The Yalta Conference

The February 1945 Yalta Conference was the second wartime meeting of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the conference, the three leaders agreed to demand Germany’s unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. Stalin also agreed to permit free elections in Eastern Europe and to enter the Asian war against Japan, for which he was promised the return of lands lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Although most of these agreements were initially kept secret, the revelations of the conference particulars became controversial after Soviet-American wartime cooperation degenerated into the Cold War.

The Yalta Conference was a meeting of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt early in February 1945 as WW2 was winding down. The leaders agreed to require Germany’s unconditional surrender and to set up in the conquered nation four zones of occupation to be run by their three countries and France. They scheduled another meeting for April in San Francisco to create the United Nations. Stalin also agreed to permit free elections in Eastern Europe and to enter the Asian war against Japan. In turn, he was promised the return of lands lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. At the time, most of these agreements were kept secret.

Yalta became controversial after Soviet-American wartime cooperation degenerated into the cold war. Stalin broke his promise of free elections in Eastern Europe and installed governments dominated by the Soviet Union. Then American critics charged that Roosevelt, who died two months after the conference, had “sold out” to the Soviets at Yalta.

The Yalta Conference is commonly considered one of the starting points for the Cold War, as it was the base of many hostilities for the U.S. towards the Soviet Union. It was over the issue of the postwar status of Poland, however, that the animosity and mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union that would characterize the Cold War were most readily apparent. Soviet troops were already in control of Poland, a procommunist provisional government had already been established, and Stalin was adamant that Russia’s interests in that nation be recognized. The United States and Great Britain believed that the London-based noncommunist Polish government-in-exile was most representative of the Polish people. The final agreement merely declared that a “more broadly based” government should be established in Poland. Free elections to determine Poland’s future were called for sometime in the future. Many U.S. officials were disgusted with the agreement, which they believed condemned Poland to a communist future. Roosevelt, however, felt that he could do no more at the moment, since the Soviet army was occupying Poland.

As the Cold War became a reality in the years that followed the Yalta Conference, many critics of Roosevelt’s foreign policy accused him of “selling out” at the meeting and naively letting Stalin have his way. It seems doubtful, however, that Roosevelt had much choice. He was able to secure Russian participation in the war against Japan (Russia declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945), established the basic principles of the United Nations, and did as much as possible to settle the Poland issue. With World War II still raging, his primary interest was in maintaining the Grand Alliance. He believed that troublesome political issues could be postponed and solved after the war. Unfortunately, Roosevelt never got that chance—almost exactly two months after the end of the conference, Roosevelt suffered a stroke and died.

Benito Mussolini

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Fascism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. Mussolini’s military expenditures in Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Albania made Italy predominant in the Mediterranean region, though they exhausted his armed forces by the late 1930’s. Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, relying on the German dictator to prop up his leadership during WW2, but he was killed shortly after the German surrender in Italy in 1945.

Benito Mussolini’s self-confessed “thirst for military glory” battled his acute intelligence, psychological acumen, and political shrewdness for control over his military policies. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he abandoned his party to advocate Italian intervention in WW1. Following the war, in which he served as a rifleman, Mussolini decided his destiny was to rule Italy as a modern Caesar and re-create the Roman Empire. He forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919-1921, using it to march on Rome, become prime minister, and then to seize dictatorial power (1925-1926). By subduing Libya (1922-1932), pacifying Somalia (1923-1927), conquering Ethiopia (1935-1936), helping the Nationalists win the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), and seizing Albania (April 1939), Mussolini made Italy predominant in the Mediterranean-Red Sea region. But his military adventures in 1935-1939 left his armed forces exhausted.

National poverty, resource deficiencies, and scientific-industrial weakness, combined with inflexible commanders, plagued the Italian forces. The king, Victor Emmanuel III, provided monarchist officers with an authority figure to impede Mussolini’s dominance of the armed services. An air power enthusiast, Mussolini did create an innovative, Fascist-minded air force. It performed well over Ethiopia and Spain but lagged technologically after 1935. Mussolini promoted Fascists to leadership positions and sponsored some new army thinking in the 1930s. But bitter interservice rivalry crippled joint planning. Mussolini lacked the understanding and power to solve these problems. Thus, he pursued his imperial dreams with politically, strategically, and doctrinally incoherent forces.

