Pronounced ‘Hway’, Hue was the imperial capital of Vietnam until 1945.
It was chosen centuries ago due its proximity to the spiritually important Perfumed River, its defensively secure position between mountain ranges and not least for its reputation for producing the nation’s most beautiful women.
The French absorbed Cambodia by a Treaty of Protectorate in 1863. It took 20 years to digest this course before they were ready to move on to Vietnam. Establishing a coastal bridgehead at Danang, 3 hours’ drive south of Hue, they quickly overwhelmed the Imperial forces which had been depleted by centuries of conflict with the neighbouring empires of Burma, Thailand and Cambodia and a hundred years of Chinese occupation. The Emperor became a puppet and Vietnam became the subject of France’s cruel and arbitrary jurisdiction in Indo-China.
Hue continued to prosper until the communist resistance started to cause the French real problems. The insurgency from the North, began in 1923 under the leadership of an academic, Hoh Chi Minh. It spread with the political ideology, along the French built railways, culminating in the humiliating defeat of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in 1953. The Paris Peace Accords followed quickly and by 1964 North Vietnam acquired independence from France.
Hoh Chi Minh still desired the reunification of Vietnam, leading to the Vietnam War, which was disastrous for all concerned but traded 5,000,000 lives for one nation and the end of the colonial era in Indo-China.
Hue is left with an ambiguous status. Hanoi and Saigon have long since eclipsed its Imperial majesty but it retains some of its former status.
We visited the partially refurbished remnants of the Forbidden City and Citadel, contained within an intact wall and moat 10,000m long. It is an abandoned site occupied only by conservators and tourists, having originally been constructed between 1801 and 1833. Crumbling masonry sits incongruously beside modern repairs. A spectacular digital reconstruction has been produced by South Korea who is instrumental in the conservation.
The Forbidden City has not only had to contend with the predations of time. As with many areas of extreme historical importance, it was bombed by the Americans during the war. They claim it was to flush out Viet Cong fighters sheltering there. Vietnam claims it was cultural vandalism based on poor intelligence. We will never know.
A hair raising bus journey by a bad tempered driver took us to a series of Imperial tombs that are dotted around Hue. Fearful of treasure hunters, the tombs are largely extravagant decoys designed to protect the Imperial funerary arrangements and the extensive wealth said to accompany the emperors to the next world. The later ones are grand; the earlier magnificent in their dilapidation.
They are a metaphor for Hue; a city that trades on its past to satisfy the needs of its present day inhabitants.
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