General Pennequin and the Project of a Yellow Army (1911 - 1915).

Abstract

In 1916, to meet its need of workers and soldiers, the French government was to reconsider the “Armée jaune” plan formed in 1912 by general Pennequin, the peace-maker in Tonkin.
As far as back as 1911, general Pennequin was aware the Vietnamese society was changing under the influence of the colonization process and the burgeoning of a modem will middle-class. He then proposed the decolonization option which included the constitution of a national Vietnamese army, the only modem structure in the colonized countries and hence foundation of independence and national building.
The plan was premonitory of the contemporary imperialisms and compelled the French government to completely change its colonial policy. So it provoked a general hostility and was quickly abandoned without any reform was introduced in recruitment and officering of the native army. In 1915, the plan turned to be used as a justification for recruitments and therefore had little to do with the general’s original concepts.
Such a rejection even prevented any liberal colonial policy developing. Recruitment in Indochina, considered as a country where France could take on hands, was decided immediately after the order-in-Council of recruiting in Africa (1915, 9th October): the order was defended by general Mangin’s followers and the Army Committee definitely rejected Pennequin’s proposals.
However, in the same time, the great nationalist leader Phan-Châu-Trinh bounded to do a truce: he thought modem elites had to seize the opportunity of the recruitment to go to France. These elites should be the prime mover in Vietnam modernization, required as a preliminary of the national independence. In the end of the war, the French government would concede the independence in exchange for Vietnameses’ voluntary enlistment.
As a matter of fact, the first world war politically should lead to exclude the reformers in Indochina, Pennequin and Phan-Châu-Trinh, and to prevent any possibility to peacefully decolonize.