Wishful thinking, megalomania, and Fascist ideology gradually overwhelmed Mussolini’s common sense. He interpreted diplomatic victories over Britain and France during the Ethiopian and Spanish wars (1935-1939) as proof of his military genius. Because of his parents’ and older brother’s short lives, Mussolini expected to die young but considered himself uniquely capable of leading Italy to greatness. Therefore he perceived a fleeting historical opportunity (1935-1945) for spectacular Italian aggrandizement by pitting Fascist-Nazi power against French-British decadence. Mussolini decided to gamble for a Mediterranean-African empire through war with the west. Winning Caesarian glory would gain him the prestige necessary to abolish the monarchy and create a truly totalitarian state.

After the Allied victories of November 1942, Mussolini implored Hitler to make peace with Ioseph Dzhugashvili(a.k.a. Joseph Stalin) and concentrate on defeating the British-American forces. Hitler’s refusal and the Sicilian invasion convinced the king and high command to overthrow Mussolini in July 1943. Hitler rescued him, installing Mussolini as puppet dictator of northern Italy in September. Mussolini facilitated significant war production for the Germans and the creation of large, ruthless Fascist counterinsurgency forces. The April 1945 German surrender in Italy forced Mussolini to flee. Insurgents captured and shot him.

5) The Heist of the Century

Lt. Colonel Montagu “Monty” Reaney Chidson, officially a military attaché during the war, was actually an operative for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI-6 (you know, like James Bond, except without gadgets or gals). He was stationed in Den Hague—The Hague—when Germany invaded the country. Fortunately, the well informed Chidson had been expecting Hitler’s move. He immediately put his top secret operation in motion: to prevent the Nazis from getting their hands on the huge, valuable cache of diamonds held in Amsterdam, he’d have to steal them himself.

Several weeks prior, he’d acquired a key to the main entrance of the Amsterdam diamond market. Now he traveled to the city wearing civilian clothes—which would have gotten him shot as a spy if caught by the enemy—and entered the empty, unguarded building. Although he didn’t have the vault combination, his intelligence gathering had netted a few clues so he set to work. Twenty-four hours later, the door still wasn’t open. Worse, he heard German soldiers in the building, very likely coming to take the diamonds themselves.

Chidson persisted despite the danger. Finally, when it seemed capture was imminent, the vault yielded. He grabbed the entire stock of diamonds and escaped. Despite the invading German army, he managed to flee to England, where he turned the diamonds over to the exiled Queen Wilhelmina.

4) The Traitor on Air

With our modern emphasis on television and the Internet, it can be difficult for us to envision a world where one of the most important factors in obtaining news and entertainment inside the home was the radio, which became a new tool utilized by the Allied and Axis powers to demoralize citizens and soldiers alike.

As the Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels used the airwaves and a specially selected group of foreign broadcasters to sow doubt and confusion among Allied forces and in enemy countries. For example, Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) encouraged British soldiers to desert. Tokyo Rose tried to One of the American recruits for German State Radio was Mr. Guess Who, the on-air alias of journalist Robert Henry Best, who called himself the “self appointed correspondent for the New World Order.”

He didn’t keep his alias long. His program, Best’s Berlin Broadcasts sent Nazi socialist propaganda from Berlin to the United States and to American soldiers in the field twice a day. Though he didn’t consider himself a Nazi, he was viciously anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-government, and hated President Roosevelt. He attempted to incite class hatred. Best’s broadcasts were so abusive and vitriolic (he coined the phrase, the “Jewnited States”) that even his Nazi supervisors couldn’t stomach him, and he was taken off the air.

In the United States, Best was convicted of treason against the U.S. After the war in 1948, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. He served only four years before suffering brain damage in 1951 and dying in 1952.

3) Hallelujah it’s Raining Sheep!

During Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia when Italian troops desperately needed supplies during their march across the Danakil desert, a unique solution saved them from death in a region considered the “cruelest place on earth”—a flying supply column that provided the men with everything they needed, including fresh meat.

The need for speed meant the troops carried minimal baggage, so water, ammunition, and other supplies were dropped by the Italian Air Force utilizing twenty-five planes. Army issue meat rations, however, would have spoiled in the deadly heat. Some genius at military headquarters came up with the idea of strapping sheep and a few bulls into modified harnesses and parachuting them to the soldiers, who could do their own butchering.

The plan worked like a charm.

