December 19 - Begin of the Vietnam Wars

On December 19, 1946, the Viet-Minh forces attacked the French Army in Hanoi and the thirty year long struggle for the liberation of Vietnam began.

Vietnam, together with Cambodia and Laos had been as �French Indochina� under colonial rule since the last decades of the 19th century.
During WW2 the region had been under Japanese occupation, and after their capitulation the Vietnamese independence movement had had justifiable hopes for sovereignty and liberation from colonialism.
The main faction of the struggle for independence was the Viet-Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam�), originally an alliance of nationalist forces that soon had come under Communist control. The leading figure of the movement was Ho Chi Minh, who during his stay in Europe in the 20s had been converted to Marxism, and who in the 40s had founded the Vietnamese Communist Party in Chinese Exile.



Ho Chi Minh

Only a few days after the Japanese surrender Ho Chi Minh, on September 2 the independent �Democratic Republic of Vietnam�, in order to anticipate the return of French Colonial rule. France however, had no intentions to give up Indochina and quickly re-established its military presence. In the vain hope to avoid the looming war, the Viet-Minh and France came to an uneasy compromise in early 1946, agreeing that Vietnam would receive the status of an autonomous state inside French Indochina.
The truce wasn�t kept for long, and on December 19, 1946 the inevitable conflict began as the Viet-Minh forces attacked the French in the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi.
An eight year long guerilla war was fought, whilst the Vietnamese were heavily supported by the People�s Republic of China, the French could only sustain their efforts with massive military assistance by the Americans.
The decisive battle of the First War of Independence ended the conflict temporarily. In 1954, the French held fortress of Dien Bien Phu was captured by the Viet-Minh after a two month long siege. The French capitulated , and in the subsequent peace negotiations Vietnam was provisionally, nationwide elections pending, divided into a Communist controlled North, and a South whose existence was guaranteed by the USA. The planned elections were blocked by the South, with the certain knowledge that the Communist would win, and the second Vietnam War took its inevitable course. The National Liberation Army (Viet-Cong) fought another twenty years against the various South-Vietnamese military dictatorships that were kept alive by the USA, and only after the Americans were defeated in 1975, Vietnam was finally reunited.


What else happened on this day?

2001 The first part of the trilogy �Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship�, directed by Peter Jackson, opens in the cinemas.

2005 The first homosexual marriage in the UK, a so-called �civil-partnership� takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Two elderly men, only known as Ian P. and Gerry A. thus sanction their life-long relationship. Congratulations!



Complete list of events:

Wikipedia

Edited by Komnenos