In 111 BC, ancestors of the present-day Vietnamese, inhabiting part of what is now southern China and northern Vietnam, were conquered by forces of China's Han dynasty. Chinese rule lasted more than 1,000 years (until 939 AD) when the Vietnamese ousted their conquerors and began a southward expansion that, by the mid-18th century, reached the Gulf of Siam. Despite their military achievements, the Vietnamese continued to suffer from internal political divisions. Throughout most of the 17th and 18th centuries, contending families in the north and south struggled to control the powerless kings of the Le dynasty. During this period, Vietnam was effectively divided near the 17th parallel, just a few kilometres above the demarcation line established at the 1954 Geneva conference. French Rule : Vietnam was reunited following a devastating civil war in the 18th century but soon fell prey to the expansion of European colonialism. The French conquest of Vietnam began in 1858 with an attack on what is now the city of Danang. France imposed control gradually, meeting heavy resistance, and only in 1884 was Vietnam officially incorporated into the French Colonial Empire. Fiercely nationalistic, the Vietnamese never truly accepted the imposition of French rule. By 1930, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party had staged the first significant armed uprising against the French, but its virtual destruction in the ensuing French repression let the leadership of the anti-colonial movement o those more adept at under-ground organization and survival - the communists. In that same year, the recently formed Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) took the lead in setting up short-lived "soviets" in the Nghe An and Ha Tinh Provinces in northern Vietnam, an action that identified the ICP with peasant unrest. The ICP was formed in Hong Kong is 1930 from the amalgamation of the Vietnamese and the nascent Lao and Khmer communist groups, and it received its instructions from the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern). Civil War : A prolonged three-way struggle ensued among the Vietnamese communists (led by Ho Chi Minh), the French and the Vietnamese nationalists (nominally led by Emperor Bao Dai). The communists sought to portray their struggle as a national uprising ; the French attempted to re-establish their control; and the non-communist nationalists, many of whom chose to fight alongside the French against the communists, wanted neither French nor communist domination. Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces fought a highly successful guerrilla campaign and eventually controlled much of rural Vietnam. The French military disaster at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 and the conference at Geneva, where France signed the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam on July 20,1954, marked the end of the eight -year war and French colonial rule in Indochina. 1954 Cease-fire Agreement and Partition : The 1954 cease-fire agreement negotiated in Geneva provided for provisional division of the country at approximately the 17th parallel, a 300-day period for free movement of population between the two "zones", and the establishment of an international Control Commission-representatives of Canada, India, and Poland -to supervise its execution. The cease-fire agreements also referred to "general elections" that would "bring about the unification" of the two zones of Vietnam. The agreement was not accepted by the Bao Dai Government, which agreed, however, to respect the cease-fire. Following the partition of Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva agreements, there was considerable confusion in the south. Although Bao Dai had appointed a well-known nationalist figure, Ngo Dinh Diem, as Prime Minister, Diem initially had to administer a country plagued by a ruined economy and by a political life fragmented by rivalries of religious sects and political factions. He also had the problem of coping with 850,000 refugees from the north. The communist leaders in Hanoi expected the Diem government to collapse and come under their control. Nevertheless, during his early years in office, Diem was able to consolidate his political position, eliminating the private armies of the religious sects, with substantial US military and economic aid, build a national army and administration and make significant progress toward reconstructing the economy. By 1963, the Vietnamese communists had made significant progress in building a strong network of supporters in South Vietnam. Nevertheless, in 1964 Hanoi decided that the Viet Cong (VC) cadres and their supporters were not sufficient to take advantage of the political confusion following the overthrow of Diem in November 1963. Hanoi ordered regular troops of the North Vietnamese army ( People's Army of Vietnam - PAVN ) into South Vietnam, first as "fillers" in VC units, then in regular formations. The first regimental units were dispatched in the fall of 1964. By 1968, PAVN forces were enduring the most of combat on the communist side. US Assistance : In December 1961, President Diem requested assistance from the United States. President Kennedy sent US Military advisers to South Vietnam to help the government deal with the instability that plagued the southern part of Vietnam. In March 1965, President Johnson sent Marine units to the Danang area to defend US installations. In March 1965 the US began a huge aerial bombing campaign against military and civilian targets in North Vietnam. In July 1965, Johnson decided to commit up to 125,000 US combat troops to Vietnam. By the spring of 1969, the United States had reached its greatest troop strength - 543,000- in Vietnam. The US bombing of North Vietnam was partially halted in 1968. US and North Vietnamese negotiators met in Paris on May 15, 1968, to discuss terms for a complete halt and to arrange for a conference of all "interested parties "in the Vietnam war, including the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN) and the National Liberation Front. President Johnson ordered all bombing of the North stopped effective November 1, 1968, and the four parties met for their first plenary session on January 25, 1969. The Paris meetings, which began with so much hope, moved slowly. Beginning in June 1969. The Paris meetings, which began with so much hope, moved slowly. Beginning in June 1969, the United States began a troop withdrawal program concurrent with the assumption by GVN armed forces of a larger role in the defence of their country. While the United States withdrew from ground combat by 1971, it still provided air and sea support to the South Vietnamese until the signing of the cease-fire agreements. The peace agreement was concluded on January 27, 1973. At the beginning of 1975, the North Vietnamese began a major offensive in the South that succeeded in breaking through the central highlands defences. After taking over provincial capitals in that area, a combination of forces from the demilitarised zone area and the highlands routed South Vietnamese forces. Pressures from the highlands and from the Cambodian border region led to a general GVN military collapse, which in turn resulted in the fall of Saigon itself by the end of April. Faced with the threat of a takeover by a communist regime, tens of thousands of Vietnamese fled the country. Reunification : For the first few months after the war, separate governments were maintained in the northern and southern parts of the country. However, in mid-November 1975, the decision to reunify the country was announced, despite the vast social and economic differences remaining between the two sections. Elections were held in April 1976 for the National Assembly, which was convened the following June. The assembly ratified the reunification of the country and on July 2 renamed it the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). It also appointed a committee to draft a new constitution for the entire country.
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