45, when Bao Dai abdicated his throne to Ho Chi Minh and his republic although he would remain a political flashpoint. From this point on the French had little real chance of winning this war, and the potential for a staggeringly high body count was established, as Holden (2003) suggests.
When the French bowed out of Indochina, the resentment that many Vietnamese felt toward them as colonizers was transferred to the Americans. Americans thought that they were fighting Communism and so would be welcome
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