Tet Offensive And Night Of Long Knives

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Tet Offensive and Night of the Long Knives The Tet Offensive was surprise attacks on South Vietnam cities and towns by Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops. They spent some time drawing the troops near the cities away with diversionary attacks. Then when they got them far enough away they attacked the cities. Some cities were leveled and a lot of citizens were killed, but in the end the U.S. did take the cities back (1).I think Clausewitz would say that the Vietcong were trying hard to disarm the U.S. (3), they were able to plan on catching them off guard. The Night of the Long Knives was the name Hitler gave to his purge of the SA. Hitler found out about a conspiracy to have him removed because the SA had the power to remove him. So with that Knowledge he called for a meeting and there he arrested the leader Ernst Roehm and also arrested 200 other senior officers. Many were shot as they were captured and in the end he also had Roehm killed. He made sure the next leader for them was weak so in the end they lost their power. Hitler made it clear by announcing this purge that he was supreme leader and judger of who could live or die (2). I believe with this Clausewitz would point out that it is always a political goal trying to be reached and Hitler reached his supreme leader status (3). I would say the one that had the most success was Hitler’s Knight of the Long Knives. Although I do not agree with what he did it was successful. He stopped a conspiracy and made it absolutely known that he alone was the supreme leader of Germany. He succeeded in killing the SA’s power and striking fear into everyone. On the other hand I think the Tet Offensive was successful in some ways, but not in others. One reason I believe it was successful was because the U.S. thought that they had the war close to winning or maybe even won already. Although when something like surprise
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