South Vietnam , with the assistance of the U. The economic and military aid supplied by the U. The CIA participated in both the political and military aspect of the wars in Indochina. It worked particularly closely with the ethnic minority Montagnards , Hmong , and Khmer. During the war, the Imperial Japanese Army occupied Vietnam and remained there until , when the Axis powers were defeated. Much of this can be traced back to a desire to restore French glory and national pride after the humiliation the nation suffered during the course of World War II.
The French also wished to reclaim the Indochina region to regain control over the vast rubber plantations across the country. The people of Vietnam were completely against the return of the French. The Vietnamese experienced a lot of abuses by the French during their colonization in the mid 19th century.
(mh=jOZ0e9GEJpo6iMxC)1.jpg "Babes Hanoi")
The people of North Vietnam rallied around their recently returned revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh and looked to him to gain at long last, their independence. The French spent nine years —54 attempting to regain control of Vietnam. France did not realize that the current Vietnamese were much stronger than those that they were familiar with. They greatly underestimated the strength and capability of the Communist Vietnamese force. The Viet Minh, or Viet Cong as they came to be called, were not going to let the French take control of their region without a fight.
The men of the Viet Cong were communists and did not want to surrender their beliefs to the French. Together with the North Vietnamese army, they would defend their land. The Viet Minh used military and political tactics to expel the French from their lands. North Vietnamese troops were prepared to fight the French to the bitter end in order to ensure victory and their freedom. France lost a lot of their supporters of the war after many of their men were killed.
It was also beneficial to the North Vietnamese efforts when they began to receive outside assistance. The Soviet Union sent military hardware that they used in combat against the French. Soviet- and Chinese-made weapons and captured American ones given to the North Vietnamese army by China played a key role in the defeat of France.
