Vietnam War Blog

The Vietnam War, involving heavy casualties, is the last stage of a 30 year armed conflict, which began in 1946 with the opposition of the Vietnam communists against the French colonial power. Its called a proxy war in context with the Cold War.

Since 1954, Vietnam was divided into the communistic North and the anti communistic South, which intentionally should have been only temporary. A few years later, the South got a turned into a something, where a brutal civil war took place. Apparently, the US interpreted the civil war as a threat of their interests.

The first open intervention of the USA began with the bombardment of the North Vietnam on March 2^nd 1965. On March 8^, the first regular US combat troop arrived in the country. Before that, the South Vietnamese regime was already supported to fight against the Guerrillas of the communistic national front for the liberation of South Vietnam (Vietcong). The basis for the Americas entry into the war was the faked Tonkin Incident of August 1964. It gave the President Johnson the occasion to convince Congress to legitimize an open intervention.

The Sowjet Union and China offered military support to North Vietnam. Since 1970 the US extended their military actions, particularly the disastrous bombardments, on the border states Kambodscha and Laos. The USA didn’t reach their goal – the stabilisation of the South - not, though. So from 1969 to 1973 the troops were removed from South Vietnam. The War ended with the capture of Sàignòs on April 30^th in 1975 by the north Vietnamese troops and the reunion of North and South followed.

The war had about 7 Million casualties as a consequence. 3 million were killed, 2million were civilians.