Hello, and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

So, by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to describe the key features of the Tet Offensive and explain its significance.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms. So our key terms for today are offensive, strategy, and hotspots.

An offensive is an attacking military campaign.

A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall goal.

And a hotspot is a place of significant activity, danger, or violence.

So, now that we understand our key terms, let's get started on the lesson proper.

So in today's lesson on the Tet Offensive, we're gonna be splitting the lesson into three different learning cycles.

And our first learning cycle is looking at the quote, "We will not be defeated." So, after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 7th of August, 1964, President Johnson abandoned the principle of a limited war in Vietnam that both Eisenhower and Kennedy had adopted.

And that means effectively that it's action short of a full on war.

So, by that, I mean Eisenhower in particular threw a lot of money at the South Vietnamese government, trying to support them.

Kennedy continued with the same policy, but also added in some about 16,000 or so military advisors to train them.

So, they're not at war, but they're on a war footing.

They're providing a lot of money, a lot of resources to a country which is at war.

In any case, Johnson tried that.

He felt it didn't work, so instead, he embraced the BEAST approach.

BEAST, in this case, is an acronym, and it refers to five elements of Johnson's campaign in Vietnam, which was bombing, escalation, air and artillery, search and destroy, and technology.

And let's go into a little bit of detail on that.

So the bombing campaign was code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, and American planes drop bombs on key North Vietnamese sites such as factories, military bases, known supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the capital city, Hanoi.

And the bombing was inaccurate though.

But due to the dense foliage of the jungle, making it hard to see targets, as well as the North Vietnamese tactics of dispersing industrial zones across the whole country, so that any damage caused by a bombing raid would be limited.

At the start of the war, North Vietnam was not a particularly well-industrialized country.

It wasn't particularly well-industrialized by the end of the war either, even though production had ramped up.

A lot of the support that North Vietnam received came from the Soviet Union and from China.

In any case, America dropped 3 million tonnes of bombs on Vietnam, which is more than all of the bombs dropped in Europe in World War II combined.

So, a really, really heavy bombing campaign.

Inaccurate bombings were a major cause of the estimated 2 million civilian deaths that were caused during the Vietnam War.

Coupled with the bombing campaign was the use of more ground troops.

Now used not as advisors to the South Vietnamese Army or ARVN, but they were there as regular soldiers.

So, there were 16,000 or so US troops in Vietnam prior to Johnson's escalation.

They weren't there to fight, they were there to train.

From this point on though, from the point of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, American troops are there to fight as well.

Now, the number of troops in Vietnam escalated from, as I said, 16,000, under Kennedy, to 548,000, under Johnson, by 1968.

So a massive increase in US ground troops in Vietnam.

Actually, US generals in Vietnam wanted more as well, but this policy proved very unpopular back home in the United States.

These troops were frequently paired with helicopter gunships to launch air and artillery missions.

So troops would be airlifted into known Vietcong hotspots and aim to draw them out of hiding.

And once the Vietcong had been incited, they'd obviously be attacked by the US ground troops, but also they'd be pounded by the planes, the helicopter gunships, and the heavy artillery as well.

So, once ground troops had a sighting on Vietcong troops, that's when all of the big guns would be brought into play.

This strategy, which was similar to that used by the French during the French Indochina War, rarely had results that the US generals wanted.

And the reason being is that the Vietcong dug really, really elaborate tunnel systems, which made it extremely difficult to score a decisive victory against them.

They would simply seem to disappear once they're out of sight.

As well as that, American soldiers became increasingly dissatisfied with being used as baits, which is understandable.

One of the most contentious policies introduced though, was search and destroy missions.

So, platoons of US troops have marched through a district, and they'd search villages for any signs of Vietcong.

And as the Vietcong were guerillas who did not wear a uniform, civilians were frequently killed, and then labelled as Vietcong.

Technology was the driving force of America's war in Vietnam.

Chemicals such as napalm and Agent Orange were dropped alongside bombs to destroy jungle, which was used as cover, and prevented them from growing back.

Helicopters sprayed troops from one hotspot to another.

And here, quite significantly, television cameras captured everything that the USA was doing so that people back home could watch the war unfold on their televisions.

