Daniel Orr's Blog, page 119

October 17, 1912 – First Balkan War: Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece declare war on the Ottoman Empire

On October 8, 1912, Montenegro,
which had territorial ambitions on the sanjak (district) of Novi Prazar, declared war on the Ottoman Empire.  The rest of the Balkan League then issued a joint ultimatum on the Ottoman government, which contained a demand that the Ottomans withdraw their troops from the frontier regions.  When the Ottomans rejected the ultimatum, Serbia, Bulgaria,
and Greece declared war on October 17, 1912.

In the war, the Ottomans fought from a disadvantageous position.  Their forces in Rumelia were outnumbered by 3:1, they had to defend a long, hostile border on three sides from their Balkan enemies who could strike at any point along the border, and success in sending reinforcements to Rumelia relied on the Ottoman Navy achieving superiority in the Aegean Sea against the Greek fleet.

(Taken from First Balkan War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Background of the
First Balkan War

At the start of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was a spent force, a shadow of its former power of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that had struck fear in Europe.  The empire did continue to hold vast territories, but only tolerated by competing interests among the European powers who wanted to maintain a balance of power in Europe.  In particular, Britain and France supported and sometimes intervened on the side of the Ottomans in order to
restrain expansionist ambitions of the emerging giant, the Russian Empire.

In Europe, the Ottomans had lost large areas of the Balkans, and all of its possessions in central and
central eastern Europe.  By 1910, Serbia, Bulgaria,
Montenegro, and Greece had gained their independence.  As a result, the Ottoman Empire’s last remaining possession in the European mainland was Rumelia (Map 4), a long strip of the Balkans extending from Eastern Thrace, to Macedonia, and into Albania in the Adriatic Coast.  And even Rumelia itself was coveted by the new Balkan states, as it contained large ethnic populations of Serbians, Belgians, and Greeks, each wanting to merge with their mother countries.

The Russian Empire, seeking to bring the Balkans into its sphere of influence, formed a military alliance with fellow Slavic Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro.  In March 1912, a Russian initiative led to a
Serbian-Bulgarian alliance called the Balkan League.  In May 1912, Greece joined the alliance when the
Bulgarian and Greek governments signed a similar agreement.  Later that year, Montenegro joined as well, signing separate treaties with Bulgaria and Serbia.

The Balkan League was envisioned as an all-Slavic alliance, but Bulgaria saw the need to bring in Greece, in particular the modern Greek Navy, which could exert control in the Aegean Sea and neutralize Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea, once fighting began.  The Balkan League believed that it could achieve an easy victory over the Ottoman
Empire, for the following reasons.  First, the Ottomans currently were locked in a war with the Italian Empire in Tripolitania (part of present-day Libya), and were losing; and second, because of this war, the Ottoman political leadership was internally
divided and had suffered a number of coups.

Most of the major European powers, and especially Austria-Hungary, objected to the Balkan League and regarded it as an initiative of the Russian Empire to allow the Russian Navy to have access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Adriatic Coast.  Landlocked Serbia also had ambitions on Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to gain a maritime outlet through the Adriatic Coast, but was frustrated when Austria-Hungary, which had occupied Ottoman-owned Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1878, formally annexed the region in 1908.

The Ottomans soon discovered the invasion plan and prepared for war as well.  By August 1912,
increasing tensions in Rumelia indicated an imminent outbreak of hostilities.

October 16, 1949 – Greek Civil War: The Greek Communist Party announces a “temporary ceasefire”

By early 1949, the Greek Armed Forces held an overwhelming manpower and material advantage over the communist rebels of the DSE (Democratic Army of Greece; Greek transliteration: Dimokratikos Stratos Elladas) in the Greek Civil War.  As well, American weapons continued to arrive in Greece.  By then, the rebels were hard pressed to gain new recruits, more so since their civilian base of support had been resettled into towns, while other communist sympathizers had been executed, jailed or had fled into exile abroad.

In January 1949, in what became the first of a series of battles that ended the war, the Greek Army inflicted a decisive defeat on the rebels in the Peloponnese region, and gained full control of southern Greece.  Then in June, another powerful offensive involving 70,000 troops cleared central Greece of insurgents, who were forced to retreat north.  In August 1949, the Greek Army launched its final offensive in northern Greece, capturing the last rebel strongholds on Mounts Grammos and Vitsi and forcing the DSE to retreat to Albania and Bulgaria.  Small scattered rebel units in Greece soon also succeeded in escaping from Greece.  Most of the KKE (Greek Communist Party; Greek transliteration: Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas) and DSE exiles eventually settled in Eastern Bloc countries and
the Soviet Union.  On October 16, 1949, the KKE announced a “temporary ceasefire” which, unknown at the time, led to a permanent end of the war.

Some 158,000 persons died in the war, while one million people were displaced from their homes.  In the following years, Greece rebuilt its devastated economy, which was achieved partly by American financial assistance under the European Recovery Program (more commonly known as the Marshall Plan).

As a result of the civil war, Greece experienced a long period of political instability caused by fractious politics between the political left and right, which culminated in a military coup in April 1967 that established a right-wing military junta.  Greece remained under the sphere of the Western democracies, joined NATO in 1952, and kept close military and economic ties with the United States.  In July 1974, the junta collapsed and Greece began
its transition to democracy by establishing an interim civilian government and holding free elections.  Also in 1974, the monarchy was abolished in a national referendum and the country then established a parliamentary republic.

(Taken from Greek Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Background of the
Greek Civil War

The Greek Civil War has its origin in World War II, in
April 1941 when the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy,
and Bulgaria invaded and overrun Greece and defeated and expelled the Greek and British forces.  Greece’s King George II and the Greek government fled to exile in Britain-controlled Egypt, where they set up a government-in-exile in Cairo.  In Greece,
the Axis partitioned the country into zones of occupation and set up a collaborationist government in Athens.

Organized resistance to the occupation began in July 1941 when officers and members of the Greek Communist Party, or KKE (Greek transliteration: Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas), many of whom had been jailed by Greece’s right-wing military government before the war but had escaped
following the Axis invasion, secretly met and formed a unified “popular front” to fight the occupation forces and collaborationist government.  This idea bore fruit when in September 1941, the KKE and three other leftist organizations formed the National Liberation Front, or EAM (Greek transliteration: Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo), whose aims were to liberate Greece, and to advance “the Greek people’s sovereign right to determine its form of
government”.

