I was with my Royal Marine friend in a pub in Portsmouth. There were a lot of sailor and marines there as usual, and a lot of Americans from the USS Forestall (sp) which was paying a visit at the time. Anyway, this drunk American sailor suddenly got up and pretty much bellowed. "Hey, why weren't you guys in Vietnam?!" There was instant silence, then my friend said, "Well, the VC seemed to be doing well enough without our help." That was the only pub brawl I ever witnessed.
@@manzilla48 You could, of course, just look it up. I think it was 1975/76. I do remember seeing this bloody great thing parked in the Solent because it couldn't get into the harbour. Totally blotted out the IoW. The pub, btw was the 'Oliver Twist.'
manzilla48 of course the self awareness level low af when you forget saying “no it didn’t” don’t mean it didn’t happen 🤣like what’s the negativity for let’s go outside and relax or something like it’s concerning 😭
@n a I’ve got a 9 year old daughter but yeh, I’ll try and not be too offended by your mean, mean comments. Also Al Murray is a comedian you flannel. He’s a satirical character. And I’m the one who’s going to die sexless and alone?
Their 'Hearts & Minds' tactic really did the job. Thanks to the commitment & bravery to those british, anzac, & rhodesian soldiers who serve during the emergency. Even today our older generations still spoke highly of them because of how they help keep off the communist from raiding & terrorizing their villages. Without them, my country would surely turn red or being invaded by our larger neigbour below us. Wont say the country's name cuz those guys are too nationalistic & sensitive about the 'topic'. Cheers
Fun Fact: LBJ wrote a letter to General Franco in the sixties asking for spanish troops to vietnam. Franco sent a Reply warning about the risks of guerilla Warfare based on his experience in northern Africa in the early 20th century. He even got the balls to say that a conventional war would be a costly one for the US with no real results whatsoever. In the end, he sent some volunteer doctors but they never saw combat.
"He even got the balls to say that a conventional war would be a costly one for the US with no real results whatsoever"... I mean, it's not like he was wrong
@@michiru2hell it´s not just the balls, is being on the battlefield instead of an office. Same example with the Cuba war back in 1898, every high rank officer was aware that the US navy was superior than ours, but the politicans in madrid ordered to fight outside of the harbour in Santiago de Cuba. Result: fleet lost
The fact that it was Franco (who came to power with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy)that being asked by LBJ to support USA intervention in Vietnam was pretty ironic to say the least
@@yourroyalchungusness Well after 1953 USA and UK change the approach with Franco. Basically, Franco allowed the B-52 to stay here in exchange for being seen as an ally. We even enter UN after that deal. Ironic, but its the cold war, defeating communism was more important that how you came to power
To be fair though, communist forces in Malaya are ill equipped, low on logistics ( most of them used captured Japanese weapons and ammunitions). But, damn, they do put up a hell of a fight.
@almightyinferno pretty sure Viet Cong have good logistic, after all Vietnam are neighbour to China and having support from Soviets. Meanwhile, MNLA are equipped with captured Japanese weapon and ammunition, surrounded by the British and Malayan government who actively and aggressively fighting them via winning hearts and mind of the locals.
USA: "Britain, get over here and help us!" UK: "OK, here's some advisors who are experienced in counter-insurgency tactics and jungle warfare, from both WW2 and the Malayan Emergency. Do what they say and the war will be over in no time" USA: "Don't try to boss us around, we know exactly what we're doing! Just give us some of your troops to command and we probably won't accidentally drop Agent Orange on them" UK: "Erm... no."
Just before the Malayan Emergency the British *were* in French Indochina (along with the recently defeated Japanese and were working well together) and they pretty well squashed the communist insurgency. The Brits then told the French they had had enough helping keep the French Empire intact and actually had something else to do in Malaya... At which point the French stuffed the whole show and the Americans did no better... The emergency in Malaya in contrast turned out rather well and is considered a master class in how to deal with that sort of insurgency.
@@ianc8054 So, arrogant Americans think they know better (based on zero/unrelated experience), ignores examples of how to do it correctly, and then tries to blame everyone else for their plans failing... yep, checks out (based on my experience of working with Americans).
Yeah this is so wrong on so many levels. The US did in fact copied everything the british did in malaya. From the agent orange, the concentration camps, the scalp and ear trophy hunting to even search and destroy tactics. All of it failed. Hell the failure of british tactics was the thing that prompted the US direct invasion in the first place. The malayan emergency was fighting against a ragtag guerrila army with no outside support. Vietnam was fighting a well trained, organized and well supplied army using all the soviets and chinese can offer.
No. Malaya was NOTHING like Vietnam. Having the Brits in Vietnam wouldn't have changed anything. As long as the NVM can pour entire generations of trolls into SVN, the war was never going to end.
1:38 US : "We don't need your help Nerd." UK, with *hundred of years experience colonising jungles of India, Africa and Malaysia* : "Am I a joke to you?"
@Ka Chun Chu 'The British brought in soldiers from units such as the Royal Marines and King's African Rifles. Another effort was a re-formation of the Special Air Service in 1950 as a specialised reconnaissance, raiding, and counter-insurgency unit. The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, had served in the Chindits in Burma during World War II. His vast experience in jungle warfare proved valuable during this period as he was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya'
@Ka Chun Chu i think you miss my point. I was not referencing the geopolitical issues surrounding the 'crisis' but the wealth of expertise the British had regarding counter insurgency and jungle warfare.
I love the "totally to scale" comparison between the tiny continental United States and the humongous British Isles. It's those little touches that make your videos great.
Britain: ‘So you asked us to decolonise, and you played an important part of why we had to retreat from Suez, now you want us to help occupy another sovereign nation on the other side of the globe?’
I was a Royal Marine based in Singapore at the time. We would have been the first British troops involved. Thank goodness we weren't involved in this pointless war.
All wars are pointless. I'm a career soldier (retired now) and fought in Vietnam. Australia went there under the terms of SEATO (and to support America at their request): regardless of the whys and wherefors when an ally asks for help what do you do? We were right to go there and fight to stop Communist (repeat Communist) aggression. However if the politicians had done their job better at the end of WWII - and the British were in Vietnam after that war, and if the French had done better in Indo China (and handled the Vietnamese with more care and respect) there would not have been another war. One should ask that if the South Vietnamese were at the time wanting to be Communists why did so many of them leave, even after their defeat? There were 1.6 million refugees who were resettled in other countries. When one reads of the Communist treatment of the North Vietnamese people prior to and even during the war one can see a different side to the story. But I guess one had to be there to understand the full picture. We could have done with British assistance (well I think the Americans could have - Aussies operated like the British did although we were too few in number) but we who wear the uniform don't make those kind of decisions, do we. I think if the Americans employed British tactics and conducted more of a guerilla style of warfare the war may have ended differntly. Guerilla warfare was used successfully by our opponents but only the Australians and new Zealanders for the most part seemed to understand that we were conducting more comnventional warfare and doing so with one arm tied behind our back. The way things were we were never going to win that war and a lot of people died unnescessarily. What a waste. Now everyone are friends. Stupid. More talk and less shooting is what's required ... but it takes two to tango.
Well the US let the UK down with the Suez Canal and the UK had just been fighting the communists in Malaysia and beat them. The UK public was tired of war and rightly wanted no part in it.
Yeah but had the UK sent a token force, the UK would've received a lot of American financial assistance. And then the UK wouldn't have had to go acting like beggars to get into the EEC for the next decade. Hell, that might've improved the UK economy enough to have increased intra-trade within the EFTA and actually made it a successful counter-weight to the EEC/EC/EU and actually gained upper footing during the eventual negotiations for creating the EEA trade zone [like the remaining EFTA members not having to pay for "access" to the Common Market like Switzerland does to this day].
Also beat them using former Japanese prisoners of war at the end of world war 2 aswell. Then the US got its feathers ruffled and asked us to step down, handing it back over to the French as it was their colony. Etc
@@TheJeremyHolloway yes. But what happens when you force war on your citizens too much. They get angry and threaten to revolt. UK had its own issues, so going to war wasn’t a good idea. As the public would’ve turned on their government and possibly the Crown aswell.
The UK did support South Vietnam and sent advisors to train South Vietnamese Generals. But if the UK did get involved it’s unlikely the war would have been any different.
Oh 200% correct. As if the way the Americans conducted lend-lease, not allowing us to buy anything on credit until we'd completely emptied the coffers of gold reserve to the ships for bases deal in which they sent us absolute tat, the only one being of any use being a ship-bomb that we then drove into a drydock.....they rinsed us at every single turn which then continued afterwards. Many will say it's because the US wanted to reduce the chances of another war that it would get dragged into but one only has to look at their foreign policy since to see that this argument in particular has the rigidity of a paper McDonalds straw! No, they wanted to secure as much power and influence for themselves at our expense but the last 60 years of history has seen them lose/ stalemate in ALMOST every single conflict they've been involved in, despite the numbers in men, machines and money that they've allocated to the task. Now they sit about and complain about the fact that they've got so much to police, despite the fact that it's exactly what they bargained for when they made the political moves that they did. Talk about making a bed.
Andrew Driver it refers to the ambushes mainly done by Vietnamese bois in the jungles. The scary part is that its like the trees are like actually talking in Vietnamese
1:38 Should properly point out the context that these advisers were sent in. The UK had just finished fighting the Malayan Emergency, what people call Britain's Vietnam, except the British actually won. The British tried to tell the Americans that fighting and bombing the Viet Cong like a conventional enemy wouldn't work and offered to teach their own hard won and well tested strategies and tactics to American commanders and solders, but were promptly rebuffed, because 'murica I guess.
I mean the Vietnamese suffered 1 million casualties while the US took 50k dead. So 'murica, also North Vietnam technically sign the Paris Peace Accords which "ended" the war with the status quo and allowed the US to get out. So on a technicality the US didn't lose
@@a-drewg1716 Yeah, just like America 'won' the war of 1812 which literally no one outside the US acknowledges. Funny how every American defeat is magically transformed into a victory/draw by the most inane logic.
@@Wanderer628 The war of 1812 just remained the status quo again, no one won. The US though did get the British to... well stop impeding trade by seizing American vessels but otherwise no territory changed hands nor did the US really lose anything. It anything it was just simply a white peace/not a loss but not a victory. The Vietnam War also ended technically with the status quo with the Paris Peace accords. The US then by a technically achieved their mission of keeping the South Alive by ending the War. It wasn't until later when the North re-invaded, the USA removed basically all aid (both militarily and financially) did the South fall. I mean it wasn't our best hour as it was a war that dragged on too long and was a major loss on the home front (the riots and draft dodgers, etc) and really the US mainly won only if you consider military achievement and stats (the US won every conventional battle and inflicted major casualty rates while sustaining rather... mild casualties) but again the home front was terrible, the people lost the will to continue the fight and the soldiers moral was terrible. Really though Vietnam wasn't a US war, the US never actually declared war and just simply intervened and is just really a complex thing to consider either a flat out lost or a victory.
@@a-drewg1716 the US lost that war sooo hard, it was never a conventional war & the Paris pa was an absolute coo for the NV, their leader was smiling so hard during that conference.
Didnt britain fight alongside the japanese in vietnam for a few years? I think that really would have been an interesting thing to mention why it was harder to thread the needle.
Britain started fighting in Vietnam because the French were losing it just after world war two. They didn't have anywhere near enough troops so they set French prisoners of war free to help them. Enemy man power was uprated again and so the British decided to set the Japanese POWs free to fight along side them. Eventually, more troops were sent to Vietnam and the allies started to take control of the country. Then it was handed back to the French, who lost it completely.
