Hải Phòng has been an important port city for several centuries:it was one of the trading centers of Tonkin. The French nicknamed it the “Venice of Tonkin”. After the French conquest, it became the main French naval base in Indochina.
The grand hotel of the time, the Hôtel du Commerce, rue Paul-Bert, still exists, but rue Paul-Bert is now called “Pho Dien Bien Phu”). The major daily at the end of the French protectorate of Tonkin was L'Entente.
During World War II, during the Japanese invasion of Indochina, Hải Phòng was bombarded and then occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army.
After the end of the occupation, on September 2, 1945 in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh unilaterally declared the independence of Việt Nam. Three French warships bomb Haiphong on November 23, 1946, killing thousands. This event marks the beginning of the Indochina War, which will last seven and a half years.
Henri Martin claims that:“At 10 a.m. on November 23, 1946, the naval guns opened fire. The Émile Bertin cruiser from the mouth of the Rouge River but we, with Le Chevreuil, were on the river, in the city. We exhausted our stock of five hundred shells, and resupplied, we fired another five hundred. Admiral Battet estimated the number of victims in town at six thousand, but it is possible that there were more when we know that the bombardment focused mainly on the Annamese quarter, with its tightly packed houses […]” but in fact only three avisos, including Le Chevreuil, took part in this action.