Why did the French loose the war in Vietnam? Essays

Fighting in Vietnam started well before the actual “Vietnam War”. The Vietnamese people had been under French rule for several decades until Japan invaded in 1940. In 1941, when Ho Chi Minh came back from his travels there were two foreign powers occupying the Vietnam territory, the French and Japanese. Ho Chi Minh established the Viet Minh in hopes to rid Vietnam of these two powers. On September 2, 1945 the Viet Minh established the Democratic Republic of China after getting support in northern Vietnam. This action spawned the French to fight back to keep control of their colony. Ho Chi Minh wanted support from the United States against the French; he went as far as to supply the United States with information about the Japanese during WWII. The United States kept with their Cold War foreign policy of containment as to prevent the spread of Communism, fearing the “Domino Theory” that said “if one country in Asia fell to Communism then surrounding countries would soon fall”.

The whole conflict in Vietnam started with France’s imperialism. The French took over Vietnam and established Indochina in the 1880s. However, the people of Vietnam wanted to be free from France, and under their communist leader Ho Chi Minh they established a military organization called Viet Minh. This organization took over the capital and declared Vietnam an independent country. Ho asked for aid from the U.S, but the U.S distrusted their communist ideals. Instead, President Truman sent financial aid to their ally, France.

The Vietnamese uprising was the perfect opportunity for the French to prove that they still held world influence and were capable of maintaining power after a terrible loss during WWII (Bachman, Feb. 13). The French rejected the Vietnamese call for independence and the first Indo-China war began. Democratic liberty in Vietnam was not something that the French would give easily. The French needed to retain their colonies, or else they would lose tremendous capital. France had used the exploitation of workers in factories and farms to their economic advantage and if they were to suddenly lose their stronghold in Southern Asia, they believed that there would be no way of remaining a leading European

The extensive conflict between France and Vietnam increased during the second Indochina War from 1954-1975. This critical battle persuaded the French into no longer maintaining their Indochinese settlements and Paris quickly requested for peace. As the two sides came together in Switzerland, Geneva, worldwide events were already shaping the future of Vietnam’s present-day revolt. In this essay, I will list numerous interesting things I found while also giving a short summary of what was going on during this time period.

from VC "You never knew who was the enemy and who was the friend. They

The united front had long and historic roots in Vietnam. Used earlier in the century to mobilize anti-French forces, the united front brought together Communists and non-Communists in an umbrella organization that had limited, but important goals. On December 20, 1960, the Party' s new united front, the National Liberation Front (NLF), was born. Anyone could join this front as long as they opposed Ngo Dinh Diem and wanted to unify Vietnam.The character of the NLF and its relationship to the Communists in Hanoi has caused considerable debate among scholars, anti-war activists, and policymakers. From the birth of the NLF, government officials in Washington claimed that Hanoi directed the NLF's violent attacks against the Saigon regime. In a

The pursuit of French colonialism intended to provide opportunity for Capitalist accumulation for its investors as well as attain raw material. During the nineteenth century, the French found added pretext to validate military action and gained control of five territories to form a sole Indochinese Union (French Indochina). “For the French, as for most capitalist nations in the West, colonies served as a source for cheap raw materials and a consumer market for manufactured goods produced in European factories (William J. Duiker, 13).” As the French began to colonize territories they intended to implement assimilation processes such as teaching them their language or converting them to Catholics.

This caused the initial French colony of Indochina being declared in 1887. Until world war two and in the 1940’s, Vietnam had stayed part of the French Empire, until the invasion of Japanese soldiers. Vietnam took the opportunity to develop its own form of government, led by Ho Chi Mihn, until after the war where the allies had divided Vietnam giving South Vietnam back to the French and north Vietnam to the non-communist Chinese. However due to the poorly treated state North Vietnam was in, the Chinese in 1946 pulled out of the declaration of this area and the Ho Chi Mihn party took over and created the Viet Minh. Though during this time after, the French empire announced their intentions of recapturing the north, which resulted in the Viet Minh having to fight for it. During this, the cold war was occurring between RUSSR and the USA. The French started the Indochina War after the bombing in south Vietnam which killed 5000 people.