Yeah 1946 Britain near enough stopped the Vietnam war before it even started by America was like “NoOoOooO tHiS iS oUr oCcUpaTIon aReA” cost them the lives of almost 50,000 Brave Americans
@@woodchip543 Agreed, and the US had supplied the Vietnamese Communists with weapons to fight the Japanese. So the Uk fought the communists and won and the US had not helped because of their hatred of any empire not controlled by them. But as you said as soon as theUk handed control back to the French it was all over in months.
Ronald de Rooij you guys wouldn’t have been able to hold onto Indonesia for long anyways. Today Indonesia is a significantly more powerful country than the Netherlands, its independence was inevitable.
I remember that my Father, and his Avro Shackleton crew regularly patrolled the South Vietnam coast searching for Russian submarines during the Vietnam War. I even got on a flight out of RAF Changi, when an Air Cadet. Exciting, my first war zone.
Rory Stewart (UK Tory politician) : I can heartily recommend it, I had some at a wedding Michael Gove: might I suggest coke and I don't mean the drink wink wink Lol
Vietnamese Americans: "we hate Britain because they backstabbed America and South Vietnam not joining the war". Today yellow flag lovers in America still blame Britain.
Who cares even if you did Oh wait you actually were there both before and during the American presence If you watched the video you’d know that “Britain sent advisors to help train Americans in anti guerrilla warfare”
I thought about it but i just never asked. I know from my parents and grandparents that the 60s and 70s in Britain was basically complete shit, industry was dying, the Empire was dying and there was no money but it wasn't all bad, people tell me the 70s was the freest Britain has ever been (probably because no one had any money and nobody gave a shit what you were doing)
@@mrcaboosevg6089 The US failure to back the UK and the French in taking Suez from Soviet backed Egypt came back to bite the US in the ass. Your response is typical of US mentality, you don't know the reasons why so you just make them up. Read a history book.
@martin corderoy London was run by gangsters in the 60s and much of the 70s. Also in the 70's there was raging racism, sexism and homophobia. Is this the freedom you speak of?
God your channel is simply amazing. All of your videos all answer such semi-obscure questions that are never brought up in documentaries and would require extensive research (as you obviously do) for one to answer on their own. So, thank you!
We didn't ask for help from the Yanks during the Suez crisis - we had already booted the Egyptians out of the canal zone and destroyed their airforce on the ground. Eisenhower interfered and completely shafted us! Threatened us with economic sanctions if we didn't withdraw. Complete twat.
Didn’t need their help the war was all but won until they stuck their nose in with us and the french telling us we had to give it all back. Bad for us terrible for the french! That was their first military success since 1066
You didn’t and conspired to invade a neutral nation unprovoked (that’s a war crime) The Americans were supporting the ones who were attacked unprovoked, so if we copy paste Vietnam to Suez the Americans would’ve sided with Egypt and sent an expedition to kill you Learn history you gnomes
@@looinrims Egypt was far from a neutral country and the events that triggered the retaking of the Suez are not unprovoked. You are also missing out the point that the Soviet Union who has militarily backing Egypt (amazing they needed military equipment being neutral) also threatened Nuclear escalation if things did not end. The US threw its toys out the pram because it was not fully informed, briefed and didnt get to take part in an easy victory which looked bad politically as they hadnt 'allowed' or taken part in it. Israel was also part of the war and also received threats from the US and Soviet union. With all due respect at that point in history the US could not send an 'expedition' to kill the British, French and Israelis as the US simply was not powerful enough to take on all 3 and have a chance of winning.
The British were also unhappy with the way the French (who had spent most of the war as a defeated nation) had blazed back into Vietnam heavy handedly after WW2 and had advised them to go lightly if they must but were ignored. The war that followed French reoccupation and the American continuation/escalation of that were seen as unfortunate and unnecessary by the British. The British recognised that it was a nationalist struggle far more than East vs West but were not vocal about that as it was during the Cold War and not wanting to undermine or even upset their US ally. The irony was not lost either of being asked to fight what looked very much like a war of empire by an ally which had vigourously encouraged Britain's dismantlement of its own empire, a project almost complete and mostly peacefully achieved (certainly peacefully and amicably compared to the French).
They haven't forgotten in Asia how the French plundered the countries they colonised, I was quite shocked about the contempt with which they are held in some parts. I'd been brainwashed into thinking the British were the villains of the piece, nothing could be further from the truth, they are actually well respected. I'm sure someone will disagree but I can only tell from my own experience of living out here.
@@shamteal8614 Britain despite the evils our empire committed did leave something good behind at times Infrastructure and a good foundation For Example India India army is based on the British one This is totally different than both the Spanish and French empires Notoriously when the French left India they had all the Infrastructure like railways they build ripped out
@@mk_gamíng0609 Well, I wouldn't be so sure of that. While India did get better with time and indeed incorporated many British political structures and laws, there were many other nations like Uganda that simply floundered. A major reason for the modest Indian 'success' was the development and formation of a distinct and able political class that understood democracy and was able to enforce the constitution. This development occured because of the greater demands for self rule that occurred mostly in the 1910s. Many other colonial nations never got the opportunity to develop this political class, and to this day many remain mired in instability caused by it. The French removing rail lines in their miniscule Indian colonies is something that I have never read about, can you please elaborate more?
The US not only supported France due to the "domino theory" but also because Washington thought if they aided France, France would enthusiastically support NATO. That turned out well. Ahem. [at least not until Sarkozy].
You said that they didn’t want to upset the USA… I disagree. It was the USSR who kept threatening to nuke the UK every two seconds, and the UK being a tiny island makes that threat very dangerous. The UK knew that the USA would never nuke the UK because the death of London would kill the US economy.
There were over 2000 British that were fighting there and the SAS were there as advisors and were ignored, the Australian SAS also tried advising on Jungle warfare but the US insisted on the Jolly Green Giant approach which of course failed.
Exactly, this iis the token force, which appeases the US perception, and is clandestinely, so it doesn't risk being dragged in To the war full-scale.Harold Wilson was a savvy guy, with humility. Probably the best Prime Minister the Brits had , In the 20th century.
From what I've read over the years, and from speaking to my father and his mates, it seems that the entire Vietnam experience was one of people constantly refusing to listen to what anyone else was saying. To me, that is the biggest tragedy of all, and while naive, I really hope it never happens again.
@@TheMikeTBiraq and afghanistan was justified. Saddam needed to be deposed. Afghanistan was a mess. The Taliban takeover did not improve the situation of the people there. They've regressed.
The British beat the Communist in Vietnam before handing back to the colonial power France who promptly stirred up the old hatred and got their arse kicked.
@@Clipgatherer No they were being realistic and realised the old ways of colonialism had come to an end, it was a different world after the Second World War (actually it was the Third World War, the last two being as a direct consequence of the First, the Napoleonic wars fought on a worldwide scale with all the same major players, the Brit's won that as well).
@@Clipgatherer Good point, but I expect the next and war to end all wars will be started either in the Mediterranean by Turkey who have expansionist ambitions or Asia where at least three countries China, India and Pakistan want to be top dog.
Sham Teal Good prophecy, COVID-19 is distracting everyone from Taiwan. Now the Chinese have sorted Hong Kong Taiwan is next. The Rhineland and Sudetenland of the 21st century.
Simon Ocean - the full story is that the US Ambassador was attempting to persuade the PM to commit troop to Vietnam. The McMillan said ‘I have one word for you: Suez’ and showed him the ‘Agincourt salute’. It may be apocryphal, but I’ve heard it a few times.
@@kylelaughinghouse1893 No, Canada did NOT fight in the Vietnam war. 12k Canadians did join the USA armed forces to fight but the government did not. Canada did send peace keeping troops but that was not the same as fighting the war. Although I'm sure most Canadians did not want communism to spread.
As someone who was born in the late 1960s this is a fascinating insight into Britain's reluctance to get involved in the war. I don't know what, if anything, they teach in schools nowadays about the Vietnam war, but we (kids who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s) were never given any insights like this about the Vietnam war by either the education system or the mainstream media. All that was commonly understood amongst the general British populace was that it turned into a big disaster for the USA.
It wasn't the UK's war. Well done Wilson for telling LBJ where he can put his request for additional help in their tricky little war in someone else's country
Vietnam has tea tho, I mean nice joke but I feel it's probalby not true. Vietnam is the sixth largest producer and fifth largest exporter of tea in the world.
As well as the many excellent responses from others, another reason the UK did not officially support the sending of UK troops to support the US etc., was that the UK had experienced its own ‘Vietnam War’ at the end of WW2, and had already learnt the hard way just who they would have been dealing with. As France was still recovering from the effects of WW2 and was unable to re-establish themselves into all of their farthest flung colonies, Britain offered (felt obligated or was asked) to administer those French colonies until France was able to take them over again. One such colony was French Indochina (Vietnam). The British discovered upon arrival that a) things were quite chaotic as there was a total breakdown in civil law and order (since the Japanese had ruled Vietnam with an iron fist); b) the Japanese - especially the soldiers - were all prisoners of war since the surrender of Tokyo. With so few Brits/ Commonwealth soldiers deployed to the country, and facing a massively complex situation and a relatively large country to govern/ police, the British administration was compelled to make use of those Japanese PoWs as a de facto police force. Naturally they were not only released but also re-armed. This did not go down well with the locals who had been fighting those same Japanese a few months earlier only to have them re-armed and effectively back in control. The locals were not that impressed with the Brits either. There was a bloody guerilla campaign against the British - and all the more so when it was also realized the Brits were then preparing the country to be re-possessed by France…as for the Brits, they couldn’t get out of there quick enough. As they were leaving, the Brits did their very best to advise the French to also leave as rapidly and as peacefully as possible - which (as we all know) was promptly and completely ignored. The UK was in no way in a hurry to return; they knew what would be awaiting them. In addition: the ‘domino theory’ that gripped the paranoid US imagination and was held as their rationale at the time - just did not hold any water with the UK. They were no way near as obsessed with the delusional ‘communist takeover of the world’ conspiracy theories (self-fulfilling prophecies) the Americans expounded. While MacMillan (Super Mac) and JFK did enjoy a sort of budding ‘special relationship’, given the age/ generation gap between the two leaders it was more of a patriarchal one rather than a shared economic/ philosophical/ world-view. It was also a time where even though the UK was on the long imperial wind-down, the UK was still a country with significant international influence and ability to act - for the most part - more or less independently in its own foreign policy. As such and given the US treatment of the UK in particular, over the Suez crisis and the lack of any US support during the Malayan Emergency, it was hardly that surprising in return, that the UK was loath to officially commit itself to what the UK perceived to be - rightly as it turned out - the US’s reckless Vietnam adventure.
When Britain was in Vietnam they actually preformed very well against the rebels and nearly put down the rebellions all together but as the French arrived the new French soldiers started to commit war crimes and had a much more aggressive stance with the locals which caused more people to join the rebels. The British saw this and refused to continue to help the French as it was seen as a lost cause so left
@@mikeyforester6221 Militarily no. Diplomatically yes. All of Britain's core allies (aside from France) including Canada, Australia and New Zealand wanted no part of Suez.
Because someone was essentially too weak to handle their uprising (France) so they convinced America to join the war under the pretext of fighting communism.
The British had Vietnam locked down after the Second World War, for the most part. When they turned it over to the French that’s when shit hit the fan, the French lost control and tada Vietnam war.