It's estimated that more than 3 million people were impacted by the use of chemical weapons in Vietnam, and roughly half a million were killed or seriously injured.

Two million suffered from illnesses caused by exposure, and roughly 500,000 babies had been born with birth defects due to the effects of Agent Orange in particular.

These sort of injuries, this sort of devastation the US was causing in Vietnam, wasn't going unnoticed.

It was being seen back home, and public opinion was turning against the US because of what people were seeing their troops doing.

So, a quick knowledge check now then.

So, which two are correct aspects of parts of the BEAST strategy acronym? Is it, A, bombing and escalation? B, bases and evacuation? C, ammunition and firepower and seize and demolish? Or was it, D, air and artillery, search and destroy? So choose two of those now.

All right, if you chose A and D, then congratulations, those are the correct answers.

Another knowledge check for you here now as well.

What did US generals want, but were prevented from getting, partly due to the negative reactions in the US? Was it war with other communist countries? Was it over half a million more ground troops? Or was it an invasion of North Vietnam? So, choose one of those now.

All right, if you chose B, then congratulations.

US generals wanted more troops.

Some of them wanted over half a million more.

They're not gonna be getting that.

Right, let's go for our first task for today then.

So, I would like you to consider the pros and cons of each element of BEAST from a US perspective.

From the point of view of the United States, what is good about their five-point plan for the war in Vietnam, and what is perhaps not so good about their plans for war in Vietnam? So, I've started the table for you.

What I'd like you to do is copy down what I've got, and then just complete it there.

So, I'd like you now to pause the video, have a go at finishing off this table, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

So, hopefully your table looks similar to what I'm about to show you now.

So in terms of bombing, one of the pros of bombing was that it prevents the NVA, the North Vietnamese Army, from generating ammunition.

So if their factories are being destroyed, then they cannot replenish their supplier's ammunition.

The cons though is that it was excessive.

There's huge amounts of bombing taking place in North Vietnam, and the perception there is that America are kind of bullying North Vietnam really.

It makes 'em look bad.

In terms of escalation, one of the pros that you could have said was that there are more troops to fight the North Vietnamese Army.

So, by starting off with 16,000, and then moving yourself up to 548,000, that is a huge increase in the number of troops that you've got at your disposal, which hopefully increases the chance of success.

One of the cons of that though is that it's unpopular with the US public.

It is those young men that are being shipped off to fight in Vietnam.

They don't necessarily want to, but as well as that their families are also very unhappy with their sons, their brothers, their fathers, and so on, all being shipped off to fight in Vietnam.

In terms of air and artillery, one of the pros of that is a rapid response.

Once you've got the coordinates of the Vietcong or the NVA, then you can launch an attack very, very quickly.

One of the downsides though, is that in order to find the coordinates, you need to use baits.

And the US soldiers who were used as bait weren't happy to do so.

In terms of search and destroy, one of the pros we could have thought about is that it gives you access to remote hotspots.

And Vietnam, if you remember, is a country just full of mountains, jungles, swamps, rivers.

It is difficult to travel from one direction to another and get very far through that sort of terrain.

So, being able to actually use helicopters to get from one place to another is really, really handy.

However, on the downside though, these civilian targets, obviously it looks bad.

It's horrendous for the people of South Vietnam who are targeted as well.

So there's a lot of downsides to these search and destroy missions.

In terms of technology as well, can have a lot to say here.

One of the pros is that it removes the foliage so troops cannot hide.

As I said, the jungle makes it incredibly hard to move, but it also makes it incredibly hard to see the enemy.

If the jungle's not there, then everything becomes just little bit easier.

On the downside though, you are killing huge amounts of flora and fauna and people, as well.

And again, it just makes the Americans look bad.

In the eyes of the rest of the world, in the courtroom of public opinion, the war isn't necessarily going particularly well for the Americans.

They've got the technological advantage, but the way in which they're using it is making them look like big bullies.

Okay, let's move on then to our second learning cycle for today, which is what happened during the Tet Offensive? So, thanks to BEAST, Americans in Vietnam and back home were sure that victory was just around the corner.

They were told this time and again by Johnson and his members of his administration.

They were told this by generals in Vietnam as well, who were reporting back on the state of war.

