The cause, course and results of the Vietnam War! If you know, come and tell~

In 1953, peace in Korea temporarily ended the bloody confrontation between the two major camps in the world. Three years later, in 1956, this confrontation resumed in Vietnam.

The underlying reason for this long-term and endless war lies in the confrontation between the two superpowers. The Vietnam War, like the Korean War, was caused by the partition of the country: South Vietnam and North Vietnam. This decision was made at the Geneva Conference held on July 21, 1954, after France ended its colonial rule in Indochina.

The Geneva Conference decided to divide Indochina as follows: Laos and Cambodia became independent, and Vietnam was divided into two parts along the 17th parallel. The north is a communist country led by Ho Chi Minh, and most of its members are Viet Minh members. The Vietnam Independence League had been fighting to drive France out of Southeast Asia. In the south, citizens of the country led by King Baodai also fought against French colonial rule, but these citizens, like the king, did not accept communist ideas. On July 1, 1949, with the support of France, Bao Dai established the Kingdom of Vietnam with Saigon as its capital. In 1957, U.S. President Truman recognized the kingdom and prepared to send troops and military advisors to Saigon. Historically speaking, this was the first time the United States was involved in the future tragedy of Vietnam.

The Geneva Treaty stipulates that free elections will be held within two years, and the country will be led by a government that obtains a majority of votes to achieve national unity. This plan, or this dream, has never been realized.

Before General Giap's final attack on the French fortifications of Dien Bien Phu, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposed to Eisenhower that the United States intervene on behalf of France, but was met with firm opposition. Regardless, the United States decided to help the newly independent South Vietnam under the Treaty of Geneva.

First of all, Washington hopes that Baoda will appoint a prime minister of his choice, at least to arrange what Washington considers "their person." In the late 1930s, Ngo Dinh Diem, who fled to the United States, became prime minister. But his paternalistic pursuit of power is exactly what America wants. Diem's ??arrival coincided with Bao Dai's final departure (withdrawal from the political stage). Approximately 225 American officers and 60 soldiers arrived in Saigon in the summer of 1964 to serve as instructors and train local troops. According to the Geneva Convention, neither South Vietnam nor North Vietnam should build their own fortifications, let alone form military alliances with outsiders.

In short, the typical Cold War mechanism has begun to take shape. The United States established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for Southeast Asia, a treaty signed by the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Vietnam. This action was protested by China and the Soviet Union. The referendum plan to unify the two Vietnams did not materialize: both governments opposed it. Diem made a good case: there was no political freedom in North Vietnam, so people should vote according to their wishes. Ho Chi Minh believed that only if Saigon broke away from the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization would he believe that the people had the right to free elections.

The last Frenchman left Saigon on April 28, 1956. The Americanization of South Vietnam had begun some time ago. The dollar replaced the franc, and English gradually became the country's second language. Diem faced no opposition from the Americans and, in addition to being prime minister, he also sought to replace Bao Dai (who resigned and returned to the C?te d'Azur) as head of state and commander-in-chief of the forces. Diem was a true dictator, surrounded by people like his sister-in-law, an embarrassment to Americans who had supported him. His sister-in-law is a very beautiful but cruel woman, an out-and-out Catholic, a mortal enemy of communism, and does not accept Buddhism at all. From the beginning Diem made life difficult for the enemies of his government.

In early 1959, the leader of the village began to disappear at a rate of one person per day. Their mutilated bodies were found underground, on riverbanks and in caves, with a tag around their necks that read "Enemy of the People." At the end of 1959, the frequency of "political crimes" reached 10 per day, and by the end of 1969, it had risen to an average of 25 per day.