In February 1942, EAM formed an armed wing, the Greek People’s Liberation Army, or ELAS (Greek transliteration: Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós), which carried out guerilla and sabotage operations against the Axis forces and collaborationist government.  Success in the battlefield allowed EAM-ELAS to gain control of the Greek countryside and mountain areas, drawing active support from the rural population (communist and non-communists), and allowing the resistance to grow to 50,000 fighters and 500,000 non-combat auxiliaries.  Perhaps as much as three-quarters of Greek territory came under EAM-ELAS control, although the major urban areas, including Athens,
continued to be held by the Axis.

Other resistance movements (all advocating non-communist ideologies) also operated during the occupation, with the two major of these being the National Republican Greek League, or EDES (Greek transliteration: Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos, abbreviated) and the National and
Social Liberation, or EKKA (Greek transliteration: Ethniki kai Koinoniki Apeleftherosis).  These groups had much smaller militias and were less military capable of confronting the enemy than was EAM-ELAS.  Britain provided technical and material support to all Greek resistance groups, including EAM-ELAS, whose communist ideology were at odds with the British.

The Greek resistance groups were hostile to each other, and skirmishes broke out among them as did they against the Axis forces/collaborationist militias.  The British and EAM-ELAS also were wary of each other with regards to post-war Greece and the
country’s political future.  This mutual distrust initially was set aside because of the need to fight a common enemy, but gradually increased toward war’s end when the Axis defeat became certain.

The British were concerned that EAM-ELAS, with its overtly pro-Soviet inclination, would prevail in the war and transform post-war Greece into a Marxist state aligned with the Soviet Union.  For the British, a communist country in the Mediterranean Sea, especially one that potentially would allow a Soviet maritime presence through a naval agreement or
the use of ports would threaten the Suez Canal, Britain’s vital link to India and other British colonies in Asia.  Britain was determined that King George II should return to Greece, which would guarantee the formation of a conservative government friendly to
British interests.

Because of its multi-party, multi-ideology origins, EAM-ELAS officially promoted a democratic policy. 
However, since it was dominated by the KKE (comprising the largest constituent organization), EAM-ELAS was formed and functioned along communist lines.  EAM-ELAS also was firmly opposed
to the return of Greece’s government-in-exile, because of fears of a return to the pre-war right-wing
(i.e. repressive) regime, as well as to the return of the king, who had supported that regime.

In March 1944, EAM established a quasi-government called the Political Committee of National Liberation, or PEEA (Greek transliteration:
Politiki Epitropi Ethikis Apeleftherosis), commonly known as the “Mountain Government”.  The PEEA held legislative elections where women, for the first time in Greece, were allowed to vote.  The rebel government called for continuing the resistance against the occupation, “destruction of fascism”, and the independence and sovereignty of Greece.

In April 1944, a mutiny broke out in Egypt among soldiers of the exiled Greek Armed Forces, who declared that the government-in-exile was irrelevant and needed to be replaced by a new, progressive government that genuinely represented the changes taking place in Greece.  British authorities quelled the mutiny, and jailed the soldiers.

The mutiny, however, led to the end of the
government-in-exile.  In May 1944, under British sponsorship, representatives from the various Greek political parties and resistance groups met and held talks in Beirut, Lebanon.  These talks, called the Lebanon Conference, led to the formation of a coalition government (called the government of
national unity) led by Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou.  Of the 24 posts in the new government, 6 were allocated to EAM.  The conference also
agreed that King George’s return to Greece would be postponed and subject to a referendum that would decide the fate of the monarchy.

By the fall of 1944, the Soviet Army had broken through in Eastern Europe.  To avoid being cut off, in October of that year, the Germans (who, by this time,
were the remaining occupation forces in Greece) retreated north.  With the Germans out of Greece, the British soon arrived in Athens, followed by Prime
Minister Papandreou’s government which began to take over the administrative duties left behind by the fallen collaborationist regime.

One month earlier, the various armed resistance groups had agreed to subordinate their militias under the command of the British Army.  EAM-ELAS controlled much of Greece but wanted to preserve Allied unity and therefore did not pre-empt the British by occupying and taking over Athens, although it was capable of doing so.

Unbeknown to EAM-ELAS, however, the fate of post-war Greece already had been decided secretly by Britain and the Soviet Union.  In a number of
meetings with British officials, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had indicated that the Soviet Union was not interested in Greece.  In October 1944, in what became known as the Percentages Agreement, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Stalin delineated their respective countries’ post-war spheres of influence in the Balkans and parts of Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia and Hungary would be split evenly between them; Romania and Bulgaria would have Soviet majority control; and Greece would fall under British majority control.

October 15, 1979 – Salvadoran Civil War: A military coup takes place in El Salvador, which starts the civil war

El Salvador in Central America

On October 15, 1979, a group of army officers, alarmed that the increasing violence was creating conditions favorable to a communist take-over similar to that which occurred in Nicaragua, carried out a coup that deposed General Romero.  A five-member
civilian and military junta, called the Revolutionary Junta Government (JRG; Spanish: Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno) was formed to rule the country until such that time that elections could be held.  In March 1980, after some
restructuring, Duarte joined the junta and eventually took over its leadership to become the country’s de facto head of state.  The junta was openly supported by the United States, which viewed Duarte’s centrist politics as the best chance to preserve democracy in El Salvador.

However, neither the coup nor the junta altered the power structures, and the military continued to wield full (albeit covert) authority over state matters.  The junta implemented agrarian reform and nationalized some key industries, but these programs were strongly opposed by the oligarchy.  Militias and “death squads” that the junta ordered the military to disband simply were replaced with other armed groups.  The years 1980 and 1981 saw a great increase in the military’s suppression of dissent.

(Taken from Salvadoran Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – 26 Wars and Conflicts in the Americas and the Caribbean)

The Civil War Intensifies


On March 24, 1980, Monsignor Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was killed while delivering religious services.  Archbishop Romero, like many other Salvadoran clergymen, advocated
Liberation Theology, a radical variation of Catholicism which taught that the Church had a moral obligation to fight social and economic injustices and work
for a fair and equitable society.  Two months before his assassination, Archbishop Romero had written an open letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, requesting the latter to stop providing military support to the Salvadoran military.  Archbishop Romero’s death also took place one day after he had called on Salvadoran soldiers to disobey their commanders and not attack civilians.

One week after Archbishop Romero’s assassination, on March 30, 1980, during the Archbishop’s funeral services which were attended by some 250,000 people and held at the public square near the San Salvador Cathedral, gunmen hidden in the buildings nearby opened fire on the crowd.  Pandemonium broke out and in the stampede
that followed, scores of people were crushed and killed.  Investigations conducted by independent
organizations following the two incidents pointed to government forces as the party most likely to have carried out the archbishop’s murder and the attack on
civilians during the funeral services.