The people of America firmly believed the war was coming to an end very, very soon.

There's no way America could lose.

It was impossible for Americans to believe what they called a third world country, which was largely populated by peasants, had any chance at all against the world's largest and most modern military machine.

So it came a huge shock that on the night of the 30th of January, 1968, the Vietcong, supported by the North Vietnamese Army, the NVA, launched a surprise attack involving 84,000 fighters, which they launched upon 100 towns and cities, and numerous army bases, all the way across South Vietnam.

There was no one single target, everywhere effectively was attacked all at once, which is obviously a massive shock in and of itself, but is even more shocking with the fact that this is supposedly from a country which is knocking on the doors of defeats.

They are about to be defeated, how can they possibly have this amount of manpower? How can they possibly organise an event of this scale? 30th of January, 1968, was the day of Tet Nguyen Dan, which is the Lunar New Year.

It's an important national holiday, that in previous years have brought ceasefires from both sides so that celebrations could occur.

North Vietnam used this as cover so that the Vietcong launched what they hoped would be a knockout blow on the demoralised ARVN, and caused popular uprising against the corrupt South Vietnamese government, thus ended the war.

And the plan had been about a year in the making.

It was incredibly clever.

I mean, it was very disingenuous.

South Vietnam and the US firmly believed that North Vietnam would agreed to a ceasefire so there'll be an end to hostilities for a short amount of time.

But instead, the Vietcong used the fact that many people returned to their home village during Tets to be able to move their troops around, effectively, unseen.

As well as that, a lot of the members of the ARVN were also on leave as well.

So, the South Vietnamese army was depleted during this point in time.

So, in many ways, it was the perfect time to strike.

Any case, let's have a little go at a knowledge check, make sure we fully understand this.

So, why did the Tet Offensive come as such a surprise to the United States and South Vietnam? I need you to pick the correct answer.

Is it because of A, fellow communist troops from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia joined in the attack.

Is it because of B, the Vietcong and NVA only attacked in areas that hadn't previously been hotspots? Or was it 'cause of C, the US believed the war was almost won and the enemy had nothing left? So choose one of those options now.

Okay, if you chose C, then congratulations, that is indeed correct.

What I'd like to do now is another activity.

So I want to consider the Tet Offensive from a North Vietnamese perspective.

So, from the perspective of North Vietnam, what do you think would've been the best and worst case scenarios? So during their planning of Tet, what do you think they're hoping to achieve in their wildest dreams? What could be the best possible outcome? But likewise, in their worst nightmares, what could be the worst case scenario? So, effectively, what we should do is I want you to think about best and worst case, and then I want you to make a decision about do you think that Tet Offensive was worth the risk? So write down what you think the best case scenario is, write down what the worst case scenario is, and then based upon those two, do you think it was worth the risk? And make sure you explain your answer.

So, have a go at that task now, pause the video, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

I've got on the screen here in front of you an answer that I came up with.

Hopefully yours look something similar to mine.

But the most important thing is that you've explained your answer.

So, let me talk you through my answer now.

From a North Vietnamese perspective, the best case scenario for the Tet Offensive is the collapse of ARVN, popular uprisings against the government spreading across South Vietnam, and all the Americans going home.

That would be ideal, wouldn't it? The worst case scenario is all of Vietcong and NVA soldiers being killed and North Vietnam subsequently being invaded, which would have been terrible.

Obviously, this is from a North Vietnamese perspective.

I think that the Tet Offensive was worth the risk, as America's BEAST strategy was causing a lot of damage, and the longer North Vietnam waited, the more damage this strategy would cause.

So, from the perspective of this answer, Tet was absolutely worth trying out, because the longer they waited, the less likely the success would've been.

Right, let's move on now then to our final learning cycle for today, which is the consequences of the Tet Offensive.

So roughly 1,000 US troops lost their lives during Tet, and of course were those occurred on the very first day.

So the surprise aspect of the Tet Offensive was really quite effective in that respect.

Within days, however, most of the gains made by the Vietcong during the Tet Offensive had been lost to US and ARVN counterattacks.

And within a few weeks, all gains had been lost.

It was only really the ancient capital of Hue that had managed to hold on, The NVA and Vietcong managed to hold onto for some amount of time.

