Marius Moutet, bộ trưởng thuộc địa hải ngoại Pháp tới HN, gặp tướng Leclerc, Valluy, Morliere và cao ủy Sainteny. Moutet, Morliere đi thị sát chiến trường. Toán tuần tiễu của quân Pháp có PV đi cùng bị quân VN bắn, xác 2 người chết (chắc Pháp), quân Pháp càn quét khu ngoại thành, dân quân ta bị bắt. Một số cảnh đường phố HN, Bắc bộ phủ và viện Pasteur...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IHzQZSaTp8January 16, 1947. Actualités Françaises. The Indochinese conflict broke out in Haiphong after a conflict of interest in import duty at Haiphong port between the Viet Minh government and the French. On November 23, 1946 the French fleet began a naval bombardment of the city that killed over 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in an afternoon according to one source or over 2000 according to another. The Viet Minh quickly agreed to a cease-fire and left the cities. There was no intention among the Vietnamese to give up though, and General Vo Nguyen Giap soon brought up 30,000 men to attack the city. Although the French were outnumbered, their better weaponry and naval support made any Việt Minh's attack impossible. In December, hostilities broke out in Hanoi between the Viet Minh and the French and Ho Chi Minh was forced to evacuate the capital in favor of remote mountain areas. Guerrilla warfare ensued with the French in control of almost everything except very remote areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_WarNewsreel translation by Olivenstein:
Hanoi (from our special correspondent GEORGES MEJAT). Honouring the right of the Public to exact information 'Les actualites francaises' presents the first report on Hanoi... The following is the ONLY AUTHENTIC FILM of the bloody events of Indo-China to reach screens at this time.
[Commentator:] Hanoi. It's here that began the aggression of the Viet Minh. Hanoi relieved, the struggle continues still. And from the aeroplane that brought him from Saigon, Mr. Marius Moutet, minister of France's Overseas Possessions, flying over the provinces of Annam and Tonkin, could even then hear the rumblings. At the airfield, General Leclerc, accompanied by Generals Valluy and Morliere, came to salute upon his arrival the representative of the French government. Mr. Marius Moutet, whose trip's goal is to bring back to Paris his first-hand impressions, conversed first at the government 'Palais' with Mr. Sainteny, commissioner of the Republic for Tonkin province, injured during the night of the attack. Then Mr. Moutet, accompanied by General Morliere, carried out, in a 'half-track' a tour of inspection of the zones of combat. 'Les actualites francaises' present here the first report on the bloody events of Hanoi. The first tragic scenes taken by our special correspondent who travelled with Mr. Moutet, and whose film will serve to illustrate the minister's report. Dramatic moment by an outpost. Our reporter, off with a patrol comes under Vietnamese fire. Right next to him, two men drop--two fallen whose deaths will add to the already long enough list of KIA of Indo-China. Hanoi, thanks to efficient action of French troops, was rapidly relieved. But Vietnamese bandits in the countryside struggle sporadically. One must fight. As Mr. Moutet has said, 'Before any negotiations, it is today necessary to have a militarized decision.' Day after day, French troops, inferior in numbers to the Viet Minh's troops, continue to make progress in relieving centres under siege in the middle of a disastrous battle that France did not want. Villages set alight, shooters caught with weapons on them, and among whom are a certain number of adolescents. Houses wrecked--such is the sad spectacle in the country around Hanoi. The city itself shows the telling scars of the premeditated attack of 17 December [1946]: furniture thrown out in the street by armed bandits, barricades set up at street corners [and] in front of the residence of Ho Che Minh, individual slit trenches for shooters, trenches dug in advance and still littered with evidence of help given by ex-soldiers and officers of Japan. But the saddest sight, the most stirring as well, is this ruin of the Pasteur Institute, the most beautiful of French institutions in Indo-China, which the insurgents fiercely set upon. Thirty years of effort lost, thirty years that were solely for Indo-China's benefit. [Mindless] 'aggression' is the word on everyone's mind. The list of victims is long: 267 civilians killed or missing, a hundred of whom were children--a tenth of the European population of Hanoi. Victims whose names will join in memory those victims of the Black Flag Army [1873].