Australia's Response to the Indochina Crisis of 1954 amidst the Anglo-American Confrontation

Abstract

Meeting in Berlin in February 1954, the Great Powers decided to convene an international conference in Geneva in April to discuss the restoration of peace in Indochina and thereby opened the door to a crisis. Their decision triggered a Vietnamese communist offensive against the French union forces at Dien Bien Phu, and a subsequent US proposal for multilateral military intervention which put great strain upon Anglo-American relations. This article examines Australia's response to the Indochina crisis of 1954 amidst the Anglo-American confrontation, focusing on the disagreement between the UK and USA with its origins in their different assessments of the will of the French and Vietnamese to continue fighting; on the impetus that events such as the Berlin conference gave to Australia to redefine its own position on Indochina; and on the (relatively minor) role which Australia, as the military situation in Indochina worsened, played in assisting the US to alter its proposal for allied military intervention.