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-French rule: Only the government was allowed to produce or sell alcohol & salt. The Rice was exported from French-owned plantations, while many Vietnamese didn't have enough to eat. The workers in mines and rubber plantations were jailed if they tried to leave their jobs and the taxes multiplied.  -Military struggle was fought in South Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. War began when an attempt by Communist guerrillas (Vietcong) in the South, held up by the Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the Southern Vietnam government. The war was originally just between South Vietnam and North Vietnam but in the end it turned into an international conflict. The U.S. and 40 other countries supported South Vietnam.  -The Geneva Accords of 1954 declared a cease-fire and divided Vietnam into North Vietnam (under Ho and his Communist forces) and South Vietnam (under the French emperor). The Geneva Accords informed the people of Vietnam that this was only temporary and they would become one after a re election in 1956 
 * Causes:** -The French had ownership of Vietnam before the second world war. Then, after the the French defeated Germany in World War 2, they took control of Vietnam and treated them unfairly. It was difficult for the US to help Vietnam because the US were allies with the French.

Overall Extras -The Domino Theory: When the cold war was over the United States and the Cold War Policy had started to diminish and began being dominated by the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory set off a Communist Chain. The United States gave help to the anti- communist Ngo Dinh Diem and he then took over Southern Vietnam and the election for putting together the pieces of Vietnam was canceled. Diem established a republic and was in charge in 1955. -The United States' goal was to establish a dictatorial government in Southern Vietnam in order to protect the US democracy. But later in the war the US was destroying everything in their site so they could "save" them. -The American Media represented the US victories as terrible defeats and they called it this because the way the war was tracked was by a body count the men who dies or are wounded.

Strategies:
 * The guerrillas' philosophy is that they represent the will of the people, and must remove the oppressive hold the enemy has on the masses. To initially accomplish this goal, the guerrilla's tactical organization consists of small units with the overall organization patterned along the lines of a conventional force.
 * The guerrillas tend to use small unit actions, at night, with surprise, and against the flanks and rear of the enemy. After the guerrillas have sufficiently weakened the enemy, the guerrillas will convert to conventional warfare, and attempt to defeat the enemy.
 * Guerrilla warfare is an unconventional type of warfare involving limited combat against military targets. It consists of three phases: Phase I is the development of local support; Phase II is organizational growth, and combat against the enemy; and Phase III is the transition of the guerrilla organization into a conventional force, and the defeat of the enemy.
 * The Viet Cong were a highly organized guerrilla force supported internally by people in South Vietnam, and externally by North Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
 * The Viet Cong used both sophisticated equipment, taken from US or South Vietnam forces, or supplied by outside allies.
 * The tactics used by the Viet Cong included small and large scale operations, and relied heavily on night attacks, surprise, and intelligence.
 * A significant success of the Viet Cong was the removal of United States troops and support of South Vietnam. The removal of United States support allowed the invasion and defeat of the South by North Vietnam, and the reunification of the two Vietnams.
 * The Guerrillas' favorite and most used attack was the night attack. They did this because they are better at controlling the attack at night then the enemy is and because of the Guerrilla's small number of men it was more effective to attack at night then in the day time, they had a more likely chance of winning.
 * Vietcong would avoid pitched battles with the Americans unless the odds were in their favor. There would be more hit and run attacks and ambushes.
 * For the surprise and sneak attacks it was easier to hide away in the swamp lands and woods but it became much more difficult when they were closer to the capital. So they made underground tunnels so the Viet Cong could fight more efficiently without having to worry about getting sniped as they walked by somewhere.

