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Battle of Mang Yang Pass

1954 last battle of the First Indochina War

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ4871659
Source-derived summary

The Battle of Mang Yang Pass (also known as the Battle of An Khê or the Battle of Đắk Pơ) was one of the last battles of the First Indochina War between the French Union and Việt Minh which took place from 24 to 29 June 1954. The battle was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Union forces, along with the battle of Dien Bien Phu shortly beforehand.

Background

The 100th Mobile Group was a regimental task force unit of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps which was assembled as a convoy. It included the elite French Battalion which fought in the Korean War at the battles of Chipyong-ni, Wonju and Heartbreak Ridge. It had already suffered a defeat at the Siege of Đắk Đoa in February 1954. In addition, anxious to avoid a second disaster like the siege at Dien Bien Phu, the French Chief of Staff ordered the 100th Mobile Group to abandon their isolated position in the Central Highlands. This was code named opération Églantine.

Ambush

On 24 June 1954, the 100th Mobile Group received orders to abandon its defensive positions at An Khê and fall back to Pleiku, some 80 kilometres (50 mi) away over Route Coloniale 19. At the road marker 'Kilometer 15' the column was ambushed by Việt Minh troops belonging to the 803rd Regiment and suffered heavy losses. The remains of the 100th Mobile Group managed to break through the ambush.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Battle of Mang Yang Pass” as 1954 last battle of the First Indochina War. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1954—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Battle, Mang and Yang can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as 1954 last battle of the First Indochina War. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4871659. Authority coordinates are 14.000, 108.250. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1954.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Battle of Mang Yang Pass”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Battle of Mang Yang Pass primary sources, Battle of Mang Yang Pass archive and Battle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Battle of Mang Yang Pass”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Battle of Mang Yang Pass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.