The Viet Bac Autumn-Winter Campaign 1947 dealt a decisive blow to the French colonialists’ scheme of “rapid assault, swift victory,” successfully defending the revolutionary base and the Central Headquarters in the Viet Bac region. At the same time, it marked a critical shift in strategic posture and capacity, propelling the Vietnamese people’s protracted resistance war into a new phase. The resounding success of the campaign signified the emergence and maturation of Vietnam’s operational art of warfare. Among its defining features, the artful organisation and deployment of forces stands out as a particularly distinctive and strategic achievement.

In early 1947, following the collapse of their “political solution” through the establishment of a puppet government, the French colonialists resolved to pursue a swift military campaign to bring the war in Vietnam and Indochina to a rapid conclusion. In implementing this design, they concentrated substantial forces and launched an ambitious offensive into the Viet Bac region with the aim of capturing our central leadership, annihilating core military units, dismantling the resistance base, and sealing off the Vietnam-China border to obstruct support from socialist countries to Vietnam. Through this large-scale assault, the French hoped to achieve a decisive victory, crush the Vietnamese resistance movement, swiftly end the war, and reimpose colonial rule over Vietnam.

The Campaign's Command report combat plan to President Ho Chi Minh (A file photo)

In the face of the enemy’s superior strength and sudden offensive, the Party Central Committee and President Ho Chi Minh responded with calm and clarity, resolutely leading the entire Party, people, and army with the determination to “defeat the French invaders’ winter offensive.” By creatively and flexibly applying the all-people, all-front war strategy, and mastering the art of “using the weak to defeat the strong, the few to overcome the many,” combined with the unwavering spirit of “determined to fight, determined to win,” our armed forces and people successfully broke each pincer movement of the enemy, gradually turned the tide, and swiftly regained strategic initiative. The counteroffensive in the Viet Bac Campaign ended in a decisive victory, inflicting heavy losses on the well-trained invading army and delivering a significant blow to the French war effort. This success not only reinforced the unwavering belief of our military and people in the eventual triumph of the resistance, but also laid a foundational milestone in the theoretical and practical development of Vietnam’s operational art. Though it was the first large-scale campaign launched by our military during the resistance against French colonial aggression, it left behind enduring strategic lessons - most notably in the domain of organising and employing forces with ingenuity and precision.

Firstly, concentrating forces on key directions and areas of counteroffensive to break each “pincer movement” and dismantle the enemy’s converging assault formation. Faced with the superior strength of French forces, our strategic priority was to escape the initial state of passivity, gradually seize the initiative, and drive the enemy into a reactive posture. To this end, we adopted the policy of concentrating our forces to halt and slow the enemy’s advance, ultimately aiming to break their assault formation while launching sharp, decisive counterblows. Accordingly, all available armed forces in the region, along with the mobilisation of local people, were directed to the campaign and concentrated along the enemy’s main axes of advance: the Lo River-Route 2, Route 3, and Route 4. Simultaneously, guerrilla warfare was intensified to maximise the combined strength of all military and civilian elements in resisting the invaders. This strategic approach proved entirely correct and was firmly grounded in the realities of the battlefield, reflecting the strategic insight and accurate situational assessment of the General Command. The French forces were superior in manpower, firepower, and mobility. Their advantage would have been even more formidable, had their two pincers successfully converged as planned. In contrast, given the vast and rugged terrain, our forces could not afford to be dispersed across all directions. Only by concentrating adequate strength on key axes and critical zones, leveraging the terrain of the northern mountains and forests, and integrating the people’s war posture, could we effectively halt and dismantle each pincer and disrupt the enemy’s converging assault plan.

In practice, the campaign demonstrated that our main force units, under central and regional command, swiftly deployed to the principal directions of counterattack. They seized advantageous terrain and closely coordinated with local guerrillas to conduct interlocking engagements, traffic disruption, and attritional manoeuvres, all of which contributed to forming a sharp and flexible counteroffensive posture. Moreover, regular forces carried out proactive raids and ambushes against enemy marching formations, inflicting surprise, disarray, and heavy losses in manpower and matériel, thereby sapping enemy morale and combat capability. The elite French expeditionary battalions, the deeper they advanced into the Viet Bac base, the more entangled they became in the vast “heaven-and-earth net” of the people’s war. They were repeatedly struck by our main force battalions in devastating attacks. Confronted with irreparable losses and mounting defeats, the enemy was forced into a hasty withdrawal. The French colonialists’ grand offensive thus collapsed entirely, marking the complete failure of their ambitious campaign.

