0.5 Vietnam opencourseware  (Page 2/3)

Towards the end of the Lê Dynasty, civil strife engulfed much of Vietnam. First, the Chinese-supported Mạc Dynasty challenged the Lê Dynasty's power. After the Mạc Dynasty was defeated, the Lê Dynasty was reinstalled, but with no actual power. Power was divided between the Trịnh Lords in the North and the Nguyễn Lords in the South, who engaged in a civil war for more than a hundred years. The civil war ended when the Tây Sơn brothers defeated both and established their new dynasty. However, their rule did not last long and they were defeated by the remnants of the Nguyễn Lords with the help of the French, who established the Nguyễn Dynasty.

French colonialism

Vietnam's independence ended in the mid-1800s, when the country was colonized by the French. The French administration imposed significant political and cultural changes on Vietnamese society. A Western-style system of modern education was developed, and Christianity was introduced into Vietnamese society. Developing a plantation economy to promote the exports of tobacco, indigo, tea and coffee, the French largely ignored increasing calls for self-government and civil rights. A nationalist political movement soon emerged, with leaders such as Phan Boi Chau, Phan Chu Trinh, Emperor Ham Nghi and Ho Chi Minh calling for independence. However, the French maintained dominant control of their colonies until World War II, when the Japanese war in the Pacific triggered the invasion of Indochina. The natural resources of Vietnam were exploited for the purposes of Japan's military campaigns into Burma, the Malay Peninsula and India.

In the final years of the war, a forceful nationalist insurgency emerged under Ho Chi Minh, committed to independence and communism. Following the defeat of Japan, nationalist forces fought French colonial forces in the First Indochina War that lasted from 1945 to 1954. The French suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and shortly afterwards withdrew from the country. The countries that fought the Vietnam War divided the country at the 17th parallel into North Vietnam and South Vietnam during the Geneva Accords.

Vietnam war

The communist-held North Vietnam was opposed by the United States which had sided with the French colonists in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Disagreements soon emerged over the organizing of elections and reunification, and the U.S. began increasing its contribution of military advisers. The disputed Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the immediate reason the U.S. cited for its military assault on North Vietnamese military installations and the gradual deployment of more than 500,000 troops into South Vietnam. U.S. forces were soon embroiled in a guerrilla war with the Viet Cong, the insurgents who were indigenous to South Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces unsuccessfully attempted to overrun the South during the 1968 Tet Offensive and the war soon spread into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, both of which the United States bombed.

The extent of the U.S. bombing of Cambodia has become known only recently. "In 1975, Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge forces took power in Cambodia after a massive U.S. bombing campaign there. New information reveals that Cambodia was bombed far more heavily during the Vietnam War than previously believed — and that the bombing began not under Richard Nixon, but under Lyndon Johnson." Maps and a database of bombing by the U.S. Air Force of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam was created from data the United States provided in an effort to help locate unexploded ordnance left behind during the U.S. carpet bombing of the region.[1]