Demobilization presented another potential difficulty for the Vietnamese Marine Corps in early 1955. Under the U.S.-Vietnamese force level agreements, the Vietnamese naval forces were limited to 3,000 men. The Marine Corps, which alone totalled a disproportionate 2,400 men, had been instructed to reduce its strength to 1,137 men and officers. With no effective centralized command structure and so many widely separated units, even the relatively simple task of mustering out troops assumed the dimensions of a complex administrative undertaking. In short, the very existence of the Vietnamese Marine Corps was threatened in a number of inter-related situations. The continuation of a separate and distinct Marine Corps hinged ultimately, of course, on the overall reorganization of the Vietnamese armed forces and their support structure. Essentially it would be necessary to establish a requirement for such an organization within South Vietnam’s future military-naval structure. Croizat personally sensed that this would be the pivotal issue in determining the VNMC’s future. “There were numerous representatives of the three military services from each of the three countries concerned with the fate of the Vietnamese Army, Navy, and Air Force,” he pointed out. “But, there was no champion from within the Vietnamese Marine Corps since no Corps existed except on paper.”[2-3] Thus, it was left initially to a French captain, a Vietnamese major, and a U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel to keep alive the idea that South Vietnam’s defense establishment needed a separate Marine Corps. _Political Stabilization and Its Effects_ During early 1955 the entire South Vietnamese government was engulfed by a crisis which threatened to disrupt the American plans to help build a viable anti-Communist country. The crisis occurred not in the form of an overt North Vietnamese attack but rather as a result of the South’s political instability. In February the leaders of the Hoa Hao, the Cao Dai, and the Binh Xuyen, dissatisfied with Premier Diem’s refusal to accede to their various demands, formed the United Front of National Forces. By mid-March the disaffected leaders of these organizations felt strong enough to test the premier’s strength. Trouble began late that month when the Hoa Hao began undertaking guerrilla-type activities against Diem’s National Army units in the sect’s stronghold southwest of Saigon. On 28 March Diem ordered a company of paratroops to seize the Saigon Central Police Headquarters which the French had allowed the Binh Xuyen to control. Fighting erupted throughout the capital the next day as Binh Xuyen units clashed with loyal government forces. A truce was arranged finally in the city on 31 March after three days of intermittent but fierce fighting. That same day the Cao Dai broke with the United Front and accepted a government offer to integrate some of its troops into the National Army.