Vietnam War

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Background to the Vietnam War

https://members.gcsepod.com/shared/podcasts/chapter/74697 (GCSE POD for this topic)

In the 19th Century, Vietnam was controlled by French colonial Forces and was known as French Indochina. Vietnam lacked internal political unity so was easily taken over.

In the 20th Century, economic and political mistakes lead to the Vietnamese Independence movement lead by Ho Chi Minh. From 1911 to 1941, he educated himself on western values and prepared for the struggle of Vietnam independence. Minh found similar political groups in New York and France which opposed to European powers controlling poorer Africa and Asia.

Ho Chi Minh loves ideas of communism and applauded President Woodrow Wilson after WW1 who declared the right to self-determination and that people had the right to govern themselves. Minh believed it was only an amount of time until these ideas spread and he could force French ruling out of Vietnam, just like Russians overthrowing Tsarist Rule in the Russian Revolution (1917).

Ho Chi Minh started the Indochinese Communist party in 1929.

Bao Dai became emperor of Vietnam in 1926. He was extremely unpopular due to his gambling problems , womanizing and political indecisiveness. This embarrassing behaviour furtherly pushed Ho Chi Minh for dependence and lead to him created the VietMinh which contained communists and nationalists and were trying to get rid of French and Japanese forces.

in 1943, america created tension with Japan in the pacific ocean and Ho Chi Minh took the oppotunity to start a destructive campaign of Guerrilla Warfare against Japanese forces. A group attacked Japanese forces in deep Vietnamese forests in selective ambushes and as fighters blended in wit peasants, it created confusion among Japanese forces. He continued this through WW2 until allied forces defeated the Japanese in 1945 and as French had no power, Minh took control of Vietnam.

However Minh was worried about America's fear of communism due to the domino theory, so this created tension between the two countries.