Ho Chi Minh Declares Vietnam Independent

France had ruled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as French Indochina since the late nineteenth century. During World War II, Japan occupied Indochina, leaving the French administration in place until March 1945, when it overthrew it. Ho Chi Minh, a communist and nationalist who had founded the Viet Minh in 1941, used the collapse of both French and Japanese authority. In the 'August Revolution' of 1945, the Viet Minh took control of Hanoi, and Emperor Bao Dai abdicated.

On 2 September 1945, in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square, Ho proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, opening with words from the US Declaration of Independence. He hoped for American support. But Allied agreements put Chinese Nationalist troops in the north and British troops in the south, and the British helped France return to Saigon. A famine in 1944–45, in which very large numbers died in the north, also shaped the revolution's popular support.