The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was fought in 1954 by French troops of the Far East Expeditionary Force and Vietnamese nationalist troops of the Viet Minh commanded by General Giap. It was the decisive battle of the Indochina War and ended with the total victory of the Viet Minh and the surrender of the French forces surrounded in the Dien Bien Phu valley. The strategy of General Giap was decisive as he had positioned the bulk of his artillery in the hills overlooking the valley and could strike at will at the French base which could now only count on an airport.

The outcome of the battle influenced the progress of the negotiations between the two warring parties underway at the Geneva conference, leading to the end of the war and the signing of the peace agreements concluded on 21 July 1954, according to which France had to accept to withdraw its troops from the entire French Indochina, while Vietnam was temporarily divided into two parts along the 17th parallel into a pro-Soviet communist North and a pro-Western South which were supposed to reunite with the 1956 national elections.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu resulted in the loss of 8,000 fighters for the Viet Minh, while the French lost 4,000. The US supported the Southern government, led by Ngo Dình Diem, which opposed the agreements, assuming that Ho Chi Minh from the North would win the elections - even though the Southern government was created under the terms of that agreement.

Then began the competition for the whole of Vietnam, which would then lead to the Vietnam War: from 1 November 1955 (date of establishment of the pro-communist National Liberation Front) to 30 April 1975 with the fall of Saigon.

But how did a poor, predominantly agricultural nation defeat America or rather its army? Tiziano Terzani with his book Giai Phong (liberation) helped us understand the strength of these people. A few years after the end of the war I was able to visit Vietnam with a group of 15 curious travelers like me. Hanoi was an agricultural city with few light bulbs to illuminate deserted streets populated by bicycles during the day. The only important buildings were those of the French colonization.