The End of French Indochina: Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords and Sihanouk's "Election"

On May 7th, 1954, a French garrison in a remote valley in northwest Vietnam surrendered to the Viet Minh after fifty-six days under siege. Dien Bien Phu ended French Indochina. It also set the terms of a peace conference in Geneva where Cambodia's communists would find they had no seat, and no allies willing to give them one.

Time Period Covered: December 1953 to July 1955

How does the First Indochina War end? What do the Geneva Accords mean for Cambodia? Who wins the 1955 Cambodian general election?

Cambodia faces Viet Minh assaults around the country as the First Indochina War comes to its climax, but the French will suffer their most stunning defeat at Dien Bien Phu. World powers will convene to find a solution to the conflict. The resulting 'peace' will marginalise the Cambodian communist movement at the expense of the Vietnamese one, and Sihanouk will create a new political movement.

Google Maps View of Dien Bien Phu

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Sources

Philip Short Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare
David Chandler The Tragedy of Cambodian History
Ben Kiernan How Pol Pot Came to Power
Milton Osbourne Sihanouk
Christopher Goscha Vietnam: A New History