The government's repression is equally cruel. As long as there is even the slightest suspicion, a special police team will investigate. The arrested members of the Vietnamese Communist Party will face the fate of dying together with their family and friends. Between 1960 and 1961, 18,000 Vietnamese were executed, and 14,000 were imprisoned, awaiting trial, and often sentenced to death. These figures alone illustrate the brutality of America's involvement in this civil war. First it was Truman, then Eisenhower, then Kennedy. In December 1961, Kennedy officially announced his support for South Vietnam to continue attacking the Vietnamese guerrillas and strive for independence. The situation is constantly tense. A year ago, the North Vietnamese government publicly declared that it would "liberate South Vietnam from the yoke of U.S. imperialism." In fact, the North Vietnamese government declared a state of war. Kennedy quickly turned words into action: He was the first U.S. president to provide weapons and military advisers, and also sent armed forces to support South Vietnam. At the end of December 1961, the first batch of 400 soldiers arrived in Saigon. In about a year, this number increased to 112,000.

With the help and support of North Vietnam, the Vietnamese gradually changed their fighting methods and turned to open guerrilla tactics. The United States had no choice but to provide similar aid to the South. In 1963, the number of American "military advisers" grew to 15,000 (including 27 generals); they also brought planes and helicopters. The first American casualties were during anti-Vietnamese operations: 31 in 1962 and 77 in 1963. This was just the beginning. Over the next few years, the death toll continued to increase: 146 in 1964, 1,365 in 1965, and 4,896 in 1966. South Vietnam's losses were even more serious: in the seven years from 1960 to 1966, 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, policemen and officials died in Japan, and 157,000 Vietnamese guerrillas died.

This brutal war had two most obvious consequences: the South Vietnamese people became increasingly afraid of becoming enemies of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and the Diem government became increasingly cruel, and the government refused to accept reform suggestions made by American advisers. Economically, these proposals might make things better for workers; religiously and politically, they might make things easier for Buddhists. Ting Yan has her own ideas. He believed that some dissident Buddhists had secret connections with the Vietnamese, and therefore prohibited Buddhists from displaying the national flag when celebrating the birth of Buddha (Sakyamuni 2587). This triggered a strong protest march by Buddhists, and the police opened fire on the crowd. In June 1963, the first Buddhist monks doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire in the streets of Saigon. The monks' extreme behavior continued until the end of October, and their painful scenes were broadcast on television around the world, causing a very bad impact on the South Vietnamese government.

The situation became so bad that the CIA endorsed a plan to eliminate Diem in Saigon. On November 1, 1963, a group of South Vietnamese generals decided to take action: Diem and his brothers were assassinated and replaced by a military junta. The first thing the group did was to change the situation of Buddhists. Three weeks later, on November 22, President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas for reasons not directly related to the Vietnam War. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded as president and continued the Vietnam War.

The Vietnamese movement is broader in scope and more powerful. The guerrillas set traps along roads and byways, luring police units and South Vietnamese troops into their traps. They also dug three miles of tunnels through which they could emerge behind the enemy's rear. The South Vietnamese army was in an extremely difficult situation, and President Johnson decided to expand the participation of American troops. Open war is on the verge of breaking out.

In 1964, the U.S. contingent increased to 240,000 people, and the number continued to increase every year; by 1967, the combined land, sea, air force and maritime forces reached 450,000 people. In addition, there were B-25 bombers flying from the Guam military base in the Pacific to North Vietnam for bombing, and more than 50,000 sailors arrived in South Vietnam on Seventh Fleet warships.

Open war began in 1964. On August 2, the Seventh Fleet launched a fierce sea battle with North Vietnamese forces. North Vietnamese forces attacked two American destroyers, sinking one and killing 1,500 sailors.

The U.S. government and its military commanders immediately announced their intention to retaliate against the brutal attacks by North Vietnamese forces. However, the New York Times later refuted this claim (according to Pentagon reports), revealing that the incident was premeditated and was used to justify the large-scale bombing of cities in North Vietnam by its air power. At this point, war is inevitable and nothing can stop it.

