Vietnamese famine of 1945
This article possibly contains original research. (September 2018) |
Vietnamese Famine of 1945 Nạn đói Ất Dậu | |
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Country | French Indochina, Empire of Vietnam |
Total deaths | 400,000—2,000,000 |
The Vietnamese famine of 1945 (Vietnamese: Nạn đói Ất Dậu – famine of the Ất Dậu Year or Nạn đói năm 45 – the 1945 famine) was a famine that occurred in northern Vietnam in French Indochina during World War II from October 1944 to late 1945, which at the time was under Japanese occupation from 1940 with Vichy France as an ally of Nazi Germany in Western Europe. Between 400,000 and 2 million people are estimated to have starved to death during this time.[1][2][3]
According to a 2018 study, typhoons which struck coastal areas resulted in a shortfall of available food and were the proximate cause of famine. The Japanese in occupation of Vietnam, the American government directing attacks on the transport system, or the country's French colonial administration could have acted to limit, or even reverse, the famine. However, under the pressure of war, no government or institution opted for an effective famine alleviation strategy.[4]
Causes
A cause of the famine was the effects of
The mismanagement of the French administration in Vietnam was another cause. The French reformed the economy to serve the administration and to meet the needs of war, including the Japanese occupation. They imposed a compulsory system of government rice purchases with a price ceiling of 1.40 piastres for every 10 kilograms, which they continued paying even as the market rates soared from 2.50 to 3 piastres in 1943 to 6 to 7 in June 1944. It ballooned tenfold to 60-70 piastres the following year. This meant farmers could no longer afford to repurchase rice needed for new harvests or to feed themselves. [6]
Natural causes included natural disasters such as
The crop failures of 1943–1945 were compounded by lack of dike maintenance after the US bombing of the north and the catastrophic rainfall of August–September 1944, causing flooding and loss of rice plants.[citation needed]
French colonial administration
After the Great Depression in the 1930s, France returned to its policy of economic protectorate and monopolized the exploitation of natural resources of French Indochina. The people in French Indochina had to increase the economic value of the area by growing cash crops in place of lower-value agricultural produce, but only the French, a small minority of Vietnamese and the Hoa and some people in the cities benefited.[2]
World War II
When the war started, France was weakened. In East Asia, Japan began to expand and viewed French Indochina as a bridge into
The militaries of both France and Japan forcibly seized food from farmers to feed their troops. By 1941, there were 140,000
In March 1945, the Japanese ousted the Vichy administration and replaced it with the Japanese-backed government of the Empire of Vietnam, headed by Trần Trọng Kim. While this new government increased efforts to alleviate the famine, the inadequate food supply and the hoarding of food by the Imperial Japanese Army made their efforts futile.[citation needed]
Natural disasters
In northern Vietnam, drought and pests caused the winter-to-spring harvest of 1944 to decrease by 20%. Then, a flood during the harvest season caused the crisis to occur, which led to famine in 1945.[citation needed]
Consequences
By early 1945, many were forced to walk from town to town in search of food.[8] The exact number of deaths caused by the 1944–1945 famine is unknown and is a matter of controversy. Various sources estimate between 400,000 and 2 million people starved in northern Vietnam during this time. In May 1945, the envoy at Hanoi asked the northern provinces to report their casualties. Twenty provinces reported that a total of 380,000 people starved to death and 20,000 more died because of disease. In October, a report from a French military official estimated half-a-million deaths. Governor General Jean Decoux wrote in his memoirs A la barre de l'Indochine that about a million northerners had starved to death.[citation needed]
The
According to the Việt Minh, 1 to 2 million Vietnamese starved to death in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam because of the Japanese since they seized Vietnamese rice and failed to pay. In Phat Diem, the Vietnamese farmer Di Ho was one of the few survivors who saw the Japanese steal grain.[9] The North Vietnamese government accused both France and Japan of the famine and said that 1–2 million Vietnamese had died.[2][10] Võ An Ninh took photographs of dead and dying Vietnamese during the great famine.[11][12][13] Starving Vietnamese died throughout northern Vietnam in 1945 from the Japanese seizure of their crops when the Chinese came to disarm the Japanese, and Vietnamese corpses were all throughout the streets of Hanoi and had to be cleaned up by students.[14]
See also
References
- JSTOR 2137774. Archived from the original(PDF) on 20 June 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Gunn, Geoffrey (24 January 2011). "The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944-45 Revisited". The Asia-Pacific Journal. 9 (5). No. 4. Article ID 3483. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Geoffrey-Gunn/3483 http://japanfocus.org/data/japanese_indochina.png http://japanfocus.org/data/indochina_map.png http://japanfocus.org/data/faminevictims_1.jpeg http://japanfocus.org/data/famvic.2.jpeg http://japanfocus.org/data/agricultural_hydrolics_indochina.png http://japanfocus.org/-Geoffrey-Gunn/3483
• Gunn, Geoffrey (15 April 2019). "The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944–45 Revisited". Mass Violence & Résistance, [online] (published 12 May 2011). - .
- ISSN 1468-0289.
- ^ "Horrific photos recall Vietnamese Famine of 1945". Thanh Nien News. 15 January 2015.
- ^ Wise, Edward Taylor (1991). "Vietnam in turmoil : the Japanese coup, the OSS, and the August revolution in 1945". UR Scholarship Repository: 46.
- ISBN 978-1118513002. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9780375509155.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Gunn, Geoffrey (17 August 2015). "The great Vietnam famine".
- S2CID 145374444.
- ^ Hien, Nina (Spring 2013). "The Good, the Bad, and the Not Beautiful: In the Street and on the Ground in Vietnam". Local Culture/Global Photography. 3 (2).
- ^ Vietnam: Corpses in a mass grave following the 1944–45 famine during the Japanese occupation. Up to 2 million Vietnamese died of starvation. AKG3807269.
- ^ "Vietnamese Famine of 1945". Japanese Occupation of Vietnam.
- ISBN 0253335396.
Further reading
- Gunn, Geoffrey C. (2014). Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam: The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442223035.
- MacLean, Ken (2016). "History Reformatted: Vietnam's Great Famine (1944–45) in Archival Form". Southeast Asian Studies. 5 (2): 187–218. .
External links
- Vietnam famine's living legacy
- Images of the famine (in Vietnamese)
- Famine fed farmers' fight for freedom