbolic, none could mistake it for submission.*
How did these events appear from the "other side"?
"(After describing the conquest of Burma and Laos)... In Tong King and An Nam the arms of Kublai were not so successful. Kublai's son Togan made an abortive campaign... Whenever an open force had to be overcome, the Mongol army was successful, but when the Mongols encountered the difficulties of a damp and inclement climate, the absence of roads, and other disadvantages, they were disheartened and suffered heavily in men and morale. With the loss of his two generals and the main portion of his army (this was 1285), Togan was luck in himself escaping to China. Kublai wished to make another effort to subdue... these inhospitable regions and their"
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* Note the reluctance to negotiate with an invader before his thrust is decisively
and obviously blunted. At Geneva in 1954, the DRVN delegation delayed actual
negotiations until Dien Bien Phu fell.
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"savage inhabitants. But Chinese public opinion proved too strong, and he had to yield to the representations of his ministers... There were indications that if he did not do so he would find a Chinese rebellion on his hands...* The restless ambition of Kublai would not be satisfied with anything short of recognition, in some form or other, of his power by his neighbors, and so he ... sent envoys to all the Kingdoms of southern Asia (today Southeast Asia) to obtain, by lavish presents or persuasive language that recognition of his authority on which he had set his heart. In most cases he was gratified, for there was not a power in East Asia to compare with that of the Mongol Prince seated on the Dragon Throne of China... These successful embassies had only one untoward result: they induced Kublai to revert to his idea of repairing the overthrow of his son Togan in An Nam and of finally subjugating that troublesome country. The intention was not wise, and it was rendered more imprudent by its execution being entrusted to Togan again... Togan began as he had formerly... by carrying all before him. He won seventeen separate engagements, but the further he advanced into the country the more evident did it appear that he only controlled the ground on which he stood.** The King of An Nam was a fugitive; his capital (Hanoi)"
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* The emphasis is added. This phrase is a key one in judging the political
nature of a war. A war of conquest by one nation against another will almost
invariably fit that description; e.g. the American Revolution, "...the
unwillingness of the inhabitants to join the British had shown here (in North
Carolina), as formerly in New Jersey, that the British could not expect to recover
any other part of the country than that which they held by actual occupation."
John Spencer Bassett, A Short History of the United States. 1923. p.
210. Professor Bassett was a North Carolinian.
** Kublai, the Great Khan, had his own very costly and arduous version of
TVA, his own "Great Society," the Grand Canal, taxation for which
galling.
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"was in the hands of the Mongols, and apparently nothing more remained to be done. Apachi, the most experienced of the Mongol commanders, then counseled a prompt retreat. Unfortunately the Mongol prince Togan would not take his advice, and the Vietnamese,* gathering fresh forces on all sides, attached the exhausted Mongols, and compelled them to beat a precipitate retreat from their country. All the fruits of early victory were lost, and Togan's disgrace was a poor consolation for the culminating discomfiture of Kublai's reign. The people of An Nam then made good their independence, and they still enjoy it, so far as China is concerned; though An Nam is now a dependency of the French republic." **
What does all this have to do with what is going on today? Vietnamese are extremely proud, *** always deeply conscious of their glorious past. **** Car Zitlow, who visited Hanoi under bombs in March, 1967, reported ***** how his Vietnamese hosts showed him artifacts of the Mongol invasion alongside relics of Dien Bien Phu. Both were displayed in a Museum of National Resistance. The Vietnamese he met in Hanoi asked him to relay to the American people what they considered important. First, before anything else, their history, how they were a strong
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* The text uses the word Annamites, a term we shall avoid because of its
very offensive connotation in Viet Nam. The use of "Annamite" was
outlawed in 1945.
** Demetrius Charles Boulger, China. N.Y. 1893. pp. 129-132.
*** Even the most scornful and unsympathetic French observers, such as Francoise
Martin, a school teacher in Cochin Chine, and Rene Vanlande, a perceptive journalist,
emphasize the "enormous pride" etc.
**** Vanlande, Indochine sous la Menace Communiste. Paris. 1930. p. 21. Vanlande
was astonished to learn, at what appeared to most as the zenith of eternal colonialism,
of Vietnamese talking about how they had driven out the Mongol.
***** Talk given in Washington at Friends Meeting House, 26 April, 1967.
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nation with a record of heroic success in resisting the greatest empire in history long before Columbus discovered the New World. How one of their greatest National heroes (Zitlow couldn't recall the name Tran Hung Dao) had led a thirty year struggle against those Mongols, never dreaming of surrender. This saga was not done up merely to impress a friendly American. The inspirational value of so rousing an epic in stirring the soul of people still awed by ancestral tradition should be obvious. Zitlow didn't know * that it was Ho Chi Min Himself who started it sixteen years ago during the first Indochina war.
"Our history has many great Resistance wars which are proof of our people's patriots." **
Ho then goes on to name Tran Hung Dao among the greatest of patriots.
What of the South? Money circulated there (piaster notes) today bears an engraving of Tran Hung Dao about to crush a horde of Mongol archers. A holiday is set aside each fall to celebrate his memory, and many worship at this shrines. ***
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* The author gathered this from his talk with Mr. Zitlow afterward.
** These remarks were made in the course of a lengthy political report to top-level
people of Viet Minh, those who would actually implement any policy. See "Political
Report to Lao Dong Party," (i.e. Communist) February, 1951. Ho Chi Minh
on Revolution, edited by Bernard B. Fall. Preager. N.Y. 1967. p. 223.
*** It should not be inferred that Tran Hung Dao is venerated, or that his festival
is celebrated more in the South. It is nationwide, and beyond. Almost forty
years ago, an austere Buddhist monk passed through one of the larger Vietnamese
settlements in Thailand. This was Sakhone, not far from the Mekong and the Lao
town of Thakkek. The monk, known as Father Chin, found a community largely Catholic,
while the people in the surrounding villages practiced Buddhism. A substantial
minority in Sakhone worshipped "His Eminence," the Guardian Spirit
Tran Hung Dao. Oh, by the way, Father Chin was Ho Chi Minh in disguise. See
Le Manh Trinh in "Souvenirs sur Ho Chi Minh," Hanoi. 1962. p. 110.
This composite biography of Ho is a semiofficial work made up of sections written
by those of his compatriots best acquainted with each period. Henceforth called
"Souv."
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CONTENTS: Background Introduction Letter From A Dead Man page 1, 2 Chapter I Stubborn and patient National Resistance page 10 Chapter II Modern Viet Nam: Product of or Reaction to the Spanish Inquisition page 16 Chapter III "Mad Jack" Disguised as Uncle Sam Draws First Blood page 44 ------------ Letters to and from Captain John Percival, Captain, USS Constitution page 58 Chapter IV The American Revolution and War of Independence page 90 Chapter V Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God page 95 Editors notes: This unpublished manuscript by Ira Bodry, was written and typed sometime between 1968 and given for publication to Walter Teague in 1970. Unfortunately some of the citations are unreadable and a few may be missing. Where possible such items are indicated. The preparation of this text for the the web and a scanned and notated version were prepared by Walter Teague and other volunteers from 1999 through 2013. This publication is copywrited by Walter Teague, Adelphi, Maryland. (C).
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