At the end of 1964, although the Saigon military government had assembled 200,000 people, the Vietnamese troops still controlled two-thirds of South Vietnam's territory. The United States has drawn condemnation from Vietnam for using incendiary petrol bombs in air strikes. Pope Paul VI made numerous appeals for peace. In the United States, every family with boys will experience days of anxiety and fear when they reach military service age. As around the world, anti-war sentiment was growing in the United States. Some well-known intellectuals from Western countries established a trial committee (later became the Russell Trial Committee) under the leadership of the British historical philosopher Bertrand Russell, proposing to try the "crimes" committed by the United States in Vietnam. In 1967, Guevara, another world-famous legend who opposed the "American" war, put up the slogan "Create two, three, thousands of Vietnams" and organized demonstrations, shouting "Stop the bombing" slogan against war.

However, regardless of whether they were equipped with incendiary bombs or not, the air strikes had no actual effect, and American aircraft continued to be shot down by Soviet-made missiles. By the spring of 1967, after 26 months of ineffective confrontation with North Vietnam, 500 U.S. aircraft had been destroyed. The war continues to escalate. In 1965, the number of troops participating in the war reached an astonishing number: 600,000 South Vietnamese, 165,000 Americans, 200,000 Koreans supporting the United States, 230,000 Vietnamese guerrillas, 20,000 Regular North Vietnamese soldiers, plus a small number of SEATO members such as Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

In 1965, positional warfare involving U.S. infantry divisions began for the first time. At the same time, the world's fastest (maximum speed 2,400 kilometers per hour) bomber fighters continued to bomb North Vietnam, but little strategy was produced. Effect. Although the bombing did not target densely populated areas such as cities, this still did not prevent the United States from being hated by students from various universities around the world, especially Europe.

Countries that supported the Soviet Union helped North Vietnam and sent aid directly to Vietnamese guerrillas on the battlefield. The Soviet Union supported trucks, MiG-21 aircraft, SAM missiles, and helicopters; China supported weapons, including anti-personnel mines and mortars; Czechoslovakia and Poland supported artillery and ships; the GDR supported cars, motorcycles, and bicycles; Romania supported Medical assistance was provided. Faced with such endless wars and a steadily increasing death toll, the American public is divided into two factions: the "hawks" and the "doves", with the former having a small number and the latter having a large number.

The United States faces US$30 billion in war expenses every year, and Wall Street is worried that the history of the economic recession in 1929 will be repeated. Some strategists in Washington believed that the friction then existing between the Soviet Union and China could be detrimental to Hanoi. However, unexpectedly, China and the Soviet Union competed in terms of the military assistance needed to support the Viet Minh, to see who could provide more weapons assistance to Ho Chi Minh.

Every military government in Saigon appears incompetent. On July 19, 1965, 35-year-old Air Force General Nguyen Kao Chi, wearing a flight suit, presided over a government meeting, where he vigorously promoted his anti-Japanese sentiments. But on the anti-Japanese front, the hesitant attitude of U.S. Commander-in-Chief General William Westmoreland was the real Achilles heel. Westmoreland, a battle-hardened general who fought in the Sicilian invasion and the Korean War during World War II, was transferred from West Point to the South Vietnamese front. In general, he can be regarded as a theoretician. He distributed 1 billion anti-Japanese leaflets on the Vietnamese positions without launching a violent and brutal attack on them, causing about 2,000 Vietnamese elements to "desert." , "escaped" to South Vietnamese troops, who were not there to cooperate with South Vietnam, but to act as spies and sabotage its operations.

