Daniel Orr's Blog, page 126

August 7, 1940 – World War II: Germany incorporates Alsace-Lorraine

On August 7, 1940, Alsace-Lorraine was incorporated (but not annexed) into the Greater German Reich. Since the French-German armistice (June 1940) guaranteed the territorial integrity of France, Hitler secretly drafted an annexation law that would annex French territory, to be announced after a German victory in World War II.

In 1942, residents of Alsace-Lorraine were granted German
citizenship, and young men were drafted into the German armed forces, many
against their will (called malgré-nous,
“against our will”). Some also volunteered. Most of the 130,000
drafted from the region fought (and died) in the Eastern Front.

Alsace-Lorraine had previously been contested by France and Germany. In the Franco-Prussian War (July 1870-May 1871), the alliance of Prussia and other German states (soon forming the German Empire) defeated France and annexed the region. With Germany’s defeat in World War I, Alsace-Lorraine briefly proclaimed its independence before the French forces entered the region. With the Treaty of Versailles, Germany ceded the region back to France.

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

Aftermath Despite Germany’s overwhelming military position at the end of hostilities, the armistice negotiations were conducted with consideration of other realities: for Hitler, that the French government and army could very well move to French colonies in North Africa from where they could continue the war; and for the French government, that it wanted to remain in France but only if the Germans did not impose “dishonorable or excessive” terms.  Terms that were deemed unacceptable included the following: that all of France would be occupied, that France should surrender its navy, or that France should relinquish its (vast) colonial territories.

Not only did Hitler not impose these terms, in fact, he
desired that France remain a sovereign state for diplomatic and practical
reasons: in the first case, France had ostensibly switched sides in the war,
isolating Britain; and in the second case, France, with its large navy, would
maintain its global colonial empire, which Germany could not because it did not
have enough ships.

Thus, in the armistice agreement, France
was allowed to remain a fully sovereign state, with its mainland territory and
colonial possessions intact, with some exceptions: Alsace-Lorraine became part
of the Greater German Reich, although not formally annexed into Germany; and Nord and Pas-de-Calais were
attached to Belgium in the
“German Military Administration of Belgium and Northern
France”.  France also retained its navy, but
which was demobilized and disarmed, as were the other branches of the French
armed forces.

Because of the continuing hostilities with Britain, as part of the armistice agreement, the
German Army occupied the northern and western sections of France (some 55% of the French
mainland), where it imposed military rule. 
The occupation was intended to be temporary until such time that Germany had defeated or had come to terms with Britain,
which both the French and German governments believed was imminent.  The Italian military also occupied a small
area in the French Alps.  In the rest of
France (comprising 45% of the French mainland), which was not occupied and thus
called zone libre (“free zone”), on July 10, 1940, the French government formed
a new polity called the “French State” (French: État français), which dissolved
the French Third Republic, and was led by Petain as Chief of State.

The “French State” had its capital at Vichy,
some 220 miles south of Paris, and was commonly
known as “Vichy France”.  Officially, Vichy
France retained sovereignty
over all France,
but in reality, it exercised little authority in the occupied zones.  Vichy France did have full administrative
power in zone libre, and in the ongoing war, it maintained a policy of
neutrality (e.g. it did not join the Axis), and was internationally recognized,
and maintained diplomatic relations with the United States, Canada, the Soviet
Union, even Britain, and many neutral countries.

The Vichy government imposed
authoritarian rule, with Petain holding broad powers, which was a full
turn-around and rejection of the liberalism and democratic ideals of the French Third
Republic.  Using Révolution nationale (“National
Revolution”) as its official ideology, the Petain regime turned inward-looking
(la France seule, or “France
alone”), was deeply conservative and traditionalist, and rejected liberal and
modernist ideas.  Traditional culture and
religion were promoted as the means for the regeneration of France.  The separation of Church and State was
abolished, with Catholics playing a major role in affairs, the French Third
Republic was reviled as morally decadent and causing France’s military defeat,
and anti-Semitism and xenophobia predominated, with Jews and other
“undesirables”, including immigrants, gypsies, and homosexuals being
persecuted.  Communists and left-wingers,
and other radicals were included in this category following the German invasion
of the Soviet Union in June 1941.  Xenophobia was particularly directed against Britain, with Petain and other leaders
expressing strong antipathy with the British, calling them France’s “hereditary” and lasting
enemy.

The Vichy regime was
challenged by General Charles de Gaulle, who in June 1940 in Britain, formed a
government-in-exile called Free France, and an army, the Free French
Forces.  De Gaulle criticized Vichy France
as illegitimate, that it had usurped power from the French Third
Republic, and that it was
a puppet state of Nazi Germany.  In a BBC
broadcast on June 18, 1940 (the so-called “Appeal of 18 June”; French: Appel du
18 juin), he called on the French people to reject the Vichy regime and resist the German occupiers.
Initially, de Gaulle received little support in France
and among expatriate French, who regarded the Petain regime as being the
constitutionally legitimate authority for France.

