Quick Test on the

Causes of the
Vietnam War
 1) Which leader tried to get
independence for Vietnam in
1945?
Ho Chi Minh
2) Why did the USA not support
the French straight away when
war broke out between the
French and the Viet Minh
 They didn’t think Ho Chi
Minh would turn communist
3) What was the total for
French casualties?
90,000
4) At what battle did the Viet
Minh decisively defeat the
French in 1954?
Dien Bien Phu
 5) What happened to
Vietnam at the Geneva
Peace conference in
1954?
The country was divided
in two. North and South.
6) What did the USA prevent
from happening in South
Vietnam in the late 1950s?
Elections on unification
 7) Which dictator of South
Vietnam did the US support
in the late 1950s and early
60s?
Ngo Dinh Diem
 8) Where was an American
Naval vessel apparently fired
upon by North Vietnamese
forces?
Gulf of Tonkin
 Learning Objective: To
find out and evaluate the
reasons for America
losing the war in Vietnam
The US military evacuating people form the American
Embassy in 1975 signalling the very end of the war

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3AiyFF9qOls
Task: For each of the following
sources consider how they may
explain the loss of the Vietnam
war for the Americans
 1) A Viet
Cong tunnel
complex.
240km of
tunnels
were
constructed
during the
war.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ZbPqvfvBI
2) A Viet Cong propaganda poster.
3) The people of Hue in South Vietnam sort through the wreckage of their
homes in 1968 after an American bombing raid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X45s8KsyqK8
4) A ten-year old girl runs naked after tearing her burning
clothes from her body after an American napalm attack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2dEqrN4i0
5) AK- 47?
6) A South Vietnamese officer executes a suspected
Viet Cong fighter moments after capturing him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8pSbTeme8s
7)

An increasing number of recruits scored so low on the

standardised intelligence tests that they would have
been excluded from the normal peacetime army. The
tour of duty in Vietnam was one year. Soldiers were
most likely to die in their first month. The large
majority of deaths took place in the first six months.
Just as a soldier began gaining experience, he was sent
home. A rookie army which constantly rotated
inexperienced men was pitted against experienced
guerrillas on their home ground.

From Four Hours in My Lai by Michael Bilton,

1992. The average age of US combat troops in
Vietnam was only 19. Many recruits had just left
school. This was their first experience of war.
8)
9)

In the end anybody who was still in that country was the enemy. The
same village you’d gone in to give them medical treatment . . . you
could go through that village later and get shot at by a sniper. Go back
in and you would not find anybody. Nobody knew anything. We were
trying to work with these people, they were basically doing a number
on us. You didn’t trust them anymore. You didn’t trust anybody.

Fred Widmer, an American soldier, speaking in 1969.

10) How did
the
geography
of Vietnam
make it
difficult for
the
Americans
to press
home their
advantage?
11) One of many Vietnam war protests.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3AiyFF9qOls
 Complex
Anti-war Defences
protests back Guerilla
home Tactics

Reasons
Geography: Ho for US Area Bombing
Chi Minh Trail
Loss

Confusing fighting War Atrocities:

conditions: Who’s ‘A rookie army’ Photography
the enemy?

High American America’s Weapons:

casualty rate Unpredictable Foreign Support
Allies