In the 14 years of the Vietnam War, 1968 was the most brutal year. The emotions generated by the bloody war in this remote Southeast Asian country led to revolutionary movements around the world. Later, this era was called the "68 era". In 1968, the image of the United States suffered its heaviest blow, which began with the Tet Offensive. On January 30, the Vietnamese and North Vietnamese troops launched a large-scale offensive. About 50,000 Viet Minh troops and Viet Minh regular troops simultaneously attacked 140 strategically important locations, including the South Vietnamese headquarters in Saigon; 8 of 11 division-level headquarters, 30 local cities, and 20 an air force base. Without a doubt, this was the single largest attack of the entire Vietnam War. Part of Saigon fell under the control of the Viet Cong, who even established a provisional revolutionary government there. A Vietnamese commando team attempted to break into the U.S. Embassy, ??but was repelled and suffered heavy losses. The operation was brutal. Westmoreland issued a general mobilization call for all military forces to immediately recover from the losses suffered during the previous period of relaxation. They retook Saigon and other towns after fierce fighting, in which at least 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed. The Tet Offensive was a comprehensive, large-scale attack. Although the operation was symbolically important, it was not a military victory. The U.S. military recaptured almost all the positions it had lost, including the country's ancient city of Hue. But in any case, this operation was a turning point in the entire war. It proved to the United States and the world's public that American victory was impossible. Fighting raged throughout the three months. The United States launched a counteroffensive in the Mekong Delta, marking the beginning of the "Ricefield War." At the same time, the Vietnamese continued to exert pressure on the US military base in Khe Sanh. Later came the most serious event in the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War: the My Lai Massacre. At 7:30 a.m. on March 16, 1968, the Charlie Company of the 11th U.S. Regiment entered Meilai Village. Charlie Company was led by 24-year-old Army Lieutenant William Culley. Cali's immediate boss, Ernest Medina, ordered Cali to "annihilate all enemies." But the enemy was not in Meilai Village at that time. In fact, there are not many adult men in the village, only women, the elderly and children. But the order to "annihilate them all" was implemented to the letter. Cali first fired at the hut of a terrified native and ordered his men to follow his example. By 11 o'clock, 347 people had been killed in Japan. News of the massacre was not reported to the public for several months, but Ronald Rydenauer, a soldier who had finished his military service, learned about the incident from his fellow soldiers. He took immediate action, writing a letter to members of Congress, which found its way into the hands of journalist Seymour Hersh, who investigated the matter—and later won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigation and reporting. In June 1969, Lieutenant Cali was returned to the United States and charged as a war criminal. On June 29, in a trial that shocked the country, Cali was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, another journalist, John Thacker, sided with the defendants and wrote a book called "Lieutenant Cali." In the book, the lieutenant believes that he was not doing anything but carrying out the orders given by Captain Medina. But these orders were directed only at the Viet Nam members, to eliminate them all without retaining any prisoners—not at women and children. President Nixon commuted the life sentence to 20 years. Cali did not serve his full sentence and was released at the end of 1974 and worked as an insurance broker. Captain Medina and U.S. Division Commander Senor Coster submitted their resignations from the Army. This incident created deep divisions not only among the American public, but also among military soldiers. To further understand this division, it is necessary to understand the three soldiers who tried to prevent this massacre. David Egan, a professor at Clemson University (South Carolina), discovered the three soldiers in 1988 during his research on the My Lai massacre. They are Hugh Thompson, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta. They were flying helicopters, and Thompson was the leader (who, like Lieutenant Calley, was also 24 years old). Thompson's mission was to observe My Lai Village from the air.

South Vietnam would have to fight the war on its own because the United States would limit its support in arms, ammunition, and medicine.

The U.S. military began to gradually withdraw from the United States. By the end of 1972, there were only 43,000 American soldiers left in South Vietnam? They were also

about to leave there. On January 27, 1973, the United States signed a peace agreement with North Vietnam in Paris. The war cost the United States 57,000 people. Bodies piled up in South Vietnam. In Laos, the Pathet Lao took power after occupying the capital, Vientiane. In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot overthrew Lon Nol's government. South Vietnam, ruled by Nguyen Van Thieu, resisted until April 30, 1975. On this day, the Vietnamese People's Army entered Saigon, and the world was shocked when the last American escaped in a helicopter over the U.S. Embassy. The war started 20 years ago to prevent Indochina from becoming a communist country and ended with the withdrawal of the United States. This is painful for the West. For the Vietnamese, the war ultimately left more than 2 million dead, 3 million injured, and 12 million displaced. For Americans, the attack resulted in 57,685 deaths and 153,000 injuries. At the dawn of the third millennium, Vietnam was at peace. Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, in memory of the communist politician who died in 1969, is being rebuilt by a new generation with love and good intentions.