John Serton you’re both wrong. It’s because De Gaulle was staunchly Anti-British and no longer accepted the help from the British in French Indo-China, De Gaulle didn’t even allow British troops to attend the victory parade in Paris after the Second World War.
I always found it incredible that the British army fought by the side of their own Japanese prisoners to hold the country down for the French. That decision in a way set in motion the events leading to the later conflicts
Britain was pretty sick of fighting horrifically prolonged wars in the Jungle after WW2 and Malaysia, also we had the whole simmering "Irish Troubles" to contend with in the late 60's and 70's too
I think the British also kept out of Vietnam because of the suez crisis . America humiliated Britain and France,so the British left America on its own as pay back .
Britain deploying troops could have actually changed a hell of a lot, it had some of the best jungle fighters in the world and thanks to the some of the events in Milan it had recent experience fighting a war in jungle environments, This would have been a massive boost to the US as extra troops which was one of Americans main issue in Vietnam, not enough men to properly defend south Vietnam territorys, As such a British deployment would mean they could guard more areas to prevent the taking of villages straight after the US troops where needed somewhere else. America would have probably got support form Britain if they didn’t back stab Britain over the suez and that possible support may have just turned the tide in the US favour
@@maryjeanjones1940 Ummmm, are you at all aware of the history of this conflict? Here's a small copy from the Wikipedia entry on French Indochina to get you started. After the World War, France petitioned for the nullification of the 1938 Franco-Siamese Treaty and reasserted itself in the region, but came into conflict with the Viet Minh, a coalition of Communist and Vietnamese nationalists led by Hồ Chí Minh, founder of the Indochinese Communist Party. During World War II, the United States had supported the Viet Minh in resistance against the Japanese; the group had been in control of the countryside since the French gave way in March 1945. American President Roosevelt and General Stilwell privately made it adamantly clear that the French were not to reacquire French Indochina after the war was over. He told Secretary of State Cordell Hull the Indochinese were worse off under the French rule of nearly 100 years than they were at the beginning. Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek if he wanted Indochina, to which Chiang Kai-shek replied: "Under no circumstances!"[8]
Britain in 1946:Aight France take your colony back France:Thank you Britain Britain:No problem *Vietnamese War* America:Help me Britain I’m dying- Britain: *I a i n t d o i n g t h i s s h i t a g a i n*
truth be told the anericans told the british and French that they could do better than them and that the british and French soilders were weak and poor trained so the british and French just left and let the americans "do a better job" i think we know how that then went.
@@rjbubblehead990 America could have won the conflict easily but was held back by politics, they had tanks at the borders of hanoi but were told to not go in, --alll a chessgame, why fight in the jungle for hills????
Its funny because americans say they kick your ass in revolution but they needed so much help. They begged Britain join Vietnam war because they were losing
From U.K. Britain did fight a Vietnam war in 1945 to 1946. Called the First Vietnam war, it has largely been airbrushed out of history. In 1945 a British Empire force entered Saigon to take the Japanese surrender. Almost immediately they came under attack from the Viet Minh. The British General in command had a mixed force of British Commandos, Indian Infantry and Gurkhas. He added to this by rearming the Japanese and taking 1000 released French POWs. This strange set of allies were deployed using commando tactics. The Viet Minh used conventional methods. After eight months the war was over and peace restored. Britain handed back control to France. Instead of granting independence as expected the French tried to hold on, and so set up what was to follow. Then of course Britain had its own battles to fight during the American involvement in Vietnam. The Dhofar Rebellion, Malaysia, Aden, NI. maybe more. Never forget that Australia joined the war in support of the US.
I know my grandad who was in the airforce at the time said at one point it looked inevitable that they’d get involved but luckily didn’t. He was even responsible for processing many photos which would’ve been used as intelligence if the U.K. were going to get involved
Well Britain successfully fought off communism in Malaya, unlike the Americans and French in Vietnam. And following the US actions during the Suez crisis I'm not surprised Britain didn't feel like helping them!
British didn't want to help Americans as they were inept at combat since WWII.. Korean war stalemate, CIA failure in Permista supporting French in Indochina (Dulles vs Eden) & then Bay of Pigs. Why fight with losers since we Brits had won in Malaya, Kenya, Indonesia & Borneo!
Joseph King just like the USA sat on its hands for the first 3 years of the war, saying it was not our war. You only joined in when you had your asses handed to you at pearl harbour. Churchill asking the yanks for help-and got mugged off. So feck off immigrant.
the Vietnam war is evidence of the true strength of America: It's allies. With so few allies willing to help, America eventually lost the war in the public eye. If more allies had joined in, America would've probably been able to win. Also, not listening to those British advisors wasn't a good idea, since the British military has great experience in dealing with guerillas.
Wrythil Valice America full on threatened to destroy Britain’s economy over Britain trying to reclaim one of its most important overseas territories the Suez Canal, this was well and truly an event that scared US UK politics till the 90s and the US actions during the Suez crisis would lead to the ultimate fall of the British empire. So all in all it was a major event that Britain has never recovered from
@@wrath_of_thrawn2163 Because the British bought and built the canal in the first place. And bare in mind, this is the US. The holier-than-thou Empire, which instead of taking the land, creates vassal states through puppet regimes and control of countries economies. Being an empire is bad unless it's them doing it or when the can explain it away as giving "freedom" to a populace which doesn't want their supposed "freedom".
@@wrath_of_thrawn2163 Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Somoa, Virgin Islands. The Americans own many territories. And this wasn't something exactly owned as a territory. Just like you would buy shares of a company, Britain and France owned shares of the Canal. It was not a sovereign part of either country. Iraq did the same with American oil fields. There was a war. Funny how this "anti-imperialism" stops when it suits you. It would be the equivalent to Britain "nationalizing" companies with foreign invest, American banks, Chinese companies, Huawei for example. It's illegal. Funny how Israel should also have equal access to the canal. It doesn't.
@1:27 I see what you did there. Cheeky 😂 When he says; “The thing….” It’s an image of an isolated camp in a snowy place much like John Carpenters movie.
Simple fact is what comes around goes around. I would mention other times the USA has fucked over Britain, treaties and promises are important ,for example the whole handing all nuclear work over to the usa that Britain had started doing before ww2 and even helped develop the bomb in the promise that favour would be returned and jointly create one for Britain also (we all know how that went, took another 10 years from start to finish) Sorry but the list is long. Don't make agreements or promises if they can't be honoured
Kaywen Li Those bunch of farmers aren’t just people with sticks. They were highly organised, knew the area well were difficult to lodge from their positions
@@MrMattumbo Bursting your Bubble a bit here but you realise that American troops where never deployed into French Indochina, they demanded help and they got mainly Financial but not many troops of any and the French troops to be fair (again) where totally depleted, mainly consisting of the now defunct colonial garrison (Dead or defection) and German "Mercenaries" that may or may not have been in the Waffen SS or at the very least fought in WW2 that made up the FFL at the time. They also left entirely by the time America got into the war. Being on very bitter terms with the Southern Vietnamese State
@@mmouse1886 that still doesn't change the fact that France started the mess (because it was french indochina at the time trouble started) so sorry to burst your bubble burster
there might have also been a call back to what happened at the end of ww2, when commonwealth forces retook indochina from the japanese. they basically played housekeeper until the french were ready to take back the mandate; during which they had to deal with the grass roots of the growing revolutionary movement left over from japanese occupation. Supposedly they said in no uncertain terms to simply get out as fast as they could to the french when they came back to assume control of the region.
I’ve answered this a few times in this section, in short. Britain temporarily administrated the French colony ‘45-46. Communists rose, Japanese POWs were rearmed and unleashed onto them. Within months of ruthless campaigning the communists were beaten. Japanese troops were sent home, French arrived, Britain gladly withdrew. Communists rose again years later and won.
@@marzuqahmed218 The thing takes place in Antarctica at an American research base when an alien that can perfectly imitate and assimilate other life forms infiltrates their base and they grow very suspicious and paranoid of each other and they do not know who to trust. It is a really cool horror movie and focuses on the themes of uncertainty and fear.
There is something worth mentioning: a lot of Vietnamese Americans are very Anglophobe, they dislike Britain for not helping them during the Vietnam War leading to the collapse of South Vietnam. However, Britain already fought in Vietnam in 1945 and 1946, and was alarmed by rising support for Viet Minh despite the Vietnamese were poorly armed, and Douglas Gracey, alongside Philippe Leclerc, warned that a potential war in Vietnam would only end in disaster for intervening forces.
truth be told the anericans told the british and French that they could do better than them and that the british and French soilders were weak and poor trained so the british and French just left and let the anericans "do a better job" i think we know how that then went.
No it was a peace agreement in 1972 which stopped and were favorable to america. Yet in 1975 north vietnam violated the agreement and invaded south vietnam.
Apart from Malaya, the U.K. fought communism in other troubled parts of the world. One of the SAS’s finest hours was defeating a guerrilla force in Yemen 1967.
Britain had already beaten the communists there in 1945-46. They released Japanese POWs and rearmed them. They had already ruled this area for years knowing who to kill and where to strike. Within months they’d won, were sent home, Brits left and French troops returned. Communists tried again and won.
The British defeated a guerilla force in North Yemen in 1967. But the British were also decisively defeated in 1967 in South Yemen (Aden) and suffered a defeat there as humiliating as the US defeat in Vietnam.
There were small numbers of British troops in Vietnam, fighting alongside their American cousins. One chap I know was there as a sniper. He unfortunately passed away last year, having spent many years working at Jodrell Bank.
There was also that guy that became a US citizen and officially joined the army to fight the war. He returned back safe but he was also the building security guy for one of the towers in the World Trade Centre. His frequent evacuation drills were annoying but in the end, many years later, saved many lives.
@@tectorama What? Had the British government given him a 9 year hiatus from the British army? No. Much like the 10 US pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain, any British person fighting in Vietnam was there of their OWN personal choice, and NOT sent as part of a UK govt sanctioned military force.
@@BipoIarbear There's also the fact that the US intervened in the Suez Crisis, hurting their relations with France and the UK, so when Vietnam happened, both of them essentially gave the US the middle finger. Put simply, "You got in our business and fucked us, we're not helping you"
Knife crime is an epidemic country wide. The West Midlands has had it's fair share of stabbings, mostly because of the high number of ethnic minorities.
@Nub93 if there were no WMDs then how did Assad get his chemical weapons? Oh never mind your head is to far up your communist ass to make that connection.
@@pipellis6672 Not successful, but justified. It would have been a very good thing for the people of southeast Asia had we won. All one needs to do is compare South Korea to North Korea, Taiwan to China or East Germany to West Germany. Communism creates hellish societies. Pol Pot's Cambodia by itself would justify the Vietnam War ten times over. With 20/20 hindsight, I would not endorse fighting the Vietnam war or fighting it in the manner that we did. It's stupid to sacrifice tens of thousands of men, be defeated and have your society torn apart for nothing. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if it's not worth dying for as a nation that it's probably not worth going to war for either, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a just cause.
Something else overlooked is that the British HAD fought in Vietnam after the end of WW2. They performed a remarkably successful counter-insurgency campaign with one of the strangest orders of battle ever seen, including former axis POWs, and kicked the viet minh out of most of the country. The French promptly failed to capitalize on the victory, which led directly to the first Indochina war.