Despite the armistice agreement’s stipulation that
deactivated the French naval forces, the British government feared that the
French fleet would be seized by the Germans who then would use it to invade Britain.  Thus, on July 3, 1940, British ships attacked
the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir (in Algeria),
sinking or damaging several French ships, while the French squadron at Alexandria (in Egypt) allowed itself to be
interned by the British fleet.

By October 1940, the Petain regime had began to actively
collaborate in implementing the Nazi government’s Anti-Semitism laws.  Using information of the poll registers on
the Jewish population that earlier had been collected by the French police,
French authorities and the Gestapo (German secret police), working together or
separately, conducted raids where thousands of Jews (as well as other
“undesirables”) were rounded up and confined in internment camps for eventual
transport to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe; many
concentration camps also were set up in France. 
Of the 330,000 Jews in France,
some 77,000 perished in the Holocaust, a death rate of 25%.

As the armistice agreement also required France to pay the cost of the
German occupation, the French became dependent on and subservient to German
impositions.  French farm production and
resources were seized by the Germans, resulting in the deterioration of the
French economy and causing severe hardships to the French people, who suffered
food and fuel shortages or rationing, curfew, and restricted civil liberties.

The Battle of France resulted in some 1.5 million French
soldiers becoming German prisoners of war. 
To prevent Vichy France from re-mobilizing these troops, German
authorities kept these French soldiers in labor camps in Germany and France,
although some 500,000 were later released at various times, and the remaining
one million freed by the Allies at the end of World War II.

By 1941, a French resistance movement comprising many small
groups had emerged, with its memberships increased by the influx of communists
following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and forced work
evaders following the implementation of Service du Travail Obligatoire
(“Obligatory Work Service”) in February 1943.  The French resistance soon also made contact
with de Gaulle’s government-in-exile, the British Special Operations Executive
(SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which sent supplies and
agents.  The resistance conducted
sabotage operations against military-vital targets, provided the Allies with
intelligence information, and sheltered and helped escape downed Allied airmen,
Jews, and other elements targeted by German and Vichy authorities.

In November 1942, following the Allied invasion of western
North Africa, the German military also occupied the territory of Vichy France
in order to safeguard the southern flank. 
The Italian occupation zone also was expanded.  While France
ostensibly continued its sovereignty over its territories, in reality, German
military authority came into force throughout France,
and the Vichy
government exercised little power.  The
German occupation of Vichy France also ended the latter’s diplomatic
relations with the United States,
Canada,
and other Allies, and also with many neutral states.

August 6, 1990 – Gulf War: The UN Security Council imposes economic sanctions on Iraq following Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwait

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

Background On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait), overthrew the ruling monarchy and seizing control of the oil-rich country.  A “Provisional Government of Free Kuwait” was established, and two days later, August 4, the Iraqi government, led by Saddam Hussein, declared Kuwait a republic.  On August 8, Saddam changed his mind and annexed Kuwait as a “governorate”, declaring it Iraq’s 19th province.

Jaber III, Kuwait’s deposed emir who had fled to neighboring Saudi Arabia in the midst of the invasion, appealed to the international community.  On August 3, 1990, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued Resolution 660, the first of many resolutions against Iraq, which condemned the invasion and demanded that Saddam withdraw his forces from Kuwait.  Three days later, August 6, the UNSC released Resolution 661 that imposed economic sanctions against Iraq, which was carried out through a naval blockade authorized under UNSC Resolution 665.  Continued Iraqi defiance subsequently would
compel the UNSC to issue Resolution 678 on November 29, 1990 that set the deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait on or before January 15, 1991 as well as authorized UN member states to enforce the withdrawal if necessary, even through the use of force.  The Arab League, the main regional organization, also condemned the invasion, although Jordan, Sudan, Yemen, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) continued to support Iraq.

Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait upset the political, military, and economic dynamics in the Persian Gulf region, and by possessing the world’s fourth largest armed forces, Iraq now posed a direct threat to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.  The United States announced that intelligence information detected a build-up of Iraqi forces in Kuwait’s southern border with Saudi Arabia.  Saddam, however, declared that Iraq had no intention of invading Saudi Arabia, a
position he would maintain in response to allegations of his territorial ambitions.

Meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney who arrived in Saudi Arabia shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Saudi King Fahd requested U.S. military protection.  U.S. President George H.W. Bush accepted the invitation, as doing so would not only defend an important regional ally, but prevent Saddam from gaining control of the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest petroleum producer. 
With its conquest of Kuwait, Iraq now held 20% of the world’s oil supply, but annexing Saudi Arabia would allow Saddam to control 50% of the global oil reserves.  By September 18, 1990, the U.S.
government announced that the Iraqi Army was massed in southern Kuwait, containing a force of 360,000 troops and 2,800 tanks.