2) Military Marvel

During the war, the Italians came up with clever ideas such as the “human” or manned torpedo and the EMB, or explosive motorboat. Essentially a boat filled with high explosives, the Italian weapon would be driven at high speed toward a target and the pilot bail out shortly before impact. The British developed their own version, but decided to up the ante: they’d drop their “boom patrol boat” from an aircraft—pilot, explosive payload, and all—to parachute into an enemy harbor. But first, someone had to test the new device.

That intrepid volunteer was Captain David Cox. While the test boat wasn’t filled with explosives, just the equivalent weight of the intended load, the mission was still dangerous. No one had ever done such a thing before. When the time came, Cox was strapped into the device, which was loaded into an RAF Lancaster. The plane flew over Devon to the testing area, the bomb bay doors opened, and the prototype launched successfully.

The parachutes deployed. Cox became the only man during the war to splash down from an airplane while inside a boat. Ultimately, the British War Department decided not to employ the device in battle.

1) Bathroom Troubles

Relieving oneself aboard a submerged submarine doesn’t differ from the usual dry land procedure, but getting rid of the resulting waste is much, much more complicated, requiring advanced technology and the training of personnel to operate the equipment. Unfortunately for the crew of German U-1206, a systems failure was the beginning of unlucky events that would lead to four deaths.

The original toilet or “head” developed for U-boats was a two-valve system that only worked during shallow dives. The newest VIIC U-boats like U-1206 were outfitted with new toilets with a high pressure valve rigged for deep water dives.

On April 14, 1945, while patrolling at 200 feet, 10 miles off Scotland’s coast under the command of Karl-Adolph Schlitt, an improperly flushed toilet aboard U-1206 malfunctioned and began flooding the compartment with sewage and salt water. The water leaked into the batteries, creating deadly chlorine gas. The captain was forced to surface the submarine.

While repairs were being made, U-1206 was spotted by British patrols and fired upon. The captain burned his orders and scuttled the boat. One crewman died in the attack, and three others drowned. Forty-six other crewmen were captured.

 

World War Simulators and Games

In an attempt to educate and entertain people, several companies such as Paradox Interactive have set out to create fun, and accurate games about history. Personally, Hearts of Iron 4 is my favorite so far. It goes in-depth into what happened during the second world war. It also allows for you to experience possible alternate history scenarios, even ones that were extremely unlikely. Although the games made by this company are far from exact, they offer fairly reasonable historic scenarios and events. This will be a list of my top five favorite historical video games.

1) Hearts of Iron 4

This World War 2 simulator is a real time grand strategy game where you can control any country during the second world war. Yes, any country! You can even play as Paraguay if you want to! The main countries that the game features however, are Germany, England, France, Italy, Japan, the US, and the Soviet Union. Each of these countries has a set of ‘national focuses’ that either allow you to explore the historical events, or choose your own path. In the game, you also get to manage your country’s resources, armed forces, and technological research. It is a fairly in-depth game and offers some good insight into the time period.

2) Europa Universalis 4

This game is similar to the previous one, but goes much further into the depth and realism of world politics and religion. It also encompasses a larger time frame, 1444-1888. Again, you can play as any country you’d like, and no specific countries are featured. It gives many examples of historical events, such as the Thirty-Years War and the formation of Germany. It shows ethnic and religious struggles, and how governments struggle to deal with them. The combat system is more advanced than Hearts of Iron 4, but not the most advanced in this list.

3) Hearts of Iron 3

The predecessor to the first item on this list, Hearts of Iron 3 is vastly more complicated, but commonly viewed as less fun because of that. The political and diplomatic systems are extremely in-depth, and so is the combat system. The technology system is tied with the military and espionage, allowing for a very immersive experience. Once again, you can play who you’d like. I would recommend it highly for use as a teaching experience.

4) Gary Grigsby’s War in the East

This game is made from an independent developer, and is widely recognized as the most accurate simulator for combat on the Soviet-German front in World War 2. You can only play as either of the two nations, but the experience is very immersive and accurate to what the generals had to deal with. The game is on a very large scale, but focuses on very small battles along the front. It takes a very long time to play, but I would also recommend it for teaching purposes.