Britian launches a massive military operation which endangers the entire world economy without consulting the United States Also if the Suez scheme succeeded the Arab world would have aligned itself with the Soviets So of course America couldn't tolerate that b*******, don't know how you can interpret this as a stab in the back
Hi Christian...It certainly was seen by all the old boys (British) as a stab in the Back. The military build up to the event had been going on for months ( the US new this). When the Big Surprise happened of course the US withdrew support for the UK pound...hence a stab in the back. As to Arab Unity at that time well not really, to much infighting. I do however wish all the people of that area peace and prosperity for the future in order to do this we must learn from the past.
@@markdowns9607 your account directly conflicts this video, the time ghost series on this event, and every other credible source I've seen. Before the crisis began the only thing America knew was that Israel was mobilizing its military. Even then America didn't even know which country Israel was mobilizing against Please provide citation for any sources of information that claim America knew about Britain and france's plan beforehand
@@christianweibrecht6555 At around this time the US knew more about the goings on in the UK, than we did ourselves! This scenario was not just limited to the Western Germany. The US presence in the UK was huge, loads of listening facilities... due in part to the fact we were leaky with secrets, these secrets eventually ended up in Soviet hands. Besides the US would have spotted all the Troop and equipment build up, they still have many bases here.
I was with my Royal Marine friend in a pub in Portsmouth. There were a lot of sailor and marines there as usual, and a lot of Americans from the USS Forestall (sp) which was paying a visit at the time. Anyway, this drunk American sailor suddenly got up and pretty much bellowed. "Hey, why weren't you guys in Vietnam?!" There was instant silence, then my friend said, "Well, the VC seemed to be doing well enough without our help." That was the only pub brawl I ever witnessed.
@Gary 'Roach' Sanderson Am i covered by your universal health system? This nose isn't gonna fix itself.
@@manzilla48 You could, of course, just look it up. I think it was 1975/76. I do remember seeing this bloody great thing parked in the Solent because it couldn't get into the harbour. Totally blotted out the IoW. The pub, btw was the 'Oliver Twist.'
@@manzilla48 Okay, well. You can lead a horse to water etc. Enjoy your life.
manzilla48 of course the self awareness level low af when you forget saying “no it didn’t” don’t mean it didn’t happen 🤣like what’s the negativity for let’s go outside and relax or something like it’s concerning 😭
@@manzilla48 cringe
As Al Murray said ‘we stayed out of the Vietnam war for one reason: we wanted our war films to remain cheerful’
Twat. I’ve literally just said that then scroll down and see your comment. I’ve deleted mine to let you have the glory as it’s only fair.
Because anything the French were involved in,the Brits didn't want to f**k with.
Al Murray is a cretin
@venom that’s literally what I put letter for letter.
@n a I’ve got a 9 year old daughter but yeh, I’ll try and not be too offended by your mean, mean comments. Also Al Murray is a comedian you flannel. He’s a satirical character. And I’m the one who’s going to die sexless and alone?
Britain had just finished fighting a 12 year jungle war in Malaysia
"Lizards... in Malaysia!"
Their 'Hearts & Minds' tactic really did the job. Thanks to the commitment & bravery to those british, anzac, & rhodesian soldiers who serve during the emergency. Even today our older generations still spoke highly of them because of how they help keep off the communist from raiding & terrorizing their villages. Without them, my country would surely turn red or being invaded by our larger neigbour below us. Wont say the country's name cuz those guys are too nationalistic & sensitive about the 'topic'. Cheers
And won
So had Australia...still went to Vietnam though.
D'matt Patrick Mendonia a.k.a nation flag Polan
Fun Fact: LBJ wrote a letter to General Franco in the sixties asking for spanish troops to vietnam. Franco sent a Reply warning about the risks of guerilla Warfare based on his experience in northern Africa in the early 20th century. He even got the balls to say that a conventional war would be a costly one for the US with no real results whatsoever. In the end, he sent some volunteer doctors but they never saw combat.
Franco was a smart man. LBJ was an asshole.
"He even got the balls to say that a conventional war would be a costly one for the US with no real results whatsoever"...
I mean, it's not like he was wrong
@@michiru2hell it´s not just the balls, is being on the battlefield instead of an office. Same example with the Cuba war back in 1898, every high rank officer was aware that the US navy was superior than ours, but the politicans in madrid ordered to fight outside of the harbour in Santiago de Cuba. Result: fleet lost
The fact that it was Franco (who came to power with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy)that being asked by LBJ to support USA intervention in Vietnam was pretty ironic to say the least
@@yourroyalchungusness Well after 1953 USA and UK change the approach with Franco. Basically, Franco allowed the B-52 to stay here in exchange for being seen as an ally. We even enter UN after that deal. Ironic, but its the cold war, defeating communism was more important that how you came to power
The UK fought the Communists in Malaysia at around this time... and won.
To be fair though, communist forces in Malaya are ill equipped, low on logistics ( most of them used captured Japanese weapons and ammunitions). But, damn, they do put up a hell of a fight.
Muhammad Nursyahmi the British kicked their asses. Pure and simple.
@almightyinferno obviously no viet cong because Malaya, not Vietnam. The Communists in Malaya are known as MPLA.
@almightyinferno pretty sure Viet Cong have good logistic, after all Vietnam are neighbour to China and having support from Soviets. Meanwhile, MNLA are equipped with captured Japanese weapon and ammunition, surrounded by the British and Malayan government who actively and aggressively fighting them via winning hearts and mind of the locals.
@@muhammadnursyahmi9440 I thought those were the Angolan Communists
USA: "Britain, get over here and help us!"
UK: "OK, here's some advisors who are experienced in counter-insurgency tactics and jungle warfare, from both WW2 and the Malayan Emergency. Do what they say and the war will be over in no time"
USA: "Don't try to boss us around, we know exactly what we're doing! Just give us some of your troops to command and we probably won't accidentally drop Agent Orange on them"
UK: "Erm... no."
Just before the Malayan Emergency the British *were* in French Indochina (along with the recently defeated Japanese and were working well together) and they pretty well squashed the communist insurgency.
The Brits then told the French they had had enough helping keep the French Empire intact and actually had something else to do in Malaya... At which point the French stuffed the whole show and the Americans did no better...
The emergency in Malaya in contrast turned out rather well and is considered a master class in how to deal with that sort of insurgency.
@@ianc8054 So, arrogant Americans think they know better (based on zero/unrelated experience), ignores examples of how to do it correctly, and then tries to blame everyone else for their plans failing... yep, checks out (based on my experience of working with Americans).
Yeah this is so wrong on so many levels.
The US did in fact copied everything the british did in malaya. From the agent orange, the concentration camps, the scalp and ear trophy hunting to even search and destroy tactics. All of it failed. Hell the failure of british tactics was the thing that prompted the US direct invasion in the first place. The malayan emergency was fighting against a ragtag guerrila army with no outside support. Vietnam was fighting a well trained, organized and well supplied army using all the soviets and chinese can offer.
Umm where was those British jungle experts when they surrendered like bitches in Singapore
No. Malaya was NOTHING like Vietnam. Having the Brits in Vietnam wouldn't have changed anything. As long as the NVM can pour entire generations of trolls into SVN, the war was never going to end.
1:38
US : "We don't need your help Nerd."
UK, with *hundred of years experience colonising jungles of India, Africa and Malaysia* : "Am I a joke to you?"
@aghori sadhu Malaysia has jungle and Borneo so yes the statement is slightly true
@aghori sadhu really?
@Ka Chun Chu 'The British brought in soldiers from units such as the Royal Marines and King's African Rifles. Another effort was a re-formation of the Special Air Service in 1950 as a specialised reconnaissance, raiding, and counter-insurgency unit.
The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, had served in the Chindits in Burma during World War II. His vast experience in jungle warfare proved valuable during this period as he was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya'
@Ka Chun Chu that may be true, though we are most likely never going to know.
@Ka Chun Chu i think you miss my point. I was not referencing the geopolitical issues surrounding the 'crisis' but the wealth of expertise the British had regarding counter insurgency and jungle warfare.
I love the "totally to scale" comparison between the tiny continental United States and the humongous British Isles. It's those little touches that make your videos great.
Also "The Thing".
@@alastairward2774 where
@@vivofoottheseventh7393 1:28
What a fun story
Hilarious xD
Britain: ‘So you asked us to decolonise, and you played an important part of why we had to retreat from Suez, now you want us to help occupy another sovereign nation on the other side of the globe?’
Don’t act like Britain has ever been a reasonable country
LightningBolt Never said it was
Groundsey Suez was a mistake on Britain’s part
LightningBolt Suez was a military success but a political failure, underpinned by the USA.
Groundsey it never should have happened, you turned Egypt against you
I was a Royal Marine based in Singapore at the time. We would have been the first British troops involved. Thank goodness we weren't involved in this pointless war.
All wars are pointless. I'm a career soldier (retired now) and fought in Vietnam. Australia went there under the terms of SEATO (and to support America at their request): regardless of the whys and wherefors when an ally asks for help what do you do? We were right to go there and fight to stop Communist (repeat Communist) aggression. However if the politicians had done their job better at the end of WWII - and the British were in Vietnam after that war, and if the French had done better in Indo China (and handled the Vietnamese with more care and respect) there would not have been another war. One should ask that if the South Vietnamese were at the time wanting to be Communists why did so many of them leave, even after their defeat? There were 1.6 million refugees who were resettled in other countries. When one reads of the Communist treatment of the North Vietnamese people prior to and even during the war one can see a different side to the story. But I guess one had to be there to understand the full picture. We could have done with British assistance (well I think the Americans could have - Aussies operated like the British did although we were too few in number) but we who wear the uniform don't make those kind of decisions, do we. I think if the Americans employed British tactics and conducted more of a guerilla style of warfare the war may have ended differntly. Guerilla warfare was used successfully by our opponents but only the Australians and new Zealanders for the most part seemed to understand that we were conducting more comnventional warfare and doing so with one arm tied behind our back. The way things were we were never going to win that war and a lot of people died unnescessarily. What a waste. Now everyone are friends. Stupid. More talk and less shooting is what's required ... but it takes two to tango.
@robotrip M Keep your rudeness in mind next time you bitch about people not respecting USA troops.
@robotrip M YOU! ARE THE GOFUCK YOURSELF GUY!
Defending others against aggression is pointless?
@robotrip M you are gay
Well the US let the UK down with the Suez Canal and the UK had just been fighting the communists in Malaysia and beat them. The UK public was tired of war and rightly wanted no part in it.
Yeah but had the UK sent a token force, the UK would've received a lot of American financial assistance. And then the UK wouldn't have had to go acting like beggars to get into the EEC for the next decade. Hell, that might've improved the UK economy enough to have increased intra-trade within the EFTA and actually made it a successful counter-weight to the EEC/EC/EU and actually gained upper footing during the eventual negotiations for creating the EEA trade zone [like the remaining EFTA members not having to pay for "access" to the Common Market like Switzerland does to this day].
@@TheJeremyHolloway that’s quite interesting actually.
Also beat them using former Japanese prisoners of war at the end of world war 2 aswell. Then the US got its feathers ruffled and asked us to step down, handing it back over to the French as it was their colony. Etc
@@TheJeremyHolloway yes. But what happens when you force war on your citizens too much. They get angry and threaten to revolt. UK had its own issues, so going to war wasn’t a good idea. As the public would’ve turned on their government and possibly the Crown aswell.
The UK did support South Vietnam and sent advisors to train South Vietnamese Generals. But if the UK did get involved it’s unlikely the war would have been any different.
I think Eisenhower's actions during the Suez were still fresh of mind for many British politicians.