U.S. military deployment to Saudi Arabia, codenamed Operation Desert Shield, was swift; on August 8, just six days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait,
American air and naval forces, led by two aircraft carriers and two battleships, had arrived in the Persian Gulf.  Over the next few months, Iraq offered the United States a number of proposals to resolve the crisis, including that Iraqi forces would be withdrawn from Kuwait on the condition that Israel also withdrew its troops from occupied regions in Palestine (West Bank, Gaza Strip), Syria (Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. 
The United States refused to negotiate, however, stating that Iraq must withdraw its troops as per the UNSC resolutions before any talk of resolving other Middle Eastern issues would be discussed.  On January 9, 1991, as the UN-imposed deadline of January 15, 1991 approached, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Iraq’s Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz held last-minute talks in Geneva Switzerland (called the Geneva Peace Conference).  But the two sides refused to tone down their hard-line positions, leading to the breakdown of talks and the imminent outbreak of war.

Because Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites, were located in Saudi Arabia, King Fahd received strong local and international criticism from other Muslim states for allowing U.S. troops into his country.  At the urging of King Fahd, the United States organized a multinational coalition consisting of armed and civilian contingents from 34 countries which, apart from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait’s (exiled forces), also included other Arab and Muslim countries (Egypt, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Turkey, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh).  A force of about 960,000 troops was assembled, with U.S. soldiers accounting for 700,000 or about 70% of the total; Britain and France also sent sizable contingents, some 53,000 and 18,000 respectively, as well as large amounts of military equipment and supplies.

In talks with Saudi officials, the United States stated that the Saudi government must pay for the greater portion of the cost for the coalition force, as the latter was tasked specifically to protect Saudi Arabia.  In the coming war, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and
other Gulf states contributed about $36 billion of the $61 billion coalition total war cost; as well, Germany and Japan contributed a combined $16 billion, although these two countries, prohibited by their constitutions from sending armies abroad, were not a combat part of the coalition force.

President Bush overcame the last major obstacle to implementing UNSC Resolution 678 – the U.S. Congress.  The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were held by a majority from the opposition Democratic Party, which was opposed
to the Bush administration’s war option and instead believed that the UNSC’s economic sanctions against Iraq, yet barely two months in force, must be given
time to work.  On January 12, 1991, a congressional joint resolution that authorized war, as per President Bush’s request, was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 250-183 and Senate by a vote of 52-47.

One major factor for U.S. Congress’ approval for war were news reports of widespread atrocities and human rights violations being committed by Iraq’s
occupation forces against Kuwaiti civilians, particularly against members of the clandestine Kuwaiti resistance movement that had arisen as a result of the occupation.  Some of the more outrage-provoking accounts, including allegations that Iraqi soldiers pulled hundreds of new-born infants from incubators and then left to die on the hospital floors, have since been determined to be untrue.

Iraq’s programs for developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons were also cause for grave concern to Western countries, particularly since during the Iran-Iraq War (that ended just three years
earlier, in August 1988), Saddam did not hesitate to use chemical weapons, dropping bombs and firing artillery containing projectiles laced with nerve
agents, cyanide, and sarin against Iranian military and civilian targets, and even against his own people, i.e. Iraq Kurds who had risen up in rebellion and sided with Iran in the war.

The coalition campaign to recapture Kuwait,
codenamed Operation Desert Storm, consisted of two phases: the air campaign and land campaign.

August 5, 1965 – Indo-Pakistani War of 1965: Pakistani soldiers posing as civilians cross the Line of Control

On August 5, 1965 and the days that followed, some 30,000 Pakistani soldiers posing as civilians crossed the Line of Control (the ceasefire line and de facto border resulting from the 1947 Indian-Pakistani War) and entered Indian-held Kashmir.  The Pakistani infiltrators carried out some sabotage activities but failed to incite a general civilian uprising.  The Indian Army, tipped off by informers, crushed the operation, killing many Pakistani infiltrators and forcing others to flee back to Pakistan.

Then on August 15, the Indian forces crossed the western ceasefire line and entered Pakistani-held Kashmir.  The offensive made considerable progress
until it was slowed at Tithwail and Pooch, upon the arrival of Pakistani Army reinforcements.  By month’s end, the battle lines had settled.

Armed clashes between Indian and Pakistani forces at Rann of Kutch in April 1965 were a precursor to a full-scale war in Kashmir five months later.