**Major Players:**
Vietnam (North and South) United States French

**Major Events:**
> > > > > >
 * Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - This was a resolution passed in 1964 by the United States Congress. On August 4, 1964 it was said that North Vietnam's torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Johnson ordered air attacks on North Vietnam to retaliate. President Johnson also went to Congress to ask them to allow him to take further action with the military. On August 7th, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution allowing the United States to take all necessary action to defend the United States allies located in Southeast Asia. Both President Johnson and later President Nixon used the resolution to allow them to continue fighting in Vietnam. The resolution was repealed in 1970 by Congress. In 2001 it was discovered that in a taped conversation with the then current Secretary of Defense, McNamara, that President Johnson showed doubt that the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin ever happened.
 *  Diem Assassination - Ngo Dinh Diem was the first President of the Republic of Vietnam. He was not popular due to his actions of imprisoning and executing Buddhists, the main religion of Vietnam. The United States used to support Diem, but when he grew unpopular the United States stopped caring about what happened to him. Diem was assassinated on November 2, 1963. After his death, General Nguyen Khanh took control in Saigon and later Major General Duong Van Minh, who was thought to have planned the assassination, served as President of South Vietnam for a short time before Saigon fell.
 *  Tet Offensive - The Tet Offensive was multiple attacks on South Vietnam cities by the Vietcong and the North Vietnam forces. The South Army and the Unites States had built trenches around six major cities in South Vietnam. The Vietcong and the Northern Army started a series of attacks to get the Southern side away from the cities. The North started attacking on January 31, 1968, the first day of the Vietnamese holiday, the Lunar New Year also known as Tet. The Vietcong attacked five of the major cities and the major places within all the cities. The U.S. troops and the Southern troops were surprised by these attacks because the first day of Tet used to be a cease-fire. Although the troops were surprised they were able to get much of the lost territory back within a week of losing it. The city of Hue was held onto by the Vietcong. The city was not taken back until February 24th but the city had been destroyed. The Vietcong had executed thousands of civilians and 100,000 of the residents had lost their homes. This event was later called the "Massacre at Hue." The Tet offensive changed the war in the way that the General of the United States Army figuring out that 200,000 more U.S. troops would be needed in order to defeat the Vietcong and in the way that Americans were united after seeing what the Vietcong was capable of.
 *  My Lai Massacre - The My Lai Massacre happened on March 16, 1968. 150 troops that were led by Lt. Calley, called the Charlie Company, were ordered b Captain Media to invade My Lai to kill the Vietcong there. There were no Vietcong in My Lai but the Charlie Company still raided and killed civilians. Three weapons were taken and over 500 civilians, innocent women children and elderly men, had been killed. The troops had put the civilians in five feet ditches and shot them to death and some of the civilians were found to be mistreated with body parts cut off. A pilot, Hugh Thompson, saw this from the sky and rescued survivors and told his leader about what he saw. The killing was ordered to stop shortly after. The American Arm tried to cover up what really happened. An initial investigation said that My Lai was an operation of combat with an accidental twenty civilian deaths. A year later another investigation happened after a soldier leaked out what really happened. The Charlie Company members were interviewed and pictures came out. The American press reported the news to the American people. Soldiers were getting investigated and some were tried but only Calley was guilty of murder. He was given life imprisonment which later became house arrest which lead to him only having three years of house arrest.
 *  Bombing Laos and Cambodia - President Nixon started "Vietnamization" in the war when he started replacing American troops with South Vietnamese troops however the United States had been secretly bombing the Ho Chi Mihn trail in Cambodia and Laos since 1969. It was thought that the war could be won if the Ho Chi Mihn Trail was destroyed. The Trail was used by the North Vietnamese troops and the Vietcong to sneak into South Vietnam and perform attacks on the Americans and the South Vietnamese. The Trail was not bombed before because America did not want Cambodia to turn communist. On April 30, 1970 President Nixon announced the the United States was invading Cambodia and in 1971, South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos. The bombing did not help the war effort once it was over. When the peace treaty was signed in 1973, Congress banned bombing Cambodia.
 *  U.S. withdraw from Vietnam - Troops started being withdrawn from Vietnam during President Nixon's "Vietnamization." The American troops were being taken out and replaced with South Vietnamese troops. On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed by the United States, South Vietnam, and the Vietcong. The United States agreed to stop all military activity and withdraw all military troops in 60 days. The Northern Vietnam had agreed to immediately stop firing and they had to release any American prisoners of war in 60 days. There were 150,000 North Vietnam troops that were allowed to stay in South Vietnam. Vietnam remained divided into the North and South. The South was split in two governments with the loyal Southern Vietnamese with President Thieu and the other part of the government was run by the Vietcong. On March 29, the majority of troops are brought home and the United States fought no more in the war. On December 19, 1974, the North Vietnamese troops invade South Vietnam but the United States remains out of the war.
 *  Fall of Saigon - By the Fall of Saigon, the South Vietnam troops were under no instruction since the President of South Vietnam had resigned. The North Vietnamese troops had surrounded Saigon, in South Vietnam, on April 27, 1975. On April 30, the very last of the Americans were removed from Vietnam and Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. The war was over and South Vietnam fell to communism.

= =
 * End of War:**
 * The capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of Vietnam War.
 * By this war's end, the Vietnamese had been fighting foreign involvement or occupation in various wars for over a hundred years.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">The Paris Peace Accords ending the conflict were signed January 27, 1973, and were followed by the withdrawal of the remaining American troops. The terms of the accords called for a complete ceasefire in South Vietnam, allowed North Vietnamese forces to retain the territory they had captured, released US prisoners of war, and called for both sides to find a political solution to the conflict.

**Outcome & Effects:**

 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">North and South Vietnam were reunified one year after the capture of Saigon in April 1975.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The number of military and civilian deaths from 1959 to 1975 is debated.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In 1995, the Vietnamese government reported that its military forces, including the NLF, suffered 1.1 million dead and 600,000 wounded during Hanoi's conflict with the United States.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Estimated civilian deaths caused by American bombing in Operation Rolling Thunder ranges from 52,000 to 182,000. The U.S. military had estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">More than 3 million Americans served in Vietnam. By war's end, 58,193 soldiers were killed, more than 150,000 were wounded, and at least 21,000 were permanently disabled.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Post -war Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of military intervention.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">There was no real winner of the war, the American troops pulled out, and a peace treaty was signed.

**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Podcast: **
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**Timelines:**
[|11lmartin]

** [|12skunkel] 12mnemtuda-vietnam Sources:**
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 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0849037.html
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 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1862.html
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/mylai.htm
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1990/GJ.htm
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/mylai.htm
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://chnm.gmu.edu/hardhats/cambodia.html
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://berrystreetbeacon.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/march-29-1973-this-day-in-history-the-us-withdraws-from-vietnam/
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/vietnamwar/a/VietnamEnd.htm