Oh 200% correct. As if the way the Americans conducted lend-lease, not allowing us to buy anything on credit until we'd completely emptied the coffers of gold reserve to the ships for bases deal in which they sent us absolute tat, the only one being of any use being a ship-bomb that we then drove into a drydock.....they rinsed us at every single turn which then continued afterwards. Many will say it's because the US wanted to reduce the chances of another war that it would get dragged into but one only has to look at their foreign policy since to see that this argument in particular has the rigidity of a paper McDonalds straw! No, they wanted to secure as much power and influence for themselves at our expense but the last 60 years of history has seen them lose/ stalemate in ALMOST every single conflict they've been involved in, despite the numbers in men, machines and money that they've allocated to the task. Now they sit about and complain about the fact that they've got so much to police, despite the fact that it's exactly what they bargained for when they made the political moves that they did.
Talk about making a bed.
Exactly 👍
Quite. You stuff us at Suez, you can stuff yourself in Vietnam.
I note that this was absent from the video but very much a deciding factor for the UK
Suez had a bearing on this , plus the fact that wilson was a commie ! 😂
Because we won it in 1946 and then handed it back to the French, we know what happened after that. It is on the internet, Mark Felton I think
Nah
@@unclekarl5219 wind your neck in you mug.
🤣😂
Exactly right Britan handed Vietnam back to the French and they fooked everything up again
That was a good episode
The brits knew about the talking trees and flashbacks thing beforehand lol
Frederick The Great Ya we fought Burmese, Native Americans, Indians and Africans. We know all too well.
@@Lucas_Antar you forgot the japanese in ww2 aswell
Yeah, those Boars were really scary.
@Frederick The Great What is this "talking trees" thing? I keep seeing it in the comments and assume it is some reference I am not getting.
Andrew Driver it refers to the ambushes mainly done by Vietnamese bois in the jungles. The scary part is that its like the trees are like actually talking in Vietnamese
Welcome to the rice fields, old chap
69th like. Proud to serve
@@nathanosafoomane6224 nice
RIP Filthy Frank
@@bigmanjorge ready to serve sir!
Lets get some fanny tonight
1:09 Automatic weapons in a History Matters video!? Never thought I'd see the day
1:38 Should properly point out the context that these advisers were sent in. The UK had just finished fighting the Malayan Emergency, what people call Britain's Vietnam, except the British actually won. The British tried to tell the Americans that fighting and bombing the Viet Cong like a conventional enemy wouldn't work and offered to teach their own hard won and well tested strategies and tactics to American commanders and solders, but were promptly rebuffed, because 'murica I guess.
I mean the Vietnamese suffered 1 million casualties while the US took 50k dead. So 'murica, also North Vietnam technically sign the Paris Peace Accords which "ended" the war with the status quo and allowed the US to get out. So on a technicality the US didn't lose
What did they rename saigon to again?
@@a-drewg1716 Yeah, just like America 'won' the war of 1812 which literally no one outside the US acknowledges. Funny how every American defeat is magically transformed into a victory/draw by the most inane logic.
@@Wanderer628 The war of 1812 just remained the status quo again, no one won. The US though did get the British to... well stop impeding trade by seizing American vessels but otherwise no territory changed hands nor did the US really lose anything. It anything it was just simply a white peace/not a loss but not a victory. The Vietnam War also ended technically with the status quo with the Paris Peace accords. The US then by a technically achieved their mission of keeping the South Alive by ending the War. It wasn't until later when the North re-invaded, the USA removed basically all aid (both militarily and financially) did the South fall. I mean it wasn't our best hour as it was a war that dragged on too long and was a major loss on the home front (the riots and draft dodgers, etc) and really the US mainly won only if you consider military achievement and stats (the US won every conventional battle and inflicted major casualty rates while sustaining rather... mild casualties) but again the home front was terrible, the people lost the will to continue the fight and the soldiers moral was terrible. Really though Vietnam wasn't a US war, the US never actually declared war and just simply intervened and is just really a complex thing to consider either a flat out lost or a victory.
@@a-drewg1716 the US lost that war sooo hard, it was never a conventional war & the Paris pa was an absolute coo for the NV, their leader was smiling so hard during that conference.
Didnt britain fight alongside the japanese in vietnam for a few years? I think that really would have been an interesting thing to mention why it was harder to thread the needle.
Britain started fighting in Vietnam because the French were losing it just after world war two. They didn't have anywhere near enough troops so they set French prisoners of war free to help them. Enemy man power was uprated again and so the British decided to set the Japanese POWs free to fight along side them. Eventually, more troops were sent to Vietnam and the allies started to take control of the country. Then it was handed back to the French, who lost it completely.
Yeah 1946 Britain near enough stopped the Vietnam war before it even started by America was like “NoOoOooO tHiS iS oUr oCcUpaTIon aReA” cost them the lives of almost 50,000 Brave Americans
@@woodchip543 Agreed, and the US had supplied the Vietnamese Communists with weapons to fight the Japanese. So the Uk fought the communists and won and the US had not helped because of their hatred of any empire not controlled by them. But as you said as soon as theUk handed control back to the French it was all over in months.
British combined forces are the only ones who beat the commies.
@@atriangle1865 🤣
The Dutch took the same view as the UK. Identical. We had not forgotten the role the US played in the Indonesian war and the war on New Guinea.
US screwed up there too Permesta rebellion wasn't it?
Ronald de Rooij you guys wouldn’t have been able to hold onto Indonesia for long anyways. Today Indonesia is a significantly more powerful country than the Netherlands, its independence was inevitable.
@mario barcelon Indonesia is a very strong nation, and its pretty stable, but the NL is far richer tho
Indonesia is a Resource Rich country but not a Economic nor Militarily Powerhouse.
the US got their revenge on the UK over the suez crisis.
I remember that my Father, and his Avro Shackleton crew regularly patrolled the South Vietnam coast searching for Russian submarines during the Vietnam War. I even got on a flight out of RAF Changi, when an Air Cadet. Exciting, my first war zone.
USA: the war isn't going very well
UK: have you considered opium?
USA: “Shut up Ma! I don’t need your help!.. Can you give me help?”
Rory Stewart (UK Tory politician) : I can heartily recommend it, I had some at a wedding
Michael Gove: might I suggest coke and I don't mean the drink wink wink
Lol
@@nigeh5326 2 more did weed or something now. Those tory candidates are trying to get the drugees' on side and make themselves seem relatable.
@Anglo Commando "Are you paying too much for your opium?????.... errrrrmm..... car insurance! I meant car insurance! Oops."
UK: "Ah, this new psychadelic drug. That should do gangbus... WTF are you doing don't dope your own soldiers Christ!"
Eternally grateful to Harold Wilson for keeping us out of it.
Thanks for what ? Common sense remember you were in Vietnam after W.W.2 Thousands of miles from U.K.
Brilliantly put, James. Completely stupid war. We should Love the Vietnamese. A Beautiful people.
Vietnamese Americans: "we hate Britain because they backstabbed America and South Vietnam not joining the war". Today yellow flag lovers in America still blame Britain.
Who cares even if you did
Oh wait you actually were there both before and during the American presence
If you watched the video you’d know that “Britain sent advisors to help train Americans in anti guerrilla warfare”
@@looinrims Question is why should Britain join a war they knew it would be lost?
Hands down the most interesting Cold War question I never thought to ask
I thought about it but i just never asked. I know from my parents and grandparents that the 60s and 70s in Britain was basically complete shit, industry was dying, the Empire was dying and there was no money but it wasn't all bad, people tell me the 70s was the freest Britain has ever been (probably because no one had any money and nobody gave a shit what you were doing)
@@mrcaboosevg6089 The US failure to back the UK and the French in taking Suez from Soviet backed Egypt came back to bite the US in the ass. Your response is typical of US mentality, you don't know the reasons why so you just make them up. Read a history book.
MrcabooseVG You just made all that up. Actually in the swinging 60s (oh that sounds like a depressing time) the UK economy was doing rather well.
@@mrcaboosevg6089 in the 1960s Britain was prosperous. The 70s saw the economic decline.
@martin corderoy London was run by gangsters in the 60s and much of the 70s. Also in the 70's there was raging racism, sexism and homophobia. Is this the freedom you speak of?
God your channel is simply amazing. All of your videos all answer such semi-obscure questions that are never brought up in documentaries and would require extensive research (as you obviously do) for one to answer on their own. So, thank you!
Well it’s simple, their supply lines couldn’t ship enough tea.
Nor there wasn't enough Tea in Vietnam to take either
not the tea
Tea is plentiful in vietnam... maybe lack of potato there?
@Professor Clutch Potatoes = Chips
Nope, former French Indochina Vietnam was just too French for them to be worth an invasion.
"Remember when we asked for help with Suez? Yeah, payback is a bitch."
We didn't ask for help from the Yanks during the Suez crisis - we had already booted the Egyptians out of the canal zone and destroyed their airforce on the ground. Eisenhower interfered and completely shafted us! Threatened us with economic sanctions if we didn't withdraw. Complete twat.
Didn’t need their help the war was all but won until they stuck their nose in with us and the french telling us we had to give it all back. Bad for us terrible for the french! That was their first military success since 1066
You didn’t and conspired to invade a neutral nation unprovoked (that’s a war crime)
The Americans were supporting the ones who were attacked unprovoked, so if we copy paste Vietnam to Suez the Americans would’ve sided with Egypt and sent an expedition to kill you
Learn history you gnomes
@@bugattieb110ss see above
@@looinrims Egypt was far from a neutral country and the events that triggered the retaking of the Suez are not unprovoked. You are also missing out the point that the Soviet Union who has militarily backing Egypt (amazing they needed military equipment being neutral) also threatened Nuclear escalation if things did not end. The US threw its toys out the pram because it was not fully informed, briefed and didnt get to take part in an easy victory which looked bad politically as they hadnt 'allowed' or taken part in it. Israel was also part of the war and also received threats from the US and Soviet union.
With all due respect at that point in history the US could not send an 'expedition' to kill the British, French and Israelis as the US simply was not powerful enough to take on all 3 and have a chance of winning.
The Malayan Emergency was enough messing around in the jungle for us.
And fighting in Burma and the SEA theatre battles in WW2
And the Indonesian Confrontation
that's a good enough reason why they didn't want another war in south east asia, since the Malayan Emergency lasted for nearly 2 decades.
@Reddle sorry for your loss
Yes
The Thing reference at 1:27 is brilliant.
The British were also unhappy with the way the French (who had spent most of the war as a defeated nation) had blazed back into Vietnam heavy handedly after WW2 and had advised them to go lightly if they must but were ignored. The war that followed French reoccupation and the American continuation/escalation of that were seen as unfortunate and unnecessary by the British. The British recognised that it was a nationalist struggle far more than East vs West but were not vocal about that as it was during the Cold War and not wanting to undermine or even upset their US ally. The irony was not lost either of being asked to fight what looked very much like a war of empire by an ally which had vigourously encouraged Britain's dismantlement of its own empire, a project almost complete and mostly peacefully achieved (certainly peacefully and amicably compared to the French).
They haven't forgotten in Asia how the French plundered the countries they colonised, I was quite shocked about the contempt with which they are held in some parts. I'd been brainwashed into thinking the British were the villains of the piece, nothing could be further from the truth, they are actually well respected. I'm sure someone will disagree but I can only tell from my own experience of living out here.
