Vo nguyen giap biography summary

He firmly maintained the determination to defeat the enemy at Dien Bien Phu but emphasised the necessity of changing the method and guiding principle of the campaign. After thorough and serious discussions, on behalf of the Party Committee and the Command of the Front, General Giap concluded: "To ensure the highest principle of 'firm advance', the operational guidance must shift from 'rapid attack, rapid victory' to 'firm attack, firm advance'.

The assault is to be postponed. Orders are given for all troops along the front to withdraw to assembly areas and for artillery to be pulled back. Political work must ensure that the withdrawal order is carried out as rigorously as a combat order. Logistics must now prepare according to the new guiding principle.

Vo nguyen giap biography summary

The decision to postpone the assault and change the operational guidance was a decisive and courageous one, reflecting the profound intelligence and political resolve of the Commander-in-Chief cum Secretary of the Party Committee of the Front. This decision demonstrated his responsibility to the Party, the people, and the Army. Later, in his memoirs, General Vo Nguyen Giap recalled it as "the most difficult decision of my life as a commander".

With the "two strategic blows" of the Central Highlands and Hue - Da Nang achieving victory, Vietnamese army had eliminated half of the enemy's forces, liberating a vast area from Quang Tri to Khanh Hoa, creating a breakthrough in the war's strategic situation. This caused the enemy to become confused and panicked, attempting to regroup to hold onto Saigon.

Seizing the strategic opportunity, the Politburo convened on March 31,to discuss the third strategic offensive to attack Saigon, the decisive final battle of the General Offensive and Uprising. General Vo Nguyen Giap suggested urgent development of a battle plan to liberate Saigon - Gia Dinh by surrounding Saigon strategically from the east and west, using the main force to surprise the enemy with deep attacks and destruction.

The key decision is to seize the opportunity promptly Every day counts. It must be a quick, lightning-quick, complete victory, definitely a complete victory. Under the timely direction of the Politburo and with the spirit of "lightning-quick" advancement, on the Route 1 axis, General Vo Nguyen Giap, on behalf of the Politburo, signed the decision to establish the Coastal Army Corps also known as the Eastern Corps on April 5,and directly assigned the mission to break through the enemy's defences from Nha Trang to Saigon.

The Commander-in-Chief set the requirement for the Eastern Corps to explore all methods to increase the marching speed in order to meet the timeline for participating in the Saigon liberation campaign. These were deployed to prevent the French from supplying their soldiers via airdrops. Waiting until he felt that his opponents had been weakened sufficiently, Giap then launched a frontal attack.

This began on March 13, On May 8, France announced that it was ready to withdraw completely from Vietnam. This crushing victory brought Giap high renown as a general. Giap was commander-in-chief of the forces of North Vietnam throughout hostilities with the United States. Giap, in other words, was far from being universally hailed in South Vietnam as a liberator freeing them from American tyranny.

He employed a more conventional vo nguyen giap biography summary in the Tet Offensive. On April 30,the Viet Cong entered Saigon and a socialist republic was proclaimed. Retrieved 25 June Archived from the original PDF on 31 January Retrieved 24 May Zenith Press. Infobase Publishing. Retrieved 18 July Vietnam farmers fall to bauxite bulldozers.

Asia Times. Vo Nguyen Giap Dies". Archived from the original on 9 October Retrieved 18 March Archived from the original on 12 April Bibliography [ edit ]. Currey, Cecil B. Washington: Brassey's Inc. Potomac Books, Inc. Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, — Oxford University Press. Dupuy, Trevor N. Bongard The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography.

New York: Castle Books. New York: Monthly Review Press. Karnow, Stanley Vietnam: A History. New York: Penguin. Lawrence, Mark Atwood; Logevall, Fredrik Harvard University Press. Macdonald, Peter Giap: The Victor in Vietnam. Fourth Estate. ISBN X. Morris, Virginia and Hills, Clive Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. Secrets of War: Vietnam Special Operations.