Archbishop Romero’s assassination greatly raised
revolutionary fervor, and generally is cited as the event that started the civil war, or greatly accelerated it.  Many activists abandoned non-violent, political means for change and joined the various revolutionary armed movements in the countryside.

In May 1980, the four major insurgent groups (Salvadoran Communist Party, FPL, ERP, RN) merged to form the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (Spanish: Dirección Revolucionaria Unificada), which in turn, six months later in October 1980, in Havana, Cuba under the auspices of Fidel Castro, reorganized as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN; Spanish: Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional).  Another leftist organization, the
Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers (PRTC; Spanish: Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos), joined the FMLN in December 1980.

The FMLN, together with its political wing, the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR; Spanish: Frente Democrático Revolucionario), had as its main objectives the overthrow of the government through armed revolution, formation of a communist regime, and the overhaul of the country’s social and economic infrastructures.  Because of its (initially) small combat capability, the FMLN envisaged a strategy that combined carrying out a
protracted guerilla war and economic sabotage, and derived support from its main base among the rural population, which could furnish new recruits, food,
logistical support, and information.  Combat operations were limited to ambushing army patrols, raiding remote outposts, and skirmishing with small army units.  The insurgents also destroyed public
infrastructures (roads, bridges, public utilities, etc.) and private properties (plantation farms, grain mills, warehouses, etc.).

The FMLN established relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, and working ties with the Soviet Union,
Eastern Bloc, and other communist countries. 
In 1981, it received a diplomatic boost when France
and Mexico recognized it as a “legitimate political force”.  However, the United States and most western
democratic countries viewed the FMLN in the Cold War context, as that of a Marxist (and terrorist) organization that was striving to overthrow a democratic government in order to set up a communist regime.

In January 1981, the FMLN launched coordinated attacks in many parts of the country, which failed in their objective (as the “final offensive”) to incite a popular uprising to topple the government.  The rebels did, however, seize some regions in the north, including large areas of Chalatenango and Morazan, as well as Cuscatlán, Cabañas, and the mountain areas north of San Salvador centered in Guazapa.  The offensive also came in the wake of the recent electoral victory of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who had campaigned on a rigidly anti-communist platform.

President Reagan’s predecessor, President Carter, generally had been reluctant to provide full military support to El Salvador because of the Salvadoran army’s poor human rights record.  The U.S.
government had even stopped U.S. aid in December 1980 following the rape and murder of three U.S. Catholic nuns and one female church lay worker by soldiers of the Salvadoran National Guard.  President Carter did, however, resume U.S. assistance following the increasing threat of the FMLN insurgency.

Consequently, with the Reagan administration, the United States infused large sums of economic and
military assistance to El Salvador; the major part of the $7 billion total amount provided during the war took place during President Reagan’s term
of office (1981-1989).  Aside from weapons, the United States also sent military advisors to train the Salvadoran Armed Forces in counter-insurgency techniques that the U.S. Army had developed in the Vietnam War.

The Salvadoran Army found it difficult to tell apart the mainly inconspicuous insurgents from the conspicuous rural population, and soon regarded the two groups as one and the same, i.e. the enemy, particularly in areas where the insurgency was strong.  A campaign known as “draining the sea” was carried out, i.e., the insurgency’s support base (the “sea”) would be targeted and eliminated, instead of
attempting to locate the rebels.

October 14, 1920 – Finnish Civil War: Finland and Soviet Russia sign the Treaty of Tartu

On October 14, 1920, Finland and Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Tartu (in Tartu, Estonia) at the end of the Finnish Civil War. The treaty established a common Finnish-Russian border with some exchanges of territory: Petsamo in the north was
returned to Finland, while Repola and Porajarvi in Karelia went to Soviet Russia.

White Finland and Red Finland during the Finnish Civil War

(Taken from Finnish Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)

Aftermath of the
Finnish Civil War

In May 1918, the victorious conservative government
returned its capital to Helsinki.  Because of the German Army’s contribution to the military success and under the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
Finland came under Germany’s sphere of influence, much like the other Russian territories ceded to Germany, i.e. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus,
Ukraine, and Russian Poland.  Finnish-German relations drew even closer with the signing of bilateral military and economic agreements.  In
October 1918, German hegemony was furthered when the Finnish Parliament, dominated by monarchists, named a German Prince, Friedrich Karl, as King of Finland.

However, the Western Front of World War I was still being fought.  After a failed German offensive
in March 1918, the Allies counterattacked, pushing back the German Army all across the front.  By November 1918, the German Empire verged on total collapse, both from defeat on the battlefield and
by political and social unrest caused by the outbreak of the German Revolution.  On November 9, 1918, the German monarchy ended when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne; an interim government (which soon turned Germany into a republic) signed the Compiègne Armistice on November 11, 1918, ending
World War I.

In the aftermath, Germany was forced to relinquish its authority over Eastern Europe, including Finland.  In mid-December 1916, with the departure of the German Army from Finland, the Finnish parliament’s plan to install a monarchy with a German prince fell apart.  Finland held local elections in
December 1918, and parliamentary elections in March 1919, paving the way for the establishment of a republic, which officially came into existence with the ratification of the Finnish constitution in July 1919.  Also in July, Finland’s first president, Kaarlo
Juho Ståhlberg, was elected into office.

Earlier in May 1919, the United States and Britain
recognized Finland’s independence; other countries, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland,
and Greece already had recognized Finland’s sovereignty a few months earlier.  On October 14, 1920, Finland and Soviet Russia formally ended hostilities in the Treaty of Tartu (in Tartu, Estonia)
that also established a common Finnish-Russian border.

The civil war left a lasting, bitter legacy in Finland.  The widespread violence perpetrated by both sides of the war aggravated the already socially divided Finland, as nearly every Finn was affected directly or indirectly.  This polarization led to non-compromise and encouraged radicalization of elements of the right and left, into fascists and
communists, respectively, in the following years.  Ultimately, however, political moderation prevailed, allowing Finland to emerge united politically, socially, and economically.  Furthermore, in the 1930s, the country experienced high economic growth, with traditional industries growing and new ones emerging.  Agricultural reforms also transformed the countryside – by the 1930s, some 90% of previously landless farmers owned their farmlands.  Also in
the 1930s, the growing threats from Germany
and the Soviet Union further bound Finns toward nationalist unity.

