Why Did The Vietnam War Begin?

The locals know the war as Chi?n tranh Vi?t Nam (the Vietnam War). The war can be divided into two stages: the war against the French imperialism or the First Indo-China War and the War against the US imperialism or the Second Indo-China War.

The First Indo-China War:
The French began colonizing that part of Asia in 1859 and by the year 1888 they controlled major parts of the present-day Vietnam and Cambodia. The French ruled carried on for decades like the British rule in India. But, in 1940 the French in Europe faced a terrible defeat at the hands of Germans in the Second World War. In 1945, a famine struck regions in Vietnam and Cambodia kiling more than a million people. Consequently, riots erupted in the country.

Vietnam had its own freedom fighters and organizations, of whom the Viet Minh and ??ng C?ng s?n Vi?t Nam (the Communist Party of Vietnam) were the most famous and powerful. These groups helped the common people ransack food grain stores and encouraged them not to pay taxes. The French in Europe, on the other hand, were themselves more occupied trying to free their own country from the powerful occupying German army. The Japanese exploited the situation and tried to colonize Vietnam but their sudden defeat in the Second World War resulted in a power vacuum in Vietnam.

H? Chí Minh of the Viet Minh exploited the situation and declared independence of Vietnam from the French in August 1945. The first general elections were held in January, 1946 and the Viet Minh came to power with a heavy majority. The French didn’t have a say until now.

Once World War II was over, the French wanted to regain control of the south-eastern Asian colony back but they didn’t have the resources to fulfill their ambitions. The other imperialist nations like Britain and the United States offered the French a helping hand. An agreement was signed according to which, these nations would help France regain Viet Nam. In March 1946, two months after the first elections, the French landed their troops in Hanoi and ousted the democratically elected government. The Viet Minh began a guerilla war against the aggressors and this is known as the First Indo-China war.

The Vietnamese Viet Minh guerillas received arms and support from the People’s Republic of China and the former Soviet Union, whereas the United States and Britain backed the French. Some say, the use of nuclear weapons was also considered by the United States during the First Indo China War.

The biggest surprise of the war came in May 1954. The battle is known as Chi?n d?ch ?i?n Biên Ph? (Battle of Dien Bien Phu). The guerillas of Viet Minh defeated the French and captured the garrison. The French began discussing the conditions of a cease fire; an agreement was reached and the French accepted an independent Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos were also freed. But the French played a game – they divided the nation into North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was under Viet Minh but the French established their puppet government in South Vietnam under the Ngô ?ình Di?m Jean Baptiste. The French forces left the country by April 1956.

When the time for elections came, the puppet government in South Vietnam refused to hold elections. This increased tensions between the North and the South, giving a reason for the United States to jump in.

The Second Indo-China War:
The South Vietnamese government began putting the communists in the South into prisons and started executing them .This lasted throughout the summer of 1955. The Buddhist monks were also victims of this organized crime. This eroded support for the government at grassroots level. The United States supported the South Vietnamese government.

This caused anarchy in the South; the people began to rebel and the Viet Minh supported them. Soon the government in the North openly began to support the war. Military supplies began to flow into the South. The humanitarian situation began to deteriorate and the US stepped up its support for the government in the South. The CIA, a US spy agency, helped spread anarchy in the South and the government collapsed. This gave the US president, John F. Kennedy, the pretext to increase the number of US soldiers in Viet Nam and the war broke out. Soon, American warplanes began bombing the country but the US could not win the war and pulled out in 1976. By that time, around 2,000,000 Vietnamese had died, most of them civilians.The US also lost around 50,000 soldiers.

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