France took control of Vietnam during the 1880's, and that was the first step that led to the Vietnam War in 1955. At first, the Vietnamese attempted to resist the French overruling and try to fight for their independence, but they failed. Later on, after World War II, U.S. President Harry Truman, helped out the French on the battle against Vietnam by giving them money. Although the U.S. assisted the French, Vietnam was able to get their independence back in 1954, and the country got divided in two creating North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north being the communist side created the National Liberation Front which was ruled by Ho Chi Minh. The south, the democratic side, was supported by the United States.

Before World War two, Vietnam was a French colony, and during the war the country was overrun by the Japanese. Eventually the Japanese would retreat and the people of Vietnam established their own government. However after the war, Vietnam was split into two pieces, South Vietnam was given back to the French and the North was left to the non-communist Chinese. Eventually the Chinese would leave North Vietnam, and that is when Ho Chi minh era started, but the French then announced later that they were going to reclaim the north. They tried to win the over the people of the north by offering them independence, but the north refused, which

in the process of kill french missionaries, this angered the french and they sent ships over to Vietnam to tell them to stop killing french missionaries Vietnam didn't listen and keep killing the french so in 1858 the french forces invaded Da Nang. Vietnam didn't stand a chance and everyone knew that but right before France was about to win world war II began in Europe Germany invades France but a lot of their forces were in Vietnam and Germany took control over France in 1945 when world war II ends the French try to take control of France but the Vietnam becomes a member of Indo-Chinese federation. Before France was attacking divided territory that didn't want anything to do with each other but after signing The Indo-Chinese federation they became what is now modern day Vietnam war. With all, there forces combined France was in for a real war. So France called a true with the emperor. Then in 1950 north Korea invades south Korea starting the Korean war the french join the war and it ends in a stalemate. In 1956 the last french troops leave Vietnam. Vietnam is now its own country but the North have

Ho Chi Minh (Prime Minister and Revolutionary leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the communist group he established, the ‘Viet Minh’, were very instrumental regarding the process of the withdrawal of the foreign armies from Indochina. The large amount of the population that took part in the Viet Minh did not advocate for the French colonization of Indochina and underwent various obstacles and took actions to ensure France’s abandonment of the colonies. The first Indochina war was a key turning point of French colonization of Indochina. The newly modern military tactics like Guerrilla warfare destabilized the French’s army and flipped the odds for the Indochinese civilians and nationalists. Particularly, the battle of Dien Bien Phu (March 13, 1954- May 7, 1954) and the downfall of the French army

There was ever a formal presentation of war. Rather, the French attempted to reassert their power over their state of Indochina after World War Two. Preceding the War, the French could indicate this region as one of the immense bits of its domain. Toward the end of World War Two, occasions in Europe constrained activities in China. The French government demanded that France must hold two colonies keeping in order to hold its national pride: Indochina and Algeria. The outcome was two horrible colonial wars. Irritating the matter, the French were not forceful in uprooting components that had worked together with the Japanese amid their control of Indochina. This fed nationalistic wrath toward the French. The Viet Minh battled the French until 1954, when they dispensed a mortifying thrashing on the French at a mountain fortress called Dien Bien Phu.

The French withdrawal from Indochina occurred on May 7th 1954 as a result of the French being out numbered, additionally they also had an inadequate amount of knowledge of the surrounding area of Dien Bien Phu compared to Vietnam’s knowledge. The Viet Minh were highly underestimated by French forces during the battle at Dien Bien Phu. In the nineteenth century Indochina was colonised by France, who misused the people and their resources, however cultural legacy was present. Indochina called for independence following France’s withdrawal.

The French colonization in Vietnam was a time of major change political, social, and cultural. “Although Vietnam was far from France, it was affected by both the world economy and French politics”. Over time, the strict surveillance over the Vietnamese people dwindled and allowed the freedom of the press and created an idea for new advances. “During 1907 and 1908, Vietnamese confidence and nationalism grew as new Vietnamese poetry and literature, as well as Vietnamese opinions of colonization, appeared in materials printed at the schools and in the press”. These actions led to what is known as the Free School Movement where quoc ngu, Romanized Vietnamese, was taught and the Vietnamese, rather than the French or Chinese, version of