Tet offensive

Tet offensive

Part of: Vietnam War

Tet Offensive - January 29 to February 25, 1968

date	January 30 to February 25, 1968
place	South Vietnam
output	Victory of South Vietnam and its allies Propaganda success of North Vietnam
consequences	Withdrawal of the Allies of South Vietnam until 1973

Parties to the conflict
North Vietnam FNL (Viet Cong)	South Vietnam United States South Korea Australia New Zealand
Commander
Hoang Van Thai	William C. Westmoreland
Troop strength
~ 323,000-595,000	~ 1,000,000

The Tet Offensive was a series of offensive military operations by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong between January 30 and September 23, 1968 as part of the Vietnam War . It began as a surprise attack the day after or on the Vietnamese New Year festival , the Tết Nguyên Đán . The New Year celebrations took place on January 29th in North Vietnam and on January 30th in South Vietnam . The reason for the difference was that in the former the time zone UTC + 7 hours and in the latter the longitude of Beijing was decisive.

background

At the end of the 1960s, the opponents in the Vietnam War faced each other in armor. By the beginning of 1968, the United States had increased its troop contingent to over half a million soldiers. Still, it was not able to hit the guerrillas of the Vietcong crucial, for military assistance from the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union was North Vietnam has been significantly upgraded.

attack

The attack by the Viet Cong on January 30 and in the following days came as a complete surprise to the South Vietnamese and the Americans, especially since many South Vietnamese soldiers were on holiday. The North Vietnamese army had recently launched an offensive against the American base Khe Sanh near the demilitarized zone , so that many thousands of US elite soldiers had been transferred there for defense, as the American military leadership feared a second Điện Biên Phủ . The attack took place on the broadest front with more than 80,000 soldiers and in more than 100 places simultaneously. Among other things, the Viet Cong succeeded in conquering the old imperial city of Huế and occupying the citadel there ( Battle for Huế ). In addition, the US embassy in the center of Saigon was attacked at the same time by raiding parties with a very effective propaganda effect, although it could not be occupied. Far stronger attacks took place in and near Saigon on the airfield and the headquarters of General William Westmoreland and the South Vietnamese military. The Viet Cong and its allies proceeded with extreme brutality against alleged supporters of the South Vietnamese government. In the city of Huế alone, more than 5,000 people, including foreign doctors, priests and children, were tortured and executed during the three weeks of Viet Cong rule. Some of the dead found later were mutilated, some were apparently buried alive.

It only took the Americans a short time to rally and fight back. The next morning they attacked the North Vietnamese with 5,000 men, and within five days the North Vietnamese troops were thrown back again. The fighting in Huế developed tougher, longer and more losses, but ended here after a month with the withdrawal of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.

Effects

The Tet Offensive did not bring the Viet Cong a military breakthrough. The Viet Cong suffered such heavy losses that, according to General Võ Nguyên Giáp , they were unable to carry out any major operations for the next four years. The losses of the Viet Cong during the offensive have been estimated at at least 50,000 to 100,000 men, which is more than half of the Viet Cong fighters.

Saigon during the Tet Offensive

Propagandistically and politically, however, the Tet offensive was a complete success for the attackers. For American observers it was a shock that the attacker was capable of such a large-scale operation despite the presence of several hundred thousand American soldiers. The US Army leadership had erroneously assumed that the strength and morale of the opposing forces had been falling for months, and had spread this publicly. American television viewers therefore saw the embattled American embassy and American troops in retreat distraught.

The open execution of the Viet Cong fighter Nguyễn Văn Lém with a shot in the head by the South Vietnamese general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan in front of the cameras of Western reporters went as a shocking press photo around the world. As a result, as well as reports about the My Lai massacre ( war crimes committed by American soldiers) and about American warfare (extensive use of defoliant Agent Orange , as well as napalm , continuous disregard of the Geneva Conventions ), American observers who had previously been suspected of the justice of the were convinced of their own cause, into doubt. The offensive therefore proved to be decisive in terms of public opinion in the USA. As a result of the reports of the sometimes panicked withdrawal of American units and the costly fighting and the shock of the attack on the US embassy, ​​more and more US citizens came to believe that the war could no longer be won and was therefore pointless.

literature

• Don Oberdorfer: Tet. The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2001 (first edition 1971), ISBN 0-8018-6703-7 (largely impartial standard work written from direct observation; in the 2nd edition 2001 with an updated foreword by the author).
• Andreas Margara : The American War. Remembrance culture in Vietnam. Regiospectra Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-940132-48-2 .

Web links

Commons : Tet Offensive  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• http://www.lebensgeschichten.org/vietkrieg/vietnamkrieg04.php

swell

1. ^ Clark Dougan, Stephen Weiss et al .: Nineteen Sixty-Eight . Ed .: Boston Publishing Company. Boston 1983, ISBN 0-939526-06-9 (English).
2. ↑ Hoang Ngoc Lung: The General Offensives of 1968-1969 . Ed .: General Research Corporation. McLean VA 1978 (English).
3. ^ Helmer Aslaksen: The Mathematics of the Chinese Calendar. Singapore 2010, p. 28-29 .
4. ↑ The execution was justified by the fact that the captured Viet Cong fighter had previously been involved in the murder of family members of the South Vietnamese police forces. Web link
5. ^ Don Oberdorfer: Tet. The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2001, pp. 243f.