October 13, 1943 – World War II: Italy declares war on Germany

In July 1943, Benito Mussolini was fired as Prime Minister and imprisoned after the Allies invaded Sicily. A new Italian government was formed, which opened secret peace talks with the Allies. This led the Armistice of Cassibile, where Italy surrendered to the Allies. Fearing German reprisal, King Victor Emmanuel II and the new government fled to Allied-controlled southern Italy, where they set up their headquarters. On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Germany. But as a consequence of the armistice, German forces took over power in much of Italy.

Mussolini planned to establish an Italian Empire that would control southern Europe, northern Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Middle East.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)

Mussolini and His
Quest for an Italian Empire

In the midst of political and social unrest in October 1922, Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party came to power in Italy, with Mussolini being appointed as Prime Minister by Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III.  Mussolini, who was popularly called “Il Duce” (“The Leader”), launched major infrastructure
and social programs that made him extremely popular among his people.  By 1925-1927, the Fascist Party was the only legal political party, the Italian legislature had been abolished, and Mussolini wielded nearly absolute power, with his government a virtual
dictatorship.

By the late 1920s through the 1930s, Mussolini pursued an overtly expansionist foreign policy.  He
stressed the need for Italian domination of the Mediterranean region and territorial acquisitions, including direct control of the Balkan states of Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania,
and a sphere of influence in Austria and Hungary, and colonies in North Africa.  Mussolini envisioned a modern Italian Empire in the likeness of the ancient Roman Empire.  He explained that his empire would stretch from the “Strait of Gibraltar

[western tip of the Mediterranean Sea]

to the Strait of Hormuz [in modern-day Iran and the Arabian Peninsula]”.  Although not openly stated, to achieve this goal, Italy would need to overcome British and French naval domination of the Mediterranean Sea.

Furthermore, in the aftermath of World War I, a strong sentiment regarding the so-called “mutilated victory” pervaded among many Italians about what they believed was their country’s unacceptably small
territorial gains in the war, a sentiment that was exploited by the Fascist government.  Mussolini saw his empire as fulfilling the Italian aspiration for “spazio vitale” (“vital space”), where the acquired territories would be settled by Italian colonists to ease the
overpopulation in the homeland.  Mussolini’s government actively promoted programs that encouraged large family sizes and higher birth rates.

Mussolini also spoke disparagingly about Italy’s
geographical location in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, about how it was “imprisoned” by islands and territories controlled by other foreign powers (i.e. France and Britain), and that his new empire would include territories that would allow Italy direct access to the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Indian Ocean in the east.

In October 1935, the Italian Army invaded independent Ethiopia, conquering the African nation by May 1936 in a brutal campaign that included
the Italians using poison gas on civilians and soldiers alike.  Italy then annexed Ethiopia into the newly formed Italian East Africa, which included Eritrea
and Italian Somaliland.  Italy also controlled Libya in North Africa as a colony.

The aftermath of Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia saw a rapprochement in Italian-Nazi German relations arising from Hitler’s support of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia.  In turn, Mussolini dropped his opposition to Germany’s annexation of Austria.  Throughout the 1920s-1930s, the major European powers Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union and Germany, engaged
in a power struggle and formed various alliances and counter-alliances among themselves, with each power hoping to gain some advantage in what was seen as an inevitable war.  In this power struggle, Italy
straddled the middle and believed that in a future conflict, its weight would tip the scales for victory in its chosen side.

In the end, it was Italy’s ties with Germany that prospered; both countries also shared a common political ideology.  In the Spanish Civil War (July 1936-April 1939), Italy and Germany supported the rebel Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco, who emerged victorious and took over power in Spain.  In October 1936, Italy and Germany formed an alliance called the Rome-Berlin Axis.  Then in 1937, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed by Germany and Japan in November 1936.  In April 1939, Italy moved one step closer to forming an empire by invading Albania, seizing control of the Balkan nation within a few days.  In May 1939, Mussolini and Hitler formed a military alliance, the Pact of Steel.  Two months earlier (March 1939), Germany completed the dissolution and partial annexation of Czechoslovakia.  The alliance between Germany and Italy, together with Japan, reached its height in September 1940, with the signing of the Tripartite Pact, and these countries came to be known as the Axis Powers.

On September 1, 1939 World War II broke out when Germany attacked Poland, which immediately embroiled the major Western powers, France and Britain, and by September 16 the Soviet Union as well (as a result of a non-aggression pact with Germany, but not as an enemy of France and Britain).  Italy
did not enter the war as yet, since despite Mussolini’s frequent blustering of having military strength capable of taking on the other great powers, Italy in fact was unprepared for a major European war.

Italy was still mainly an agricultural society, and industrial production for war-convertible commodities amounted to just 15% that of Britain and France.  As well, Italian capacity for vital items
such as coal, crude oil, iron ore, and steel lagged far behind the other western powers.  In military capability, Italian tanks, artillery, and aircraft were inferior and mostly obsolete by the start of World War II, although the large Italian Navy was ably powerful and possessed several modern battleships. 
Cognizant of these deficiencies, Mussolini placed great efforts to building up Italian military strength, and by 1939, some 40% of the national budget was allocated to the armed forces.  Even so, Italian military planners had projected that its forces would
not be fully prepared for war until 1943, and therefore the sudden start of World War II came as a shock to Mussolini and the Italian High Command.

In April-June 1940, Germany achieved a succession of overwhelming conquests of Denmark,
Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.  As France verged on defeat and with Britain
isolated and facing possible invasion, Mussolini decided that the war was over.  In an unabashed display of opportunism, on June 10, 1940, he declared war on France and Britain, bringing Italy into World War II on the side of Germany, and stating, “I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought”.

October 12, 1971 – Iran holds extravagant celebrations for the founding of the 2,500 year old Persian Empire

From October 12–16, 1971, Iran led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi held elaborate celebrations for the founding of the Persian Empire, the festivities being officially called “The 2,500th Year of Foundation of Imperial State of Iran”. The event aimed to present the country’s ancient civilization and history, and highlight the advances made in the modern age. The celebrations, along with other government actions, were considered anti-Islamic by the clergy and many Iranians, and would lead to the anti-royalist backlash in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

(Taken from Iranian Revolution – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)

Meanwhile in Iran, the Shah continued to carry out secular programs that alienated most of the
population.  In October 1971, to commemorate 25 centuries since the founding of the Persian Empire, the Shah organized a lavish program of activities in Persepolis, capital of the First Persian Empire.  Then in March 1976, the Shah announced that Iran
henceforth would adopt the “imperial” calendar (based on the reign of Persian king Cyrus the Great) to replace the Islamic calendar.  These acts, considered anti-Islamic by the clergy and many Iranians, would form part of the anti-royalist backlash in the coming revolution.

