Korean War

The causes

In 1945, after the defeat of Japan, which had occupied Korea, the country was divided along the 38th parallel: the Soviets occupied the North, the Americans the South. With no agreement, two states formed in 1948, South Korea (capitalist) and North Korea (communist), each claiming to represent the whole of Korea. In the context of the Cold War, the North, with the approval of Stalin and Mao, decided to attack.

Before the division, the Korean Peninsula was annexed by Japan in 1910, then subjected to a policy of forced assimilation until 1945. The two occupying powers, Soviet in the North and American in the South, failed to agree on reunification. In 1948, elections held in the South under UN supervision brought Syngman Rhee to power, while the North adopted a regime led by Kim Il-sung. Soviet troops left the North at the end of 1948, and the last American combat troops left the South in June 1949. Clashes along the 38th parallel then multiplied, and Kim Il-sung obtained Stalin's authorization to attack.

The course of the war

The North Korean offensive of June 1950 was lightning-fast and pushed the South back into the south-east of the peninsula. The UN decided to send troops. In September, the American general Douglas MacArthur pulled off a landing at Inchon and regained the initiative: UN forces almost reached the Chinese border.

In October-November 1950, China sent hundreds of thousands of "volunteers": UN troops fell back. The front then stabilised near the 38th parallel, and the fighting bogged down. The armistice was signed on 27 July 1953 at Panmunjom. No peace treaty has ever been signed.

After the recapture of Seoul on 28 September 1950, UN forces crossed the 38th parallel in October and entered Pyongyang. From late October, Chinese intervention halted this advance. Between November and December 1950, American marines withdrew through the Chosin Reservoir, in the mountains of the northeast, in extreme cold. In January 1951, Seoul fell again to the communists. General Matthew Ridgway, who took command of UN forces at the end of December 1950, launched a methodical offensive that allowed the capital to be retaken in March 1951.

Talks opened at Kaesong in July 1951, then continued at Panmunjom from October. For nearly two years they stalled over the fate of prisoners of war, as many communist fighters refused to be repatriated. Meanwhile, American aircraft bombed the cities and installations of the North, while both sides clung to positions on the hills of the front, such as Pork Chop Hill, where fighting remained very fierce in 1953. Negotiations only progressed after Stalin's death, in March 1953.

On 18 June 1953, Syngman Rhee, on his own initiative, released several tens of thousands of North Korean prisoners, which irritated the negotiators. The armistice that followed created a military commission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire and set a demilitarized zone on either side of the demarcation line. In October 1953, a mutual defense treaty bound the United States to South Korea, which kept American troops on its territory. A commission of neutral nations (Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and Czechoslovakia) was tasked with overseeing implementation of the armistice.

The consequences

The war killed more than two million people, mostly Korean civilians, and destroyed much of the country. Korea remains divided by a demilitarised zone, one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. South Korea, aided by the United States, became a major economic power, while North Korea remained a closed communist regime. The conflict strengthened the Cold War and the American military presence in Asia.

Memory of the war differs between the two Koreas. In the North, the regime made it a founding ordeal and attributes the victory to Kim Il-sung. In the South, the conflict durably strengthened the alliance with Washington, which remains its main security guarantor. Long called the "forgotten war" in comparison with the Second World War, it is commemorated in Washington by a monument inaugurated in 1995. The opening of Soviet and Chinese archives after 1991 confirmed the decisive role of Stalin, who authorized the offensive and supplied weapons, and of Mao, who committed troops.

Timeline

1. 1950North Korea invades the South, on 25 June
2. 1950American landing at Inchon, in September
3. 1950China enters the war, in October-November
4. 1951The front stabilises near the 38th parallel
5. 1953Panmunjom armistice, on 27 July

Key figures

• Kim Il-sung, leader of North Korea
• Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea
• Douglas MacArthur, American general, commander of UN forces
• Mao Zedong, leader of China, who sent troops