Product Description

In winter 1953-54 the French army in Vietnam challenged its elusive enemy, General Giap's Viet Minh, to pitched battle. Ten thousand French paras and legionnaires, with artillery and tanks, were flown to the remote valley of Dien Bien Phu to build a fortress upon which Giap could smash his inexperienced regiments. The siege which followed became a Stalingrad in the jungle, and its outcome shocked the world. 'Enthralling...Windrow gives a clear and cogent analysis of the general politico-military position...Anyone who found Stalingrad absorbing will find this book equally so. Like Beevor, Windrow gives one the very essence of battle... His character sketches of individuals, from commanding officers down, are deft and acute...This book is a wonderful account of a terrible battle' Allan Massie, Literary Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87684 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-10
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Synopsis
In winter 1953-54 the French army in Vietnam challenged its elusive enemy, General Giap's Viet Minh, to pitched battle. Ten thousand French paras and legionnaires, with artillery and tanks, were flown to the remote valley of Dien Bien Phu to build a fortress upon which Giap could smash his inexperienced regiments. The siege which followed became a Stalingrad in the jungle, and its outcome shocked the world. 'Enthralling...Windrow gives a clear and cogent analysis of the general politico-military position...Anyone who found Stalingrad absorbing will find this book equally so. Like Beevor, Windrow gives one the very essence of battle...His character sketches of individuals, from commanding officers down, are deft and acute...This book is a wonderful account of a terrible battle' Allan Massie, Literary Review

About the Author
Born in 1944 and educated at Wellington College, Martin Windrow is an Associate of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Foreign Legion Association of Great Britain. He has worked in publishing since the mid-1960s as a commissioning editor and author.

Customer Reviews

Top-to-Bottom insight into a pivotal 20th century battle
Martin Windrow's book is too modest - he describes his book as drawing on primarily on secondary sources, but this is to severely understate a masterly example of historical synthesis.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu was the death knell for French involvement in Indochina, and also hearalded the bitter involvement of the United States in South East Asia. Politically, the battle is of singular importance. Militarily, deployment and tactics of the french defenders, and the fighting qualities of the French paratroops and Foreign Legionnaires drive the narrative forward.

Windrow is sensitive to the more unfamiliar elements of the saga. The role of Vietnamese troops fighting for the French is highlighted, as are the contradictions of Senegalese and Algerian troops fighting for a French Empire which treated them equivocally. The American conflict to come haunts the book, as does the 'savage war of peace' in Algeria which followed hard on its heels.

I feel the Communist Vietnamese perspective was credited as fully as possible, given the very different type of historical record availiable from their side. Giap's strengths and weaknesses as a general are objectively assessed, free of the hagiographic perspectives of some accounts.

The book has excellent maps and notes (you will need three bookmarks!) and Windrow's own experiences of the military form a wry thread of commentary through the notes.

If you enjoy Max Hastings and Richard Holmes's work, you will enjoy this book's gruelling depiction of a major 20th century clash of arms.

Exceptionally good military history - highly recommended
This is now unquestionably the definitive account, in English at least, of this epic battle: even better than Bernard Fall's benchmark, 'Hell in a very small place', IMHO.

Windrow ably covers the background, strategy, principal characters and then handles the complexities of the overall battle and its many components in detail, but without ever losing the reader along the way. Windrow writes vividly, concisely and well: a refreshing change from a lot of military writing which can be pretty turgid.

Windrow's main accomplishment, though, is in telling the stories of the men (and some women) who served and fought at Dien Bien Phu. This is, as another reviewer commented, mostly from the French perspective and some personal details from the Viet Minh perspective would be welcome to give greater insight to what was a Verdun-like encounter for both sides. Certainly the 'lions led by donkeys' bromide often used in the British WWI context seems at least as applicable here.

The author also refrains from too obviously using the later American experience in hindsight analysis, making the decisions and perspectives as fresh as they would have appeared at the time. The book certainly gains from this approach and loses nothing by his light touch in this regard.

I would also like to have had more on the aftermath and how it affected the main protagonists, but a quick visit to Wikipedia revealed that Navarre and de Castries retired relatively soon afterwards; Bigeard, Langlais and Cogny continued to serve (Bigeard eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant-General). Perhaps the lack of any obvious witch-hunt or public consequences rendered the point moot.

Highly recommended for both specialised and more general readers: both will find much value in this fine and accessible work.

Didn't award it five stars as, although there are somewhere in the order of twenty maps in the preface, the fluidity of the engagements demand more visual detail in the text itself: I found it irritating to keep flipping back and forth. Photos were also fairly ordinary for a hardback edition.

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I had heard about the French in Vietnam but did not really know very much until I read this book. The book is an excellent read and tells the story of the battle in such a way that you feel you are part of it - of course in truth I doubt that anyone who reads the book could ever contemplate actually being there. The resolve and bravery of the French-led troops is hard to come to terms with.... it really is a case of lions led by donkeys (at least at the highest level of command). I have utmost respect for everyone involved on the ground and for the author of this book for bringing the battle to our attention many years later.

Whilst at times thre book can be a little 'heavy' it needs to be, and I therefore thoroughly reccomend it to everyone