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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.
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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. en.wikipedia.org
The territory was occupied by Japan from 1939 to 1945. xtimeline.com louislamourgreatadventure.com
Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Viet Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist-communist group led by Ho Chi Minh, occupied northern Vietnam. kitmantv.blogspot.com
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. subversify.com
During the first 3 years of the war, the better-armed French forces made little progress against the guerilla tactics of the Viet Minh. colonialwarfare18901975.devhub.com
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. time.com
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. greenleft.org.au
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. asianvinatravel.com
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. en.wikipedia.org
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. diggerhistory.info
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. vietnamgear.com
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. newsbusters.org papermasters.com
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. jfkplusfifty.wordpress.com
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. 5rar.asn.au
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. futurity.org history1900s.about.com
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. today.uconn.edu
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. commons.wikimedia.org
The invaders were driven back, but the Johnson administration, stunned by the offensive, did agree to begin peace negotiations. hubpages.com
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. 45243880.nhd.weebly.com
Nixon also escalated the conflict, however, when he ordered, in 1970, an invasion of Cambodia, which was providing military supplies to North Vietnam. rockin4tabitha.com
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. hoianfreetour.com
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. mcgarnagle.com
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. aolnews.com
In 1976, Vietnam was reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The war had left much of South Vietnam in ruins. colourbox.com novaonline.nvcc.edu
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. quehuongngaymai.com
In 1975, a Cambodian communist organization, the Khmer Rouge, under their leader Pol Pot, seized power and renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. teamfujimo.com/wp-content lawoek.blogspot.com
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 labor. cambodianmudkips.pbworks.com
Intellectuals, merchants, bureaucrats, clergy and any ethnic Chinese or Vietnamese were slaughtered en masse. Millions more were forcibly relocated, deprived of food and tortured. lawoek.blogspot.com
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. classicalvalues.com