(Taken from Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background As a result of the Indian-Pakistani War of 1947, the former Princely State of Kashmir was divided militarily under zones of occupation by the Indian Army and the Pakistani Army.  Consequently, the governments of India and Pakistan established local administrations in their respective zones of control, these areas ultimately becoming de facto territories of their respective countries.  However, Pakistan was determined to drive away the Indians from Kashmir and annex the whole region.  As Pakistan and Kashmir had predominantly Muslim populations, the Pakistani government believed that Kashmiris detested being under Indian rule and would welcome and support an invasion by Pakistan.  Furthermore, Pakistan’s government received reports that civilian protests in Kashmir indicated that Kashmiris were ready to revolt against the Indian regional government.

The Pakistani Army believed itself superior to its Indian counterpart.  In early 1965, armed clashes broke out in disputed territory in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat State, India.  Subsequently in 1968, Pakistan was awarded 350 square miles of the territory by the International Court of Justice.  In 1965, India was still smarting from a defeat to China in the 1962 Sino-Indian War; as a result, Pakistan believed that the Indian Army’s morale was low.  Furthermore, Pakistan had upgraded its Armed Forces with purchases of modern weapons from the United States, while India was yet in the midst of modernizing its military forces.

In the summer of 1965, Pakistan made preparations for invading Indian-held Kashmir.  To assist the operation, Pakistani commandos would penetrate Kashmir’s major urban areas, carry out sabotage operations against military installations and public infrastructures, and distribute firearms to civilians in order to incite a revolt.  Pakistani military planners believed that Pakistan would have greater bargaining power with the presence of a civilian uprising, in case the war went to international arbitration.

August 4, 1964 – Vietnam War: The American ships USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy report being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin

(Taken from Vietnam War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 5)

As early as 1961, under the top-secret Oplan 34A by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and later in 1964, under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Operations Group (MACV-SOG), U.S. Navy fast patrol boats transported South Vietnamese commandos on small attack missions inside North Vietnam.  One such mission, which would have far-reaching consequences, occurred on July 30, 1964, when South Vietnamese commandos attacked two North Vietnamese islands in the Gulf of Tonkin.  The USS Maddox, an American destroyer operating as an electronic spy ship, was located nearby.  On August 2, 1964, the commander of the USS Maddox reported being attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, but that the attack was thwarted.  Two days later, August 4, the USS Maddox, now joined by another electronic spy ship, the USS Turner Joy, again reported being attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats.

This second incident was later determined to not having
occurred.  However, after the second “attack”, President Johnson announced to the American public that U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked by North Vietnam.  U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson then ordered retaliatory air strikes, where U.S. planes struck North Vietnamese naval bases and an oil storage facility.  President Johnson also called on the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution that would guarantee “freedom…and peace in Southeast Asia” and support “all necessary action to protect our Armed Forces”.

On August 7, 1964, U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Senate: 88-2 and House of Representatives: 416-0),
which came into law on August 10, which gave President Johnson broad powers to use all necessary military force in Southeast Asia in support of its allies
there.  The Resolution essentially gave President Johnson the authority to go to war against North Vietnam without first obtaining a Declaration of War from U.S. Congress. 

Southeast Asia during the 1960s

The U.S. air strikes, the U.S. spy activities in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the South Vietnamese infiltration
missions convinced the Hanoi government that the
United States was intervening in the war, and worse, it was planning to invade North Vietnam.  As a result, the Ho regime increased military pressure in South Vietnam to overthrow the Saigon government before the United States could intervene.  In early 1965, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a series of attacks across South Vietnam, with concentrations in the Central Highlands east toward the coast to cut South Vietnam in two, and in the region west of Saigon and near the Cambodian border.  U.S. military installations in South Vietnam also were targeted.  In November 1964, the Bien Hoa airport, headquarters of the U.S. Air Force command in South Vietnam, was attacked by Viet Cong mortar fire, killing and wounding dozens of American servicemen and damaging several planes.  Then in
February 1965, Viet Cong units attacked the U.S.
air base at Pleiku, Central Highlands, killing 9 U.S.
soldiers and wounding 70 others, which was followed three days later, by an explosion that destroyed a hotel at Qui Nohn, killing 23 U.S. soldiers.

As a result of the Viet Cong escalation, President Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a limited-scale bombing of North Vietnam, which began on March 2, 1965, with the stated aims of boosting South Vietnamese morale, deterring North Vietnam from supporting the Viet Cong/NLF, and stopping North Vietnamese forces from entering South Vietnam.  Initially planned to last only 8 weeks, the
bombing campaign became an incremental, sustained effort that lasted 44 months, ending in November 1968.  Under Operation Rolling Thunder, President Johnson required that the U.S. military’s list of potential targets be subject to his approval, which generated great consternation among the generals who wanted an all-out, large-scale strategic bombing campaign of North Vietnam.  U.S. planes also were only allowed to hit targets (such as road and rail systems, industries, and air defenses) inside a designated radius away from Hanoi and Haiphong, as well as from a buffer zone from the North Vietnam-China border.  Some of these restrictions would be lifted later.

