In 1946, after the French had rebuilt their colonial administration in Vietnam, Chinese nationalists agree on a retreat of Chinese troops from Vietnam. This being accomplished, the Viet Minh increase their attacks against French colonial forces and installations in both South and North Vietnam. While the French succeed in keeping the cities under their control, the countryside is increasingly ruled by the Viet Minh.

On November 20, 1953, the French colonial forces install a garrison of 16,000 troops in Dien Bien Phu, a broad valley in the rough mountains along the border of North Vietnam and Northern Laos. From Dien Bien Phu the French intend to control the border region between the two countries. This is deemed necessary because the Viet Minh provide the communist movement in Laos, Pathet Lao, with arms.

The French military believed the valley of Dien Bien Phu, 19 kilometres long and 13 kilometres wide, to be safe from attacks by the Viet Minh. Nevertheless, in the following weeks and months Vietnamese troops under General Giap prepare to attack Dien Bien Phu. With the help of up to 200,000 porters, the Viet Minh manage to transport heavy artillery up the mountains surrounding the valley of Dien Bien Phu.

In March 1954 the Viet Minh commence their attack on the French garrison of Dien Bien Phu. On May 7, 1954, they conquer the French command center; 9,500 French colonial troops surrender. It is one of the gravest defeats in the history of the French colonial forces.

More than 20,000 Viet Minh and more than 3,000 French were killed in the battle for Dien Bien Phu. In the war between the Viet Minh and the French, which overall lasted for nine years, up to one million civilians, 200,000 to 300,000 Viet Minh and some 95,000 French colonial troops lost their lives.

On July 20, 1954 in Geneva, negotiators of the Viet Minh and France agree on the division of Vietnam into two states: a communist North Vietnam and a capitalist South-Vietnam.

In the years 1959-1963 the communist government of North Vietnam, after first having assumed that the communist guerrillas of South Vietnam could topple the Diem government by themselves, steers a course of escalating military confrontation. More than 40,000 North Vietnamese guerrilla infiltrate the South and provide the South Vietnamese communists with arms and ammunition transported on the Ho Chi Minh Trail on Laotian and Cambodian territory.

In 1961, newly elected US president Kennedy sends the first 100 military advisors and a special unit of 400 soldiers to Vietnam. In the following year the US increase the presence of their troops in Vietnam to 11,000 soldiers.

On August 2, 1964, two American cruisers are fired at by North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Bay of Tonkin. The US insist that the cruisers had been in international waters and use the incident as an excuse to bomb targets in North Vietnam for the first time. Only in 1971 it becomes known that the two American warships had violated the territorial waters of North Vietnam.

In March 1965 the US Airforce starts Operation Rolling Thunder, the wide-scale American bombardment of North Vietnam. During the following three-and-a-half years more than twice as many bombs are dropped over North Vietnam than were dropped during the entire World War II.

To reduce the exposure of industrial installations and the country's population, North Vietnam responds with a total decentralization of its economy and the evacuation of large numbers of people from the cities.

At the peak of the Vietnam War, in 1968, the US have about half a million soldiers in Vietnam. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand together sent another 90,000 troops. The South Vietnamese army at that time counts about 1.5 million men.

The National Liberation Front under communist leadership, named Vietcong by the US, opposes this contingent with 400,000 troops.

On February 1, 1968, the forces of the National Liberation Army begin their large-scale Tet offensive against targets in 105 South Vietnamese cities. Even though the Vietcong are repulsed successfully everywhere except in Hué, and even though the Vietcong suffer tremendous losses, the Tet offensive is considered the turning point of the Vietnam War.

For the US, the Tet offensive effects a change of attitude. After the Tet offensive the US government is no longer primarily interested in winning the war, but rather looks for ways to back out of it without loosing too much of its reputation as a great military power.

The US Operation Rolling Thunder, the carpet bombardments of North Vietnam by the US airforce, ends in October 1968. The US begin to withdraw troops from Vietnam.

In 1969 in Paris, the US, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Vietcong start negotiating a full withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.

In 1972, before the negotiations of Paris bring any results, the US reduce their troops in Vietnam to less than 100,000.

March 30, 1972 sees a communist spring offensive, not by the Vietcong but by conventional North Vietnamese troops crossing the demarcation line (the 17th degree of northern latitude) to invade South Vietnam. Intensive bombardments by American fighter planes force the North Vietnamese troops to retreat.

On January 27, 1973, a cease-fire agreement is signed in Paris and becomes effective that day. In March 1973 the last American troops leave Vietnam.

About two years later, North Vietnamese and Southern communist forces begin a large-scale offensive with the declared aim of a total victory over the South Vietnamese state. Only a few weeks later, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese troops occupy Saigon and thus bring three decades of war to an end.

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