Another paradox in a deeply conservative Muslim country was the government’s hosting the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of Arts from 1967 to 1977, which was meant to showcase the various forms of music, dance, drama, poetry, and film from western and eastern countries, including traditional Persian and Iranian Shiite cultures.  The festival’s extravagance and especially some of the avant-garde western
performances (which were already controversial by European standards) were outright sacrilegious in a country where Islam was the state religion.  It would be in 1977, one year before the start of the revolution, that Ayatollah Khomeini spoke out against the arts festival, even decrying the clerics in Tehran for not speaking out against the performances.

Also by 1977, Iran’s decade-long period of strong
economic growth had ended, and the country faced financial problems because of an oil glut in the world market.  Iran’s oil revenues dropped sharply, forcing a cut in oil production and a rise in unemployment.  Inflation and commodities shortages were met by the government imposing austerity measures, which in turn were resisted by the general population.

Background of the
Iranian Revolution

Under the Shah, Iran developed close political, military, and economic ties with the United States, was firmly West-aligned and anti-communist, and received military and economic aid, as well as purchased vast amounts of weapons and military hardware from the United States.  The Shah built a powerful military, at its peak the fifth largest in the world, not only as a deterrent against the Soviet
Union but just as important, as a counter against the Arab countries (particularly Iraq), Iran’s traditional rival for supremacy in the Persian Gulf region.  Local opposition and dissent were stifled by SAVAK (Organization of Intelligence and National Security;
Persian: Sāzemān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar), Iran’s CIA-trained intelligence and security agency that was ruthlessly effective and transformed the country into a police state.

Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, achieved phenomenal economic growth in the
1960s and 1970s and more particularly after the 1973 oil crisis when world oil prices jumped four-fold, generating huge profits for Iran that allowed its government to embark on massive infrastructure construction projects as well as social programs such as health care and education.  And in a country where society was both strongly traditionalist and religious (99% of the population is Muslim), the Shah led a government that was both secular and western-oriented, and implemented programs and policies that sought to develop the country based on western technology and some aspects of western culture.  Iran’s push to westernize and secularize would be major factors in the coming revolution.  The initial signs of what ultimately became a full-blown uprising took place sometime in 1977.

At the core of the Shiite form of Islam in Iran is the ulama (Islamic scholars) led by ayatollahs (the top clerics) in a religious hierarchy that includes other orders of preachers, prayer leaders, and cleric authorities that administered the 9,000 mosques around the country.  Traditionally, the ulama was apolitical and did not interfere with state policies, but occasionally offered counsel or its opinions on government matters and policies.

In January 1963, the Shah launched sweeping major social and economic reforms aimed at shedding off the country’s feudal, traditionalist culture and to modernize society.  These ambitious reforms, known as the “White Revolution”, included programs that
advanced health care and education, and the labor and business sectors.  The centerpiece of these reforms, however, was agrarian reform, where the government broke up the vast agriculture landholdings owned by the landed few and distributed the divided parcels to landless peasants who formed the great majority of the rural population.  While land reform achieved some measure of success with about 50% of peasants acquiring land, the program failed to win over the rural population as the Shah intended; instead, the deeply religious peasants remained loyal to the clergy.  Agrarian reform also antagonized the clergy, as most clerics belonged to wealthy landowning families who now were deprived of their lands.

Much of the clergy did not openly oppose these reforms, except for some clerics in Qom led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in January 22, 1963 denounced the Shah for implementing the White Revolution; this would mark the start of a long
antagonism that would culminate in the clash between secularism and religion fifteen years later.  The clerics also opposed other aspects of the White Revolution, including extending voting rights to women and allowing non-Muslims to hold government office, as well as because the reforms would reduce the cleric’s influence in education and family law.  The Shah responded to Ayatollah
Khomeini’s attacks by rebuking the religious establishment as being old-fashioned and inward-looking, which drew outrage from even moderate
clerics.  Then on June 3, 1963, Ayatollah Khomeini launched personal attacks on the Shah, calling the latter “a wretched, miserable man” and likening the monarch to the “tyrant” Yazid I (an Islamic caliph of the 7th century).  The government responded two days later, on June 5, 1963, by arresting and jailing the cleric.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s arrest sparked strong protests that degenerated into riots in Tehran, Qom, Shiraz, and other cities.  By the third day, the
violence had been quelled, but not before a disputed number of protesters were killed, i.e. government cites 32 fatalities, the opposition gives 15,000, and
other sources indicate hundreds.

Ayatollah Khomeini was released a few months later.  Then on October 26, 1964, he again denounced the government, this time for the Iranian parliament’s recent approval of the so-called “Capitulation” Bill, which stipulated that U.S.
military and civilian personnel in Iran, if charged with committing criminal offenses, could not be prosecuted in Iranian courts.  To Ayatollah Khomeini, the law was evidence that the Shah and the Iranian government were subservient to the United States.  The ayatollah again was arrested and imprisoned; government and military leaders deliberated on his fate, which included execution (but rejected out of concerns that it might incite more unrest), and finally decided to exile the cleric.  In November 1964, Ayatollah Khomeini was forced to leave the country; he eventually settled in Najaf, Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years.

While in exile, the cleric refined his absolutist version of the Islamic concept of the “Wilayat al Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent), which stipulates that an Islamic country’s highest spiritual and political authority must rest with the best-qualified member (jurisprudent) of the Shiite clergy, who imposes Sharia (Islamic) Law and ensures that state policies and decrees conform with this law. 
The cleric formerly had accepted the Shah and the monarchy in the original concept of Wilayat al Faqih; later, however, he viewed all forms of royalty incompatible with Islamic rule.  In fact, the ayatollah would later reject all other (European) forms of
government, specifically citing democracy and communism, and famously declared that an Islamic government is “neither east nor west”.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s political vision of clerical rule was disseminated in religious circles and mosques throughout Iran from audio recordings that
were smuggled into the country by his followers and which was tolerated or largely ignored by Iranian government authorities.  In the later years of his exile, however, the cleric had become somewhat forgotten in Iran, particularly among the younger age groups.

