Korean War

### Territorial Changes

Integration of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) into South Korea (Republic of Korea)

## Belligerents

### Aggressor(s)

* Sino-Korean Alliance
	+ North Korea
	+ China
* **Supported by**
	+ Warsaw Pact
		- Soviet Union
		- East Germany
		- Czechoslovakia

### Defender(s)

* South Korea
* NATO
	+ United Kingdom
	+ United States

## Commanders and Leaders

### Aggressors

* **Kim Il-sung**
* **Mao Zedong**

### Defenders

* **Syngman Rhee**
* **Dwight D. Eisenhower**
* Felix Stump
* Douglas MacArthur
* **Winston Churchill**
* Rudolph Bierwith

## Meta

### Timeline

Earth 2

The **Korean War** also known in Korea as the **War of Reunification** or in China as the **Special Military Operation to Resist the West and Assist Korea** was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1953 to 1954. The war began in January 1953 when North Korea invaded South Korea with the aim of "liberating" it from Western influence. North Korea was supported directly by China and indirectly by the Warsaw Pact while South Korea was directly supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United Kingdom and the United States. The war ended following the collapse of the (North) Korean People's Army and withdrawal of the Chinese People's Liberation Army with the Treaty of Panjumon, which formalized the reunification of Korea under South Korea's Western-backed anti-communist regime.

Prior to the war, Korea had been divided into two sovereign states; a tolitarian communist state in the north under Korean Worker's Party Chairman Kim Il-sung and an authoritarian capitalist state in the south under President Syngman Rhee. Both governments claimed sovreignty over the entire Korean peninsula and both viewed the border between them (which rested roughly along the 38th parallel) as temporary. The independence and sovreignty of North Korea was recognized and guarunteed by the Soviet Union and China while South Korea was recognized and guaranteed by the United States and was also, controversially, admitted to the United Nations in 1951

After years of tensions, on 10 January 1953 Kim unilaterally ordered a suprise invasion of South Korea following a false flag attack on a border village near Kaesong, prompting immediate mobilization in the United States and United Kingdom for what was officially deemed a "police action" to aid South Korea. China, in turn, sent a small number of volunteers to aid North Korea. Though the Korean People's Army was able to capture the South Korean capital Seoul relatively quickly, its failure to capture Busan as well as a South Korean counterattack which drove the northern line past Pyongyang after a brutal siege turned the war quickly against the north.

Immediately following the invasion, South Korea appealled to the United Nations for assistance, but no motion for intervention was introduced after the Soviet Union made clear that such a motion would be vetoed. In response, South Korea moved to eject the Soviet Union from the United Nations "for its clear contempt for world peace" but this motion was not seconded. On July 6, the South Korean delegate gave a speech denouncing North Korea's invasion of South Korea as well as UN-members Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union's support for Kim Il-Sung's regime, insinuating that Czech and Soviet refusal to recognize South Korea incited North Korea to war. South Korea once again moved for the creation of a UN coalition against North Korea and the ejection of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia if they did not cooperate, but these motions were never seconded. The Soviet ambassador replied to the South Korean ambassador's speech by insisting that North Korea's invasion was a war of liberation, that South Korea was indeed a puppet of Western imperial powers, and that NATO should withdraw from the war. In order to ensure the UN's impartiality, the Soviet Union then moved to eject South Korea from the U.N. for the duration of the conflict, but the motion was defeated in a vote along East-West lines.

On July 7, 1953, a Chinese destroyer breached disputed waters off of the eastern coast of Korea and was reportedly sunk by South Korean patrol ships. Chinese Communist Party Chariman Mao Zedong used the incident to justify China's intervention, and the People's Liberation Army immediately crossed the border to aid North Korea, which quickly signed a treaty of alliance with China. The KPA and PLA then mounted sieges of Seoul and Pyongyang, but failed to capture the cities from the ROK Army. Despite these costly setbacks, the Sino-Korean Alliance was able to hold Hamhung during a South Korean siege near the end of July.

In January, 1954, the PLA and KPA launched a massive counterattack against South Korea, capturing Seoul and encircling Pyongyang before moving on to capture Busan. With South Korea growing desperate, NATO quickly finished its mobilization and immediately deployed troops to the Korean peninsula. The initial landings consisted of an American force under General Douglas MacArthur attempting to recapture Busan with the aid of the ROK Army. Despite a long and costly siege, the Americans failed to defeat the PLA and KPA and were forced to fall back. A second wave of landings led by Australian-born British Commonwealth Lieutenant General Rudolph Bierwith had more success, pushing the communist forces out of Busan and north past Hamhung. In and around Hamhung, British forces massacred an unknown number of civilians and pillaged population centers, destroying several towns and a large part of the city of Hamhung in the process. Dubbed the "Hamhung Massacres" in China, North Korea, and other parts of the eastern bloc; these atrocities were subsequently covered up by NATO internationally and by Syngman Rhee's regime in Korea.

The second half of January 1954 saw the KPA and PLA make a desperate last stand, attempting to drive the British from Hamhung and failing miserably. It was only at this stage that the Sino-Korean Alliance recieved financial aid from the Warsaw Pact, which had been previously distracted by the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in March 1953. The Soviet, Czechoslovak, and East German aid turned out to be too little too late, as a final South Korean counterratack destroyed what remained of the KPA in northwest Korea, leading Mao Zedong to sue for peace despite the PLA's continued occupation of Seoul. Before attending the peace talks with NATO and South Korea in Panjumon, Mao ordered the PLA to help Kim Il-sung flee to safety in China. Anticipating repression from Syngman Rhee's regime, Chinese forces also aided in the evacuation of over 500,000 civilians sympathetic to the north in the Seoul Airlift, which lasted until the end of the Chinese occupation of Seoul on February 15.

The Treaty of Panjumon, signed near the end of January 1954, saw all foreign troops removed and the Republic of Korea unequivocally recognized as the legitimate government the entire Korean Peninsula. It marked a major victory for the US-led Western Bloc in the Cold War and was deeply humiliating to China. Despite intense and violent political repression of leftists and other opponents of Syngman Rhee's regime following the end of the war, Korea experienced what was described in the West as an economic miracle. The war was the most destructive of its decade, seeing heavy civilian casualities with massacres perpetrated by both sides. In the war's aftermath, million of North Korean refugees fled to China and the Soviet Union.