1955 South Vietnamese conflict

South Vietnamese Civil War (1955)
Part of the Vietnam War, the Indochina Wars
Date 23 March 1955 – 6 November 1955 Location South Vietnam Result Ngo Dinh Diem’s victory Dissolution of the Bình Xuyên Army Weakness of Caodaism and Hoa Hao 1955 State of Vietnam referendum
Belligerents
State of Vietnam National Revolutionary Committee Can Lao Party Caodaist (pro-Diem factions) Hòa Hảo (pro-Diem forces)	Bình Xuyên Armed Forces Caodaist (pro-Bảo Đại factions) Hòa Hảo (pro-Bảo Đại forces) Pro-Bảo Đại partisans Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng Đại Việt Nationalist Party
Commanders and leaders
Ngô Đình Diệm Lê Văn Tỵ Dương Văn Minh Đỗ Cao Trí Ngô Đình Nhu Trình Minh Thế † Nguyễn Thành Phương Trần Văn Soái Nguyễn Giác Ngộ Lâm Thành Nguyên	Bảo Đại Lê Văn Viễn Lê Paul  Lê Quang Vinh  Phạm Công Tắc Nguyễn Văn Thành (POW) Nguyễn Văn Hinh Nguyễn Văn Vỹ
Casualties and losses
Unknown	1,000 casualties

1955 South Vietnamese conflict took place soon after the end of First Indochina War. It lasted from the March until the 1955 State of Vietnam referendum in November, during which the pro-Bảo Đại factions tried to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem and his loyalists religious factions.

Before the 1954 Geneva Agreement was signed, Ngo Dinh Diem was a US-backed politician who came to power in the government of the State of Vietnam. Chief of State Bảo Đại replaced Bửu Lộc, promoting Diem to the position of prime minister. On June 16, 1954, Diem assumed office. Since Diem became prime minister, the disagreement with the chief of state, Bao Dai, has deepened. Many political, religious, military and police organizations were influenced by France and Bao Dai, Prime Minister Diem wanted to eliminate their influence.^[1]

Bao Dai only appoint his trust people to join the government, who were also opponents of Prime Minister Diem. Diem did not accept the pro-French politicians like Lê Văn Viễn, Nguyễn Văn Hinh and Nguyễn Văn Xuân. On October 9, 1954, he again raised the issue of merging all armed forces of all sections in the South into the Vietnamese National Army. During the cabinet reshuffle on September 24, 1955, he invited only a few Cao Dai and Hoa Hao leaders.^[2]

On the morning of March 30, 1955, Binh Xuyen troops launched attacks on the Joint General Staff headquarter.

The final battle between Diệm's VNA and the Bình Xuyên began on April 28 at mid-day.^[3] After initial small-arms fire and mortar exchanges, the VNA resorted to the heaviest artillery in its arsenal. This coincided with growing calls from within the Eisenhower administration to oust Diệm because Eisenhower believed that he was unable to subdue the Bình Xuyên and unify the country. By evening, a large part of the inner city was engulfed in house-to-house combat. By the morning of April 29, the fighting had driven thousands of civilians onto the streets. A square mile of the city, around the densely populated inner-city Chinese district of Chợ Lớn where the Bình Xuyên had a stronghold, became a free-fire zone. Artillery and mortars leveled the poor districts of the city, killing five hundred civilians and leaving twenty thousand homeless. Observers described that fighting from both sides as lacking strategy and relying on brute-force attrition tactics. One of the few maneuvers that was considered tactical was an attempt by the VNA to cut off Bình Xuyên reinforcements by demolishing the bridge across the Saigon–Chợ Lớn canal. This was made moot when the Bình Xuyên threw pontoon bridges across the canal. It appeared that the conflict would be determined by the side which was able to absorb the greater number of losses. Approximately 300 combatants were killed in the first day of fighting.

Viễn escaped to Paris to live out his life on the profits of his criminal ventures, and the VNA pursued the Bình Xuyên remnants into the Mekong Delta near the Cambodian border, Phạm Công Tắc escaped to Phnom Penh, another commanders of the factions was executed were Lê Paul (son of Lê Văn Liễn) and Lê Quang Vinh. In Saigon, jubilant crowds gathered outside Diệm’s residence shouting “Đả đảo Bảo Đại” (meaning “Down with Bảo Đại”).

Emboldened by his success, Diem began to plot Bảo Đại's downfall. He scheduled a referendum for 23 October 1955 and pushed Bảo Đại out of the political scene, hindering the former emperor's attempts to derail the poll. In the period leading up to the vote, campaigning for Bảo Đại was banned, while Diem's election campaign focused on personal attacks against Bảo Đại. These included pornographic cartoons of the head of state and unverified rumours claiming he was illegitimate and linking him to various mistresses. The government-controlled media launched polemical attacks on Bảo Đại, and police went door-to-door, warning people of the consequences of failing to vote. After his brother Ngô Đình Nhu had rigged the referendum, Diem proclaimed himself president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam on 26 October 1955. A year later, the republic promulgated a constitution and established its own parliament.^[4]

• Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ
• Trương Vĩnh Lễ

• Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 70–80. ISBN 0-7425-4447-8.
• The Battle of Saigon, by Thê ́Vinh Ngô.