Over 58,000 US soldiers were killed and tens of thousands were injured. The Vietnamese casualties numbered in the millions. The destruction, death and seemingly never-ending war produced the anti-war movement in the US, where huge protest marches took place from 1967 onwards.
DID YOU KNOW?
In order to avoid American patrols, the North Vietnamese brought supplies to their fighters in the South through neighbouring Laos and Cambodia along the ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’.
The end of the war
The US and the Viet Minh fought to a stalemate until the war’s unpopularity pressured President Richard Nixon to ‘bring the troops home’. In 1972, a ceasefire agreement was signed between the US, the North Vietnamese and the South’s government. The US pulled out their troops in 1973. In 1975, the North launched a full-scale invasion of the South, and the Southern capital of Saigon fell in April 1975.
US soldiers in Vietnam Results of the Vietnam War
• The policy of containment failed in Vietnam. South Vietnam became communist and the spread of the fighting during the war meant that the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia became communist as well.
• The US suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a guerrilla army of farmers and workers in one of the poorest countries in the world. It was much more cautious in sending its army overseas again during the Cold War.
• Deep divisions were opened up in US society, where many people vehemently opposed the war.
CHECKPOINT!
1. Who fought the French in Vietnam after World War II? 2. Why did the US get involved? 3. What evidence is there that US involvement escalated in the 1960s? 4. What were the tactics of (a) the US and (b) the Vietcong? 5. Why could the Americans not win the war? 6. How did the Vietnam War change US policy during the Cold War?
. I understand the main events and results of the Vietnam War. TIME TO GO BACK I CAN MOVE FORWARD