5) Victoria 2

Another game from Paradox Interactive, Victoria 2 focuses on the 1800’s through early 1900’s. It covers the time when imperialism was raging and at its height. It focuses on imperialism and the formation of Germany into one state. You can play as any country on the planet in this game. The military system has about the same complexity as Europa Universalis 4, but the politics system in this game is probably the most accurate out of the bunch. There are many political parties that can enact laws that affect the country heavily. Along with the theme of imperialism, the 8 ‘Great Powers’ of the game can bring countries into their spheres of influence. The country with the highest importance of spheres of influence is Prussia, as when they form the German Empire, only the German countries in their sphere of influence will be absorbed. This game is extremely useful for teaching imperialism during the 1800’s, and even helps with the Great War.

 

All in all, I believe these games are fairly educational, and allow insight into the world’s history. Even though they are not completely accurate, they could easily be used as an educational resource for history classes today. They also allow for historians to theorize about possible alternative histories. If you are reading this, then thank you for visiting my blog! I hope you come back in the following weeks for my further posts about history.

The Invasion of Norway and Denmark

In the early morning of April 9th, 1940, the Nazi German Reich invaded Denmark and Norway. Their justification, was to protect the neutrality of the countries, which would be taken away by a planned Franco-British occupation. Both countries and their populations detested the Nazis, but the German Wehrmacht was too powerful. They sacked villages, shot those who resisted, and took whatever they deemed as ‘useful’ to the war effort. The Allied power England, had wanted to occupy Norway in an attempt to blockade the trade routs between Sweden and Germany, as Germany needed the steel imported from it’s Scandinavian neighbor. The British war cabinet issued a warning to Norway and Sweden, but the warning backfired, and a Norwegian diplomat met with Hitler, warning him of the Brits’ plans. Hitler, who until this point did not really care about the Scandinavians, realized the true strategic importance of capturing Norway first that Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had explained to him.

Meanwhile in Britain, the newest member of the war cabinet, Winston Churchill, former lord of the Admiralty, suggested that the British Navy send mine-placing ships into the Gulf of Bothnia, so as to disrupt steel shipping, and force the Swedish to send the convoys into the North Sea, where they could be easily taken by the British Navy. Prime minister Neville Chamberlain denied Churchill this strategy, and it would go untested until Churchill became prime minister a few months later.

The Nazi strategy was named Operation Weserübung, meaning, “Exercise on the Weser,” a River in Germany. The plan now included the invasion of Denmark, which would further bar the British from interfering in Swedish trade. The final plan’s ground forces included the XXI Army Corps, which was comprised of the 3rd Mountain Division and 5 Infantry Divisions, none of which had seen battle yet. Later, they also decided to use 3 companies of Fallschirmjagers, or paratroopers, and the 2nd Mountain Division as well. Most U-boat operations in the North Atlantic were stopped to allow as many submarines as possible to assist the invasion, in a supporting operation names ‘Hartmut’. The XXXI Army Corps was created for the invasion of Denmark, consisting of 2 Infantry Divisions and the 11th Motorized Brigade. The entire operation would be supported and covered by the X Air Corps, consisting of ~1,000 various aircraft.

During the Nuremburg trials after the war starting in 1946, the necessity of the invasion of Norway and Denmark were discussed. The Allied judges eventually agreed that the German invasion of Scandinavia was not founded, because and Allied invasion was not imminent. Many people were executed.

Manchuria or Poland???

There is a a great divide within the historical society as to when the Second World War started. There are two great candidates for the occasion, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the German invasion of Poland. As you may have guessed, the most influential members of the historical society think that the start was the invasion of Poland, as that’s how many people have heard it. I will now explain both sides to this argument, and give my opinion of them as well.

September 18, 1931, the Japanese Empire invades the Chinese independent state of Manchuria(Manchukuo in Japanese). In the 1800’s, the Russo-Japanese war allowed the Japanese to annex Korea, adding bountiful resources to the island nation. As the industrial and military might of Japan grew, they started to need more and more steel and coal. They strove to be self-sufficient, not needing to rely on their neighbors in case of a war or diplomatic tensions. They decided the best way to continue their industrial expansion was to invade a neighboring country. They spied the independent state of Manchuria, a country guaranteed by China. Japan knew that China was weak, and split up into many territories controlled by warlords. They weighed the risks and decided that a possible second Sino-Japanese war was worth the resources they would gain. The day after they declared war, news reached the Chinese government, but they were powerless to stop it. They sent a message to the Japanese government warning them to stop, but the Japanese were power hungry and rightly so, they had the best military on the planet at the time. China backed down and Japan successfully invaded Manchuria. Tensions on the border between the Soviet Union and Japan grew significantly after Comrade Stalin heard the news. He relocated several divisions to the Japanese border, causing the Japanese to escalate further. Raids and skirmishes happened between Japan and the Soviets, as well as China. The Marco Polo bridge incident with China would eventually lead to a larger war in the East.

