The situation in Haiphong looked as if it were heading for a settlement.
All of a sudden, on November 23, at 7 a.m. Debès sent an ultimatum to the Haiphong Administrative Committee demanding that our troops be withdrawn from the Chinese and the former European residential quarters and that our selfdefence units in the Lac Vien Sector (the 7th Sector), where the French had been badly cut up, be disarmed. He insisted that his demands should be met not later than 9 a.m. otherwise the French would strike. We rejected all these demands. The French extended the deadline for 45 minutes.
At exactly 9.45 a.m., the French artillery began firing. Covered by talks and armoured vehicles, French troops attacked the Chinese residents’ quarters. Even their planes bombed Haiphong and the adjacent town of Kien An. Our troops and self defence units, behind barricades and entanglements made of bedsteads, wardrobes and other wooden furniture, returned the enemy’s fire. Molotov cocktails and grenades were thrown down from upper floors and verandas onto French armoured vehicles. Resistance was mounted at every street corner and from every block of houses.
In Hanoi, the same day at 9 a.m. the head of our military delegation arrived at the French headquarters and requested an urgent meeting with Morlière. The latter kept away but delegated the colonel commanding the Hanoi garrison to meet him. Our side demanded an explanation of Debès’s ultimatum. The colonel said it had been approved by his superiors in Saigon. He added that the French troops in Haiphong would be allowed to use fire if we did not accept it. The French command in Hanoi had made a sudden volte face.
According to documents later made public, things had passed off in this way: as early as November 21, in the afternoon, Valluy, then in Saigon, had instructed Debès to avail himself of the existing situation to expand the French-occupied area in Haiphong. Carrying out Valluy’s instructions, Debès then repudiated all agreements reached between Morlière and our representative in Hanoi. On November 22, Valluy instructed Morlière to demand the total withdrawal of our armed forces from Haiphong. Feeling that this demand constituted an “ultimatum” which could bring about a large-scale conflict, Morlière refrained from conveying it to our government and instead asked Valluy to take into consideration the consequences which might arise from such a demand. Morlière was completely unaware of the fact that, along with his instructions to him, the new French Commander-in-Chief had also personally directed Debès to use all the means at his disposal to make himself master of Haiphong. Valluy was only carrying out instructions issued to him by d’Argenlieu who had left Indochina a week before.
On November 23, at noon, President Ho made a direct appeal on the Voice of Viet Nam radio:
“I call on General Valluy Commander-in-Chief of the French Forces and the Acting High Commissioner and the other French generals in Viet Nam to stop forthwith the bloodshed between the French and the Vietnamese.
“I call on our entire people to remain calm and on our army and self-defence forces to be prepared to safeguard the sovereignty of our Fatherland while protecting the lives and property of foreigners.
“The government will always stand with the entire people to defend our country.
“Long live the independence and unity of Viet Nam”.
The French attacks in Haiphong were of a very brutal character. Their troops were ordered to burn down every house which stood in their way once they met with resistance. But on the very first day they were forced to a halt and Debès had to appeal to the Navy for artillery support.
At 3 p.m. our troops launched a counter-attack. They stormed and recaptured the Municipal Theatre which had been held by the French for the last two days. Fighting was fierce whether it was for the control of a street, a lane or a house. The self-defence units, especially those of the 7th Sector were very brave.
On November 25, we made a strong attack on Cat Bi airfield, destroying the ammunition depot and petrol store there and succeeded in putting it under our full control.
Our valiant fight in Haiphong was, in a sense, a rehearsal for the battle lasting many days which took place in Hanoi one month later.
On November 25, our troops and self-defence forces moved out and took up new combat positions outside the city.
Even so, French patrol teams were afraid to enter many of the places we had evacuated.
On November 27, Morlière saw us. He conveyed a message from the French High Command demanding that we dismantle the entanglements and barricades put up on the roads linking French posts and ensure French troops free movement between Haiphong and Do Son. He explained that everything that French troops had done in North Indochina had been in accordance with orders from above. That reminded me of Valluy, when he came to give an explanation of the French occupation of the Tay Nguyen Highlands, it was, he said “orders from above”. Morlière and Valluy had such a similar vocabulary. Then d’Argenlieu had been Valluy’s superior, now it was Valluy who was Morlière’s superior.
On the morning of November 28, our Ministry of National Defence received a message from Morlière to confirm what he had said the day before: “Today I confirm to you the military conditions set forth by the French High Command.”
In this message, Morlière also defined the boundaries of the French-occupied zone which was to include the city of Haiphong and the adjacent areas. He reiterated the demand for free movement of French troops on the roads linking their posts and between Haiphong and Do Son.
The situation had become very serious. In order to gain more time for our army and people in Haiphong to make preparations, we briefly replied to the French that as their proposals were of extremely great importance, the two sides should set up a mixed commission to discuss them.
In the afternoon, Morlière sent us another message, the second in one day: “...I would like to bring to your notice that the conditions set forth in my letter of November 28 originate from very clear instructions received by me. As a result, there is no question of setting up a mixed commission to consider this as you have proposed. In my opinion it is pointless to form such a commission otherwise than for defining the measures needed to fulfil the conditions already put forth.”
As a reply to the French messages with their demands for the expansion of their occupation over a larger area we ordered our troops and self-defence forces to tighten their encirclement of the enemy forces in Haiphong and thoroughly undermine the roads linking French posts especially the Haiphong — Do Son Highway.
The battle in Haiphong marked a new level of the French aggressive war. The enemy had now extended his aggression from the southern half of our country to the whole of Viet Nam and to the whole of the Indochinese peninsula.