The August Revolution was a revolution launched by the Việt Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) against the Empire of Vietnam and the Empire of Japan in the latter half of August 1945. The Việt Minh, led by the Indochinese Communist Party, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the communists could command. Within two weeks, forces under the Việt Minh had seized control of most rural villages and cities throughout Northern, Central and Southern Vietnam, including Huế (the then capital of Vietnam), Hanoi and Saigon. The August Revolution sought to create a unified regime for the entire country under the Việt Minh's rule. Việt Minh leader Hồ Chí Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September 1945. Just as Hồ Chí Minh and the Việt Minh had begun to extend DRV control to all of Vietnam, the attention of his new government was shifting from internal matters to the arrival of Allied troops. At the Potsdam conference in July 1945, the Allies divided Indochina into two zones at the 16th parallel, attaching the southern zone to the Southeast Asia command and leaving the northern part to Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China to accept the surrender of the Japanese.

French War Crimes

When British forces from the Southeast Asia Command arrived in Saigon on 13 September, they brought along a detachment of French troops. The acquiescence of British occupation forces in the south allowed the French to move rapidly to reassert control over the south of the country, where its economic interests were strongest, DRV authority was weakest and colonial forces were the most deeply entrenched.^[200] Vietnamese civilians were robbed, raped and killed by French soldiers in Saigon when they came back in August 1945.^[201] Vietnamese women were also raped in north Vietnam by the French like in Bảo Hà, Bảo Yên District, Lào Cai province and Phu Lu, which caused 400 Vietnamese who were trained by the French to defect on 20 June 1948. Buddhist statues were looted and Vietnamese were robbed, raped and tortured by the French after the French crushed the Viet Minh in northern Vietnam in 1947–1948 forcing the Viet Minh to flee into Yunnan, China for sanctuary and aid from the Chinese Communists. A French reporter was told "We know what war always is, We understand your soldiers taking our animals, our jewelry, our Buddhas; it is normal. We are resigned to their raping our wives and our daughters; war has always been like that. But we object to being treated in the same way, not only our sons, but ourselves, old men and dignitaries that we are." by Vietnamese village notables. Vietnamese rape victims became "half insane".^[202]