@@shamteal8614 Britain despite the evils our empire committed did leave something good behind at times
Infrastructure and a good foundation
For Example
India
India army is based on the British one
This is totally different than both the Spanish and French empires
Notoriously when the French left India they had all the Infrastructure like railways they build ripped out
@@mk_gamíng0609 Well, I wouldn't be so sure of that. While India did get better with time and indeed incorporated many British political structures and laws, there were many other nations like Uganda that simply floundered. A major reason for the modest Indian 'success' was the development and formation of a distinct and able political class that understood democracy and was able to enforce the constitution. This development occured because of the greater demands for self rule that occurred mostly in the 1910s. Many other colonial nations never got the opportunity to develop this political class, and to this day many remain mired in instability caused by it.
The French removing rail lines in their miniscule Indian colonies is something that I have never read about, can you please elaborate more?
The US not only supported France due to the "domino theory" but also because Washington thought if they aided France, France would enthusiastically support NATO. That turned out well. Ahem. [at least not until Sarkozy].
You said that they didn’t want to upset the USA… I disagree. It was the USSR who kept threatening to nuke the UK every two seconds, and the UK being a tiny island makes that threat very dangerous. The UK knew that the USA would never nuke the UK because the death of London would kill the US economy.
Because apparently we had more sense back then than in 2003.
And even less sense in 2019 apparently ie Brexit lol.
@@alanfox691 Fuck off dickhead..
@@kaisercreb brexit does not make sense on any level.
@@kaisercreb yes with brexit we'd lose it alongside most of our economy
YOU CANT BARRAGE THE FARAGE!
There were over 2000 British that were fighting there and the SAS were there as advisors and were ignored, the Australian SAS also tried advising on Jungle warfare but the US insisted on the Jolly Green Giant approach which of course failed.
There were a couple of VC's awarded during the Vietnam conflict to Australian forces.
Exactly, this iis the token force, which appeases the US perception, and is clandestinely, so it doesn't risk being dragged in To the war full-scale.Harold Wilson was a savvy guy, with humility. Probably the best Prime Minister the Brits had , In the 20th century.
From what I've read over the years, and from speaking to my father and his mates, it seems that the entire Vietnam experience was one of people constantly refusing to listen to what anyone else was saying.
To me, that is the biggest tragedy of all, and while naive, I really hope it never happens again.
Americans arent smart though....
They have proved this beyond question.
Cough... Iraq, Cough..
Afghanistan.
@@TheMikeTBiraq and afghanistan was justified. Saddam needed to be deposed. Afghanistan was a mess. The Taliban takeover did not improve the situation of the people there. They've regressed.
@@triadwarfare ok sure. WMD's. Afghanistan is still a mess.
Basically the British put up two fingers and said "Remember Suez?" as the US completely screwed them over.
Suez was inconsequential
@@lightningbolt4419 Why are you here then.. ? 😂
@@Dave-hu5hr what?
@@lightningbolt4419 What part of the suez crisis is "inconsequential"?
@@joemanton2340 it was eventually going to happen anyway, you couldn't hold on to suez
British troops were in Vietnam, before the Americans and even before the French. Mark Felton has a video on it.
The British beat the Communist in Vietnam before handing back to the colonial power France who promptly stirred up the old hatred and got their arse kicked.
@@Clipgatherer No they were being realistic and realised the old ways of colonialism had come to an end, it was a different world after the Second World War (actually it was the Third World War, the last two being as a direct consequence of the First, the Napoleonic wars fought on a worldwide scale with all the same major players, the Brit's won that as well).
@@Clipgatherer Good point, but I expect the next and war to end all wars will be started either in the Mediterranean by Turkey who have expansionist ambitions or Asia where at least three countries China, India and Pakistan want to be top dog.
Sham Teal Good prophecy, COVID-19 is distracting everyone from Taiwan. Now the Chinese have sorted Hong Kong Taiwan is next. The Rhineland and Sudetenland of the 21st century.
mark felton is not a good source of data definetely.
When McMillan was asked to put troops into Vietnam he responded with one word - "Suez".
Simon Ocean - the full story is that the US Ambassador was attempting to persuade the PM to commit troop to Vietnam.
The McMillan said ‘I have one word for you: Suez’ and showed him the ‘Agincourt salute’.
It may be apocryphal, but I’ve heard it a few times.
Canada and new Zealand fought in Vietnam
@@windsurfer_LA could you elaborate what role India played as you said "indian crushing the pound"
@@kylelaughinghouse1893 No, Canada did NOT fight in the Vietnam war. 12k Canadians did join the USA armed forces to fight but the government did not. Canada did send peace keeping troops but that was not the same as fighting the war. Although I'm sure most Canadians did not want communism to spread.
@@windsurfer_LA that's why we refused to help India in Sino Indian war. - they would regret that after their humiliating defeat.
As someone who was born in the late 1960s this is a fascinating insight into Britain's reluctance to get involved in the war.
I don't know what, if anything, they teach in schools nowadays about the Vietnam war, but we (kids who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s) were never given any insights like this about the Vietnam war by either the education system or the mainstream media. All that was commonly understood amongst the general British populace was that it turned into a big disaster for the USA.
US: "you should fight in Veitnam"
UK: "no"
US: "but we'll give you money"
UK: "well may-no"
I guess there aren't any Vietnam flashbacks involving tea then
*Chris i'm having Vietnam flashbacks again*
*THEY WE'RE IN THE TEA, SUNNY*
Only Malayan and Indonesian flashbacks, actually.
ThomasTurner69 Australia
tytube3001 George Washington spits tea
It wasn't the UK's war. Well done Wilson for telling LBJ where he can put his request for additional help in their tricky little war in someone else's country
Nor was the Afghan war and they still dragged us into that
@@triggeringfeministspsmakem5954
Only because Blair let them...
You couldn't draft UK citizens for a start cos there was no threat to the UK
triggering feministspsmakemeasandwitch That war is more important than some Vietnamese war.
Tbf it wasn't America's war either. We do that sometimes
I love the quick shot of the Antarctic research station from The Thing when he says 'the thing-'
I knew couldn't have been the only person that saw that lol
what is it referencing?
@@ClassicalFloppa the movie "The Thing" (1982)
TL;DR
No Tea, why spend time in south Asia with *NO TEA*
Vietnam has tea tho, I mean nice joke but I feel it's probalby not true. Vietnam is the sixth largest producer and fifth largest exporter of tea in the world.
@@sachyriel
*WELL BOYS TIME TO LIBERATE VIETNAM*
South east asia is good for growing opium though
You can not take it literally you know.
Connor Simmonds I’m not taking it seriously. I’m saying the brits wanted tea so much they drugged China for it
As well as the many excellent responses from others, another reason the UK did not officially support the sending of UK troops to support the US etc., was that the UK had experienced its own ‘Vietnam War’ at the end of WW2, and had already learnt the hard way just who they would have been dealing with.
As France was still recovering from the effects of WW2 and was unable to re-establish themselves into all of their farthest flung colonies, Britain offered (felt obligated or was asked) to administer those French colonies until France was able to take them over again. One such colony was French Indochina (Vietnam).
The British discovered upon arrival that a) things were quite chaotic as there was a total breakdown in civil law and order (since the Japanese had ruled Vietnam with an iron fist); b) the Japanese - especially the soldiers - were all prisoners of war since the surrender of Tokyo.
With so few Brits/ Commonwealth soldiers deployed to the country, and facing a massively complex situation and a relatively large country to govern/ police, the British administration was compelled to make use of those Japanese PoWs as a de facto police force. Naturally they were not only released but also re-armed. This did not go down well with the locals who had been fighting those same Japanese a few months earlier only to have them re-armed and effectively back in control.
The locals were not that impressed with the Brits either. There was a bloody guerilla campaign against the British - and all the more so when it was also realized the Brits were then preparing the country to be re-possessed by France…as for the Brits, they couldn’t get out of there quick enough.
As they were leaving, the Brits did their very best to advise the French to also leave as rapidly and as peacefully as possible - which (as we all know) was promptly and completely ignored.
The UK was in no way in a hurry to return; they knew what would be awaiting them.
In addition: the ‘domino theory’ that gripped the paranoid US imagination and was held as their rationale at the time - just did not hold any water with the UK. They were no way near as obsessed with the delusional ‘communist takeover of the world’ conspiracy theories (self-fulfilling prophecies) the Americans expounded.
While MacMillan (Super Mac) and JFK did enjoy a sort of budding ‘special relationship’, given the age/ generation gap between the two leaders it was more of a patriarchal one rather than a shared economic/ philosophical/ world-view.
It was also a time where even though the UK was on the long imperial wind-down, the UK was still a country with significant international influence and ability to act - for the most part - more or less independently in its own foreign policy. As such and given the US treatment of the UK in particular, over the Suez crisis and the lack of any US support during the Malayan Emergency, it was hardly that surprising in return, that the UK was loath to officially commit itself to what the UK perceived to be - rightly as it turned out - the US’s reckless Vietnam adventure.
Bro thanks for the history lesson, that was genuinely really informative. Definitely deserve more than eight likes
@@poofingers3054 thank you I really appreciate the compliment. It’s a lot to read, quite a lot for people of today’s standards.
When Britain was in Vietnam they actually preformed very well against the rebels and nearly put down the rebellions all together but as the French arrived the new French soldiers started to commit war crimes and had a much more aggressive stance with the locals which caused more people to join the rebels. The British saw this and refused to continue to help the French as it was seen as a lost cause so left
Believing the communist stated goal of communist world revolution...is a delusional conspiracy theory.
Do commies even realise how tarded they sound?
The malayan emergency was a good example of a successful counter-insurgency, which the UK won.
I think I read somewhere that Wilson also chose not to help as a kind of revenge for America interfering with the Suez Crisis.
@Vlodec But there wasn't, so we didn't.
@@mikeyforester6221 Militarily no. Diplomatically yes. All of Britain's core allies (aside from France) including Canada, Australia and New Zealand wanted no part of Suez.
1:53 Between 1965 and 1968, US-UK relations reached a new low. Not like 1776 low, but the two weren't exactly best of friends either.
"The Thing was....." - I like what you did there
Bob Knight i was just about to say the some thing!..... mr 10min history man....your subtle joke was noticed and heavily enjoyed
I don't get it.
No one tell Spicy Leprechaun Stuff
@@genericbot7458 Bastard
@That Guy a film released called The Thing took place in a Arctic/tundra environment.
The question isn't "Why didn't Britain?", but "Why did America?"
@frank hargreaves oh my god haha
América had the strongest army, leader of the Nato and wanted to stop commies from controlling trade routes aka the World.
@@PurpleWarlock Real talk, if the majority of Americans wanted communism do you think it'd be justifiable to start a civil war?
Because someone was essentially too weak to handle their uprising (France) so they convinced America to join the war under the pretext of fighting communism.
@@logoncal3001 You word that as though the people perpetuating the fear of the red were the French and not the Americans.
The UK won a guerrilla war in Malaysia at the same time.
The US didn’t take their advice.
It’s your own fault that you lost in nam USA
Yung Stallion : “We do things the AMERICAN WAY... and we don’t need help from a bunch of goddamn Limeys!” 😂
Tim Smith I think we made u so if I was u I wouldn’t be disrespecting us
The U.K. had politics and public support, the US did not
@@a-10thunderboltii24 the uk is also a sixth of the size and had a dead economy
@@timonsolus rather eat a few limes and NOT getting scurvy .You septics were given advice and you failed to listen. Resulting in 60,000 deaths
The queen's own Highlanders spent 6 months there in a camp called truong cong dinh in 1971. The RAF went on combat missions
This is the only only page I’ll drop everything I do to watch a video on release
Aww, that phase where you're only aware of one good history channel on youtube.
