The Vietnam War began soon after world war II. At first, in 1946, the war was between the Vietnamese and the French. The government of Vietnam was French. But the Vietnamese people wanted the French to leave so they could have their own government. The Vietnamese fought hard, and slowly they won more and more land. By 1953, the French Army was in trouble. They were not winning the war. French soldiers were dying, and the war was costing a lot of money. So in 1954, the French Army stopped fighting and left Vietnam. That was the end of the first part of the Vietnam War.