Operation Passage to Freedom the French were surrounded and defeated in a mountainous northern fortress at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. France's withdrawal from Indochina was finalised in the Geneva Accords of July 1954, after two months of negotiations between Ho's DRV, France, the PRC and the Soviet Union. Under the terms of the agreement, Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel north pending elections in 1956 to choose a national government that would administer a reunified country. The communist Viet Minh were left in control of North Vietnam, while the State of Vietnam controlled the south. French Union forces would gradually
1954 Geneva Conference as constituting a political or territorial boundary." Separate accords were signed by the signatories with the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos in relation to Cambodia and Laos respectively. The British and Communist Chinese delegations reached agreement on the sidelines of the Conference to upgrade their diplomatic relations. The DRV at Geneva accepted a much worse settlement than the military situation on the ground indicated. "For Ho Chi Minh, there was no getting around the fact that his victory, however unprecedented and stunning was incomplete and perhaps temporary. The vision that had always driven him on, that of