Expert: Hank Hokamp - 2/9/2007

Question
The French lost control of Indo-China when they were defeated at the battle of:
  Dien Bien Phu
  Ho Chi Minh City
  Hanoi
  Purple Hills

Answer

   Thanks, Anne, for the multiple choice question:

   The answer is Điện Biên Phủ.

   Casualties:

94,581 dead.78,127 wounded.
40,000 captured 300,000+ dead.
500,000+ wounded.
100,000 captured.  

The First Indochina War, also known as the French Indochina War, the French War or the Franco-Vietnamese War, was fought in Indochina from 19 December 1946 until 1 August 1954 between the forces of the French Union, led by France, and the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Northern Vietnam (the area the French referred to as Tonkin) although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring Indochinese countries of Laos and Cambodia.

The Việt Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war were a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949 the conflict became a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons.

After seven years of bloody conflict, a French force was defeated at Điện Biên Phủ, where they were engaged by the forces of General Võ Nguyên Giáp. The forces the French had available were able to defeat successive human wave attacks with massive losses but direct Chinese support allowed them to use heavy artillery, trench warfare and some crucial anti aicraft guns (that closed the only exit, the airfield) in the siege of the base. French forces were mainly colonial troops (Morocco, Algeria, African) and professionnal troops, to prevent the war from becomming too unpopular at home.

    Source: Wikipedia

    Please rate. Thanks, Anne.

                                        HANK