• Slightly larger than New
Mexico; more populous than
England, France or Italy (more than 76 mill.)
• Tropical south; monsoonal north with hot, rainy season
(mid-May to mid-September) and warm, dry season (mid-
October to mid-March)
• Low, flat delta in south and north; central highlands; hilly, mountainous in far north and northwest
• Arable land: 19.97% (CIA
Factbook)

• In 1511 Portuguese captured Malacca from the native, trade-oriented Muslim sultanate, which had enjoyed
Ming Chinese patronage since the early 15 th century.
• Organized mission efforts in Viet Nam were first launched from Macao. In 1615 Italian Portuguese Jesuit missionaries arrived from Macao at Tourane (Da Nang), and founded the Cochinchinese Mission at Faifo (Hoi
An).
• By the 18th century, Southeast Asia was a mosaic of tiny states, kingdoms, principalities, and sultanates. The
European presence was limited a few trading posts along various coastlines, and Spanish colonial possessions in the Northern Philippine islands.

The most famous resident of this mission was Alexander de
Rhodes (1591-1660), a
Frenchman from the papal seat of Avignon.
De Rhodes has been credited with the development of qu ốc ngữ, the phonetic alphabet used in the writing of modern
Vietnamese. The writing system was actually the collective effort of Portuguese and Italian
Jesuits, but de Rhodes was its most famous promoter.

• The French arrived in Viet Nam later than other
Europeans (in 1680). However, by the mid-19 century the French were more involved in Viet Nam than any country.
• Nguyen Anh appealed to the French bishop Pigneau de
Behaine, for support. In return for French help in restoring the southern court, Nguyen Anh gave the
French the port of Tourane and the island of Poulo
Condore (Con Lon). The support never came from the
French; however, Pigneau found troops to help the
Nguyen defeat the Tay Son armies in the South.

• The English’s aggressive stance against the Qing government over the issue of opium, and their eventual dispatching of gunboats, had an impact on the colonial policies of the French government.
• In 1858 (in sync with the Second Opium War raging in
China) a French and Spanish joint fleet of 14 ships and
3,000 soldiers landed at Da Nang.
• Through treaties that followed this conflict, the Nguyen court turned three provinces (Bien Hoa, Gia Dinh, and
Dinh Tuong) over to the French. By 1867, the entire
Mekong Delta was under French control.

• In March 1874 another treaty was signed with the
Vietnamese court, granting greater rights to travel, trade and proselytize throughout Viet Nam.
• In 1883 the French again attacked and shelled the citadel at Ha Noi. During August 25 of year, the French forced the Vietnamese to sign a treaty (Harmand Treaty) relinquishing Bac Bo and Trung Bo, the remaining Viet territory, to the French.
• To mark the end of the 2,000 year special bond between
China and Viet Nam, the French later took the imperial seal given Gia Long by the Qing emperor in 1803, and melted it down!)

• When the 1862 treaty was signed, local rebellions sprang up throughout Viet Nam. Rebels called themselves “soldiers of nghia
(yi), ” and they attacked the Nguyen court for not rallying to their cause.
• Chinese translations of Western works, produced during China’s
“Self-strengthening Movement (1874-1894)” made new ideas accessible to Vietnamese scholars. The ideas of Rousseau, Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer inspired social activism.
In 1904 the Association for the Modernization of Viet Nam was founded. One of its leaders Phan Boi Chau (1867-1940) traveled to
Japan in 1905, to continue his study of Western learning.
• Both Confucian scholars, and early reformers would eventually give way to western-trained activists, who sought a more radical means for driving out the French.

• Viet Nam had become part of the larger Indochinese Union. The
Union consisted of five territories; the protectorates of Tonkin
(northern Viet Nam) and Annam (central Viet Nam); the colony of
Cochin China; and the protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
• Under the administration of Paul Donner (1897-1902), the French set about redesigning Viet Nam in their own image, initiating and intensive construction program including highways, bridges, and railroads. The local tax burden for these projects was very heavy.
The need to cheap corvee labor also took its toll on the local populace.
• Qu ốc ngữ , along with Chinese, was taught for the first time in a school setting.
• Western-trained Vietnamese discovered that the colonial “glass ceiling ” prevented them from reaching the upper ranks of elite society.