The incremental nature of Operation Rolling Thunder allowed North Vietnam enough time to strengthen its air defenses.  Thus, by 1968, Hanoi, Haiphong, and other vital centers were bristling with 8,000 Soviet-supplied anti-aircraft guns and 300 surface-to-air missile batteries, supported by 350 radar facilities, as well as scores of Soviet MiG-21 fighter planes and 15,000 Soviet air-defense advisers.  In February 1965, the Soviet Union further
increased its military support to North Vietnam
when an American bombing attack coincided with the visit of Soviet Deputy Premier Alexei Kosygin to Hanoi. Previously, the Soviet government had sought a diplomatic resolution to the Vietnam War (despite providing military support to North Vietnam).  Ultimately, by the end of Rolling Thunder, the United States lost over 900 planes, while North Vietnam
continued to deliver even larger amounts of weapons to South Vietnam through the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Throughout the war, the United States launched other aerial operations (Steel Tiger, Tiger Hound, and Commando Hunt) on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to try and stop the flow of men and materiel from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, but all of these ultimately proved unsuccessful.

August 3, 1959 – Guinea-Bissau War of Independence: Portuguese police fires on striking dock workers in Bissau

On August 3, 1959, Portugal’s colonial police force opened fire on striking dock workers in Bissau, the capital of Portuguese Guinea. Dozens of workers were killed. The workers had been incited to strike by the nationalist organization, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde or PAIGC (Portuguese: Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde), whose aim was to end Portuguese colonial rule and achieve independence for Guinea and Cape Verde. Initially, the PAIGC wanted to achieve its aims through dialogue and a negotiated settlement with the Portuguese.  By the late 1950s, however, the Guinean nationalists had become radicalized and militant.

In March 1962, PAIGC militants in Cape
Verde attacked Praia.  Other rebel attacks also took place in many parts of Guinea.  In June 1963, the rebels attacked government forces in the Guinean towns of Tite, Buba, and Falacunda.  By July, rebel activities also were felt in the Guinean northern regions.  Earlier in April 1964, the Portuguese had lost control of the Guinean southern coast after
the rebels captured Como Islands.  Cassaca and Cantanhez also fell to the insurgents.

The sudden outbreak and rapid spread of the insurrection caught the Portuguese by surprise.  The
Portuguese Army also had just recently transferred some of its Guinean forces to Angola and Mozambique, where other wars for independence had broken out earlier.    Consequently, the remaining Portuguese forces in Guinea
were undermanned and were reduced to defending the remaining territories still under colonial control.

Portugal’s colonial possessions in Africa consisted of Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese-Guinea, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome & Principe.

(Taken from Portuguese Colonial Wars – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

During the colonial era, Portugal’s territorial possessions in Africa consisted of Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe (Map 24).  When World War II ended in 1945, a surge of nationalism swept across the various African colonies as independence groups emerged and demanded the end of European colonial rule.  As these demands soon intensified into greater agitation and violence, most of the European colonizers relented, and by the 1960s, most of the African colonies had become independent countries.

Bucking the trend, Portugal was determined to hold onto its colonial possessions and went so far as to declare them “overseas provinces”, thereby formally incorporating them into the national territories of the motherland.  Nearly all the black
African liberation movements in these Portuguese “provinces” turned their attention from trying to gain independence through negotiated settlement to launching insurgencies, thereby starting revolutionary wars.  These wars took place through the early 1960s
to the first half of the 1970s, and were known collectively as the Portuguese Colonial War, and pitted the Portuguese Armed Forces against the African guerilla militias in Angola, Mozambique,
and Portuguese Guinea.  At the war’s peak, some 150,000 Portuguese soldiers were deployed in Africa.

By the 1970s, these colonial wars had become extremely unpopular in Portugal, because of the mounting deaths in Portuguese soldiers, the irresolvable nature of the wars through military force, and the fact that the Portuguese government was using up to 40% of the national budget to the wars and thus impinging on the social and economic development of Portuguese society.  Furthermore, the wars had isolated Portugal diplomatically, with the United Nations constantly putting pressure on the Portuguese government to decolonize, and most of the international community imposing a weapons embargo and other restrictions on Portugal.  In April 1974, dissatisfied officers of the military carried out a coup that deposed the authoritarian regime of Prime
Minister Marcelo Caetano.  The coup, known as the Carnation Revolution, produced a sudden and dramatic shift in the course of the colonial wars.

August 2, 1934 – Interwar period: Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany

On August 2, 1934, Chancellor Adolf Hitler became the Fuhrer (“leader”) of Germany
upon the death of 86-year old President Paul von Hindenburg that same day.  One day earlier, August 1, anticipating Hindenburg’s death, Hitler had his cabinet pass the “Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich”, which provided that upon Hindenburg’s death, the positions of president and chancellor would be merged under the title of “Leader and Chancellor”.