September 1st, 1939(I guess September’s the time to invade), Germany unleashes their new, secret, Blitzkrieg tactic on Poland. By this time, Japan no longer had the strongest military, Germany had been secretly building their armed forces since 1933, when a certain WW1 veteran named Adolf Hitler came to power. He had specially built the army(Wehrmacht), air force(Luftwaffe), and navy(Kriegsmarine) for a new offensive doctrine known as Blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Up until Poland, the Allied powers of France and Britain had accepted Hitler’s excuse for annexing territories, which was that they were German-speaking territories, and therefore rightful territory of the German Reich(Empire). In 1939, Hitler asked the Polish government many times for the coastal province of Danzig, which separated German East Prussia from the German heartland. Poland refused time and again. It came to the point where Hitler issued an ultimatum, Danzig or war. The allied powers then declared their protection of Poland, causing the Polish government to feel more powerful with the backing of France and England. They refused the ultimatum, and on the 1st of September, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland with large numbers of Panzer tanks and planes. I will explain Blitzkrieg tactics in greater detail in the next post.

Personally, I believe that the start of WW2 was the invasion of Poland, as that was the main event that brought many countries into the war. I’d like to know what you think, so please leave a comment about it!

Vyacheslav Molotov & Joachim von Ribbentrop

World War 1 was calamitous for Germany and Russia. A year before the war ended, Lenin let the independent states of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland separate from the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or RSFSR. Along with this, significant German advances on the front forced Lenin to sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, leaving the war with Germany and ceding huge swaths of land to the German Empire. After the end of World War 1, an Allied-led force intervened in the Russian Civil war, supporting the White Guard Czarist forces who were fighting the Red Army. With the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany and the Soviet Union renounced territorial and financial claims against each other on the 16th of April, 1922. In the 1926 Treaty of Berlin, both sides also declared neutrality towards each other in case of a defensive war on either side. Trade agreements made in the mid 1920’s increased the value of trade to around 433 million Reichsmarks(the currency of Germany) per year by 1927. In the early 30’s, the Nazi Party’s rise to power increased tensions across Europe. Especially between Germany and Russia, as the Nazi ideology viewed Slavs and Russians as ‘Untermenschen’ or sub-humans. Going even further, the Nazis claimed that Slavs and the Soviets were ruled by Jewish Bolshevik masters. The rise of anti-Bolshevism in Germany led Germany to lower trade with the Soviet Union. The value of trade fell to around only 233 million Reichsmarks a year. In 1936, the Spanish Civil war broke out, and Germany and the Soviet Union supported opposing sides, creating a proxy war. It’s kinda like Syria today in my opinion. The Anti-Comintern Pact was created between Germany and Japan, and official declaration of anti-Communist allegiance. Italy joined the pact a year later.

When the Soviet Union was excluded from participating in the conference that led to the Munich agreement, which allowed the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, they started to believe that the Western Powers, Britain and France, wanted the Germans to invade the Soviet Union, as a single fronted war could bring an end to both the Nazis and Soviets. Along with this, Germany was in need of natural resources, which they turned to the Soviet Union for. The third Soviet Five Year Plan also required newer, more advanced technology, which Germany had. As another addition, Germany and Russia had both lost territory which was now held by Poland. This led to the two countries’ head foreign ambassadors to meet. The Soviet Vyacheslav Molotov and the German Joachim von Ribbentrop, met on August 24, 1939 to sign the later named Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was an economic agreement to trade resources and technology, as well as an agreement to secretly divide Poland into the German and Soviet spheres of influence. This declaration also included a 10-year non-aggression pact between the two countries, which Hitler later broke on 22nd June, 1941.

The Leaders of the Nazi Party in Germany

For this post, I shall be creating a list of high ranking Nazi officials and brief descriptions of their jobs and what they did during the war.

