Bảo Đại

Bảo Đại(Vietnamese:[ɓa᷉ːwɗâːjˀ],chữ Hán:保大, lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 1913 – 31 July 1997),bornNguyễn Phúc (Phước) Vĩnh Thụy(chữ Hán:阮福永瑞), was the 13th and finalemperorof theNguyễn dynasty, the lastruling dynasty of Vietnam.From 1926 to 1945, he wasde jureemperor ofAnnamandTonkin, which were then protectorates inFrench Indochina, covering the present-day central and northern Vietnam. Bảo Đại ascended the throne in 1932.
TheJapanese oustedtheVichy Frenchadministration in March 1945 and ruled through Bảo Đại, who proclaimed theEmpire of Vietnam. Heabdicatedin August 1945 afterJapan surrendered.
From 1949 to 1955, Bảo Đại was the chief of state of the anti-communistState of Vietnam. Viewed as a puppet ruler, Bảo Đại was criticized for being too closely associated with France and spending much of his time outside Vietnam. He was eventually ousted in areferendumin 1955 by Prime MinisterNgô Đình Diệm, who was supported by theUnited States.
Bảo Đại was born on 22 October 1913 and given the name of PrinceNguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụyin the Palace of Doan-Trang-Vien, part of the compound of thePurple Forbidden CityinHuế, the former capital of Vietnam. He was later given the name Nguyễn Vĩnh Thụy. His father was EmperorKhải Địnhof Annam. His mother was the emperor's second wife, Tu Cung, who was renamed 'Doan Huy' upon her marriage. She held various titles over the years that indicated her advancing rank as a favored consort until she eventually became Empress Dowager in 1933. Vietnam had been ruled from Huế by the Nguyễn dynasty since 1802. The French government, which took control of the region in the late 19th century, split Vietnam into three areas: the protectorates ofAnnamandTonkinand the colony ofCochinchina. TheNguyễn dynastywas given nominal rule of Annam.
At the age of nine, Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy was sent to France to study at theLycée Condorcetand, later, theParis Institute of Political Studies. He became emperor on 8 January 1926, after his father's death, and took theera nameBảo Đại("Protector of Grandeur" or "Keeper of Greatness").He did not yet ascend to the throne and returned to France to continue his studies.
On 20 March 1934, age 20, at the imperial city of Huế, Bảo Đại married Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan (died 15 September 1963,Chabrignac, France), a commoner from a wealthyVietnamese Catholicfamily. After the wedding, she was given the title EmpressNam Phương.
The couple had five children, two sons and three daughters:
Although Bảo Đại later had additional children with other women, these are the only ones listed in the clan genealogy.
Nam Phương was granted the title of empress in 1945. By one count, Bảo Đại had relationships with eight women and fathered 13 children. Those named "Phương" are daughters, while those named "Bảo" are sons.
In 1940, during the second World War, coinciding with their allyNazi Germany'sinvasionof France,Imperial Japantook over French Indochina. While they did not eject the French colonial administration, theoccupationauthorities directed policy from behind the scenes in a parallel ofVichy France.
The Japanese promised not to interfere with the court at Huế, but in 1945, afterousting the French, coerced Bảo Đại into declaring Vietnamese independence from France as a member of Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"; the country then became the Empire of Vietnam.
Bảo Đại, however, appeared to believe that independence was an irreversible course. In 1944, he wrote toGeneral de Gaulle, leader of theFree French:
The Japanese had aVietnamesepretender, PrinceCường Để, waiting to take power in case the new emperor's "elimination" was required.Japan surrenderedto theAlliesin August 1945, and theViet Minh(under the leadership of communistHồ Chí Minh) aimed to take power in a free Vietnam. Due to his popular political stand against the French and the1945 famine, Hồ was able to persuade Bảo Đại to abdicate on 25 August 1945, handing power over to the Việt Minh – an event which greatly enhanced Hồ's legitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese people.Bảo Đại was appointed the "supreme advisor" to Hồ'sDemocratic Republic of Vietnam(DRV) inHanoi, whichdeclared its independenceon 2 September 1945. The DRV was then ousted by the newly formedFrench Fourth Republicin November 1946.
Bảo Đại spent nearly a year as "supreme advisor" to the DRV, during which period Vietnam descended intoarmed conflictbetween rival Vietnamese factions and the French. He left this post in 1946 after communists abandoned him in China. He moved toHong Kong, where theFrenchand Việt Minh both attempted unsuccessfully to solicit him for political support.