October 11, 1954 – First Indochina War: French forces withdraw from North Vietnam

From October 8–11, 1954, France withdrew its forces from North Vietnam below the 17th Parallel to the south, as set out in the Geneva Accords that had been signed on July 21, 1954. A stipulation in the Accords established a “provisional military demarcation line” at the 17th Parallel with a 3-mile wide demilitarized zone (DMZ) on each side of the demarcation line to separate the opposing French Union forces and the North Vietnamese communists, the Viet Minh. The Accords imposed a ceasefire, to be monitored by the International Control Commission (ICC) comprising contingents from Canada, Poland, and China.

(Taken from First Indochina War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Present-day Southeast Asia

Aftermath

By the time of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, France knew that it could not win the war, and turned its attention on trying to work toward a political settlement and an honorable withdrawal from Indochina.  By February 1954, opinion polls at home showed that only 8% of the French population supported the war.  However, the Dien Bien Phu debacle dashed French hopes of negotiating under favorable withdrawal terms.  On May 8, 1954, one day after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, representatives from the major powers: United States, Soviet Union, Britain, China, and France, and the Indochina states: Cambodia, Laos, and the two rival Vietnamese states, Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and State of Vietnam, met at Geneva (the Geneva Conference) to negotiate a peace settlement for Indochina.  The Conference also was envisioned to resolve the crisis in the Korean Peninsula in the aftermath of the Korean War (separate article), where deliberations ended on June 15, 1954 without any settlements made.

On the Indochina issue, on July 21, 1954, a ceasefire and a “final declaration” were agreed to by the parties.  The ceasefire was agreed to by France and the DRV, which divided Vietnam into two zones at the 17th parallel, with the northern zone to be governed by the DRV and the southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam.  The 17th parallel was intended to serve merely as a provisional military
demarcation line, and not as a political or territorial boundary.  The French and their allies in the
northern zone departed and moved to the southern zone, while the Viet Minh in the southern zone departed and moved to the northern zone (although some southern Viet Minh remained in the south on instructions from the DRV).  The 17th parallel was also a demilitarized zone (DMZ) of 6 miles, 3 miles on each side of the line.

The ceasefire agreement provided for a period of 300 days where Vietnamese civilians were free to move across the 17th parallel on either side of the line.  About one million northerners, predominantly Catholics but also including members of the upper
classes consisting of landowners, businessmen, academics, and anti-communist politicians, and the middle and lower classes, moved to the southern zone, this mass exodus was prompted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and State of Vietnam in a massive propaganda campaign, as well as the peoples’ fears of repression under a communist regime.

In August 1954, planes of the French Air Force and hundreds of ships of the French Navy and U.S. Navy (the latter under Operation Passage to Freedom) carried out the movement of Vietnamese civilians from north to south.  Some 100,000 southerners, mostly Viet Minh cadres and their families and supporters, moved to the northern
zone.  A peacekeeping force, called the
International Control Commission and comprising contingents from India, Canada, and Poland,
was tasked with enforcing the ceasefire agreement.  Separate ceasefire agreements also were signed for Laos and Cambodia.

Another agreement, titled the “Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China, July 21, 1954”, called for Vietnamese general elections to be held in July 1956, and the reunification of Vietnam.  France DRV, the Soviet Union, China, and Britain signed this
Declaration.  Both the State of Vietnam and the United States did not sign, the former outright rejecting the Declaration, and the latter taking a hands-off stance, but promising not to oppose or jeopardize the Declaration.

By the time of the Geneva Conference, the Viet Minh controlled a majority of Vietnam’s territory and appeared ready to deal a final defeat on the demoralized French forces.  The Viet Minh’s agreeing to apparently less favorable terms (relative to its commanding battlefield position) was brought about by the following factors: First, despite Dien Bien Phu, French forces in Indochina were far from being defeated, and still held an overwhelming numerical and firepower advantage over the Viet Minh; Second, the Soviet Union and China cautioned the Viet Minh that a continuation of the war might prompt an escalation of American military involvement in support of the French; and Third, French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France had vowed to achieve a ceasefire within thirty days or resign.  The Soviet Union and China, fearing the collapse of the Mendes-France regime and its replacement by a right-wing government that would continue the war, pressed Ho to tone down Viet Minh insistence of a unified Vietnam under the DRV, and agree to a compromise.

The planned July 1956 reunification election failed to materialize because the parties could not agree on how it was to be implemented.  The Viet Minh proposed forming “local commissions” to administer the elections, while the United States,
seconded by the State of Vietnam, wanted the elections to be held under United Nations (UN) oversight.  The U.S. government’s greatest fear was a communist victory at the polls; U.S. President
Eisenhower believed that “possibly 80%” of all Vietnamese would vote for Ho if elections were held.  The State of Vietnam also opposed holding the reunification elections, stating that as it had not signed the Geneva Accords, it was not bound to participate in the reunification elections; it also declared that under the repressive conditions
in the north under communist DRV, free elections could not be held there.  As a result, reunification elections were not held, and Vietnam remained divided.

In the aftermath, both the DRV in the north (later commonly known as North Vietnam) and the State of Vietnam in the south (later as the Republic of Vietnam, more commonly known as South Vietnam) became de facto separate countries, both Cold War client states, with North Vietnam backed by
the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, and South Vietnam supported by the United States and other Western democracies.

In April 1956, France pulled out its last troops from Vietnam; some two years earlier (June 1954), it had granted full independence to the State of Vietnam.  The year 1955 saw the political consolidation and firming of Cold War alliances for both North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  In the north, Ho Chi Minh’s regime launched repressive land reform and rent reduction programs, where many tens of thousands of landowners and property managers were executed, or imprisoned in
labor camps.  With the Soviet Union and China sending more weapons and advisors, North Vietnam
firmly fell within the communist sphere of influence.

In South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, whom Bao Dai appointed as Prime Minister in June 1954, also eliminated all political dissent starting in 1955, particularly the organized crime syndicate Binh Xuyen in Saigon, and the religious sects Hoa Hao and Cao Dai in the Mekong Delta, all of which maintained powerful armed groups.  In April-May 1955, sections of central Saigon were destroyed in street battles between government forces and the Binh Xuyen
militia.

Then in October 1955, in a referendum held to determine the State of Vietnam’s political future, voters overwhelmingly supported establishing a republic as campaigned by Diem, and rejected the restoration of the monarchy as desired by Bao Dai. 
Widespread irregularities marred the referendum, with an implausible 98% of voters favoring Diem’s proposal.  On October 23, 1955, Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam (later commonly known as South Vietnam), with himself as its first president.  Its
predecessor, the State of Vietnam was dissolved, and Bao Dao fell from power.

