Called the „Red Napoleon,“ he stood out as the leader of a ragtag army of guerrillas who wore sandals made of car tires and lugged their artillery piece by piece over mountains to encircle and crush the French army at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The unlikely victory, which is still studied at military schools, not only led to Vietnam‘s independence but also hastened the collapse of colonialism across Indochina and beyond.