The Thai's Vengeance: The 1940 Franco-Thai War

The Franco-Thai war was one of the largel forgotten yet important conflicts that occurred during WW2. It pitted a weakened European power, against one of the last remaining nations that survived colonization, to a degree. The Franco-Thai War.

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Before talking about the war itself, we need a little bit of background information. The fall of mainland France in mid 1940, shocked many in the world, who expected a repeat of the slow, grinding attrition of the first World War. With France occupied, a puppet state, Vichy France, was created. This government over-saw the vast colonial empire that the nation wielded, yet, protection of this was dodgy at best, and some foreign powers, saw this as an opportunity to themselves expand in influence. Japan saw the solitary French colony in the area, Indo-China as a prime target, and issued ultimatums on June the 19th to the governor Georges Catroux. This Ultimatum demanding the closure of all supply routes to China and the admission of a 40-man Japanese inspection team on that demand. Initially, Catroux refused the demand, stating that such a thing would a breech of sovereignty, however, once he became aware of the Japanese land and naval units in position, he accepted their demands, knowing that his forces couldn't hope to defend the territory, and that assistance from the mainland or even other colonies wasn't forth-coming. On the 22nd of June more demands were brought forth, them being naval basing rights at Guangzhouwan and the total closure of the Chinese border by 7 July. On July the third, another demand was presented, air bases and the right to transit combat troops through Indochina. Catroux was replaced before the government responded to the two new demands, and the new governor, Jean Decoux, urged the government to reject them.

Jean knew that the colony wasn't strong enough to defeat the Japanese, but saw it as strong enough to deter them from invading in the first place. The still neutral United States, was contracted in providing aircraft to the colony, and Decoux had over 50,000 men under his direct command, with over half the force being regulars. While this force was the largest of any French colony at the time, it wasn't enough to deter the Japanese. Plans were drawn up, and yet another ultimatum issued on September the 20th. Citing that Japanese troops would be entering the territory regardless of French response.

The invasion started on September the 22nd, and heavy fighting erupted along the northern border, but the French were only able to hold off for a day before needing to retreat, following the same path that they did during the Sino-French war sixty years prior. By the 26th fighting had died down and the Japanese were allowed to station tens of thousands of units within Indo-China as part of the peace. But they didn't do so just yet, fearing retaliation from the Americans. Who had already been trying to force Japan to leave China.

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