Thus upon Hindenburg’s death, Hitler assumed the dual roles of head of state and head of government, in effect becoming absolute dictator of Germany. Meanwhile, Hitler had earlier co-opted the heads of the powerful Germany military to his support by promising to suppress his Nazi paramilitary SA (Sturmabteilung; “Storm Detachment”) and allow the armed forces pre-eminence in military affairs.  Finally, on August 1934, in a plebiscite to the German people, 90% of voters agreed with Hitler to merge the offices of president and chancellor.

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

In October 1929, the severe economic crisis known as the Great Depression began in the United States, and then spread out and affected many countries around the world.  Germany, whose economy was dependent on the United States for reparations payments and corporate investments, was badly hit, and millions of workers lost their jobs, many banks closed down, and industrial production and foreign trade dropped considerably.

The Weimar government weakened politically, as many Germans turned to radical ideologies,
particularly Hitler’s ultra-right wing nationalist Nazi Party, as well as the German Communist Party.  In the 1930 federal elections, the Nazi Party made spectacular gains and became a major political party with a platform of improving the economy, restoring political stability, and raising Germany’s international standing by dealing with the “unjust” Versailles treaty.  Then in two elections held in 1932, the Nazis
became the dominant party in the Reichstag (German parliament), albeit without gaining a majority.  Hitler long sought the post of German Chancellor, which was the head of government, but he was rebuffed by the elderly President Paul von Hindenburg , who distrusted Hitler.  At this time, Hitler’s ambitions were not fully known, and following a political compromise by rival parties, in January 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor, with few
Nazis initially holding seats in the new Cabinet.  The Chancellorship itself had little power, and the real authority was held by the President (the head of state).

On the night of February 27, 1933, fire broke out at the Reichstag, which led to the arrest and execution of a Dutch arsonist, a communist, who was found inside the building.  The next day, Hitler announced that the fire was the signal for German
communists to launch a nationwide revolution.  On February 28, 1933, the German parliament passed the “Reichstag Fire Decree” which repealed civil liberties, including the right of assembly and freedom of the press.  Also rescinded was the writ of habeas corpus, allowing authorities to arrest any person without the need to press charges or a court order.  In the next few weeks, the police and Nazi SA paramilitary carried out a suppression campaign against communists (and other political enemies) across Germany, executing communist leaders, jailing tens of thousands of their members, and effectively ending the German Communist Party.  Then in March 1933, with the communists suppressed and other parties intimidated, Hitler forced the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Act, which allowed the government (i.e. Hitler) to enact laws, even those that violated
the constitution, without the approval of parliament or the president.  With nearly absolute power, the Nazis gained control of all aspects of the state.  In
July 1933, with the banning of political parties and coercion into closure of the others, the Nazi Party became the sole legal party, and Germany became de facto a one-party state.

At this time, Hitler grew increasingly alarmed at the military power of the SA, particularly distrusting the political ambitions of its leader, Ernst Rohm.  On June 30-July 2, 1934, on Hitler’s orders, the loyalist Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel; English: Protection Squadron) and Gestapo (Secret Police) purged the SA, killing
hundreds of its leaders including Rohm, and jailing thousands of its members, violently bringing the SA organization (which had some three million members)
to its knees.  The purge benefited Hitler in two ways: First, he became the undisputed leader of the Nazi apparatus, and Second and equally important, his standing greatly increased with the upper class, business and industrial elite, and German military; the latter, numbering only 100,000 troops because of the Versailles treaty restrictions, also felt threatened by the enormous size of the SA.

In early August 1934, with the death of President
Hindenburg, Hitler gained absolute power, as his Cabinet passed a law that abolished the presidency, and its powers were merged with those of the chancellor.  Hitler thus became both German head of state and head of government, with the dual roles of Fuhrer (leader) and Chancellor.  As head of state, he also was Supreme Commander of the armed forces, making him absolute ruler and dictator of Germany.

In domestic matters, the Nazi government made great gains, improving the economy and industrial production, reducing unemployment, embarking on ambitious infrastructure projects, and restoring political and social order.  As a result, the Nazis
became extremely popular, and party membership grew enormously.  This success was brought about from sound policies as well as through threat and intimidation, e.g. labor unions and job actions were suppressed.

Hitler also began to impose Nazi racial policies, which saw ethnic Germans as the “master race” comprising “super-humans” (Ubermensch), while certain races such as Slavs, Jews, and Roma (gypsies) were considered “sub-humans” (Untermenschen); also lumped with the latter were non-ethnic-based
groups, i.e. communists, liberals, and other political enemies, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.  Nazi lebensraum (“living space”) expansionism into Eastern Europe and Russia
called for eliminating the Slavic and other populations there and replacing them with German farm settlers to help realize Hitler’s dream of a 1,000-year German Empire.