And the Battle of Hue was really quite brutal.

The ancient city, which was very beautiful, was almost totally demolished.

It received a lot of damage during this battle, which of course was a great shame in that respect.

But we're also not thinking about the number of civilians who were killed in Hue at that point in time, which was quite a lot as well.

So there's a lot of damage in every respect.

In any case, by the end of the Tet Offensive, 50,000 Vietcong fighters were dead.

And as a result of this, the Vietcong were unable to launch any more major strikes for the rest of the war.

The Tet Offensive effectively knocked the Vietcong out of the war from this point on.

And therefore, on the surface, the Tet Offensive was a total failure for the communists.

However, the gains they made stretched far beyond the cities and bases they attacked.

The boldness and the scale of the attack left America stunned.

The US military had repeatedly told the American public that victory was very close in Vietnam.

And this of course was backed up by the Johnson administration saying the exact same thing, "victory is just around the corner, just gotta hold on that little bit longer, we're about to win in Vietnam." And then, suddenly, Tet happens.

And as a result of this, public opinion in America turned sharply against the war as people came to the sudden realisation that this was a war that could not be won on the battlefield against an enemy that just simply wouldn't give up.

Johnson decided at this point not to send any more troops to Vietnam and to end Operation Rolling Thunder in the hope that North Vietnam could be negotiated with.

General Westmoreland, who is the man in charge of the US military in Vietnam at this point in time actually wanted a significant increase in the number of US troops.

And Johnson entertained the idea for a short amount of time, until he realised that public opinion was just totally dead set against him.

There's no way that he could sanction any more American lives being lost in Vietnam.

As well as that though, Johnson made the shock decision not to stand for reelection as well.

He'd only actually served one full term.

Although he'd been president for more than four years, his first unofficial term was the backend of Kennedy's administration.

So he'd only even been president for a one term.

He was eligible to stand for four more years and he made the decision not to do that, because of the public backlash from the Tet Offensive.

So it cost the communist 50,000 lives, but the Tet Offensive had succeeded in rocking the US public's belief that they could win this war.

So, in some ways, you could argue the Tet Offensive was a victory.

Any case, let's go for a quick knowledge check now then.

So, how many Vietcong fighters were killed during the Tet Offensive? Was it 50,000, 60,000, or 70,000? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose 50,000, then congratulations.

That is indeed correct.

Right.

let's go for our final task for today.

So, to what extent can the Tet Offensive be considered a victory for Vietnamese communists? And I want to explain your answer here.

So, a good answer here, will look at both sides of the question.

So, in what ways can it be considered a failure, and what ways can it be considered as a success? But then, overall, what is your opinion? Is it mostly a failure? Is it mostly a success? There's no right or wrong answer here.

What I'm mostly looking for is for you to have an opinion and for you to be able to fully explain that opinion, and backing it up with evidence as well.

So have a go at this task now, pause the video, and I'll see you once you've done.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you got on fine with that task.

So I've got an answer up on the screen here in front of us.

Let's have a little look and see what it's like.

So, in some ways, the Tet Offensive was a dramatic failure for Vietnamese communists.

No major objectives were achieved and roughly 50,000 fighters died, meaning that the Vietcong were unable to continue attacking South Vietnam for the remainder of the war.

However, the shock value of the Tet Offensive convinced many in the USA that they could not win the war and led to Johnson refusing to stand for a second term as president.

The Tet Offensive was an enormous sacrifice, which achieved little in the short term, but can be considered a long-term victory for North Vietnam and their allies.

So, hopefully your answer is somewhat similar to mine.

Regardless, as long as you've explained your opinion, that's the key thing here.

So, to summarise the lesson then.

So, the USA escalated the war in Vietnam by greatly increasing the number of US troops in Vietnam and intensifying bombing.

Americans believed that victory was sure to come soon.

The Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army launched a huge surprise attack across South Vietnam during the Tet national holiday.

The Tet Offensive failed to make any gains and resulted in significant losses for the communists.

However, it shocked the US public and made some doubt whether they could win the war.

Thank you very much for joining me.

I hope you've enjoyed yourself.

I hope you've learned a lot.

And I hope to see you again next time.

Bye-bye.