314 ChaPter^6
Truman agreed that the U.S. should try to take control of all of Korea, the
Chinese had other ideas and in mid-October, Mao sent troops across the
Yalu River, the border between China and North Korea, to assist Kim
Il-sung’s government. The war had entered a new and more brutal phase,
and U.S. and Chinese troops would wage war against each other. More
Chinese forces, hundreds of thousands, poured into Korea—many unarmed
and told to pick up weapons of dead comrades as they passed them—and
they stopped the U.S. advance, though MacArthur still insisted he could win
the war by the end of 1950.
The Chinese intervention had totally changed the nature of the war, as the
DRK forces moved southward and even recaptured the ROK capital at Seoul,
leading the U.N. to call for a cease-fire in December. By January 1951, the
race up and down the Korean peninsula by the competing armies was again
close to the 38th parallel, and would remain there until a cease-fire was
reached in July 1953. In those two years, although little ground was gained or
lost, the war was dramatic and bloody. MacArthur provoked one of the most
serious civil-military confrontations in U.S. history in April 1951 when he
publicly criticized Truman for seeking a negotiated end to the war rather than
again “unleashing” his forces to attack the North and gain victory. Truman,
publicly embarrassed, fired MacArthur, with strong support from other mili-
tary officials, but the General returned home a national hero and Truman’s
public approval ratings fell dreadfully low. Meanwhile, the war continued,
especially with air attacks, and by the end of fighting the U.S. had spent well
over $20 billion and had suffered about 55,000 deaths. The South Koreans lost
over 400,000, and North Korea over 500,000. All told, there were three to
four million casualties–deaths and injuries both–in the war, and civilians
accounted for most of those numbers.
The Korean War, coming not long after the Communist victory in China’s
civil war, showed that Asia would play out much differently than Europe had.
The U.S. did not have the same level of power or influence, nor allies, as it
did in Europe, and was unsuccessful in gaining its goals in both the PRC and
Korea. In fact, the war in Korea did not even officially end. Though a cease-
fire was agreed to, the various sides could not agree on a peace treaty so even
today Korea remains technically at war and the 38th parallel is one of the
more dangerous areas in the world, while one of the more brutal and bizarre
regimes in modern times continues to rule the DRK.