Memories...
Saving your troops from dying in a needless war? Now that's soldiering.
Nice sharp reference
@@mabufang2217 responding to a comment 6 months after it was written. Now that's soldiering
@@First_Sea_Lord_Ford responding after 2 months now that’s soldiering
@@mabufang2217 responding after 1 week,now that's soldering
@@sajidursajid2291 responding after 8 hours, now that's soldiering.
One of the best thing Harold Wilson did was keep us out of Vietnam.
why tho, we got nice tea here, well, the taste might be a bit strange
duy lai no matter how much tea you folks have it wasn’t not fighting the Viet Cong over.
@@Airstrip1TV yes, nothing worth messing with other countries business for
@@Airstrip1TV Because it's cheaper to just buy the tea from them than to invade the areas where the tea is
@@moosesandmeese969 cough cough opium wars cough cough
0:45 is the reason I watch every video this channel makes.
*accurate representation of the British economy
Can’t stop laughing
The British had Vietnam locked down after the Second World War, for the most part. When they turned it over to the French that’s when shit hit the fan, the French lost control and tada Vietnam war.
John Serton Britain gave Vietnam back to the French because the USA told us to.
Andre44 I thought it was because Britain didn’t want to waste money on Vietnam anymore
John Serton you’re both wrong. It’s because De Gaulle was staunchly Anti-British and no longer accepted the help from the British in French Indo-China, De Gaulle didn’t even allow British troops to attend the victory parade in Paris after the Second World War.
@@GiraffeFeatures oh wow that’s rude
I always found it incredible that the British army fought by the side of their own Japanese prisoners to hold the country down for the French. That decision in a way set in motion the events leading to the later conflicts
Brits: "Ey mate, what some advice on how to fight a guerrilla war?"
US: "Nah, but can you send a some troops so we can throw them in the jungle?"
Brits: dear christ, you lots are really gonna be in a world of pain if you decide to go conventional
@@samuelademeso9041 are you glad we showed you how to make her engines, and fast aircraft whose elevators didn't fall off?
@@williamchamberlain2263 Are you still speaking our language?
@@williamchamberlain2263 what those that have to with the Vietnam war?
@Billy the Australians did _very_ close artillery support.
They didn’t want to get flashbacks from the talking trees
I like your politics
@@bayern1445 😂
Avery The Cuban-American Why are you everywhere
1:27 I love the Thing references through your videos honestly
Britain was pretty sick of fighting horrifically prolonged wars in the Jungle after WW2 and Malaysia, also we had the whole simmering "Irish Troubles" to contend with in the late 60's and 70's too
I think the British also kept out of Vietnam because of the suez crisis . America humiliated Britain and France,so the British left America on its own as pay back .
J 19 U.S didn't need them anyway, it wouldn't have changed anything
Britain deploying troops could have actually changed a hell of a lot, it had some of the best jungle fighters in the world and thanks to the some of the events in Milan it had recent experience fighting a war in jungle environments,
This would have been a massive boost to the US as extra troops which was one of Americans main issue in Vietnam, not enough men to properly defend south Vietnam territorys,
As such a British deployment would mean they could guard more areas to prevent the taking of villages straight after the US troops where needed somewhere else.
America would have probably got support form Britain if they didn’t back stab Britain over the suez and that possible support may have just turned the tide in the US favour
J19- Since Vietnam was part of French Indochina, France should have been asked to join the war.
@@maryjeanjones1940 Ummmm, are you at all aware of the history of this conflict? Here's a small copy from the Wikipedia entry on French Indochina to get you started.
After the World War, France petitioned for the nullification of the 1938 Franco-Siamese Treaty and reasserted itself in the region, but came into conflict with the Viet Minh, a coalition of Communist and Vietnamese nationalists led by Hồ Chí Minh, founder of the Indochinese Communist Party. During World War II, the United States had supported the Viet Minh in resistance against the Japanese; the group had been in control of the countryside since the French gave way in March 1945.
American President Roosevelt and General Stilwell privately made it adamantly clear that the French were not to reacquire French Indochina after the war was over. He told Secretary of State Cordell Hull the Indochinese were worse off under the French rule of nearly 100 years than they were at the beginning. Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek if he wanted Indochina, to which Chiang Kai-shek replied: "Under no circumstances!"[8]
@@vitabricksnailslime8273 So .... this kinda feel like US govt decide to backstab Ho Chi Minh after WW2 over right ? ... Nothing last forever i guess
Britain in 1946:Aight France take your colony back
France:Thank you Britain
Britain:No problem
*Vietnamese War*
America:Help me Britain I’m dying-
Britain: *I a i n t d o i n g t h i s s h i t a g a i n*
truth be told the anericans told the british and French that they could do better than them and that the british and French soilders were weak and poor trained so the british and French just left and let the americans "do a better job" i think we know how that then went.
@@rjbubblehead990 that is absolutely not how it happened 🤣
@@rjbubblehead990 America could have won the conflict easily but was held back by politics, they had tanks at the borders of hanoi but were told to not go in, --alll a chessgame, why fight in the jungle for hills????
@@rowdyyates4273 Losing politically is the same, war is lost. Do you really think French army was totally defeated after Dien Bien Phu ?
Its funny because americans say they kick your ass in revolution but they needed so much help. They begged Britain join Vietnam war because they were losing
That was about the only thing a British politician has got right in the last 60 years.
Also a referendum on Brexit. It's called living in a democracy.
@@no-knickers-emma1112 Not entering was an actually good idea, don’t compare it to a meme that people got suckered into
1:43-And that's how you lose a war,lads...Just ignore the more experienced guys in the room...
From U.K. Britain did fight a Vietnam war in 1945 to 1946. Called the First Vietnam war, it has largely been airbrushed out of history. In 1945 a British Empire force entered Saigon to take the Japanese surrender. Almost immediately they came under attack from the Viet Minh. The British General in command had a mixed force of British Commandos, Indian Infantry and Gurkhas. He added to this by rearming the Japanese and taking 1000 released French POWs. This strange set of allies were deployed using commando tactics. The Viet Minh used conventional methods. After eight months the war was over and peace restored. Britain handed back control to France. Instead of granting independence as expected the French tried to hold on, and so set up what was to follow.
Then of course Britain had its own battles to fight during the American involvement in Vietnam. The Dhofar Rebellion, Malaysia, Aden, NI. maybe more.
Never forget that Australia joined the war in support of the US.
America: Little help, brother?
UK: ...
UK: Suez, "brother"
So true 😂😂
brother? More like father
@@charliewright4044 wouldn't have made sense in this context
@@charliewright4044 No USA is Britain's son .
@Finn Spooner Yeah I read it wrong 👍
I know my grandad who was in the airforce at the time said at one point it looked inevitable that they’d get involved but luckily didn’t. He was even responsible for processing many photos which would’ve been used as intelligence if the U.K. were going to get involved
Using Britains advise on guerilla-war: The USA- *NAH*
Bombing the whole thing with napalm and Agent Orange: The USA- *YEAH*
@EnglishXnXproud Everybody has his thing to carry. Britain Malaysia, USA Vietnam, Russia Finnland😂😅
@@jonasb104 except we beat ours better than Russia or the US
@@matthewblairrains6032 Afghanistan : how many times do we have to teach you this lesson British man
@@aneesh2115 firstly the person I was replying to did not mention Afghanistan and secondly no one has ever won against afghan guerrillas
@@matthewblairrains6032 Alexander, the indo-greeks and the kushan empire would like to know your location
Could you do a video on how the French kings (early Capetians) gained power from simply King of the Franks to the mighty kings of France
this is basically every conversation I have with my friends
@@mattmacaulay2900 Love your profile pic :D Napoléon's crest was something else
TheFeule01 thank you 🙏
Well Britain successfully fought off communism in Malaya, unlike the Americans and French in Vietnam. And following the US actions during the Suez crisis I'm not surprised Britain didn't feel like helping them!
British didn't want to help Americans as they were inept at combat since WWII.. Korean war stalemate, CIA failure in Permista supporting French in Indochina (Dulles vs Eden) & then Bay of Pigs. Why fight with losers since we Brits had won in Malaya, Kenya, Indonesia & Borneo!
@@LordGeorgeRodney how are you gonna call us losers asshole? Some ally the UK is.
@@josephking9337 Joseph King how did you save us? I don't recall US air force winning Battle of Britain in 1940??
Joseph King just like the USA sat on its hands for the first 3 years of the war, saying it was not our war. You only joined in when you had your asses handed to you at pearl harbour. Churchill asking the yanks for help-and got mugged off. So feck off immigrant.
Jay Slomine
The British pay their fair share.
There’s no such country as ‘europe’
the Vietnam war is evidence of the true strength of America: It's allies. With so few allies willing to help, America eventually lost the war in the public eye. If more allies had joined in, America would've probably been able to win. Also, not listening to those British advisors wasn't a good idea, since the British military has great experience in dealing with guerillas.
Suez!
You don't back us we won't back you.
Wrythil Valice America full on threatened to destroy Britain’s economy over Britain trying to reclaim one of its most important overseas territories the Suez Canal, this was well and truly an event that scared US UK politics till the 90s and the US actions during the Suez crisis would lead to the ultimate fall of the British empire.
So all in all it was a major event that Britain has never recovered from
America only exists as a nation because thier ancestors betrayed thier own countrymen and abandond their homeland.
@@wrath_of_thrawn2163 Because the British bought and built the canal in the first place. And bare in mind, this is the US. The holier-than-thou Empire, which instead of taking the land, creates vassal states through puppet regimes and control of countries economies. Being an empire is bad unless it's them doing it or when the can explain it away as giving "freedom" to a populace which doesn't want their supposed "freedom".
@@wrath_of_thrawn2163 Egypt weren't a colony at this point and that land was bought from the Egyptians and the British are what made the canal.
@@wrath_of_thrawn2163 Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Somoa, Virgin Islands.
The Americans own many territories.
And this wasn't something exactly owned as a territory. Just like you would buy shares of a company, Britain and France owned shares of the Canal. It was not a sovereign part of either country.
Iraq did the same with American oil fields. There was a war. Funny how this "anti-imperialism" stops when it suits you. It would be the equivalent to Britain "nationalizing" companies with foreign invest, American banks, Chinese companies, Huawei for example. It's illegal.
Funny how Israel should also have equal access to the canal. It doesn't.
I love the random Antarctic outpost at 1:27 The Thing... LOL.
Wish Tony Blair had acted like Wilson in Iraq
Chef Love: Blair was a "closet Tory".
Truth!
Wish you didn't sell Star Wars to Disney
George, Blair wanted to emulate Thatcher and triumph!
He did in a way by becoming a war criminal ! Along with his buddy G.W. Bush two warmongers !
@@paganphil100 He ruined old Labour,and gave you the loonies you have now along with Brown,Mandelson and Alistair Campbell !
@1:27 I see what you did there. Cheeky 😂 When he says; “The thing….” It’s an image of an isolated camp in a snowy place much like John Carpenters movie.
they were probably still pissed about the whole Suez crisis fiasco.
Yeh I mean, it didn’t completely bollock their empire or anything
Simple fact is what comes around goes around. I would mention other times the USA has fucked over Britain, treaties and promises are important ,for example the whole handing all nuclear work over to the usa that Britain had started doing before ww2 and even helped develop the bomb in the promise that favour would be returned and jointly create one for Britain also (we all know how that went, took another 10 years from start to finish)
Sorry but the list is long. Don't make agreements or promises if they can't be honoured
Least trump won't back down from deals and promises,he'll actually keep his word.
