Nick

__ How and why the USA got involved in the Vietnam War:  __ __ By: Nick Allen  __ In this essay I will be talking about the war in Vietnam and the contributing forces that escalated the war. There were many factions trying to gain influence in Vietnam such as the French, America, China, Soviet Union and the Japanese, not to mention the Vietnamese trying to win their freedom. There were the Vietminh who were trying to achieve freedom for their people and independence for their country, led by Ho Chi Minh. The Japanese took control from the French in order to monopolize the resources in Vietnam because their war with the Chinese was not going well for them. The Americans got involved as well eventually by providing support for the Vietminh, then the French, then supporting South Vietnam and Diem who is a governor the Americans put in power themselves. Then they got directly involved with the Vietminh and the war by sending military personal to help the South Vietnamese troops and then the USA sent soldiers to help fight against the Vietcong. In August 1945, the Japanese surrendered their hold on Vietnam when the Second World War ended. The Japanese had to withdraw from all the countries in South East Asia that were under their control. September of that same year the Vietminh took control of Hanoi and Saigon and declared that Vietnam was now an independent democratic republic. The following year, 1946, there were fifty thousand French troops in Indo-China prepared to restore French power. However, the war did not go anywhere since the French would capture a village and move on to their next target and when they were gone the Vietnamese would come in a retake the village. Vietnam is an Asian country near Laos, Cambodia and China. It was occupied by the French originally, but many Vietnamese did not agree with the French occupation of their land and so the Vietminh was formed. The Vietminh was a large movement in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia led by a man called Ho Chi Minh. The fighting between the Vietminh and the French came to a climax in 1954 at the battle of Dien Bien Phu which was a stronghold held by the French. The French were defeated even though the Vietminh suffered more casualties. This battle led to the peace conference in Geneva where there were representatives from the USA, China, France, Soviet Union (Russia) and the British. The decision was made to divide Vietnam into North and South with the Vietnamese supporters of the Vietminh living In the North and the French living in the South, the border between North and South came to be known as the seventeenth parallel. The USA was very supportive of this idea because they did not want France to have more colonies and saw this as an opportunity to weaken them. The spread of communism was to end at the seventeenth parallel, to achieve this goal; the Americans put Diem, a catholic Vetnamese, in charge of South Vietnam. Diem, however, was a very corrupt person and did everything he could to stay in power and increase his influence throughout South Vietnam. Diem’s unpopularity only helped the Vietminh more and more, with Vietcong members skyrocketing from twenty thousand to one hundred and seventy thousand in the span of a few years. In 1959 the National Liberation Front (NLF) was formed otherwise known as the Vietcong in Hanoi. Its main aims were to overthrow Diem, the corrupt governor, get rid of the Americans who were interfering with their affairs and reunite their country of Vietnam. After this event, the influence of the French decreased and the USA became more important, more so when the Vietcong was formed in 1960.They were a part of the Vietminh that carried out raids in the South via what is called the Ho Chi Minh trail which was created by the North Vietnam army to carry supplies down to South Vietnam. This trail went through Laos and Cambodia, which is a dense forest, so that the Vietcong were able to travel unnoticed and attack South Vietnam all along their western border. The South Vietnam forces could not cope with the raids by the Vietcong so they took a defensive position which was exactly what the Vietcong had expected and wanted them to do. The Vietcong were given the order to target officials of Diem’s government. This started a power struggle between Diem and the Vietcong. The Vietcong tried not to involve civilians in the power struggle but Diem did not care and killed anyone in his way. The USA, seeing the increasingly desperate situation in South Vietnam, sent military advisors to help with training the South Vietnamese soldiers and planning counter strategies against the Vietcong. As the war escalated the USA came up with plan 32. Plan 32 was in case there was an invasion into South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese. Should such an invasion occur there would be divisions of the American army dropped by parachute near Da Nang, Pleiku and Saigon, which is the capital of South Vietnam, to defend against the Vietminh. However, over time, when Vietcong activity seemed more and more of a threat there were many Americans who wanted the army to be sent and plan 32 activated even without an invasion by the Vietminh in the North. The Vietnam War is a prime example of what will happen when the “Big” nations start fighting with each other and the smaller weaker countries become the battle ground. For years the Vietnamese people struggled just to survive through each day and to make life harder their country was split into two. This war shows that in the end, every country has to fend for itself. All the countries involved with Vietnam had an ulterior motive for doing what they did and not even America did anything even remotely beneficial for the Vietnamese people. The Americans, out of all the factions that tried to get control of Vietnam, were the ones who did the most damage. The Americans supported the French and gave them money and supplies, they put Diem in power in South Vietnam, starting a reign of terror for the Vietnamese people, and then they sent in soldiers, fighting an all out war with North Vietnam causing even more chaos. - Nicks Hospital Location - God help the patients
 * ** Title of Assessment ** || ** From Assassination to Stalemate – the beginning of the First World War ** ||
 * ** Type of Assessment ** || ** Group presentation ** ||
 * ** Name ** || ** Nicholas. k. Allen (the awesome) ** ||


