War Against the French

Aftermath of the War

 

Geneva Conference

- By the middle of 1954, it was clear that the French had lost the war

- An international conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss Indochina and its problems

- Held on July 20th and 21st, the conference produced many agreements to settle the war

- The main settlement of the Geneva accords was for Vietnam to become an independent nation

- Elections for the new independent Vietnam were to be held in two years, and leading up to those two years the country would be split into two      parts; the north and the south

 

 

Division of Vietnam 

- This line did not correspond to any natural division in society, economy, political structure, religion, or dialect

- The line split up the Viet Minh to the north, and the soldiers fighting for the French to the south

- Civilians were able to move as well, and hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese, most of which were Catholics moves to South Vietnam in 1955

- The Viet Minh had control over more than half of Vietnam in 1954, and the territory south of the seventeenth parallel and exchanging it for only a small area North of the parallel that was under French control

- If the elections were still to be held in 1956, the Viet Minh appeared almost certain to win due to the strength of their political power

- The division of vietnam was supposed to be purely temporary 

 

Outcome

- Viet Minh decided to accept the Geneva Accords, giving up territory in order to win control of all of Vietnam in 1956 after the elections

- At the Geneva Conference, the representative for the US had made very clear that he did not like the Accords, and therefore did not feel obligated to obey them.

- Soon after the conference, the US began building up the strength of the state of Vietnam

- When Ngo Dinh Diem became prime miniater ib 1954, he announced that we was not going to carry out elections as called fir i the Geneva Accords

- Instead, Diem renamed the state of Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam, and declared himself president of the new Vietnam

- This casued two governments to form: 

     - The North was the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; a communist regime led by Ho Chi Minh

     - The South was the Republic of Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem