Tet Offensive
Tet Offensive (1968).The attacks by Communist forces inside South Vietnam's major cities and towns that began around the Vietnamese New Year (“Tet”) of 1 February 1968 were the peak of an offensive that took place over a period of several months during the Vietnam War. Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam, believed the attacks to be a last “throw of the dice” by the losing side. The attacks that Americans dubbed the “Tet Offensive” were just part of what the Communists called a “General Offensive and Uprising,” designed to jolt the war into a new phase. The offensive ultimately achieved the Communists' aim, but at a price many of them thought excessive.
The offensive had long‐term conceptual origins in Vietnam's August Revolution of 1945, in which the Communist‐led Viet Minh had instigated popular uprisings in the cities to seize power from a puppet...
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