In early 1956, Diem launched military offensives on the Viet Minh and its supporters in the South Vietnamese countryside, leading to thousands being executed or imprisoned.  Early on, militarily weak South Vietnam was promised armed and financial support by the United States, which hoped to prop up the regime of Prime Minister (later President) Diem, a devout Catholic and staunch anti-communist, as a bulwark against communism in Southeast Asia.

In January 1955, the first shipments of American weapons arrived, followed shortly by U.S. military advisors, who were tasked to provide training to the South Vietnamese Army.  The U.S. government also endeavored to shore up the public image of the somewhat unknown Diem as a viable alternative
to the immensely popular Ho Chi Minh.  However, the Diem regime was tainted by corruption and nepotism, and Diem himself ruled with autocratic powers, and implemented policies that favored the wealthy landowning class and Catholics at the expense of the lower peasant classes and Buddhists (the latter comprised 70% of the population).

By 1957, because of southern discontent with Diem’s policies, a communist-influenced civilian uprising had grown in South Vietnam, with many acts of terrorism, including bombings and assassinations, taking place.  Then in 1959, North Vietnam, frustrated at the failure of the reunification elections from taking place, and in response to the growing insurgency in the south, announced that it was
resuming the armed struggle (now against South Vietnam and the United States) in order to liberate the south and reunify Vietnam.  The stage was set for the cataclysmic Second Indochina War, more popularly known as the Vietnam War (next article).

October 10, 1945 – Chinese Civil War: The Nationalists and Communists sign the Double Tenth Agreement

On October 10, 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and Communists (Chinese Communist Party) signed the Double Tenth Agreement (officially: “Summary of Conversations Between the Representatives of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China”) following 43 days of negotiations. The agreement was an attempt by both sides to prevent a resumption of full-scale fighting in the Chinese Civil War following the surrender of Japan in World War II on September 2, 1945. In the agreement, the communists recognized the Nationalists as the legitimate government, while the Nationalists acknowledged the Communists as the legitimate opposition party. The agreement brought together Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Zedong, the latter accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to China Patrick Hurley, who also accompanied Mao to Chungking, where the negotiations took place.

The agreement was a failure as fighting between the two sides soon resumed.

(Taken from Chinese Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)

China’s two major river systems, Yellow River and Yangtze River, served as strategic battle lines between communist and nationalist forces during the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War.

When the Japanese forces withdrew from China following their defeat in World War II, the civil war had shifted invariably in favor of the Communists.  The Red Army now constituted 1.2 million soldiers and 2 million armed auxiliaries, with many more millions of civilian volunteers ready to provide logistical support.  Mao controlled one quarter of China’s territories and one third of the population, all in areas that largely had escaped the destruction of World War II.

By contrast, the Nationalist government had been weakened seriously by World War II.  The Nationalists’ territories were devastated and were facing huge economic problems.  Thousands of people were left homeless and destitute.

Nearing the end of World War II, the Soviet Union launched a major offensive against the Japanese forces in Manchuria, the industrial
heartland where Japan manufactured its weapons and military equipment.  The Soviets subsequently withdrew from China but not before allowing the Chinese Communists to occupy large sections of Manchuria (up to 97% of the total area) before the Nationalist Army arrived to take the remaining three Manchurian cities, which were geographically separated from each other.

After the Soviets and the Japanese had withdrawn from China after World War II, armed clashes began to break out between the Nationalist
and Communist forces.  It seemed only a matter of time before full-scale war would follow.  In January 1946, the United States mediated a peace agreement between the two sides.  However, the Nationalists and Communists continued their arms build-up
and war posturing, which eventually led to the breakdown of the truce in June 1946 and the start of the final and decisive phase of the civil war.

In July 1946, Chiang launched a large-scale offensive with 1.6 million soldiers, with the aim of destroying Mao’s forces in northern China.  Because of their superior weapons, the Nationalists advanced steadily.  The Red Army also pulled back as part of its strategy of luring on the Nationalists and then letting them overextend their forward lines.  In March 1947, the Nationalists captured Yan’an, the former Communists’ headquarters, which really was inconsequential as Mao had moved the bulk of his forces further north.

By September 1948, the Red Army had become much bigger and stronger than the Nationalist forces.  Mao finalized plans for a general counter-offensive that ultimately brought the war to an end.  From their bases in Manchuria, one million Red Army soldiers swept down over Nationalist-held Shenyang, Changchun, and Jinzhou, encircling these cities and then capturing them.  By November 1948, the whole of Manchuria had come under the Communists’ control.  Five hundred thousand Nationalist soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured.

The Red Army continued its offensive to the south and took Beijing and Tianjin following heavy fighting.  After incurring losses totaling some 200,000 soldiers, the remaining 260,000 Nationalist defenders in Beijing surrendered to the Communists.  By late
January 1949, the Communists held all of northern China.

A few weeks before the Beijing campaign, another Red Army offensive consisting of 800,000 soldiers and 600,000 auxiliaries descended on Xuzhou.  By mid-January 1949, the Communists had
gained control of the Provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu,
Anhui, and Henan – and all the territories north of the Yangtze River.  More than five million peasants volunteered as laborers for the Red Army, reflecting the Communists’ massive support in the rural areas.  Furthermore, many leading Nationalist Army officers had begun to defect to the Communists.  The defectors handed the Red Army vital military information, seriously compromising the Nationalists’ war effort.

After the Nationalist Army’s crushing defeats in northern and central China, the war essentially was over.  Chiang’s remaining forces were hard pressed to mount further effective resistance against the Red Army’s offensives.  Starting with their injudicious offensive in 1946, the Nationalists had lost 1.5 million soldiers, including their best military units.  Vast amounts of Nationalist stockpiles of weapons and military hardware had fallen to the Red Army.

With ever-growing numbers of troops and weapons, Communist forces made their final advance south virtually unopposed toward the remaining
Nationalist territories in southern and southwestern China.  At this time, the United States ended its military support to the Nationalist government. 
Chiang moved China’s national art treasures and vast quantities of gold and foreign-currency reserves from the National Treasury to the island of Taiwan, causing great uproar among high-ranking officials in his government.

After unsuccessful attempts to negotiate the surrender of the Nationalist government, the Red Army crossed the Yangtze River and captured
Nanjing, the former capital of the Nationalists,
who meanwhile had moved their headquarters to Guangdong Province.