Eventually a coalition of Vietnamese anti-communists (including futureSouth VietnameseleaderNgô Đình Diệmand members of political/religious groups such as theCao Dai,Hòa Hảo, andVNQDĐ) formed a National Union and declared to support Bảo Đại on the condition he would seek independence for Vietnam. This persuaded him to reject Việt Minh overtures and enter into negotiations with the French. On 7 December 1947, Bảo Đại officially signed the first of theHa Long Bay Accordswith France. Despite ostensibly committing France to Vietnamese independence, it was considered minimally binding and transferred no actual authority to Vietnam. The agreement was promptly criticized by National Union members, including Diệm. In a possible attempt to escape the resulting political tension, Bảo Đại travelled to Europe and commenced on a four-month pleasure tour which earned him the sobriquet "night club emperor". After persistent efforts by the French, Bảo Đại was persuaded to return from Europe and sign a second Ha Long Bay Agreement on 5 June 1948. This contained similarly weak promises for Vietnamese independence and had as little success as the first agreement. Bảo Đại once again travelled to Europe whilst warfare in Vietnam continued to escalate.
After months of negotiations withFrenchPresidentVincent Auriol, he finally signed theÉlysée Accordson 8 March 1949, which led to the establishment of theState of Vietnamwith Bảo Đại becoming the Chief of State (國長,Quốc trưởng) on 14 June 1949; the French also oversaw the creation of theDomain of the Crownwhere he was still officially considered to be the Emperor, this territory existed until 1955.
However, the country was still only partially autonomous, with France initially retaining effective control of the army and foreign relations. Bảo Đại himself stated in 1950: "What they call a Bảo Đại solution turned out to be just a French solution... the situation in Indochina is getting worse every day".
As Diệm and other hardcore nationalists were disappointed in the lack of autonomy and refused high government posts, Bảo Đại mainly filled his government with wealthy figures strongly connected to France. He then spent his own time in the resort towns ofDa Lat,Nha Trang, andBuôn Ma Thuột, largely avoiding the process of governing. All this contributed to his reputation as a French puppet and a rise in popular support for the Việt Minh, whose armed insurgency against the French-backed regime was developing into a full-fledged civil war. Nonetheless, in 1950 he attended a series of conferences inPau, Francewhere he pressed the French for further independence. The French granted some minor concessions to the Vietnamese, which caused a mixed reaction on both sides.
In addition to the increasing unpopularity of the Bảo Đại government, thecommunist victory in China in 1949also led to a further revival of the fortunes of the Việt Minh. WhenChinaand theSoviet Unionrecognized the DRV government, the United States reacted by extending diplomatic recognition to Bảo Đại's government in March 1950. This and the outbreak of theKorean Warin June led to U.S. military aid and active support of the French war effort in Indochina, now seen as anti-communist rather than colonialist. Despite this, the war between the French colonial forces and the Việt Minh started to go badly for the French, culminating in a major victory for the Việt Minh atĐiện Biên Phủ. This led to the negotiating of a peace deal between the French and the Việt Minh on 21 July 1954, known as theGeneva Accords, whichpartitionedVietnam at the17th parallel. The north side was given to the DRV, with the State of Vietnam receiving the south. Before that, the State of Vietnam gained complete independence from France on June 4. Bảo Đại remained "Head of State" of South Vietnam, but moved toParisand appointed Ngô Đình Diệm as hisprime minister.
At first, Ngô Đình Diệm exercised no influence over South Vietnam: the Việt Minh still had de facto control of somewhere between sixty and ninety percent of the countryside (by French estimates), whilst the rest was dominated by the various religious sects. Meanwhile, the new capital ofSaigonwas under the total control of criminal groupBình Xuyên. According toColonel Lansdale, it had paid Bảo Đại a "staggering sum" for control of local prostitution and gambling and of Saigon's police force.
Regardless, Diệm's forces embarked on a campaign against the Bình Xuyên, withfighting breaking outin the streets on 29 March 1955. In an attempt to protect his clients, Bảo Đại ordered Diệm to travel to France, but he was disobeyed and Diệm eventually succeeded in pushing his opponents out of the city. Using a divide and conquer strategy, Diệm then employed a mixture of force and bribery to sway the remaining religious sects to his side.
