The final declaration of the Geneva Conference on the problems of restoring peace in Indochina was dated 2 1 Jul y 1954. The second war in Indochina began two years later as the deadline passed for reunification elections and ended on 27 January 1973 as "The Agreement on Ending the War and Restori ng Peace in Vietnam" took efTecl. But the two-year respite that followed the Geneva Conference of 1954 was not to be repeated. What could be called a third Indochina war began immediately ancr the 1973 agreement.
Although some traces of the Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla forces remained, as well as a few unconvincing contri vances intended to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRO) of South Vietnam, the third Indochina COnnic l quickly assumed the character of conventional war between regular ground forces. Irregulars played an insignifi cant role in the final outcome. The war's central characteristic was an invasion across well-defined frontiers. With a secure base in the north and a large army already positioned in South Vietnam. the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DR V) systematically rebuilt and reinforced its eltpeditionary force without any effective interference until the South Vietnamese ground forces, short of essential resources and demoralized,
abandoned entire provinces to concentrate their battered defenders and then collapsed. What follows is the story of thaI linal Indochina struggle and of the end of the eventual and tragic collapse of the South Vietnamese.
