The roots of the Korean War are deeply embedded in history. While few regions are less suited to warfare than is the mountainous, river-slashed Korean peninsula, few have known more conflict. For centuries, Korea's three powerful neighbors China, Japan, and the Soviet Union vied for its control. By 1910, Japan had established a supremacy that it was to maintain until its defeat in World War II.
Seven days before the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops entered Korea. By agreement, the Soviet Union accepted the surrender of all Japanese forces in Korea north of the 38th parallel of latitude, while the United States accepted the surrender of Japanese units south of the 38th parallel.
The Soviet Union quickly sealed off the 38th-parallel border. It soon set up an interim civil government for the 9 million Koreans of the north, which contained most of Korea's industry. The government was run by Soviet-trained Communist officials.
The United States maintained a military government in the south. The 21 million Koreans of the largely agricultural region were not satisfied with it.
A United States-Soviet commission that was established to make plans for the reunification of Korea under a free government made no progress. In 1947 the United States took the problem before the United Nations, which voted that free elections under its supervision should be held throughout Korea in 1948 to choose a single government. The Soviet Union refused to permit the United Nations election commission to enter the north. Elections were thus held only in the south, where a National Assembly and a president Syngman Rhee were chosen. The new democracy was named the Republic of Korea.
In the north, the Soviet Union proclaimed a Communist dictatorship called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Pyongyang was named its capital. Late in 1948, Soviet forces began to withdraw from North Korea, leaving behind an entrenched Communist regime and a well-trained, well-equipped North Korean army. United States occupation forces left South Korea in 1949. They left behind a government still \feeling its way\ and an army ill-trained compared with that of the north. This army also lacked air power, tanks, and artillery.
South Korea, however, successfully resisted North Korean attempts at subversion, Communist-supported guerrilla activities, and border raids by North Korean forces. Frustrated, North Korea early in 1950 decided upon war to achieve its goal of Korean unification under Communist rule.
In June 1950 North Korea's army totaled 135,000 men. North Korea's infantry was also supported by approximately 150 Soviet-made medium tanks, ample artillery, and a small air force. South Korea's ground forces included a 45,000-member national police force and an army of 98,000. South Korea was armed largely with light infantry weapons supplied by the United States. It had no tanks or combat aircraft, and its artillery was inferior to that of North Korea. Its officers and enlisted men had generally less training and experience than did those of North Korea.
This map shows how the conflict surged back and forth. The truce line
added 850 square miles to North Korea below the 38th parallel, 2350 square
miles to South Korea above it.
Above the 38th parallel, the Chinese and North Korean forces once again regrouped. In April and in May, their commanders hurled them against the United Nations lines. In response, General Van Fleet's forces slowly withdrew, scourging their attackers with superior firepower. When their adversaries were exhausted by massive casualties and supply shortages, the United Nations forces counterattacked. By mid-June, save for a small sector north of Seoul in the west, the United Nations line stood well above the 38th parallel.
Late in June, the Soviet Union indicated that the Communists might be prepared to seek a truce. On June 30, General Ridgway offered to open truce negotiations. North Korea and China accepted.
Truce talks opened on July 10 at Kaesong, some 35 miles northwest of Seoul. It quickly became apparent that the opposing sides had different goals at the truce table. The United Nations sought only an honorable end to the war. North Korea and China, however, undertook to win in conference what they had been unable to attain on the battlefield. The Communists made every effort to embarrass and humiliate United Nations delegates, to force concessions through intransigence and delay, and to use the conference as a propaganda forum.
Although it was agreed that hostilities were to continue during the truce talks, no more major offensives were conducted during the war. A lull in the fighting developed as the talks opened; both sides used it to strengthen their forces. The Communist buildup was hampered though not halted by United Nations naval and air forces.
Late in August, the Communists broke off the truce talks. General Van Fleet promptly launched a limited offensive to straighten and improve the United Nations lines. By mid-October, defeated again, the Communists offered to reopen the truce talks.
The meeting site was moved to Panmunjom, some five miles east of Kaesong. Here the armistice talks were to drag on, with intermittent recesses, for another year and a half, stalling repeatedly over such issues as the establishment of a truce line and the repatriation of prisoners. Along the front, meanwhile, the fighting settled into a modernized version of the grinding trench warfare of World War I.
In order to maintain the military pressure that seemed essential to serious negotiations, the United Nations insisted that the truce line be the line of contact between the opposing armies at the time the truce was signed. Finally, a line was agreed upon. Finally, too, the Communists agreed that prisoners who did not wish to return to their homelands did not have to. At first, they had insisted that the United Nations return, by force if necessary, all the Communist prisoners it held. Nearly half of all the prisoners held by the United Nations and three quarters of the Chinese did not wish to return to Communist rule. The truce agreement was finally signed July 27, 1953, and that day, at 10:00 P.M., Korean time, the guns fell silent along the blood-soaked main line of resistance.
The conclusion of the cease-fire had probably been hastened by events outside of Korea. First, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, who succeeded Truman as president of the United States in January 1953, had hinted broadly that military pressure might be sharply increased if the fighting did not end soon. Second, the death in March 1953 of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin caused a general turning inward of the Communist world.
After the cease-fire, the opposing forces each withdrew two kilometers from the truce line. The armistice agreement had provided for a conference to seek a permanent peace, but in the face of Communist intransigence it was delayed for many years. Today, United States troops remain in South Korea, and heavily armed North Korean and South Korean forces still face each other across a narrow demilitarized zone. Truce violations are common.
Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
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