On this day in 1930, 50 Vietnamese soldiers of the French colonial army mutinied, attempting to take control of the Yên Bái garrison and begin a war of independence against the French. The uprising failed and many of its leaders were executed.
The revolt was planned in advance by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD), a socialist party founded by Nguyễn Thái Học that sought independence from France. The VNQDD had previously attempted to engage in clandestine activities to undermine French rule, but increasing state scrutiny on their activities led to their leadership risking a large scale military attack in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.
Multiple uprisings were planned throughout the region, with VNQDD members taking command of forces with specific strategic missions. The uprisings were supposed to be simultaneous, but matters were complicated when a messenger carrying an order from Học to delay the uprising until the 15th was arrested.
Early in the morning of February 10th, 1930, ~50 Vietnamese soldiers stationed at Yên Bái attacked their 29 French officers, aided by 60 civilian members of the VNQDD. Although the French were caught off guard and several officers were killed, the majority of the soldiers present remained loyal to the colonial army and helped suppress the uprising. Three Vietnamese sergeants were awarded the Médaille militaire for their efforts.
Later than evening, another planned VNQDD revolt in the rural district of Sơn Dương was also suppressed. Although insurgents initially succeeded, raising the VNQDD flag over the town, at sunrise they were routed by the colonial army.
The French retaliation was swift and brutal. When VNQDD forces fled into the village of Co Am, the French bombed the entire settlement, killing 200 people, mostly civilians. This was the first time that military air power had been used in Indochina.
In France, the severity of the sentences led to a campaign of solidarity by the French Communist Party and various demonstrations by Vietnamese expatriates. On May 22nd, 1930, more than 1,000 demonstrated outside Élysée Palace against the French reaction to Yên Bái. The police arrested 47 people, deporting 17 back to Vietnam, where most of them engaged in communist anti-colonial activities.
In total, 547 individuals, both soldiers and civilians, were prosecuted for their role in the uprising. Thirty-nine of the surviving leaders of the VNQDD were sentenced to death, although some of these were later granted clemency. Học, along with twelve others, was guillotined on June 17th, 1930. The thirteen shouted "Vietnam!" in unison before being executed.
The subsequent French military and civilian crackdown saw military security increase and the VNQDĐ's ability to threaten French authority in Vietnam was extinguished. The vast majority of the leadership were killed or sentenced to death, and the remnants of the VNQDĐ fled to China, where several factions emerged under disparate leadership.
In the long run, Yên Bái allowed the Indochinese Communist Party of Ho Chi Minh to inherit the VNQDĐ's status as the leading anti-colonial revolutionary movement. After the Second World War, an opportunity to fight for Vietnamese independence arose, and this allowed the communists in the Viet Minh to dictate the platform of the independence movement. As a result, the communists were able to position themselves to become the dominant force in Vietnam post-independence.
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A thing that annoys me more than it should:
I have kids in the Paw Patrol age and now they have made a spinoff about a new set of annoying anthropomorphised dog cyborgs doing construction work. I know that a show for preschoolers needs some artistic license to simplify the technical details but the engineering of that show is so God damn stupid that they're making kids dumber:
"I'll just weld this steel fitting to this wooden pole. With no eye protection."
"I'll just build a house by spraying concrete on a plywood structure "
"Cement trucks are also giant airbrushes that can spray paint any shape on any surface with 100% accuracy"
Statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged creators of Paw Patrol.
Paw Patrol designing a shuttle using O-rings that fail in cold weather.
Unironically these kinds of shows should be required to show off basic principles of the area they are concerned with, like just basic physics shit for how construction is supposed to work.
Doesn't need to be edutainment since kids are good at picking up on just how stuff is portrayed to work, but that means stuff like this is less than worthless as anything but pure entertainment profits.