VIETNAM 2
As the founder of the Indo-Chinese Communist party in 1930 and president of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1969, Ho Chi Minh led the longest and most costly 20th-century war against colonialism. His whole adult life was devoted to ending French and later, American domination of Vietnam. His goals were achieved in 1975, six years after his death, when the last Americans left South Vietnam. The Vietnamese communist has always claimed that Ho Chi Minh was the hero who gained independence for Vietnam from France. There is no doubt that Ho Chi Minh was a man of undoubted bravery and vast subbornness. Ho Chi Minh was born as Nguyen Tat Thanh (his given name) on May 19, 1890, in Hoang Tru, Vietnam (French Indochina). He attended school in Hue during his teen years, he worked as a schoolmaster for a time, and went to a technical school in Saigon. In 1911 he went to work on ocean freighters, which took him around to Africa and as far as Boston and New York City. After two years in London from 1915-1917 he moved to Paris and remained there until 1923. At Paris he became a socialist and organized a group of Vietnamese who were living there in a protest against French colonial policy. He was then later inspired by the
Kaplan, Lawrence & Artaud, Denise & Rubin, Mark. Vietnam---Forty years ago, men fought, bled and died here in an epic battle that changed the course of recent world history. Here was where the French stronghold of Dien Bien Phu fell to a peasant Vietnamese army of nationalists and communists, ending French colonial rule, setting the stage for the involvement of the United States in Vietnam, and ending Western--and white--domination of much of Southeast Asia. Late 1953 the French occupied a small mountain outpost named Dien Bien Phu, located in the northern part of Vietnam near the Lao Tian border. The French hoped to cut the Vietminh supply lines into Laos and to set up a base from which to attack. The Vietnamese, in control of the countryside, quickly cut off all roads to Dien Bien Phu, so the French could only be supplied from the air. The French remained quite confident of their position as well as they underestimated the Vietminh's strength, they were completely taken by surprise when General Vo Nguyen Giap now at the age of 82, (the legendary warrior) of North Vietnam surrounded their base with 40,000 troops and used heavy artillery to batter the French lines. The Vietminh were so successful because since they were fast on foot, their knowledge of the land, and the amount of items they carried. The Vietnamese had also gained a great deal of economic support of the Soviets, which gave the Vietnamese troops better weapons, although the French had some good artilery but, in the end they were no match for the Vietminh. The Americans gave France a helping hand, but still Dien Bien Phu fell on May 7, 1954. By this time support in France for the war had virtually evaporated, and the American Congress refused any more aid to support a lost cause. The French government accepted an end to the fighting, and an agreement was signed in Geneva on July 21, 1954. The agreement also divided Vietnam in half along the 17th parallel. About 4,00
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1316
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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