sleepyboi2988's review
5.0
It's easy to see why this became a classic. Fall's prose flows easily as he maintains an excellent middle ground examination of the failure of the French High Command coupled with both heroic and cowardly deeds of the French, Moroccan, Algerian, T'ai, and Vietnamese on the ground. As it is all to often in war, the men far behind the lines dither and dictate policy while the boots suffer and die for it.
This book I would also argue is paramount to understanding the French army's role and treatment of the populace in the struggle for Algeria. Most of the combatants and leaders were Indo-China and Dien Bien Phu veterans.
One can almost detect a pleading towards the end, Fall writing while his own country (The USA) began to commit more and more to a "conventional war" with the build up of forces in Vietnam passing from the role of adviser to active combatant. Fall hoped we would learn from both our and French mistakes in the 50's, sadly, he died while attached to a unit as a reporter in the jungle. With perfect hindsight, it is plain to see we did not take to heart Fall's excellent work and the lessons available to us.
This book I would also argue is paramount to understanding the French army's role and treatment of the populace in the struggle for Algeria. Most of the combatants and leaders were Indo-China and Dien Bien Phu veterans.
One can almost detect a pleading towards the end, Fall writing while his own country (The USA) began to commit more and more to a "conventional war" with the build up of forces in Vietnam passing from the role of adviser to active combatant. Fall hoped we would learn from both our and French mistakes in the 50's, sadly, he died while attached to a unit as a reporter in the jungle. With perfect hindsight, it is plain to see we did not take to heart Fall's excellent work and the lessons available to us.
bobbo49's review
4.0
Reading Fall's detailed, incisive 1966 account of the final days of the French war in Vietnam, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which American political and military leadership ever believed in a different outcome for the American war in Vietnam, particularly after they were schooled by this book and the French experience. In short, the fundamental French (and later American) miscalculations about the staying power, determination, willingness to incur lengthy and deep losses of life, and nationalistic fervor of the Viet Minh, as well as the futility of an outsider's dominant military powers, were all readily apparent in the French defeat in 1954. Quoting a senior French officer from the Viet Minh prison camp: "we were fighting for our professional honor and in the end, for our skins. But they, the enemy, were fight for their country."
It is of course a great shame that Fall was killed in 1967, and thus unable to write with equal detail and insight about America's equivalent defeat, although others - including of course Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, Michael Herr's Dispatches, and Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake - have made a fine contribution. The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that the level of daily detail regarding the movement of military units and personnel is sometimes just overwhelming; I understand that it makes Fall's testament more historically accurate and unassailable, but it does bog down the bigger picture at times.
It is of course a great shame that Fall was killed in 1967, and thus unable to write with equal detail and insight about America's equivalent defeat, although others - including of course Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, Michael Herr's Dispatches, and Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake - have made a fine contribution. The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that the level of daily detail regarding the movement of military units and personnel is sometimes just overwhelming; I understand that it makes Fall's testament more historically accurate and unassailable, but it does bog down the bigger picture at times.
books17's review
5.0
...[General] Giap had decided to accept trial by battle at Dien Bien Phu, it remained only for 15,000 French and 50,000 Viet Minh troops to act out the drama in pain and blood and death.
-p50
Dien Bien Phu is a battle which holds a surprising amount of interest to me - much like Stalingrad, it's an example of the desperate heroism that humans are capable of when their back is to the wall and they have nowhere else to turn.
Martin Windrow's excellent accounting of the siege, [b:The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam|754635|The Last Valley Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam|Martin Windrow|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348194320s/754635.jpg|1799172], sparked my original interest in Dien Bien Phu and the Indochinese War, and by extension the Vietnam War, a period I know frightfully little about. Windrow's book draws heavily on Hell in a Very Small Place, and the author credits this book with sparking his own interest in Dien Bien Phu, much like his did mine, and so it immediately became a must-read.
Hell in a Very Small Place is a much more focused book - the first third of The Last Valley is spent discussing the leadup to Dien Bien Phu, the battles and combatants, whilst this book is in the valley within the first 100 pages. Perhaps this is due to it originally being published in 1966, 12 years after the battle itself, and it's assumed that most readers would be familiar with the events - regardless, had I not read Last Valley first I would have been a lot more confused.
After that however, the two unfold more or less the same, with Last Valley glossing over the occupation and fortification (or the lack thereof) of the valley in favour of a focus on the preceding events. Fall and Windrow's opinions on the outcome and the conduct of the siege are also in line with one another - as to be expected, I suppose, when one introduced the other to the event.
All over again I found myself agonising over the fate of the thousands of French paratroopers and others who were trapped in the hellhole - their desperate defense of a mudhole in the middle of nowhere, far from home - and putting paid to the ridiculous modern myth of the Frenchman's propensity to surrender.
It would now be their task [...] to make yet one more desperate effort to finish off the grimly determined French resistance on the blood-soaked hills and filth-laden valley bottom...
-p342
Whereas Windrow focuses mostly on a play-by-play of the battle itself, Fall goes into detail on the political situation throughout - specifically France's pleas to the United States to provide air support in the face of an increasingly disastrous siege battle, and Britain's stubborn refusal to throw their support behind France. As it was written in the midst of America's own disastrous adventure in Vietnam, this book also draws very clear and painful parallels between the French experience and the ongoing war - and how the latter may have been easily avoided with American assistance in the former.
There can be no doubt that Dien Bien Phu, far from being a purely French defeat, became an American defeat as well [...] From 1965 onward, the United States was willing to go to work for the sake of preserving what her President calls her 'national honor'. In 1954, one hundred airplanes could not be found to save 15,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu.
p461
Following the battle, Fall's book does a slightly better job of explaining the POW situation and the grueling march they were forced on - the attempts of the French to repatriate their dead, scattered across the valley, ultimately unsuccessful due to clashes between the Viet Minh and French diplomats - the fate of the few dozen who managed to escape the encirclement at the end of the siege and flee into the jungle - and where most of the significant players of the battle were when the book was written in 1966. As it was, the majority of these people were still alive to give eyewitness accounts to Fall for his book, whereas Windrow did not have this luxury.
A very enjoyable read, I could not pick between it and Last Valley which I preferred. Both are incredible works of historical storytelling which I would heartily recommend to anyone.
Colonel Bastiani states that "the defenders of Dien Bien Phu have up to now covered themselves in glory and are an object of admiration for the Free World."
The price of that unsullied glory came to 5000 dead, 10,000 prisoners, and a lost war.
p361
-p50
Dien Bien Phu is a battle which holds a surprising amount of interest to me - much like Stalingrad, it's an example of the desperate heroism that humans are capable of when their back is to the wall and they have nowhere else to turn.
Martin Windrow's excellent accounting of the siege, [b:The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam|754635|The Last Valley Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam|Martin Windrow|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348194320s/754635.jpg|1799172], sparked my original interest in Dien Bien Phu and the Indochinese War, and by extension the Vietnam War, a period I know frightfully little about. Windrow's book draws heavily on Hell in a Very Small Place, and the author credits this book with sparking his own interest in Dien Bien Phu, much like his did mine, and so it immediately became a must-read.
Hell in a Very Small Place is a much more focused book - the first third of The Last Valley is spent discussing the leadup to Dien Bien Phu, the battles and combatants, whilst this book is in the valley within the first 100 pages. Perhaps this is due to it originally being published in 1966, 12 years after the battle itself, and it's assumed that most readers would be familiar with the events - regardless, had I not read Last Valley first I would have been a lot more confused.
After that however, the two unfold more or less the same, with Last Valley glossing over the occupation and fortification (or the lack thereof) of the valley in favour of a focus on the preceding events. Fall and Windrow's opinions on the outcome and the conduct of the siege are also in line with one another - as to be expected, I suppose, when one introduced the other to the event.
All over again I found myself agonising over the fate of the thousands of French paratroopers and others who were trapped in the hellhole - their desperate defense of a mudhole in the middle of nowhere, far from home - and putting paid to the ridiculous modern myth of the Frenchman's propensity to surrender.
It would now be their task [...] to make yet one more desperate effort to finish off the grimly determined French resistance on the blood-soaked hills and filth-laden valley bottom...
-p342
Whereas Windrow focuses mostly on a play-by-play of the battle itself, Fall goes into detail on the political situation throughout - specifically France's pleas to the United States to provide air support in the face of an increasingly disastrous siege battle, and Britain's stubborn refusal to throw their support behind France. As it was written in the midst of America's own disastrous adventure in Vietnam, this book also draws very clear and painful parallels between the French experience and the ongoing war - and how the latter may have been easily avoided with American assistance in the former.