1) Adolf Hitler

A name almost everyone knows. He is generally considered one of the worst criminals in history, having orchestrated the mass slaughter of innocent peoples and starting the second world war. He was a founding member of the Nationalesozialiste Deutsch Arbeiter Partei(NSDAP) or Nazi Party.

2) Heinrich Himmler

A lesser known name, Himmler was head of the Gestapo, the forces in charge of the extermination and displacement of ethnic minorities such as the Jews. He is responsible for the creation and use of concentration camps to genocide people he thought of as sub-human.

3) Joseph Goebbels

Head of Propaganda for the Nazi party, Goebbels was responsible for converting the people of Germany to believing in the Nazi party. His propaganda effort helped the part rise to prominence in the 30’s, as well as instill fervour in the people during the war.

4) Hermann Göring

Reichsairmarshal and named successor of Hitler, Hermann Goring was a fairly important figure to the Nazi war machine. He planned and executed the bombings of major Allied cities such as London and Paris. He was responsible for creating the Luftwaffe, the air force of the Nazis. Towards the end of the war, he was heavily addicted to heroin, and was able to commit suicide before being executed for war crimes.

5) Josef Mengele

Mengele was a leader of Nazi medical and experimental biological research. His experiments lead to the death and disfigurement of thousands of people. There are still many alive today that are affected by his experiments on their parents or grandparents. He escaped to Argentina after the war, and was never punished for his crimes against humanity.

6) Erwin Rommel

Sometimes called the ‘Last German Knight,’ Rommel was an incredibly valorous man, whose efforts, even with lack of supplies, yielded incredible gains for Nazi Germany. As a General, he was feared and respected by his enemies, General Bernard Montgomery even seeing him as a personal rival. After Rommel failed to defend Germany from the invasions at Normandy, even though it was Hitler’s fault, he was forced to kill himself. He was given a hero’s funeral and parade, although Hitler despised him. The death of Rommel signaled to the German people that the war was truly over, as the German giant was finally dead. Hitler hated Rommel, but Rommel likewise despised Hitler, he may even have been part of a conspiracy to kill Hitler and end the war.

The End of the First World War and the Interwar Period

7 months after the end of WW1, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by the Allied powers who had finished the war. This treaty was very one sided and eventually led to the rise of Nazism. The treaty placed many restrictions on the German economy and military, while also forcing them to pay heavy reparations. The price to pay for the First World War was $55,000,000,000. This may not seem like very much, as Bill Gates owns more than that all bu himself, but that was in 1919. Adjusted for inflation, that 55 billion dollars today is actually $887,295,695,364.24. This is the reason why Germany only stopped paying the fines in 2011! The close to 1 trillion dollar fine crippled the German economy after they were forced into a democratic government, commonly known as the Weimar Republic. Shortly after the war, the republic spiraled into a deep economic decline that left their neighbors speechless at the failings of the state they had created. Unemployment soared and inflation skyrocketed. Millions of people already tired of the conditions during the war left the country, emigrating to neighbors and far away places like France and the United States. As the population lowered, the economy actually started to improve slightly, as there were less people to feed and less unemployed citizens. Just as there seemed to be a glimmer of hope, the stock markets in the United States crashed, launching a majority of the world into the great depression. Unemployment soared again, but this time, it was much worse. The number of unemployed people now heavily outnumbered the amount of people with jobs.

A new political party arose, and sparked hope for many people. The leader of the party would hold rallies, and protesters who showed up at his rallies would be beaten by his private forces that he called the Sturmabteilung, or SA. The leader of the party, although he looked awkward and peculiar, gave rousing speeches that continued to attract more and more followers. These followers tried time and time again to get him elected to the position of president and chancellor, but the majority always voted otherwise. Eventually, the president Paul von Hindenburg, who was going senile at the time, placed Hitler, the leader of the SA and National Socialist German Workers Party, as chancellor. As the following weeks placed Germany in a state of emergency, Hitler stole the power away from parliament, or Bundestag, and declared himself the Fuhrer. He started to introduce reforms, many of which violated the Treaty of Versailles. Britain and France knew that Germany was violating the treaty, but they decided not to stop them, something that would turn out to be a fatal decision, as they acted too late when they did. Germany annexed Czechoslovakia and Austria, claiming that they were only restoring the German speaking territories to the Reich(empire). They re-militarized the Rhineland, an area where troops had been banned on the border of France. Germany also exceeded their force limit created by the Treaty of Versailles of only 100,000 men. When Hitler decided the army was sufficiently large, he unveiled the Luftwaffe, the new secret air force of Germany. He eventually decided to invade Poland alongside the Soviet Union, unleashing the Panzer Corps and the new blitzkrieg tactics. With these new innovations, it only took 18 days to invade Poland! This shocked the rest of the world, and France and England finally declared war on Germany, although too late. I’ll go into greater detail of the outbreak of war in later posts, and maybe more into the SA and politics of the world.

