Vietnam War Essay

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was long, in fact, it never really ended as violence continued for another 15 years after the 20 years of war had already occurred. The war started due to an important history of nearly 150 years. The amount of battles that were in this war is too much to count. The war impacted millions of people killed millions of people, and divided millions of people.

The Vietnam War started in 1954 although there is an important history that leads up to the cause of the war. Let’s get into it. In the 19th century (1801-1900), the French Colonial controlled Vietnam. Time passed, and in World War II, the Japanese invaded the French and gained control of Vietnam. The leader of the Japanese, Ho Chi Minh at the time, formed an

Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam after the World War, which leads French-educated emperor Bao Dai to come into place. Japan realizes this, and seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho’s Viet Minh forces move in and take control of the northern city of Hanoi, then declare the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (or the DRV) with Ho as their president. Bao seeking to regain control of the region backed up to the city of Saigon, declaring Saigon as their capital. Both sides wanted Vietnam united, but while the North was strongly communist and the south was more democratic, you can see there was a conflict. (“Vietnam War” [History.com])

The Vietnam war was “... a long, costly, and divisive conflict…” according to History.com. There were countless battles and violent acts, and I’ll give you a brief example of a couple. To start, in May of 1954, the battle of Dien Bien Phu ended with the North victorious. This marked the start of the war and to follow up with the battle, in July of 1954, a treaty was signed splitting Vietnam officially into the North and South. In addition to this, in 1955, a strongly anti-communist, Ngo Dinh