One kind of artillery used in the Campaign

Secondly, promptly adjusting forces, flexibly transforming the battle situation, and defeating the enemy's combat measures. At the outset of the campaign, due to an incomplete assessment of the enemy’s intentions, our forces on several fronts were caught off guard and found themselves in a passive position, resulting in losses in both manpower and equipment. However, once the General Command had thoroughly studied the situation and accurately discerned the full scope of the French offensive strategy against Viet Bac, it acted swiftly to redeploy and restructure our forces. This enabled the creation of a new, more advantageous disposition, while simultaneously formulating operational tactics aimed at repelling successive enemy attacks. To enhance the effectiveness of our combat operations, the battlefield was rapidly reorganised into three strategic fronts, with senior commanders from the General Command directly overseeing each axis of counterattack, specifically: The Route 3 Front, encompassing the central area of the resistance base, was commanded by Comrade Hoang Van Thái; The Route 4 Front was under the direct command of Comrade Vo Nguyen Giap; The Lô River - Route 2 Front was jointly led by Comrades Tran Tu Binh and Ta Xuan Thu. Simultaneously, the deployment of main force units was swiftly recalibrated. The combined strength of all three military components - main forces, regional units, and guerrillas - was brought to bear, and a dynamic posture was adopted throughout combat engagements. For example, on the Route 3 Front, when enemy paratroopers landed in Bac Kan, Cho Moi, and Cho Don, the General Command quickly redirected the 160^th Battalion from central command and the 72^nd Battalion from Military Region 1 to Cho Moi. Regiment 72 was assigned operations from Cao Bang to Bac Kan, while forces from the southern areas (Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang) were ordered to manoeuvre northward to block the enemy’s advance. On the Route 2 Front, the General Command deployed the main regiment of Zone 10 and a battalion from central command to engage French forces along the Lo River, between Viet Tri and Tuyen Quang. Meanwhile, Regiment 147 and two central battalions secured the southern section of the interprovincial road linking Tuyen Quang and Thai Nguyen. On the Route 4 Front, the formation of Regiment 174 was adjusted to intercept enemy units moving from Cao Bang to That Khe. Regiment 11 was mobilised to attack French forces along Route 4, between Lang Son and Dong Khe, and along Route 1 from Lang Son to Dong Mo.

Thanks to these timely adjustments and the flexible transformation of our strategic posture, our forces were able to halt the enemy’s so-called “lightning advance,” gradually regain the initiative, and force the French into a reactive and increasingly disjointed position. This shift exacerbated their internal dilemma - whether to concentrate forces for further offensive operations or to disperse them to hold already occupied territories. Through a series of tactically astute and agile counteroffensives, our forces not only neutralised the strengths of the enemy but also exploited their vulnerabilities. This was especially effective as French troops were forced to operate in treacherous mountainous terrain, where their formations became elongated and fragmented, severely restricting their ability to provide mutual support or respond rapidly. Each enemy “pincer” was methodically dismantled, rendering their combat plans ineffective and hastening the collapse of their ambitious campaign.

Thirdly, effectively and creatively implementing the motto of organising the main force “independent companies, concentrated battalions.” In order to completely defeat the French colonialists’ strategy of a “rapid strike, swift victory” and draw them deeper into a prolonged quagmire where their advantages in firepower and mobility would be neutralised, the General Command adopted the principle of decentralising its main forces. Units under central command and from Zones 1, 10, and 12 were restructured from seven regiments into eighteen battalions operating across three fronts, while nearly thirty companies were redeployed to conduct independent operations in key districts. This was a strategically sound and practically necessary decision, reflecting an astute assessment of battlefield realities. It allowed our main regiments to avoid direct confrontation with superior enemy formations, thus preserving strength for decisive campaign-level engagements. Given the mountainous terrain of Viet Bac, French forces were confined to advancing along key roads and rivers, resulting in stretched, fragmented formations with limited coordination. In such conditions, deploying smaller, highly mobile units - battalions and independent companies - proved ideal. These units employed ambushes and surprise attacks at unexpected times and locations, capitalising on our strengths in asymmetrical warfare. In addition, the independent companies served as core elements in supporting localities to expand guerrilla forces, provide tactical and technical training, and transform communes and villages into fortified defensive strongholds. Meanwhile, the mobile battalions under central and regional command conducted medium and large-scale operations, delivering concentrated firepower at critical junctures.

The effective use of independent companies ensured that French expeditionary columns were under constant attack, their lines of communication severed, their formations dispersed, and their logistics - already limited by distance from rear bases - further strained. Ammunition, food, and supplies, which were already arriving in a trickle, became even more scarce. The concentrated battalions, drawing on the terrain and the advantages of the people’s war posture, struck decisive, well-timed blows - ambushing paratroopers on Route 3, inflicting heavy casualties on mobile units along Route 4 and the Lo River - Route 2 corridor. As a result, enemy forces became weaker in strength and fewer in number, gradually losing the initiative, falling into confusion, and being forced into passive defence. Their progress slowed to a crawl, and ultimately they found themselves trapped in a strategic deadlock - unable to advance or retreat - culminating in total defeat. It is clear that the General Command’s implementation of the principle “independent companies, concentrated battalions” did not signify a retreat in organisational scale, but rather an adaptive, forward-looking strategy aligned with the combat readiness and operational proficiency of our troops in the Viet Bac theatre. It rejected passive defence and attritional warfare in favour of dynamic counteroffensives aimed at destroying enemy forces. This marks a significant innovation and a new stage in the evolution of Vietnamese operational art during the early phase of the resistance against French colonialism.

The victory of the Viet Bac Autumn - Winter Campaign 1947 created favourable conditions - both in terms of strength and strategic position - for the Vietnamese people’s resistance war to advance toward final triumph. The lessons in the art of force organisation and deployment from this campaign remain highly relevant and should continue to be studied, applied, and further developed in the ongoing cause of national defence.

General Colonel, Dr. NGUYEN VAN HUNG, Army Academy