In Germany itself, starting in April 1933 until the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and beyond, Nazi racial policy was directed against the local Jews, stripping them of civil rights, banning them from employment and education, revoking their citizenship, excluding them from political and social
life, disallowing inter-marriages with Germans, and essentially declaring them undesirables in Germany.  As a result, tens of thousands of Jews left Germany.  Hitler blamed the Jews (and communists) for the civilian and workers’ unrest and revolution near the end of World War I, ostensibly that had led to Germany’s defeat, and for the many social and economic problems currently afflicting the nation.  Following anti-Nazi boycotts in the United States, Britain, and other countries, Hitler retaliated with a call to boycott Jewish businesses in Germany, which degenerated into violent riots by SA mobs that attacked and killed, and jailed hundreds of Jews,
looted and destroyed Jewish properties, and seized Jewish assets.  The most notorious of these attacks occurred in November 1938 in “Kristallnacht” (Crystal Night), where in response to the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew in Paris, the Nazi SA and civilian mobs in Germany went on a violent rampage, killing hundreds of Jews, jailing tens of thousands of others, and looting and destroying Jewish homes, schools, synagogues, hospitals, and other buildings.  Some 1,000 synagogues were burned, and 7,000 businesses destroyed. 

In foreign affairs, Hitler, like most Germans, denounced the Versailles treaty, and wanted it rescinded.  In 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva, and in October of that year, from the League of Nations, in both cases denouncing why Germany was not allowed to re-arm to the level of the other major powers.

In March 1935, Hitler announced that German military strength would be increased to 550,000 troops, military conscription would be introduced, and an air force built, which essentially meant repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles and the start of full-scale rearmament.  In response, Britain, France, and Italy formed the Stresa Front meant to stop further German violations, but this alliance quickly broke down because the three parties disagreed on how to deal with Hitler.

Italy, after being denounced by the League of Nations and slapped with economic sanctions after its invasion of Ethiopia, switched sides to Germany.  Mussolini and Hitler signed a series of agreements that soon led to a military alliance.  Meanwhile, Britain and France continued their indecisive foreign policies toward Germany.  In March 1936, in a bold move, Hitler sent troops to the Rhineland, remilitarizing the region in another violation of the Versailles treaty, but met no hostile response from the other powers.  Hitler justified this move as a defensive response to the recently concluded French-Soviet mutual assistance pact, which he accused the two countries of encircling Germany, a statement that drew sympathy from some British politicians.

Nazi ideology called for unification of all Germanic peoples into a Greater German Reich.  In this context, Hitler had long sought to annex Austria,
whose indigenous population was German, into Germany.  An annexation attempt in 1934 was foiled by Italian intervention, with Mussolini determined to go to war if Germany invaded Austria.  But by 1938, German-Italian relations had warmed and were moving toward a military alliance.  With Britain and France watching by, in March 1938, Hitler put political pressure on Austria, and with the threat of
invasion, forced the Austrian government to resign, and cede power to the Austrian Nazi Party.  Within days, the latter relinquished Austrian independence to Germany, and German troops occupied Austria.  In a Nazi-controlled plebiscite held in April 1938, an improbable 99.7% of Austrians voted for “Anschluss” (political union) with Germany.

In late March 1938, while Germany was yet in the process of annexing Austria, another conflict, the “Sudetenland Crisis” occurred, where ethnic Germans, who formed the majority population in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia, demanded autonomy and the right to join the Nazi Party.  Hitler supported these demands, citing the Sudeten Germans’ right to self-determination.  The Czechoslovak government refused, and in May 1938, mobilized for war. In response, Hitler secretly asked the German High Command to prepare for war, to be launched in October 1938.  Britain and France, anxious to avoid war at all costs by not antagonizing Hitler (a policy called appeasement), pressed Czechoslovakia to yield, with the British even stating that the Sudeten Germans’ demand for autonomy was reasonable.  In early September 1938, the Czechoslovak government agreed to the demands.  Then when civilian unrest broke out in the Sudetenland which the Czechoslovakian police quelled, in mid-September 1938, a furious Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany in order to stop the supposed slaughter of Sudeten Germans.  Under great pressure from Britain and France, on September 21, 1938, the Czechoslovak government relented, and agreed to cede the Sudetenland.  But the next day, Hitler made new demands, which Czechoslovakia rejected and again mobilized for war.  In a frantic move to avert war, the Prime Ministers of Britain
and France, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, respectively, together with Mussolini, met
with Hitler, and on September 29, 1938, the four men signed the Munich Pact, where the Sudetenland was formally ceded to Germany.  Two days later, Czechoslovakia accepted the fait accompli, knowing it would not be supported by Britain and France in a war with Germany.  In succeeding months, Czechoslovakia disintegrated as a sovereign state: the Slovak region separated, aligning with Germany as a puppet state; other regions were annexed by Hungary and Poland; and in March 1939, the rest of the Czech portion of the country was occupied by Germany.

