Vietnam War MINDMAP

Vietnam War MINDMAP

1. The tactic used by the Vietcong on the USA was called AMBUSH

   • They fought a guerrilla war, ambushing US patrols, setting booby traps and landmines, and planting bombs in towns.
     • They mingled in with the peasants, wearing ordinary clothes. The Americans couldn't identify who the enemy was.
   • They were supplied with rockets and weapons by China and Russia.
   • They used the Ho Chi Minh Trail - a jungle route through Laos and Cambodia - to supply their armies. The Americans couldn't attack their supply routes without escalating the war.
   • Their tactic was "hanging onto the belts" of the Americans - staying so close to the Americans so they could not use air or artillery backup without killing their own men.

2. In 1968, the NVA launched the Tet Offensive, capturing a number of towns in South Vietnam

   • It took the Americans a month to recover the towns. Their confidence was badly shaken. They won the Tet Offensive, but realised that they would never defeat the Vietcong.
   • The North Vietnamese lost 45,000 men, including many officers. Their morale was damaged - the offensive proved that they could not defeat the Americans by direct attack.

3. In February 1965, President Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder - a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

   • He sent US troops - 500,000 by 1969 - to fight in Vietnam.

4. Booby Trapping was responsible for around 11% of all US soldiers in Vietnam

   • They fought a hi-tech war, using B52 bombers, artillery, helicopters, napalm and defoliants (Agent Orange). This killed many innocent civilians, and failed to stop the Vietcong guerrillas.
   • They forced the peasants to leave Vietcong-controlled areas and made them live in defended strategic hamlets in loyal areas. This created immense opposition, and allowed Vietcong infiltrators into loyal areas
   • American troops were sent on patrols, then supported by air and artillery when attacked. This demoralised the soldiers, who realised they were being used just as bait.
   • Search and destroy patrols went out looking for "Charlie", as they called the Vietcong. But the patrols were very visible, and easy to ambush. This led to atrocities such as "zippo raids" to burn villages, and the unprovoked massacre of peaceful villagers at My Lai in 1968.

5. A nationalist group, the Vietminh, eventually surrounded and wiped out the French occupying army and America was dragged into fighting a costly and disastrous war in Vietnam.

   • Treaty of Geneva in 1954; Indo-China was divided into Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam
     • It was agreed to hold elections in 1956 to unify the two parts of Vietnam BUT Ngo Dinh Diem, the ruler of South Vietnam, refused to hold elections.
   • Ho Chi Minh was a communist, who was supported by China. In 1960, he set up the National Liberation Front (NLF) in South Vietnam, which started a guerrilla war to take over South Vietnam from Diem and his American backers.
     • The Americans called the NLF guerrillas the Vietcong, and supported Diem with military advisers and money.
     • Diem's government was made up of rich Christian landowners. It was corrupt and unpopular and persecuted the poor Buddhist peasants. By 1963, most of South Vietnam's rural areas were under Vietcong control - the ARVN (South Vietnamese army) could not defeat them.
     • In 1963, the US supported a military coup, which murdered Diem and put a military government in South Vietnam.
   • In August 1964, sailors on the American warship USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin claimed they had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, allowing the American President Lyndon B. Johnson to take direct military action in retaliation.
     • In February 1965, the Vietcong attacked American air bases and killed American soldiers. President Johnson declared war against North Vietnam.
   • WHY DID THEY GET INVOLVED?
     • 1. Containment
       • China had fallen to communism in 1949, and America had fought in Korea in 1950-53 to contain the spread of communism.
       • The US president, Lyndon B. Johnson, said: "I am not going to be the president who saw South-East Asia go the way China went."
     • 2. Domino theory
       • Americans believed that, if South Vietnam fell, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand - and then Burma and India - would follow.
       • President Johnson said: "If you let a bully come into your garden, the next day he'll be in your porch, and the day after that he'll rape your wife."
     • 3. ARVN's weakness
       • It was obvious the South Vietnamese could not resist communist infiltration by the Vietcong without help.
       • In 1963, the American commander reported that the ARVN - the South Vietnamese army - were "ill-equipped local militia who more often than not were killed asleep in their defensive positions."
       • US advisers believed that good government and an efficient, large-scale war would defeat the Vietcong.
     • 4. The US was attacked
       • The North Vietnamese had attacked the USS Maddox in August 1964, and then killed US soldiers in February 1965.
       • Johnson became convinced that action in South Vietnam alone would never win the war: "We are swatting flies when we should be going after the manure pile."

6. HOW DO THE US WITHDRAW FROM THE VIETNAM WAR?

   • In 1968, the US president, Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered an end to American bombing of North Vietnam.
     • There were increasing problems in the American army in Vietnam.
     • There was increasing opposition to the war in America.
     • Richard Nixon, who became US president in 1969, began Vietnamisation - pulling US troops out but giving financial support to the South Vietnamese army (the ARVN).
     • In October 1972 Henry Kissinger worked out a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese. Nguyen Van Thieu, the president of South Vietnam, refused to sign (he thought the Americans were going to abandon him), so the North Vietnamese pulled out of the talks.
       • Richard Nixon mounted huge bombing raids on North Vietnam until the North Vietnamese were forced to sign.
       • Nixon told Thieu he had to make peace whether he agreed with it or not, so Thieu was forced to sign too.
         • January 1973: the Paris Peace Agreement was signed, and the Americans left Vietnam.
   • Why did America lose the war?

7. Why did the war arouse so much opposition in America?

   • 58,000 Americans - average age 19 - were killed
   • It was hard for Americans to believe that they were defending America by fighting in a war 8,000 miles away.
     • Atrocities such as the massacre at My Lai undermined the moral authority of the US to continue the war.
   • Extensive media coverage brought all the failures and horrors of the war into US homes.
     • The war was opposed particularly by Martin Luther King and by America's black community

8. RESULT OF THE VIETNAM WAR

   • Vietnam united
     • Although the Americans left Vietnam in 1973, they continued to support the South Vietnamese army - the ARVN - with financial and military aid
       • In April 1975 the South Vietnamese regime collapsed and Vietnam was united
     • The impact on Vietnam
       • The North Vietnamese army - the NVA - massacred thousands of South Vietnamese after the Americans had left. Many people tried to flee South Vietnam (eg the "boat people").
         • The Vietnamese had to fight wars against Cambodia and China before their independence was secured
         • Vietnam was ruined - its infrastructure was destroyed, thousands of its people had been killed, and its farmland was polluted by American chemical warfare. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
     • The impact on America
       • 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam
         • The war had cost so much that President Johnson's Great Society programme of social reform had to be cancelled.
         • Loss of confidence: America had failed to "contain" communism. In 1973, Nixon announced that America was abandoning the Truman Doctrine. It was nearly 20 years before America again intervened militarily in world affairs. - The domino theory was proved to be wrong. The fall of South Vietnam to communism was not immediately followed by a similar effect in other countries.
         • News of atrocities such as the killings at My Lai lost the US its claim to moral superiority, and its status as the world's defender of freedom and right.
         • 700,000 Vietnam veterans suffered psychological after-effects

Bilder und Dateien der Mindmap