At the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was not invited, a decision was made to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence. Soon after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, de Gaulle sent the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to re-establish French sovereignty in French Indochina. However, the resistance leaders in Indo-China proclaimed the freedom and independence of Vietnam, and a civil war broke out that lasted until France was defeated in 1954.