ABSTRACT
From a seriously weakened position in 1971, the revolution in My Tho and elsewhere in the Mekong Delta made a military recovery during and after the Spring “Easter” Offensive of 1972. The offensive revived the guerrilla warfare movement in South Vietnam, blunted the previous momentum of Saigon’s pacification program, expanded the revolution’s terri torial control, widened its sphere of military operations in South Vietnam, and led to the signing of the Paris Agreements in January 1973 and the final withdrawal of U.S. forces. The main engine of this transformation was troops that had infiltrated from North Viet nam, whose impact on the military balance paved the way for the final victory of April 1975. The result was not, however, simply a conquest of the South by the North. After the departure of U.S. troops, the conflict reverted to what it had been before: a civil war.