There can be no doubt that Dien Bien Phu, far from being a purely French defeat, became an American defeat as well [...] From 1965 onward, the United States was willing to go to work for the sake of preserving what her President calls her 'national honor'. In 1954, one hundred airplanes could not be found to save 15,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu.
p461
Following the battle, Fall's book does a slightly better job of explaining the POW situation and the grueling march they were forced on - the attempts of the French to repatriate their dead, scattered across the valley, ultimately unsuccessful due to clashes between the Viet Minh and French diplomats - the fate of the few dozen who managed to escape the encirclement at the end of the siege and flee into the jungle - and where most of the significant players of the battle were when the book was written in 1966. As it was, the majority of these people were still alive to give eyewitness accounts to Fall for his book, whereas Windrow did not have this luxury.
A very enjoyable read, I could not pick between it and Last Valley which I preferred. Both are incredible works of historical storytelling which I would heartily recommend to anyone.
Colonel Bastiani states that "the defenders of Dien Bien Phu have up to now covered themselves in glory and are an object of admiration for the Free World."
The price of that unsullied glory came to 5000 dead, 10,000 prisoners, and a lost war.
p361
wrs1984's review
5.0
The classic account of the siege of Dien Bien Phu, should absolutely read this book before other accounts (The Last Valley by Martin Windrow is an excellent modern study, but read Bernard Fall's first).
mburnamfink's review
3.0
The next time someone accuses the French of being cheese eating surrender monkeys, I will be forced to slap them. Dien Bien Phu is one of those battles that has shaped the course of history. In 55 days of brutal siege warfare, the Viet Minh under General Giap defeated a French garrison, ending French involvement in Vietnam, and setting the stage for America's bloody war. Published in 1966, this book was required reading in Wasington policy circles, and drove Lyndon Johnson’s obsession that the battle of Khe Sahn not be another 'din bin foo'.
Bernard Fall was an old Indochina hand, and this book mixes a day by day account of the battle with portraits of colorful French Foreign Legion officers and analysis of the mood and thought in Hanoi, Paris, and Washington. At times, the endless descriptions of desperate counter-attacks and airdrops under fire wears on, but a few scenes rise above prosaic reporting to describe the suffering endured by the French, trapped in hastily built trenches, starving, soaked to the bone, and under continual Viet Minh bombardment. The strategic analysis of Eisenhower's decision not to intervene is fairly accurate, especially considering how closely this book was published to the events. Notably, even in 1966 Vietnam experts were obsessed with counter-factuals and might-have-beens.
Ultimately, the French were defeated, but only after days without rations, reinforcement, or resupply. Dien Bien Phu fell only after every bullet was fired, and the last defensive positions overrun. Both sides were ferocious and skilled fighters, but what decided the battle was logistics. The French arrogantly assumed that the base could be supplied by airlift, and that it was impossible to move large numbers of men and supplies through the jungle. Communist flak, and the endurance of coolie porters carrying 200 kg loads on modified bicycles hundreds of miles through the jungle proved them wrong.
Dien Bien Phu was an atypical set-piece of battle, not characteristic of the war as a whole. Long and detailed, Hell in a Very Small Place is too much for a general audience, but vital reading for anybody interested in the origins of the war, or the French colonial forces.
Bernard Fall was an old Indochina hand, and this book mixes a day by day account of the battle with portraits of colorful French Foreign Legion officers and analysis of the mood and thought in Hanoi, Paris, and Washington. At times, the endless descriptions of desperate counter-attacks and airdrops under fire wears on, but a few scenes rise above prosaic reporting to describe the suffering endured by the French, trapped in hastily built trenches, starving, soaked to the bone, and under continual Viet Minh bombardment. The strategic analysis of Eisenhower's decision not to intervene is fairly accurate, especially considering how closely this book was published to the events. Notably, even in 1966 Vietnam experts were obsessed with counter-factuals and might-have-beens.
Ultimately, the French were defeated, but only after days without rations, reinforcement, or resupply. Dien Bien Phu fell only after every bullet was fired, and the last defensive positions overrun. Both sides were ferocious and skilled fighters, but what decided the battle was logistics. The French arrogantly assumed that the base could be supplied by airlift, and that it was impossible to move large numbers of men and supplies through the jungle. Communist flak, and the endurance of coolie porters carrying 200 kg loads on modified bicycles hundreds of miles through the jungle proved them wrong.
Dien Bien Phu was an atypical set-piece of battle, not characteristic of the war as a whole. Long and detailed, Hell in a Very Small Place is too much for a general audience, but vital reading for anybody interested in the origins of the war, or the French colonial forces.
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