Bảo Đại

Vietnam had been ruled from Huế by the Nguyễn Dynasty since 1802.

Bảo Đại (,, lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc/Phước Vĩnh Thụy (阮福永瑞), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty, the last ruling Dynasty of Vietnam.

Bảo Đại was born on 22 October 1913 and given the name of Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy in the Palace of Doan-Trang-Vien, part of the compound of the Purple Forbidden City in Huế, the capital of Vietnam.

He was later given the name Nguyễn Vĩnh Thụy.

His father was Emperor Khải Định of Annam.

His mother was the emperor's second wife, Tu Cung, who was renamed 'Doan Huy' upon her marriage.

From 1926 to 1945, he was emperor of Annam and de jure monarch of Tonkin, which were then protectorates in French Indochina, covering the present-day central and northern Vietnam.

He became emperor on 8 January 1926, after his father's death, and took the era name Bảo Đại ("Protector of Grandeur" or "Keeper of Greatness").

He did not yet ascend to the throne and returned to France to continue his studies.

Bảo Đại ascended the throne in 1932.

She held various titles over the years that indicated her advancing rank as a favored consort until she eventually became Empress Dowager in 1933.

On 20 March 1934, age 20, at the imperial city of Huế, Bảo Đại married Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan (died 15 September 1963, Chabrignac, France), a commoner from a wealthy Vietnamese Catholic family.

After the wedding, she was given the title Empress Nam Phương.

The couple had five children: Crown Prince Bảo Long (4 January 1936 – 28 July 2007), Princess Phương Mai (1 August 1937 – 16 January 2021), Princess Phương Liên (born 3 November 1938), Princess Phương Dung (born 5 February 1942), and Prince Bảo Thắng (9 December 1943 – 15 March 2017).

Although Bảo Đại later had additional children with other women, these are the only ones listed in the clan genealogy.

In 1940, during the second World War, coinciding with their ally Nazi Germany's invasion of France, Imperial Japan took over French Indochina.

While they did not eject the French colonial administration, the occupation authorities directed policy from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France.

In 1944, he wrote to General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French:"You have suffered too much during four deadly years, not to understand that the Vietnamese people, who have a history of twenty centuries and an often glorious past, no longer wish, no longer can support any foreign domination or foreign administration...You could understand even better if you were able to see what is happening here, if you were able to sense the desire for independence that has been smoldering in the bottom of all hearts and which no human force can any longer hold back. Even if you were to arrive to re-establish a French administration here, it would no longer be obeyed; each village would be a nest of resistance. every former friend an enemy, and your officials and colonials themselves would ask to depart from this unbreathable atmosphere."The Japanese had a Vietnamese pretender, Prince Cường Để, waiting to take power in case the new emperor's "elimination" was required.

The Japanese ousted the Provisional French administration in March 1945 and then ruled through Bảo Đại, who proclaimed the Empire of Vietnam.

He abdicated in August 1945 when Japan surrendered.

Nam Phương was granted the title of empress in 1945.

By one count, Bảo Đại had relationships with eight women and fathered 13 children.

Those named "Phương" are daughters, while those named "Bảo" are sons.

The Japanese promised not to interfere with the court at Huế, but in 1945, after ousting the French, coerced Bảo Đại into declaring Vietnamese independence from France as a member of Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"; the country then became the Empire of Vietnam.

Bảo Đại, however, appeared to believe that independence was an irreversible course.

Japan surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, and the Viet Minh (under the leadership of communist Hồ Chí Minh) aimed to take power in a free Vietnam.

Due to his popular political stand against the French and the 1945 famine, Hồ was able to persuade Bảo Đại to abdicate on 25 August 1945, handing power over to the Việt Minh – an event which greatly enhanced Hồ's legitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese people.

Bảo Đại was appointed the "supreme advisor" to Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi, which proclaimed its independence on 2 September 1945.

The DRV was then ousted by the newly formed French Fourth Republic in November 1946.

Bảo Đại spent nearly a year as "supreme advisor" to the DRV, during which period Vietnam descended into armed conflict between rival Vietnamese factions and the French.

He left this post in 1946 and moved to Hong Kong, where the French and Việt Minh both attempted unsuccessfully to solicit him for political support.

Eventually a coalition of Vietnamese anti-communists (including future South Vietnamese leader Ngô Đình Diệm and members of political/religious groups such as the Cao Dai, Hòa Hảo, and VNQDĐ) formed a National Union and declared to support Bảo Đại on the condition he would seek independence for Vietnam.

This persuaded him to reject Việt Minh overtures and enter into negotiations with the French.

On 7 December 1947, Bảo Đại signed the first of the Ha Long Bay Agreements with France.

From 1949 to 1955, Bảo Đại was the chief of state of the non-communist State of Vietnam.

Viewed as a puppet ruler, Bảo Đại was criticized for being too closely associated with France and spending much of his time outside Vietnam.

He was eventually ousted in a referendum in 1955 by Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm, who was supported by the United States.

The French government, which took control of the region in the late 19th century, split Vietnam into three areas: the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin and the colony of Cochinchina.

The Nguyễn Dynasty was given nominal rule of Annam.

At the age of nine, Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy was sent to France to study at the Lycée Condorcet and, later, the Paris Institute of Political Studies.