 * ** Describe the Activity ** || ** My class and I made a group presentation on the beginning of WWI, and we acted it out like we were on the radio. ** ||
 * ** Describe your role in the Activity ** || ** I was the radio host and I introduced everyone and interviewed them on the causes of the war. ** ||


 * Section One: Planning of the activity – Fill in the boxes below ONLY referring to the planning stage. **

· Describe how you planned the different stages in your activity || 2nd The class answered the questions to the best of their ability. 3rd When that was done we had our script and were ready to start. || · Outline your contributions to the activity || · Refer to the contributions, views and experiences of others ||
 * ** Planning Stages **
 * 1st I made up some questions for the class that I would ask.
 * ** Your Contribution **
 * I made up the questions that that the script was based on. ||
 * ** Contribution of Others **
 * Everyone in the class following the questions wrote their own scripts answering the questions assigned to their nation. ||


 * Section 2: Activity Log **
 * Here list the separate activities in which you took part and outline how you may have revised or changed your plans at each stage. **


 * ** Activity ** || ** Group/ Individual/ online ** || ** Date ** ||


 * The Final Product: **
 * Here you will critically analyse the final piece of work. **


 * · What was the level of effectiveness of the piece to put over the information required? ||
 * · What worked, did not work, and what would you change ||
 * Everything went fairly well, the only problem is that we did not have Joe to do his part so we had to leave a nation put. ||
 * If your presentation was shown to somebody who knew nothing about this issue how would you assess its impact. Use matrix below. ||
 * Unchanged knowledge || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || Extremely knowledgeable ||
 * Unchanged knowledge || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || Extremely knowledgeable ||


 * Section 3: Sources and information used **


 * ** Source ** || ** Description of material used ** ||
 * Notes || Pen ||
 * Internet || Paper ||
 * teacher || Computer for recording ||
 * Remember to add these to any credits if a movie is made. **
 * 4. Evaluation **


 * ** Evaluate your own contribution to the activity ** ||
 * I did quite a lot of work during this project but it was easy. ||
 * ** Evaluate the contribution of others to the activity ** ||
 * Everyone in the class did what they were supposed to do and they did it really well. ||
 * Reflection on Learning **


 * ** Reflect on what you have learnt from doing this piece of work. Has it all been academic or have you learnt other things. Explain. ** ||
 * I have learned about the war and that many things contribute to the start of a war and it only takes a trigger for things to escalate to something big. Everything I learned has been academic. ||

** - ** The trigger to the war was the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand by Serbia but there were other reasons such as the increase in military power by multiple nations which increased tensions in Europe. -The war was not a short one contrary to what the Germans believed because the enemy mobilised faster that they expected and their advance was halted and the war in the trenches started and then it was a stalemate.
 * Final Task: Recall and assessment of knowledge gained **
 * a) **** Describe and explain the causes of the First World war (10) **
 * b) The Germans expected a short war – why did this not happen? (10) **