page_title: Battle of Dien Bien Phu
section_title: Lull
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Dien Bien Phu / Battle / Lull
caption_attribution_description: Tiếng Việt: Bộ đội Việt Nam
context_page_description: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries.
  It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. As a result of blunders in French decision-making, however, the French began an operation to insert, then support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the hills of northwestern Vietnam. The operation's purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, and draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The plan was to resupply the French position by air, and was based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability. The Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains.
context_section_description: A lull in fighting occurred from 17 to 30 March. The Viet Minh further tightened the noose around the French central area (formed by the strong points Huguette, Dominique, Claudine, and Eliane), effectively cutting off Isabelle and its 1,809 personnel to the south. During this lull, the French suffered from a serious crisis of command. "It had become painfully evident to the senior officers within the encircled garrison – and even to Cogny at Hanoi – that de Castries was incompetent to conduct the defense of Dien Bien Phu. Even more critical, after the fall of the northern outposts, he isolated himself in his bunker so that he had, in effect, relinquished his command authority". On 17 March, Cogny attempted to fly into Điện Biên Phủ to take command, but his plane was driven off by anti-aircraft fire. Cogny considered parachuting into the encircled garrison, but his staff talked him out of it.
  De Castries' seclusion in his bunker, combined with his superiors' inability to replace him, created a leadership vacuum in the French command. On 24 March, an event took place which later became a matter of historical debate. The historian Bernard Fall records, based on Langlais' memoirs, that Colonel Langlais and his fellow paratroop commanders, all fully armed, confronted de Castries in his bunker on 24 March. They told him he would retain the appearance of command, but that Langlais would exercise it. De Castries is said by Fall to have accepted the arrangement without protest, although he did exercise some command functions thereafter. Phillip Davidson stated that the "truth would seem to be that Langlais did take over effective command of Dien Bien Phu, and that Castries became 'commander emeritus' who transmitted messages to Hanoi and offered advice about matters in Dien Bien Phu". Jules Roy, however, makes no mention of this event, and Martin Windrow argues that the "paratrooper putsch" is unlikely to have ever happened. Both historians record that Langlais and Marcel Bigeard were known to be on good terms with their commanding officer.
  French aerial resupply took heavy losses from Viet Minh machine guns near the landing strip. On 27 March, the Hanoi air transport commander, Nicot, ordered that all supply deliveries be made from 2,000 m (6,600 ft) or higher; losses were expected to remain heavy. The following day, De Castries ordered an attack against the Viet Minh AA machine guns 3 km (1.9 mi) west of Điện Biên Phủ. Remarkably, the attack was a complete success, with 350 Viet Minh soldiers killed and seventeen AA machine guns destroyed (French estimate), while the French lost 20 killed and 97 wounded.
caption: Viet Minh soldiers launching an assault during the battle
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