History-Vietnam

When France was in charge of vietnam they often made the Vietnamese follow their strict rules.

The French forceed the vietnamese to work in their factories for little or no pay. Also the vietnames were given little or no food as any rice grown in vietnam was shipped out to france for trading purposes. The brutal French leaders executed any resistance they encountered.

In WW2 Vietnam was ruled by the Japanese.

In 1940 Ho Chi Minh created the Vietminh a strong anti japanese movement. By the end of WW2 Vietminh controlled the North of Vietnam and wanted to unify the whole country. The French wanted to rule Vietnam again and a war broke out between the French and Vietminh.

1949 China became Comunist and began supply Vietminh with weapons to fight the French. However the USA saw Vietminh as chinese puppets and sent $500 million to the French.

In 1945 the battle of Dien Bien Phu began.

Dein Bien Phu was a French strong hold base in Vietnam. It was built to draw the Vietnamese into open conflict. The Frenchwould then use their Airpower to wipe out the troops.

The base itself was in a valley with the thinking it would be too hard to get big guns up the mountains.

However the french were quickly surrounded and were unable to with draw from the base. The Vietminh managed to get anti aircraft weapons around the valley and effectively stopped the flow of airccraft in and out of the base. It took the Vietminh 50,000 soldiers to move 200 artillery gus.

49,000 soldiers were deployed around the base of Dien Bien Phu. The attack began on March 13 1954. It took 3 days to take the French Strongholds. The Vietminh lost 15,000 men and the French 7000 men. Two weeks later the attack was continued. There were trenches built around the base and eventually on May 7 Dien Bien Phu fell. France had 3000 men killed and Vietminh had 8000 killed.

The Geneva agreement was in 1954 and brought about the end of France's involvement in Indochina. In the conference it was agreed that:

Vietnam would be divided into North and South.

France would fully withdraw.

South would be ruled by Nng Dinh Diem and North Ho Chi MInh.

Vietminh would withdraw from the South. Vietnamese could choose where they lived.

There would be a general election before July 1956.

Born 1890

Died 1969

In 1908-1917 he spent time in France and became firmly communist

After communists came to power in Russia Ho moved there to live (1917-1941) and worked with communist groups.

1945 founded the DRV but didnt rule the whole of Vietnam

1954 defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu

Beacame the leader of North Vietnam in 1954

Stepped down from his role in 1965 due to health

In august 1964 USS Maddox exchanged fire with North Vietnamese fighters. The USA responded by telling the World that next time their attacker would be destroyed.

On August 7 the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was agreed. Itb gave aproval for the expansion of vietnam- During 1964 Military planners had agreed on a plan to attack North Vietnam. johnson submitted a resolution requesting permission to take all necessary precautions to repel any attackers

A report came through saying that there had been an attack and President Johnson is able to decalre war on Vietnam. However a second telegram came through saying the first telegram was a mistake- President Johnson ignores this telegram.

Chemical Weapons

The USA developed a new chemical weapon called agent Orange- a weed killer designed to kill the jungle and expose the Ho Chi Minh trail. They dropped a total of 100 million litres destroying 4 million acres of forest affecting 1.3 million people. Napalm was also used and it destroyed jungles, however it also burned through the clothing of soldiers and civilians alike.

Bombing was often unable to defeat the Guerillas. USA had heavily defended bases in the south and on the coast, from here they sent raids and reported on Viet Cong activities. There were some problems with this though.

Raids were often based on inadequate infomation,

Inexperienced troops were walked into traps,

Innocent villages were often misaken for Viet Cong Strongholds.

The Civillian to Viet Cong Death rate was 6:1

These tactics made the USA very popular with the Peasants.

The bombing camapigns damaged the war effort and disrupted the Viet Cong Supply routes. It also allowed the USA to attack whilst using less Soldiers. However:

bombing was expensive and it cost $400,000 for one Viet Cong Soldier to be killed.

Even after major raids the Viet Cong was still able to attack.

The Viet cong also continued to operate

Bombing was only able to slow the Viet Cong's Progress.

The Tet offensive was a huge attack launched by the Viet Cong on the Vietnamese new year in 1968 (31st Jan). The Vietnamese launched over 100 attacks all within a close time period. The Viet Cong mainly targeted political and military targets, however radio stations were also targeted. The Viet Cong wanted to create a popular uprising.

The Viet Cong had been smuggling weapons in the South for months and were gambling on the fact that the USA would be weaker due to the new year celebrations. They had built tunnels over 200 miles long. The Viet Cong were able to take a radio station and began to encourage people to join in the uprisings themselves. In total 84,000 Viet Cong took part in the attacks.

It took the Viet Cong just 2hrs to take the city of Hue. The USA had seriously underestimated the force behinf the Viet Cong. In the end boths sides if the city were taken and thge USA were struggling to hold on. At the start 160 marines were bought in to take the the city but were quickly driven out. In the first hour 5 men were killed and 44 wounded. The USA was also unable to take the souh side of the river. The american sldiers found it hard to fight inder the 360 degree battle field and the USA could only cope when they had air strikes geranted. The Viet Congsoldiers defending Hue were the hardest battle soldiers in their whole army.

The Domino theory was basically a way in which Eastern countries would fallto Communism.

The USA believed that when one country fell to communism the rest of the countries around it would fall and so on.