NO EARLY ARMISTICE

Chronicle (Levin), 15 January 1947, Page 5

NO EARLY ARMISTICE

P-r&ss Assn

Indo-China Faces Prolonged Period of Bloodshed

STRONG V1ETNAMESE ATTACK

By Telegraph

Copyright

ReceiVed Wednesday, 10.50 a.m. LONDON, Jan. 14. There is aRparently little hope of an early armistice between the French and Vietnam Nationalists, says Reuter's Hanoi correspondent. ReSponsible French and Vietnam officials believe that. the country faces a prolonged period of bloodshed before negotiations for a peaceful settlement can be resumed. Launching the strongest assaults for some days, Vietnam forces, some of whom are 100 strong, simultaneously attacked French posts arourid HariOi's Chinese quarter, in which 10,000 Chinese civilians are living and a Vietnam force is trapped. Seventy-five millimetre field guns at the same time fired eighty shells into scattered parts of Hanoi. ' French Spitfires strafed Hanoi airport before armoured jeeps and half-tracks went into action in what is described as a compietely successful mopping-up operation, states a despatch reeeived by the French Press Agency. The Vietnamese at Langson are reported to be moving up heavy reinforcements. It is also believed that Vietnamese troop movements are going on around Namdinah. The Vietnam radio claimed that the French have 'landed at rourance, half-way down IndoChina's eastern coastline, and are fighting horthward along the highway in an effort to relieve the siege of the French garrison at Hue, S00 miles by road from Tourance.