What if Duy Tân was restored as Emperor of Vietnam in 1945?

Shroob12

Emperor Duy Tân (19 September 1900 – 26 December 1945), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San, was the 11th emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty in Vietnam, who reigned for nine years between 1907 and 1916.

The efforts on the part of the French to raise the prince to support them largely failed. Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San was enthroned with the reign name of Duy Tân, meaning "friend of reform", but in time he proved incapable of living up to this name. As he became older he noticed that, even though he was treated as the emperor, it was the colonial authorities who were actually obeyed. As he became a teenager, Emperor Duy Tân came under the influence of the mandarin Trần Cao Vân, who was very much opposed to the colonial administration. Emperor Duy Tân began to plan a secret rebellion with Trần Cao Vân and others to overthrow the French.

In 1916, while France was preoccupied with fighting World War I, Emperor Duy Tân was smuggled out of the Forbidden City with Trần Cao Vân to call upon the people to rise up against the French. However, the secret was revealed, and France immediately sent troops there, and after only a few days, they were betrayed and captured by the French authorities. Because of his age and to avoid a worse situation, Emperor Duy Tân was deposed and exiled instead of being killed. Trần Cao Vân and the rest of the revolutionaries were all beheaded.

When France was facing defeat by the Viet Minh, and the regime of Emperor Bảo Đại proved incapable of gaining any public support, French leader Charles de Gaulle talked to Prince Vĩnh San, who was still very popular in the Vietnamese public memory for his patriotism, about returning to Vietnam as emperor. However, he died in a plane crash in Central Africa on his way home to Vietnam in 1945 and the great hopes of many died with him – as a patriotic challenge to Hồ Chí Minh.

However what if Duy Tan didn't die in a plane crash, what if he survived and returned to Vietnam and became Emperor once again?
 

Seandineen

That just might have worked, an old-school Catholic like Diem would have had greater respect, than he did for playboy Bao Dai.
 
Lascaris

Lascaris

The obvious question is how do the Vietminh react to him. Due Tan combines impeccable nationalist credentials with being Free French when it wasn't in vogue. Which makes him a lot more legitimate both within Vietnam and in Paris and Washington. But this in turn makes him a problem as soon as the French change the narrative to "we are not fighting to keep Vietnam as a colony but to defend it from Communism". Soo would they be above trying to eliminate him/ consider it a bad idea?
 

Seandineen

Robert Shumann The prime minister when the Indochina wars broke out, said, "If there had been a true leader among the Ammanettes, sorry I misspelled it, a true partnership would have been made possible" Due Tan would have had the respect of many,
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Seandineen said:
Robert Shumann The prime minister when the Indochina wars broke out, said, "If there had been a true leader among the Ammanettes, sorry I misspelled it, a true partnership would have been made possible" Due Tan would have had the respect of many,
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That is a nice sentiment, and he could have some kind of political impact, but Schumann's musing, almost wistful, is no proof proof Duy Tan was the sure thing to be King or acclaimed President.

Lascaris said:
The obvious question is how do the Vietminh react to him. Due Tan combines impeccable nationalist credentials with being Free French when it wasn't in vogue. Which makes him a lot more legitimate both within Vietnam and in Paris and Washington. But this in turn makes him a problem as soon as the French change the narrative to "we are not fighting to keep Vietnam as a colony but to defend it from Communism". Soo would they be above trying to eliminate him/ consider it a bad idea?
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Exactly, he would likely pose a more complex, and more formidable political challenge than the Viet Minh actually faced, but he would by no means be the inveitable end of their road to power.

Shroob12 said:
When France was facing defeat by the Viet Minh, and the regime of Emperor Bảo Đại proved incapable of gaining any public support, French leader Charles de Gaulle talked to Prince Vĩnh San, who was still very popular in the Vietnamese public memory for his patriotism, about returning to Vietnam as emperor. However, he died in a plane crash in Central Africa on his way home to Vietnam in 1945 and the great hopes of many died with him – as a patriotic challenge to Hồ Chí Minh.
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The chronology of his death in 1945 shows that the first bolded statement really can't be true. France was not facing defeat by the Viet Minh in 1945. It certainly did know it, admit, or think it was possible, unless they just gave the place away. It would be more accurate to say in 1945, France faced a threat, a challenge, an uprising from the Viet Minh. But black pajama boys beating France.....never!
 
FesteringSpore

FesteringSpore

The Vietnamese monarchy had already been abolished by the time de Gaulle was thinking of bringing Duy Tân back to Vietnam, so had he survived his flight he would have become president or head of state or some equivalent, not a monarch
 
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