![]() ![]() President Eisenhower dispatched 2,000 military advisors to coordinate the anti-communist effort in South Vietnam. Vietnam was split North and South, and by 1958 the communist north (Vietcong) were conducting military operations across the border. Victory in the anti-colonial war (fought against the French between 19, and supported by US aid) saw Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia granted independence. The French left in 1954 and Dwight Eisenhower’s pledge of assistance takes hold. Eisenhower advises Diem that the US will provide assistance directly to South Vietnam, instead of channeling it through French authorities. Listen Nowħ May – The remnants of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrender.ħ July – Ngo Dinh Diem, newly-chosen Premier of South Vietnam, completes the organization of his cabinet.Ģ0-21 July – The Geneva Agreements are signed, partitioning Vietnam along the 17 th Parallel and setting up an International Control Commission to supervise compliance with the AgreementsĨ September – An agreement is signed at Manila establishing a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, aimed at checking Communist expansion.ĥ October – The last French troops leave Hanoi.ġ1 October – The Viet Minh formally assume control over North Vietnam.Ģ4 October – President Dwight, D. Rob Weinberg asks the big questions to Kevin Ruane, Professor of Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University. But how did the war come about? Who were its major players? Why did the actions and attitudes of US presidents differ? And how did Americans at home shape the outcome of the war. January – The newly-established People’s Republic of China, followed by the Soviet Union, recognizes the Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh.Ĩ May – US announces military and economic aid to the pro-French regimes of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.īy 1964 America was deeply embroiled in a conflict in Vietnam that would, over the next decade, claim millions of lives including almost 60,000 US servicemen. Ho Chi Minh establishes Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (GRDV) in Hanoi.Ģ2 September – French troops return to Vietnam and lash with Communist and Nationalist forces.Ħ March – France recognizes the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state within the Indochinese Federation and French Union.ġ9 December – The Viet Minh initiate the eight-year Indochina War with an attack on French troops in the north.Ĩ March – France recognizes an “independent” state of Vietnam, Bao Dai becomes its leader in June.ġ9 July – Laos is recognized as an independent state with ties to France.Ĩ November – Cambodia is recognized as an independent state with no ties to France. 1945ĩ March – An “independent” Vietnam with Emperor Bao Dai as nominal ruler is proclaimed by Japanese occupation authorities.Ģ September 2 – The Communist-dominated Viet Minh Independence League seizes power. However, despite the Atlantic Charter, the US remained keen for Vietnam to reinstall French rule, paving the way for the First Indochina War. to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference) had originally been laid out in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points in 1918, and had been recognised as an international legal right in the 1941 Atlantic Charter.Īfter Japan surrendered leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control, Ho Chi Minh persuaded him to abdicate and declared an independent Vietnamese state. The principle of a country’s right to self-determination (i.e. Their opposition to the Japanese meant they received support from the US, China and the Soviet Union. ![]() To fight off both Japanese occupiers and its Vichy French colonial administration, Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh – inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism – formed the Viet Minh in 1941, a communist resistance movement. Japan’s invasion and occupation of Vietnam in 1940 later made Vietnam a target of US foreign policy following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941. The French had extracted large amounts of Vietnam’s raw materials, exploited local labour and suppressed civil and political rights, which had given rise to strong anti-French resistance by the 1930s. Vietnam had been a colony of France since 1858. ![]() The words and illustrations are under license from Pavilion Books and have been published from the 1979 edition without adaptation. This article has been adapted from The Vietnam War: The illustrated history of the conflict in Southeast Asia, edited by Ray Bonds and published by Salamander Books in 1979.
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