Damn you steel brotherhood
tj o• how’s that wall coming? Mexico ever pay for that?
Because Britain isn't an American puppet, and we remember suez
Tell that to Tony Blair.
@@grantmalone tell it to Reagan ' come and help with Vietnam"
U.K. " no" lol
Correction: "wasn't", not "isn't" ... our war criminals are more than happy to follow their masters now to wherever civilians need to be culled
Haha brits are the main puppets of the USA, your ignorance is painfull
@@spazzymacgee5648 but a damn good one woohoo
The British were in Malaya though, from 1948 - 1960, and won it :)
What we do innit..
@Kaywen Li I fought in the Indonesian "confrontation " against a well- armed, well trained, and motivated army, not a bunch of farmers!
Kaywen Li Those bunch of farmers aren’t just people with sticks. They were highly organised, knew the area well were difficult to lodge from their positions
Kaywen Li That’s like saying the Americans lost to rice farmers you twat.
@@KaylumHSQ which they did lol
1:28 - “The Thing” - well played, Sir, well played!
Because probably Britain had its own Vietnam in Malaysia, except they've won.
And also Suez
Hey I just got your message I I I I I I I I I think we can go for the day
FFS as if the British would help sort out a mess the French created.
@@MrMattumbo Bursting your Bubble a bit here but you realise that American troops where never deployed into French Indochina, they demanded help and they got mainly Financial but not many troops of any and the French troops to be fair (again) where totally depleted, mainly consisting of the now defunct colonial garrison (Dead or defection) and German "Mercenaries" that may or may not have been in the Waffen SS or at the very least fought in WW2 that made up the FFL at the time. They also left entirely by the time America got into the war. Being on very bitter terms with the Southern Vietnamese State
@@mmouse1886 that still doesn't change the fact that France started the mess (because it was french indochina at the time trouble started) so sorry to burst your bubble burster
there might have also been a call back to what happened at the end of ww2, when commonwealth forces retook indochina from the japanese. they basically played housekeeper until the french were ready to take back the mandate; during which they had to deal with the grass roots of the growing revolutionary movement left over from japanese occupation. Supposedly they said in no uncertain terms to simply get out as fast as they could to the french when they came back to assume control of the region.
I’ve answered this a few times in this section, in short. Britain temporarily administrated the French colony ‘45-46. Communists rose, Japanese POWs were rearmed and unleashed onto them. Within months of ruthless campaigning the communists were beaten. Japanese troops were sent home, French arrived, Britain gladly withdrew. Communists rose again years later and won.
I liked the "The Thing" reference you slipped in at 1:27
Very good Easter egg
@@ajthereptile Can you explain I don't get it.
@@marzuqahmed218 The thing takes place in Antarctica at an American research base when an alien that can perfectly imitate and assimilate other life forms infiltrates their base and they grow very suspicious and paranoid of each other and they do not know who to trust. It is a really cool horror movie and focuses on the themes of uncertainty and fear.
@@ajthereptile Thanks
It's all very simple animation, but by god do you have to be alert to catch stuff sometimes.
"America, we've found a vital flaw in your strategies that is making you lose the wa-"
"Send troops or shut up"
We did fight in Vietnam against hi chi Minh in 45/46. We won in 6 months. It was a joint British/Japanese effort.
Are you planning any 10 minute video again?
Edit: wow that is the biggest amount of likes i have ever had!
Ssar1702 yeah, these videos are too short...each is about one topic rather than about an era now
There's this thing called the community section. In it he addresses your question. Maybe go read it?
This question is on every single video. If he does one, you'll know.
Yess I'm waiting for 10 minutes history too, Hear our sound Mr.History Matters!
@@yux.tn.3641 Yep that's slightly disapointing :/
History matters, can you complete your british series?
He said he isn't
y tho
@@RockNRollHorrorshow when did he said that
@@franciscomm7675 In a community Post, the videos didn't get nearly enough views to justify the effort
There is something worth mentioning: a lot of Vietnamese Americans are very Anglophobe, they dislike Britain for not helping them during the Vietnam War leading to the collapse of South Vietnam. However, Britain already fought in Vietnam in 1945 and 1946, and was alarmed by rising support for Viet Minh despite the Vietnamese were poorly armed, and Douglas Gracey, alongside Philippe Leclerc, warned that a potential war in Vietnam would only end in disaster for intervening forces.
truth be told the anericans told the british and French that they could do better than them and that the british and French soilders were weak and poor trained so the british and French just left and let the anericans "do a better job" i think we know how that then went.
UK : *Sent advisors to teach about guerilla warfare*
US : Aight, okay *proceed to ignore*
Goes to vietnam
*Suffered heavy losses and had to retreat* 😂
>suffered heavy loses
>Retreat
No
No it was a peace agreement in 1972 which stopped and were favorable to america. Yet in 1975 north vietnam violated the agreement and invaded south vietnam.
@@MattC-jg1yb >58,220 US soldiers died
>The US pulled all troops out in 1973, which allowed the communist North to win the war
@@SxVx55 there were many NVA/VC casualties.
@@THX-bz8bi So what? That's not what this comment was about
The little visual for, "The Thing," has made my day.
*0:36** "A British *BATTALION* would be worth a Billion dollars."
*0:46** The guy on the right side of the screen is just calmly on fire.* 😂
Apart from Malaya, the U.K. fought communism in other troubled parts of the world. One of the SAS’s finest hours was defeating a guerrilla force in Yemen 1967.
MACONE Scotland hell yeah mate who dares wins
Britain had already beaten the communists there in 1945-46. They released Japanese POWs and rearmed them. They had already ruled this area for years knowing who to kill and where to strike. Within months they’d won, were sent home, Brits left and French troops returned. Communists tried again and won.
The British defeated a guerilla force in North Yemen in 1967. But the British were also decisively defeated in 1967 in South Yemen (Aden) and suffered a defeat there as humiliating as the US defeat in Vietnam.
@@Jim-Tuner I know former Argylls who served there - every Brit was glad to get out after a four year campaign that was unwinnable.
Thé UK also helped with the Greek Civil War
There were small numbers of British troops in Vietnam, fighting alongside their American cousins.
One chap I know was there as a sniper. He unfortunately passed away last year, having spent many
years working at Jodrell Bank.
My condolences
Volunteers I believe, similar to a foreign expeditionary force
Still working for the British Army though.
There was also that guy that became a US citizen and officially joined the army to fight the war. He returned back safe but he was also the building security guy for one of the towers in the World Trade Centre. His frequent evacuation drills were annoying but in the end, many years later, saved many lives.
@@tectorama What? Had the British government given him a 9 year hiatus from the British army? No. Much like the 10 US pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain, any British person fighting in Vietnam was there of their OWN personal choice, and NOT sent as part of a UK govt sanctioned military force.
You should do a video on “The Troubles” and the support received and view of it from Americans and the rest of the world.
That's a good one. Added to the list of topics to do.
Agreed! (As an American)
Didn't McDonald's support the IRA?
@@ave789 the McCarbomb
@@bigmanjorge
*I'm lovin' it slogan intensifies*
Australia and New Zealand: **Peter Griffin laugh**
A better question is "Why would Britain have fought in Vietnam".
Britain had been fighting communists in malaya so I'm sure the Americans thought they'd be up for another war in Asia.
We should have, im not sure of the date but wasnt this when usa decided the worlds gold was americas? An wouldnt give it back ?
Vietnameese tea
@@BipoIarbear There's also the fact that the US intervened in the Suez Crisis, hurting their relations with France and the UK, so when Vietnam happened, both of them essentially gave the US the middle finger.
Put simply, "You got in our business and fucked us, we're not helping you"
If the French had the guts to go in Vietnam, then they have no reason not to go.
I'm glad we didn't get involved
@mike Durry Britain IS being invaded. "London is no longer an English city"
@@petersteenkamp Keep taking the meds
@almightyinferno Knife crime is only an issue in London. And that Knife crime is a tiny fraction compared to gun crime in the US.
Knife crime is an epidemic country wide. The West Midlands has had it's fair share of stabbings, mostly because of the high number of ethnic minorities.
randomm User1237589 Yeah he can. Shut up!
Not fighting a war because the public dislikes it? Doubt it (Looking at you, Tony Blair)
@@lewis31m US public or UK public?
@@lewis31m I guess
@Nub93 if there were no WMDs then how did Assad get his chemical weapons? Oh never mind your head is to far up your communist ass to make that connection.
@@leepreston1337 Assad is Syrian not Iraqi..
@@northernmonkey8759 and Assad didn't have those chemical weapons until right before the invasion of Iraq. Mmm...
This the video that prompted me to become a patron of the channel. Thank you for producing this kind of content!
UK: Son, I'll teach you how to fight communism.
USA: I can do it!
**Viet Cong injures USA.**
USA: Sorry dad.
Canada: wait im supposed to say sorry
UK: Angry old man face
Considering that we were the ones actually doing the fighting, I’d say the advice of someone sitting on the sidelines was given its due merit.
G R you say that as if you believe the s were successful, or justified!
@@pipellis6672 Not successful, but justified. It would have been a very good thing for the people of southeast Asia had we won. All one needs to do is compare South Korea to North Korea, Taiwan to China or East Germany to West Germany. Communism creates hellish societies. Pol Pot's Cambodia by itself would justify the Vietnam War ten times over.
With 20/20 hindsight, I would not endorse fighting the Vietnam war or fighting it in the manner that we did. It's stupid to sacrifice tens of thousands of men, be defeated and have your society torn apart for nothing.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that if it's not worth dying for as a nation that it's probably not worth going to war for either, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a just cause.
Something else overlooked is that the British HAD fought in Vietnam after the end of WW2. They performed a remarkably successful counter-insurgency campaign with one of the strangest orders of battle ever seen, including former axis POWs, and kicked the viet minh out of most of the country. The French promptly failed to capitalize on the victory, which led directly to the first Indochina war.
The US had also stabbed the UK in the back previously in relation to the Suez Crisis.
The US had stabbed the UK in the back previously on a number of occasion since 1945
Britian launches a massive military operation which endangers the entire world economy without consulting the United States
Also if the Suez scheme succeeded the Arab world would have aligned itself with the Soviets
So of course America couldn't tolerate that b*******, don't know how you can interpret this as a stab in the back
Hi Christian...It certainly was seen by all the old boys (British) as a stab in the Back. The military build up to the event had been going on for months ( the US new this). When the Big Surprise happened of course the US withdrew support for the UK pound...hence a stab in the back. As to Arab Unity at that time well not really, to much infighting.
I do however wish all the people of that area peace and prosperity for the future in order to do this we must learn from the past.
@@markdowns9607 your account directly conflicts this video, the time ghost series on this event, and every other credible source I've seen.
Before the crisis began the only thing America knew was that Israel was mobilizing its military. Even then America didn't even know which country Israel was mobilizing against
Please provide citation for any sources of information that claim America knew about Britain and france's plan beforehand
@@christianweibrecht6555 At around this time the US knew more about the goings on in the UK, than we did ourselves! This scenario was not just limited to the Western Germany. The US presence in the UK was huge, loads of listening facilities... due in part to the fact we were leaky with secrets, these secrets eventually ended up in Soviet hands. Besides the US would have spotted all the Troop and equipment build up, they still have many bases here.
Thanks to UK and US "secretly" disliking each other in the 60s and 70s, we have great spy movies and books from that era.