• HCM was born Nguyen That Thanh in May 19,1890, and was a son of a minor scholar from a poor peasant family in Nghe An Province.
• HCM worked as a teacher until he left Viet Nam in 1911 abroad a
French ocean liner. At this time he dropped his given name for the pseudonym “Ai Quoc (the Patriot).” He lived in London and then the
United States, before traveling to France at the end of WW I.
• In 1919 Nguyen Ai Quoc unsuccessfully presented an eight-point petition for Viet Nam’s independence at the Versailles Peace
Conference, which followed the conclusion of World War One.
• In 1920 he was made one of the founding member of the French
Communist Party. In 1923 Nguyen Ai Quoc went to Moscow to study revolutionary tactics.

• In 1925 the Vietnamese Revolutionary
Youth League was founded by Ho Chi
Minh (1890-1969) and supporters in
Canton. Ho stayed in Canton until
1927 as a Comintern (Communist
International) organizer.
• In 1927 a teacher Nguyen Thai Hoc
(1901-30), along with a group of
Vietnamese intellectuals, founded the
Viet Nam Nationalist Party (Vi ệt Nam
Qu ốc dân đảng : VNQDD) in northern
Viet Nam. This new party was modeled on the party organization of the Chinese KMT.

• In February 1930, radical Vietnamese factions of the Vietnamese
Revolutionary Youth League in Hong Kong formed the Vietnamese
Communist Party (VCP). In October 1930, members of the VCP
Central Committee changed the name of their party to Indochinese
Communist Party (ICP). This change was made on the advice of the Comintern in Moscow.
• During June 1930, the nationalist VNQDD led an uprising at the garrison in Yen Bay, which was pacified by the French without mercy. Nguyen Thai Hoc was captured and executed. Authorities t the time recorded 699 executions with trials in 1930 alone, along with 3000 arrests, 83 death sentences, and 546 life sentences
(Buttinger, p. 437).
• Only with the joint ICP-VNQDD establishment of the Việt Nam Ðộc
Lập Ðồng Minh Hội (Viet Minh) in early May 1941, was the movement on steady ground again.

• In early 1941, Nguyen Ai Quoc slipped back into Viet Nam after an absence of 30 years. In 1942 he changed his name to Ho Chi Minh.
• In March 1944 US advisors to the KMT recognized Ho Chi Minh as the strongest leader in the anti-Japanese Vietnamese leadership.
For this reason, the US offered the assistance and guidance of the
OSS (Office of Strategic Services) to the Viet Minh. Saving
American pilots had also endeared the Viet Minh to the Americans.
• On August 7th, 1945 the US dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima. On
August 10th, HCM called for his forces to lead a general uprisings.
On August 15th, Japan surrendered. On the next day the United
National Front (a group of nationalist groups in the South) took over
Sai Gon.
• The Viet Minh soon swept into Hanoi. On September 2 nd ,1945,
HCM announced the independence of Viet Nam and the establishment of a democratic republic.

• The British landed in Saigon on September 13th, 1945.
The British commander Douglas Gracey turned power over to the returning French. Three months after the end of W.W.II, Viet Nam would be divided into a Frenchcontrolled south and the communist-influenced DRV in the north.
• On December 19, 1946 the Viet Minh launched a surprise attack on the French garrisons around Ha Noi, and then withdrew to guerrilla camps in the countryside.
• The Viet Minh kept a low profile until 1948, building their base of support in the northern and central highlands of
Viet Nam.