Thomas Edward Lawrence 1888-1935

The man, the myth, the legend.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on August 16, 1888, in Tremadoc, Wales. As a teenager, he became interested in Medieval history and fortifications. He chose to study military history and strategy for his exams as a young man. In 1908, he joined Oxford University’s officer program. In June of 1909, he was recommended for a job in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire. When Britain and the Ottomans found themselves on opposite sides of the first world war in 1914, Lawrence was assigned to Cairo and promoted to Staff Captain. His job was to collect information for maps of the Middle East. He enjoyed his work, and buried himself in it after both of his brothers, Frank and William, died on the Western Front.

Britain had its hands full in the Middle East, especially because they needed to defend the Suez Canal at all costs. Something new was needed to combat the Turks. The British ambassador to the Middle East opened communications with the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali. The Sharif wanted to create an Arab State that spanned the whole Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. In return for help, he would give the British full economic rights. The British Chief of Intelligence, Sir Gilbert Clayton, did not want it. He said, “We do not want a powerful and united Arabian kingdom. Not under the Sharif or anyone else. If it is even possible.” He was ignored, and the British pledged support for the Sharif. At this point, the Middle East did not have nationalism, people did not see themselves as Syrian or Arabians, they just identified with their city, and were held to together by the might of Ottoman bureaucracy. The Sharif received British help in the form of money and equipment, and then started the Arab Revolt. Lawrence was chosen to supervise, and on June 5, 1916, he set off to support the revolt. In the early days of the revolt, they saw little success, and many soldiers deserted. The British provided heavy artillery, machine guns, 5,000 rifles, and 100,000 British pounds worth of gold. When Lawrence first entered an Arab camp, he was completely underwhelmed, even commenting that the Arab army was disorganized and only good for defense. He started a campaign of guerrilla warfare, destroying bridges and railways. Even though their efforts were great, by the end of 1916, the Arab Revolt was in full retreat, with only 2,000 men left. Not only that, but the Bedouin soldiers refused to enter trenches, being massacred. One of the Sharif’s sons, Faisal, recruited 10,000 more men with the help of the British. With a significant manpower advantage, they take the nearby city of Wagh, rallying the soldiers because of this new victory. Another main point was the destruction of the Hejaz railway, which linked Damascus to Medina. One major problem, was that the majority of the population was pro-Turk. In March 1917, the first attack on Gaza, and ends up being a tough defeat for the British. The second attack also fails, but the Ottoman hold over Palestine starts to weaken. The Turkish protection money starts to dry up, and more tribes started joining Faisal.The Revolt continued to avoid the main Ottoman armies, laying ambushes for patrols and reserves.

As the British got a larger foothold in the Middle East, it became clear that they wouldn’t allow an independent Arab State. As the war continued, Lawrence’s prestige and legend grew. He bragged about his victories and how he masterminded the ‘Aghaba Campaign’ which was really just a small attack on a very poorly defended town. In fact, the Ottomans and Germans didn’t know who he was at all. He told alternative facts, saying that the Turks had a bounty on his head. He was held in high prestige by the British, and was awarded several honors. He wrote about one time being caught while spying on an Ottoman garrison. After he was caught, he was stripped beaten, and sexually abused by the Ottoman governor. He was thrown into a cell where an Armenian doctor helped him to escape. It is still unknown whether this story is true, or fabricated. Personally, I believe it was made up by Lawrence just to firther himself. He was a very self-centered person. In mid 1918, the Palestine front collapses for the Ottomans. Arabia and the Middle East are carved up by Europe, disregarding cultures and religions. This is generally considered the prime reason for all the tension in the Middle Wast today. Lawrence was sent back to Britain, where his prestige only grew further. After illness and complications, he died in 1935, at age 46.