Republic of Vietnam Military Forces


The Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, were the official armed defense forces of the defunct Republic of Vietnam and was responsible for the defense of the state since its independence from France in October 1955 to its demise in April 1975.

Branches

The QLVNCH was formally established on December 30, 1955 by the strongman and republican first South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, which he declared on October 26 that year after winning a rigged referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam. Created out from ex-French Union Army colonial Indochinese auxiliary units, gathered earlier on July 1951 into the French-led Vietnamese National Army , Armée Nationale Vietnamiènne in French, the armed forces of the new state consisted in the mid-1950s of ground, air, and naval branches of service, respectively:
Their roles were defined as follows: to protect the sovereignty of the free Vietnamese nation and that of the Republic; to maintain the political and social order and the rule of law by providing internal security; to defend the newly independent Republic of Vietnam from external threats; and ultimately, to help reunify Vietnam – divided since the Geneva Accords in July 1955 into two transitional states, one at the north ruled by Ho Chi Minh’s Marxist Lao Dong Party regime and the other in the south under Diem’s anti-communist regime.

Command structure

Regional commands