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The surrender ended a bloody chapter that began in March 1970, after a bloodless coup ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state. The new regime, headed by General Lon Nol, almost immediately launched a campaign to drive Hanoi's troops from their base camps inside Cambodia and quash the Khmer Rouge, a ragtag band of 3,000 to 5,000 leftist guerrillas. After initial hesitations, Washington backed the new regime. The U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, directed against North Vietnamese sanctuaries, was partly designed to help Lon Nol. Also helpful were $1.8 billion in aid and thousands of bombing missions flown by the U.S. until Congress banned them in August 1973.
Swelling Ranks. For the first two years of the war, highly professional North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers fought beside the Khmer Rouge; as volunteers and conscripted peasants swelled their ranks, the rebels fought alone. By the time the U.S. bombing ceased, the Communists claimed 90% of Cambodia's territory and were on the outskirts of the capital. Only the stubborn and unexpected resistance of the government's poorly paid troops kept Phnom-Penh from falling in 1973 or 1974. This year, when the insurgents blockaded the Mekong River and cut off all land access to the capital, the government had to rely on a U.S. airlift for food, fuel and ammunition.
It was thus just a matter of time before the capital would fall and, as last week began, an insurgent victory was imminent. After the evacuation of the U.S. embassy (TIME, April 21), the Phnom-Penh government stood alone. "We feel completely abandoned," said Premier Long Boret, who stated at the time that he had decided to remain in Cambodia. Any hope of resupplying or defending the capital ended when the U.S. airlift halted the day the embassy closed.
Soon after the U.S. evacuation, the insurgents, as if waiting for a signal that Washington had finally, irrevocably given up on Cambodia, began what proved to be the final assault of the war. Reinforced by units brought in from the provinces and from blockade stations along the Mekong River, about 40,000 Khmer Rouge troops attacked the capital from all sides.
The road between Phnom-Penh and Pochentong Airport was severed; suburbs to the northwest of the city fell; in the south, in the southwest, on the Mekong riverbank across from the capital's east side, insurgents rolled easily over government defenders. Highly accurate U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers, captured from government forces, were brought within range of the airport to support a punishing rebel ground assault. After a three-day-long seesaw battle, first the control tower and then the airfield fell.
As the Khmer Rouge pushed forward, setting fire to houses and refugee camps, thousands of new refugees preceded them. The endless stream, including government soldiers who had shed their uniforms and insurgents who were attempting to infiltrate Phnom-Penh, pressed toward the capital on foot, in oxcarts and by motorbike.