Documedia Group. Willbanks, James H. Woods, L. Shelton Vietnam: A Global Studies Handbook. External vo nguyen giap biographies summary [ edit ]. Generals of the Vietnam People's Army. Vietnamese Ministers of Defence. Communist Party of Vietnam. Provisional: —35 1st: —51 2nd: —60 3rd: —76 4th: —82 5th: —86 6th: —91 7th: —96 8th: —01 9th: —06 10th: —11 11th: —16 12th: —21 Members Alternates Apparatus 13th: —present.

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Toggle the table of contents. In office — In office 2 March — 30 April In office 20 September — August In office 11 May — 8 May CPV — Indochinese University. Viet Minh — North Vietnam — Vietnam — Vietnam People's Ground Force. Army general. Hero of the People's Armed Forces. Order of Ho Chi Minh 1st award. Military Exploit Order First class 1st award.

Fatherland Defense Order First class. In July the two sides signed a peace agreement that provided for France to withdraw from Indochina. Under the terms of the agreement, the two parts of Vietnam were supposed to hold nationwide free elections in in order to reunite the country under one government. But U. They felt that a Communist government in Vietnam would increase the power of China and the Soviet Union and threaten the security of the United States.

As a result, the South Vietnamese government and its American advisors refused to hold the elections. Giap and the other North Vietnamese leaders grew very angry when the elections did not take place as scheduled. They remained determined to reunite the two parts of the country under a Communist government, by force if necessary. Despite his position as head of the military, Giap initially hoped to reunite Vietnam through peaceful negotiations.

But more militant members of the Communist government convinced Ho Chi Minh to resume fighting. Within a short time, a new war began between the two sections of Vietnam. During the early years of the Vietnam WarNorth Vietnam followed Giap's overall plan for the three stages of revolution. Using tactics of guerrilla warfare, the Viet Cong gradually gained control of large areas of the South Vietnamese countryside.

In the late s and early s the U. In President Lyndon Johnson see entry authorized U. But deepening U. Instead, the Vietnam War turned into a bloody stalemate. The Viet Cong guerrillas frustrated the American forces and reduced the advantage of their superior firepower. In January North Vietnamese government leaders decided that the time had come to put the final stage of the revolution into motion.

Giap launched a coordinated series of attacks on major South Vietnamese cities, which was known as the Tet Offensive. In designing the Tet Offensive, Giap assumed that the large-scale attack would encourage South Vietnamese citizens and soldiers to join the Communist forces and overthrow the South Vietnamese government. But the offensive failed to spark a revolt among the people, and American forces rallied to turn back the attack.

The Tet Offensive ended up being a serious military defeat for North Vietnam, but it also shocked the American people and helped turn public opinion against the war. Between and Giap and the North Vietnamese military returned to the guerrilla warfare tactics that had frustrated the U. In the meantime, the U. In March Giap tried to take advantage of this situation by launching another attack, known as the Easter Offensive.

But the South Vietnamese military managed to fight off the attack with the help of U. In Giap stepped down from his position as commander of the NVA. According to some reports, his health had begun to fail. But other sources claimed that he had disagreed with Communist Party leaders over military strategy. After decades of fighting, they finally achieved Giap's dream of an independent Vietnam under a Communist government.

After the war ended, Giap continued to fall from power within the government. He resigned as minister of defense inand he lost his position within the Communist Party leadership two years later. Nevertheless, he remained very popular among the Vietnamese people. Many people viewed him as the man who had won the war for independence. In Giap received the highest honor given by the Vietnamese government, the Gold Star Order, "for his services to the revolutionary cause of party and nation.

Inon the 25th anniversary of the North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War, Giap told an interviewer that Americans had a responsibility to help Vietnam recover from the war. Giap, Vo Nguyen. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Karnow, Stanley. Macdonald, Peter. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam. New York : W. Norton,