• In the fall of 1950, Viet Minh forces crushed the
French garrisons stationed along the Sino-
Vietnamese border, marking the first major defeat of the French in the conflict. This victory opened up communications between the PRC and the DRV, bringing increased military support.
• In May 1954 all parties finally agree to hold talks at an international conference in Geneva,
Switzerland. On the eve of the talks, the (March-
May) Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the French defeat had a powerful effect on the French negotiators.

• The national election proposed in Geneva never took place , so the country remained divided at the 17 th parallel north (latitude).
• By 1958, the DRV realized that Viet Nam would not become unified without a protracted military struggle between the two regions. Ha Noi had developed the
People ’s Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) by the late 1950’s, In the beginning of 1959, the military campaign against
South Viet Nam was launched.
• In the south US advisors to the new RVN government under Ngo Dinh Diem (1901 –1963) gradually increased.
In February 1962, the US established the Military
Assistance Command in Viet Nam (MACV).

• National Liberation Front (NLF): a loose alliance of anti-Diem organizations, secretly guided by Ha Noi and first established in the winter of 1960-61. When the alliance's military arm became involved in skirmishes with South Vietnamese government, Diem himself gave the groups the pejorative title Viet Cong or "Vietnamese
Communists."
• Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964) : events involving two allegedly unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2nd and August 4th. On August 5th,
President Lyndon Johnson issued the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to increase US commitment of troops and resources to the Vietnamese civil war effort.
• Tet Offensive (1968) : The NLF and North Vietnamese attack on the
Lunar New Year's holiday in late January 1968 on more than 100 cities and military bases in the South.

• On February 8th, Deng and his entourage flew back to Beijing from a US state visit, and he immediately began to prepare for the attack on Viet Nam.
• 200,000 Chinese soldiers were made ready for the attack. This army faced 50,000 “local forces” under the command of 67-year-old
Vo Nguyen Giap. The Vietnamese forces was entirely battle-ready, unlike the green Chinese troops.
• Beijing sent 1,000 tanks, which would face the impressive anti-tank artillery units stationed along the border. China’s air force was no competition for the SAM-2 anti-aircraft stations and the advanced
Russian MIG-21 aircraft that the Vietnamese had at their disposal.
• Concrete figures regarding the invasion have not yet emerged.
Conservative Chinese sources state that 20,000 Chinese were killed or wounded, compared to 50,000 Vietnamese. VN figures state that
62,500 Chinese casualties were incurred.

• After the war the US-led embargo and the failures of collectized agriculture put great strains on the
Vietnamese economy. In 1986 Viet Nam imported 1.5 million tons of rice to feed a population that had been self-sufficient even in wartime.
• In December 1986 at the Sixth National Congress of the
VCP, General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh presided over a momentous shift in policy emphasizing economic growth, and downplaying ideological squabbling.
• After ten years of the reforms, Viet Nam had become the world ’s third largest exporter of rice.

• The Vietnamese leadership will not turn back to the pre-
1986 era of policy-making, nor will VN ’s leaders succumb fully to the power of free market forces.
• Viet Nam as a “Buffer Zone” between China and
Southeast Asia. Some ASEAN nations and Australia have reportedly adopted this strategy These countries are eager to build up Viet Nam ’s military capability to a point just strong enough to hold back a Chinese intrusion, giving the international community time to respond.
• Chinese involvement in Viet Nam’s economy. According to Ha Noi ’s estimates, 80% of consumer products sold in
Viet Nam ’s urban areas come from China.

• Mark Philip Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of
Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919 –1950 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2000.
• David G. Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism 1885 –1925 . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
• ___________, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920 –1945 . Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981
• Truong Buu Lam, ed., Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on
Colonialism, 1900 –1931 . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
• Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam,
1862 –1940 . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
• ** Edwin E. Moïse, Vietnam War Bibliography
URL:http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/EdMoise/bibli ography.html#misc
• NYT multimedia presentation Amanda Hesser, “The Past Lingers in
Changing Vietnam ” http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/08/28/travel/20050828_VI
ETNAM_AUDIOSS.html