The Conflicts of Indochina(Vietnam) 1954-1979

Presentation created by Robert Martinez

Primary Content Source: A Short History of the World

Images as cited.en.wikipedia.org

French Indochina comprised the

countries of Cambodia, Laos,

and Vietnam, which were

united under French colonial

rule in 1893.

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The territory was occupied by Japan from 1939 to 1945.

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Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Viet Minh, a

Vietnamese nationalist-

communist group led by Ho Chi Minh,

occupied northern

Vietnam.

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The Viet Minh founded the independent Democratic of Vietnam (DRV), with its capital at Hanoi. France, determined to regain control of the territory, reoccupied the south. The First Indochina War, between France and the DRV,

broke out in 1946.

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During the first 3 years of the war, the better-armed French forces made little progress against the guerilla tactics of

the Viet Minh.

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To gain the support of the local

population, the French established

an independent Vietnamese

government in the south under former president Bao Dai,

in 1949.

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The U.S. government, determined to halt the spread of communism in Asia,

supported the French, while the new Communist government in China

supported the Viet Minh.

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In 1954, the Viet Minh captured a French military base at Dien Bien Phu. The French,

tiring of the campaign, agreed to withdraw from Vietnam. At a peace conference in Geneva, it

was agreed that the country would be reunified

following elections in 1956.

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However, the new leader in South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold elections because, he claimed, a free vote was impossible in the communist North. The U.S. supported Diem’s

position, preferring an independent non-communist South Vietnam to the most likely alternative: reunification under Communist

rule.

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Diem’s government, based in Saigon, lacked popular support, and was opposed by many, especially in the countryside, who saw it as a

puppet of the U.S. An organized rural opposition emerged, called the Viet Cong,

support by the DRV.

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Open warfare between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese (ARVN) broke out in 1959.

The U.S. government offered military advisers and financial support to sustain the Diem

regime, but it grew increasingly vulnerable, especially after Diem himself was assassinated

in a military coup in 1963.

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In 1964, the U.S. government under President Lyndon Johnson used an

attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin as an excuse to become directly involved

in the conflict.

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U.S. planes began bombing North Vietnam and in 1965, the first American combat troops were deployed to attack

Viet Cong forces in the South.

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The DRV and Viet Cong avoided major battles where superior American

firepower could be decisive, opting instead for guerilla tactics, including

ambushes and bomb attacks.

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Prolonged and intensive U.S. aerial bombing failed to demoralize the North,

and despite suffering high casualty rates, the DRV and Viet Cong always managed

to replace their losses.

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As the war dragged on with no sign of victory, it began to attract strong opposition from many in the U.S.,

especially college students.

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In early 1968, on the day before the Vietnamese celebration of Tet, the DRV

and Viet Cong launched a major offensive, attacking military bases and

the major cities in the South.

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The invaders were driven back, but

the Johnson administration, stunned by the offensive, did agree to begin

peace negotiations.

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The talks, in Paris, came to nothing. In 1969, faced with growing domestic

opposition to the war, the new president, Richard Nixon, ordered a gradual troop

withdrawal.

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Nixon also escalated the conflict, however, when he ordered, in 1970, an

invasion of Cambodia, which was providing military supplies to North

Vietnam.

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Anti-war protests intensified as news emerged in 1971 of a massacre of innocent Vietnamese

by a U.S. army unit at My Lai, and the American use of the highly toxic defoliant, Agent Orange,

against the jungle bases of the Viet Cong.

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North Vietnam launched another offensive in 1972, again successfully

countered. Exhausted, both sides agreed to further talks, leading to a ceasefire in 1973 and U.S. agreement to withdraw its

forces.

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After U.S. troops had gone, the conflict resumed, with the North now at a decided advantage. The war ended in April 1975 when North Vietnamese forces captured

Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

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In 1976, Vietnam was reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The war

had left much of South Vietnam in ruins.

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The new government imprisoned thousands of South Vietnamese, and

private businesses were forced to close, precipitating an exodus of around a

million Vietnamese between 1975 and the early 1990s.

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In 1975, a Cambodian communist organization, the Khmer Rouge, under their leader Pol Pot, seized power and

renamed the country Democratic

Kampuchea.

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The Khmer Rouge had a

vision of Cambodia as a

peasant-run agrarian state.

They marched all city dwellers into the countryside and forced them to take up farm

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Intellectuals, merchants, bureaucrats, clergy and any ethnic Chinese or

Vietnamese were slaughtered en masse. Millions more were forcibly relocated,

deprived of food and tortured.

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During the four years that the Khmer Rouge were in power, some

1.7 millions were killed, which was more than a fifth of the population.

The regime was overthrown by

Vietnamese forces during an invasion in

1979.

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