IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The unification of Vietnam

Negotiations between the USA and the North Vietnamese dragged on for five years. Agreement was not reached until 1973. When the US forces withdrew. The defence of South Vietnam was then taken over by the ARVN. It held out until May 1975. There was a desperate scramble by people who had collaborated with the US forces to get on board the final helicopters as they left the rooftops of Saigon. Anyone who was left behind could expect little mercy from the Vietcong.

In the ten years of warfare 2,000,000 men, women and children had been killed.
Over 7,000,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on North Vietnam, more than three times the amount dropped during the Second World War. Large areas of the country were destroyed. Vietnam was reduced from a major exporter of rice to a country that could not feed itself. Many mines and other booby traps were left after the war. For years, people continued to suffer from the effects of chemicals and defoliants.

The war cost the USA $120,000,000,000 and was a tremendous blow to American prestige. 700,000 veterans have suffered from psychological disorders since returning to the USA. More veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the fighting.

Vietnam after reunification

When South Vietnam fell it was united with the North. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. A communist government was set up in the South. Industries were taken over and remnants of US influence were destroyed. At first a wave of anti-US feeling swept through Vietnam. South Vietnamese who had collaborated with the US forces were hunted down. Refugees began to try to escape from Vietnam by boat. These ‘boat people’ attempted to sail to Malaysia or even Hong Kong in order to escape.
Much of the Vietnamese economy had been destroyed during the war. This was slowly rebuilt in the 1980s and 1990s. Vietnam became once again a major producer of rice.

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