Now with a broad range of support, a new Popular Revolutionary Committee (formed by Diệm's brotherNgô Đình Nhu) was able to call for a referendum to remove Bảo Đại and establish a republic with Diệm as president.The campaign leading up to the referendum was punctuated by personal attacks against the former emperor, whose supporters had no way to refute them since campaigning for Bảo Đại was forbidden.
The referendum was criticized as being fraudulent. The official results showed a tally of 98.9% in favor of a republic, with the number of votes for a republic exceeding the total number of registered voters by 155,025 in Saigon, while the total number of votes exceeded the total number of registered voters by 449,084, and the number of votes for a republic exceeded the total number of registered voters by 386,067.
Bảo Đại was removed from power, with Diệm declaring himself president of the newRepublic of Vietnamon 26 October 1955.
In 1957, during his visit toAlsaceregion, he met Christiane Bloch-Carcenac with whom he had an affair for several years. The relationship with Bloch-Carcenac resulted in the birth of his last child, Patrick-Édouard Bloch-Carcenac, who still lives in Alsace in France.
In 1972, Bảo Đại issued a public statement from exile, appealing to the Vietnamese people for nationalreconciliation, stating, "The time has come to put an end to thefratricidalwarand to recover at last peace and accord".At times, Bảo Đại maintained residence in southern France, and in particular, inMonaco, where he sailed often on his private yacht, one of the largest in Monte Carlo harbor. He still reportedly held great influence among local political figures in theQuảng TrịandThừa Thiênprovinces ofHuế. The Communist government ofNorth Vietnamsent representatives to France hoping that Bảo Đại would become a member of a coalition government which might reunite Vietnam, in the hope of attracting his supporters in the regions wherein he still held influence.
As a result of these meetings, Bảo Đại publicly spoke out against thepresence of American troopsinSouth Vietnam, and he criticized PresidentNguyễn Văn Thiệu's regime in South Vietnam. He called for all political factions to create a free,neutral, peace-loving government which would resolve the tense situation that had taken form in the country.
In 1982, Bảo Đại, his wife Monique, and other members of the former imperial family of Vietnam visited the United States. His agenda was to oversee and bless Buddhist andCaodaistreligious ceremonies, in the California andTexasVietnamese Americancommunities.
In 1988, Bảo Đại was baptised in France as Roman Catholic.
Throughout Bảo Đại's life in both Vietnam and in France, he remained unpopular among the Vietnamese populace as he was considered a political puppet for the French colonialist regime, for lacking any form of political power, and for his cooperation with the French and for his pro-French ideals. The former emperor clarified, however, that his reign was always a constant battle and a balance between preserving the monarchy and the integrity of the nation versus fealty to the French authorities. Ultimately, power devolved away from his person and into ideological camps and in the face of Diem's underestimated influences on factions within the empire.
Bảo Đại died atVal-de-Grâce, a military hospital in Paris, on 30 July 1997. He was interred in theCimetière de Passy.
TheCommunist Party of Vietnam(CPV) considered him to be a traitor. After he was once again helped by France as the Head of State of Vietnam,Ho Chi Minhsaid in an interview with Chinese media: "Vĩnh Thụy brought the French invading army back to Vietnam and killed more compatriots. Vĩnh Thụy is a true traitor. The French colonists conspired to restore slavery in Vietnam. Vĩnh Thụy is the confidant of the colonists. Although Vietnamese law is very tolerant to those who have lost their way, they will severely punish the traitorous orphans. The Vietnamese people are determined to defeat all colonial conspiracies and fight for true independence and reunification."
On one hand, Bảo Đại remains a highly discussed figure. The CPV labels him a traitor, but does not treat him as harshly as subsequent leaders of the laterSouth Vietnam; his role continues to be studied, ranging from a somewhat sympathetic figure to the Việt Minh to a moderate figure who tried to avoid war, given Bảo Đại himself agreed to abdicate in 1945 to give power for the Việt Minh.
MostOverseas Vietnamese, who are ardently anti-communist, didn't consider Bảo Đại positively, partly due to his weak-willed reputation and inability to confront with the communist threat, as well as his reclusive life and his perceived cowardice.His role is also studied by the diaspora, although recent studies had questioned the perception due to perceived bias by both the Vietnamese diaspora and the CPV.
The lastcashcoinever produced in the world bears the name of Bảo Đại inChữ Hán. There are three types of this coin. Large cast piece with 10 văn inscription on the reverse, medium cast piece with no reverse inscription, and small struck piece. All were issued in 1933.