The end of the Korean War

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First, the two sides could not agree about prisoners of war: the UN insisted that prisoners should not be forced to go home against their will, but China and North Korea demanded that all their prisoners be returned. Second, both sides used the talks for propaganda and kept fighting to improve their bargaining position, so neither wanted to look weak by giving way.

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Source A suggests the fighting was like the First World War because the soldier compares it directly with 'the trenches in France in 1916'. He describes bunkers dug into the hill, sandbags and barbed wire, night patrols into 'no man's land' and shelling that 'never really stops' - all features of trench warfare on the Western Front. He also says that nobody talks about advancing any more; both sides simply try to hold or take a hill.

This matches what happened in Korea from the middle of 1951. Once the front settled near the 38th Parallel and the armistice talks began, both sides dug in, building trenches, bunkers and, on the Chinese side, long tunnels to survive air and artillery attack. Fighting centred on hills and outposts such as the Hook, which the Commonwealth Division defended in a major battle in May 1953. The writer was serving there at the time and writing privately to his father, a First World War veteran, so he chose a comparison his father would understand.

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Source B is useful because it shows what the hill battles of the stalemate were like for UN soldiers. The infantryman describes taking a ridge and losing it the next night, mud and shell holes, and losses for every yard. This matches what I know about Heartbreak Ridge in September and October 1951, when American and French troops fought for weeks to capture a line of hills. He also explains why the battles were fought: officers said that every hill gave 'more to bargain with at the peace talks'. This is accurate, as the negotiators agreed in November 1951 that the line of contact would become the ceasefire line, so ground mattered. As a private letter written at the time, it is likely to be honest, and his bitterness shows how ordinary soldiers felt. However, it describes only one battle from one man's point of view.

Source C is useful because it gives the Chinese side of the same kind of fighting. The soldier describes sheltering in a tunnel while American guns and planes 'blew the top off the hill', fighting for the trenches at night and suffering terribly from thirst. This matches what I know: the Chinese dug long tunnels and deep trenches to survive the UN's huge advantage in artillery and air power, and the Battle of Triangle Hill in October and November 1952 became famous in China as a story of endurance. His comment that the Americans had 'more shells than we have bullets, but they cannot dig us out' sums up the stalemate: firepower against manpower, with neither able to win. As a diary written at the time it is valuable, though one soldier's view, and his heroic language may reflect the political education Chinese soldiers received.

Overall, the sources are very useful together because they show both sides experiencing the same kind of war: attritional battles for hills, trench and tunnel warfare like the Western Front, and fighting shaped by the talks. Their main limitation is that both focus on ground fighting in single battles, so they do not show the air war over 'MiG Alley' or the bombing of North Korea, which were also important parts of the stalemate.

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In some ways the Korean War was a clear success for the UN. When North Korea invaded in June 1950, the Security Council condemned the attack, asked members to help South Korea and set up a unified command. It was the first time an international organisation had used force to resist aggression, something the League of Nations had failed to do over Manchuria in 1931 and Abyssinia in 1935. Sixteen countries sent combat troops and five sent medical units. The UN's original aim - to repel the invasion and restore South Korea - was achieved: the armistice of 1953 left the border close to the 38th Parallel, and South Korea survived as an independent state.

The war also strengthened the UN in the longer term. When the USSR returned to the Security Council in August 1950, the General Assembly passed the Uniting for Peace resolution, allowing it to recommend action when a veto blocked the Council. This gave the Assembly new power and was later used in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Neutral states, especially India, helped to solve the prisoner-of-war issue through the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, showing the UN system could help make peace as well as war.

However, the UN's success depended on luck. It could act in 1950 only because the USSR was boycotting the Security Council over China's seat; had the Soviet delegate been present, he would have vetoed the resolutions. The war was also dominated by the USA. The commander was American, took orders from Washington, and the USA provided most of the non-Korean forces and nearly all the air and naval power. To the communist states and some neutral countries, the UN looked like a tool of American policy.

The UN also failed in its wider aims. In October 1950 the General Assembly backed the aim of uniting Korea, but the advance north provoked Chinese intervention and two more years of war. Around 3 million people may have died, most of them Korean civilians, and Korea remained divided with no peace treaty; the Geneva conference of 1954 failed to agree. Relations with the communist world were damaged: the USSR refused to deal with Secretary-General Trygve Lie, who resigned in 1952, and the People's Republic of China was condemned as an aggressor and kept out of the UN until 1971, so the UN did not even represent the world's most populous country.

Overall, I partly agree. The war was a success in that the UN achieved its original aim of saving South Korea and showed that collective security could work. But it was a limited success: it depended on a Soviet mistake and on American power, it failed to unite Korea, and it came at an enormous human cost while deepening Cold War divisions within the UN itself.