A disagreement arose among Nationalist leaders whether to defend all remaining territories still under their control or to pull back to a smaller but more defensible area.  By October 1949, the Red Army had broken through Guangdong, but not before the Nationalists moved their capital to Chongqing.

On October 1, 1949, Mao declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.  On December 10, 1949, as Red Army forces were
encircling Chengdu, the last Nationalist stronghold, Chiang departed on a plane for Taiwan.  Joining him in Taiwan were about two million Chinese mainlanders, mostly Kuomintang officials, Nationalist Army officers and soldiers, prominent members of society, the academe, and the religious orders.  On March 1, 1950, Chiang resumed his position as China’s president and declared Taiwan as the temporary capital of the Republic of China.

In the months that followed, fighting continued to flare up between the military forces of the two Chinese governments, mainly for possession of the islands along the waters separating their countries.  Since no truce or peace agreement was made by
and between the two governments that do not recognize the legitimacy of the other, to this day, the two countries are technically still at war.

October 9, 1970 – Cambodian Civil War: The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia

On October 9, 1970, the Khmer Republic was proclaimed in Cambodia with General Lon Nol appointed as the country’s head of state. Earlier in March 1970, Lon Nol had led a coup by the National Assembly that voted to oust the reigning head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The formation of the republic also ended the Kingdom of Cambodia. Lon Nol’s right-wing government was backed by the United States, and sided with South Vietnam against North Vietnam in the ongoing Vietnam War. Lon Nol also reversed Sihanouk’s tolerant policy of allowing North Vietnam to occupy large sections of Cambodian territory in its war against South Vietnam.  As such, he demanded that North Vietnamese troops leave the country, and greatly increased the size of his armed forces with large financial support from the United States.

The emergence of the Khmer Republic greatly alarmed North Vietnam, leading to increased North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebels of the National Liberation Front) activity in Cambodian-occupied areas, as well as bolstering support for the Cambodian communist guerrilla group, the Khmer Rouge.

(Taken from Cambodian Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)

Background

Between 1970 and 1975, the U.S.-backed government in Cambodia fought a civil war against the Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian insurgent movement that wanted to establish a communist regime in the country.  The Khmer Rouge’s victory in the war marked the rise into power of its leader, Pol Pot, who would engineer one of the bloodiest genocides in history.  The civil war formed a part of the complex geopolitical theaters of tumultuous Indo-China during the first half of the 1970s, more particularly in reference to the Vietnam War which greatly affected the security climates of adjacent countries, including Cambodia (Map 1).

In 1970, serious economic problems in Cambodia prompted the military to overthrow Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s ruling monarch, whose faulty policies led to widespread discontent among the
people.  Prince Sihanouk, although extremely popular and revered as a semi-deity by Cambodians, applied a
calculating but dangerous foreign policy of playing up the superpowers in order to get the best deal for Cambodia, and still maintain neutrality.

Years earlier, Prince Sihanouk willingly had received military and financial assistance from the United States.  But in 1965, after deciding that communism ultimately would prevail in Indo-China, he opened diplomatic relations with China and North Vietnam.  Furthermore, he accepted military and
economic support from North Vietnam.  In return, he allowed the North Vietnamese Army to use sections of eastern Cambodia in its war against South Vietnam.

October 8, 1912 – First Balkan War: Montenegro declares war on the Ottoman Empire

On October 8, 1912, Montenegro, which had territorial ambitions on the sanjak (district) of Novi Prazar, declared war on the Ottoman Empire.  The rest of the Balkan League then issued a joint ultimatum on the Ottoman government, which contained a demand that the Ottomans withdraw their troops from the frontier regions.  When the Ottomans rejected the ultimatum, Serbia, Bulgaria,
and Greece declared war on October 17, 1912.

In the war, the Ottomans fought from a disadvantageous position.  Their forces in Rumelia were outnumbered by 3:1, they had to defend a long, hostile border on three sides from their Balkan enemies who could strike at any point along the border, and success in sending reinforcements to Rumelia relied on the Ottoman Navy achieving superiority in the Aegean Sea against the Greek fleet.

(Taken from First Balkan War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Balkan region showing location of Rumelia (in green).

Background

At the start of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was a spent force, a shadow of its former power of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that had struck fear in Europe.  The empire did continue to hold vast territories, but only tolerated by competing interests among the European powers who wanted to maintain a balance of power in Europe.  In particular, Britain and France supported and sometimes intervened on the side of the Ottomans in order to restrain expansionist ambitions of the emerging giant, the Russian Empire.

In Europe, the Ottomans had lost large areas of the Balkans, and all of its possessions in central and
central eastern Europe.  By 1910, Serbia, Bulgaria,
Montenegro, and Greece had gained their independence.  As a result, the Ottoman Empire’s last remaining possession in the European mainland was
Rumelia (Map 4), a long strip of the Balkans extending from Eastern Thrace, to Macedonia, and into Albania
in the Adriatic Coast.  And even Rumelia itself was coveted by the new Balkan states, as it contained large ethnic populations of Serbians, Belgians, and Greeks, each wanting to merge with their mother countries.

The Russian Empire, seeking to bring the Balkans into its sphere of influence, formed a military alliance with fellow Slavic Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro.  In March 1912, a Russian initiative led to a
Serbian-Bulgarian alliance called the Balkan League.  In May 1912, Greece joined the alliance when the
Bulgarian and Greek governments signed a similar agreement.  Later that year, Montenegro joined as well, signing separate treaties with Bulgaria and Serbia.

The Balkan League was envisioned as an all-Slavic alliance, but Bulgaria saw the need to bring in Greece, in particular the modern Greek Navy, which could exert control in the Aegean Sea and neutralize Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea, once fighting began.  The Balkan League believed that it could achieve an easy victory over the Ottoman
Empire, for the following reasons.  First, the Ottomans currently were locked in a war with the Italian Empire in Tripolitania (part of present-day Libya), and were losing; and second, because of this war, the Ottoman political leadership was internally
divided and had suffered a number of coups.

Most of the major European powers, and especially Austria-Hungary, objected to the Balkan League and regarded it as an initiative of the Russian Empire to allow the Russian Navy to have access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Adriatic Coast.  Landlocked Serbia also had ambitions on Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to gain a maritime outlet through the Adriatic Coast, but was frustrated when Austria-Hungary, which had occupied Ottoman-owned Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1878, formally annexed the region in 1908.

The Ottomans soon discovered the invasion plan and prepared for war as well.  By August 1912,
increasing tensions in Rumelia indicated an imminent outbreak of hostilities.