Following the end of the Second World War, conflict intensified between nationalists (the Viet Minh) and French colonial forces, culminating in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The victory of the Viet Minh in this battle marked the end of French colonial rule and led to the partition of Viet Nam at the seventeenth parallel, with the north governed by the Viet Minh and the south under control of foreign colonial powers (United States, United Kingdom and France).