Hitler then turned to Poland,= and proposed to renew their ten-year non-aggression pact (signed in 1934) in exchange for revising their common border, specifically returning to Germany some territories that were ceded to Poland after World War I.  The Polish government refused, causing Hitler to rescind the pact in April 1939.  By then, Britain and France had abandoned appeasement in favor of assertive diplomacy, and promised military support to Poland if Germany invaded.  In the period May-August 1939, as war loomed, frantic efforts were made by Britain
and France jointly, and by Germany, to win over to their side the last remaining undecided major European power, the Soviet Union.  The Germans prevailed, and a non-aggression pact was signed with the Soviets on August 23, 1939, which prompted Hitler to begin hostilities with Poland under the mistaken belief that Britain and France would not react militarily.

August 1, 1927 – Chinese Civil War: Chinese communists start the Nanchang Uprising against the Kuomintang

On August 1, 1927, Chinese communist forces seized control of Nanchang in Jiangxi Province from the Nationalist (Kuomintang) local government.  Four days later, August 5, with the approach of Nationalist forces, they withdrew from the city, taking 5,000 small arms and 1 million rounds of ammunition.

The communists then embarked on what is known as the “Little Long March”, a withdrawal south to the province of Guangdong. Along the way, they were attacked by Nationalist-affiliated forces, reducing the communist forces to only 1,000 troops from some 20,000 at the peak of the Nanchang Uprising. After breaking up into two groups moving in different directions, the remnants later joined with the forces of Mao Zedong in Hunan Province.

The Nanchang Uprising was the first battle between the Nationalist and communist forces in the Chinese Civil War. In the People’s Republic of China today, August 1 is celebrated as the founding of the People’s Liberation Army.

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

History of the Chinese Civil War In 1911, two thousand years of dynastic imperial rule ended in China.  Suddenly left without a central government, the country fragmented into many semi-independent regions.  Then from southern China, a political party called the Kuomintang (English: Chinese Nationalist Party) formed a government whose aim was to reunite the country.

The Kuomintang built an army and then began a military
campaign for China’s
reunification, an event known as the Chinese Civil War.  The civil war lasted 23 years and consisted
of four phases: first, the Kuomintang’s defeat of the regional military leaders
called warlords; second, the Kuomintang’s contentious split into two rival
factions, i.e. the right-wing Nationalists and the left-wing and Communists
alliance; third, these two rival factions’ brief alliance to fight the Japanese
who had invaded China; and fourth, the ultimate reunification of China by the
victorious Communists in 1950.

The origin of the Chinese Civil War can be traced to the
early 1900s, with many factors coming into play.  Among these factors were the growing opposition
of the Han people (China’s main ethnic group) to the ruling Qing monarchy; the
assimilation of Western political ideas into Chinese thought; China’s military
defeats to and occupation by the foreign powers; and the country’s backwardness
in stark contrast to the prosperity and development in the West.  These factors shattered the Chinese people’s
confidence in their government.

In 1911, revolts and civil unrest broke out in many areas of
southern China.  Being unable to stop the disturbances, the
Qing monarchy abdicated, which ended two millennia of Chinese dynastic
rule.  China was left suddenly without a
central government.

In southern China,
the Kuomintang emerged and formed a government, and declared that the country
was henceforth a republic.  Sun Yat-sen,
the Kuomintang’s leader, became president of China – nominally at least.  For in reality, the country had fractured
into many semi-autonomous regions after the Qing monarchy’s collapse.  Sun’s first task was to reunify the country
under his government through the use of force. 
However, he lacked an army to carry out a campaign of conquest,
especially in the northern region of China where the Qing monarchy still
held strong influence.  Sun therefore
entered into an agreement with Yuan Shikai, the powerful northern military
commander, whereby Yuan would cease his support for the Qing monarchy in
exchange for Sun stepping down and allowing Yuan to become China’s president.

After becoming president, however, Yuan suppressed the
Kuomintang and gave himself unlimited powers. 
He appointed military governors, commonly called warlords, in the
provinces, where they held great power and commanded a local army.  Warlordism would dominate China’s regional politics for many
years.  With Yuan’s death in 1916, China
again was left without a central government. 
The country fragmented into many quasi-independent regions, with each
region coming under the control of a warlord.

Sun returned to China, having fled into exile
during Yuan’s dictatorship.  Sun restored
the Kuomintang and restarted his plan to reunify the country.  This time, however, he decided to build his
own army.  He turned to the Western
powers for military assistance but was turned down.  Sun then approached the Soviet
Union, which promised him support on the condition that Sun
allowed members of the fledging Communist Party of China to join the
Kuomintang.  Sun agreed.

In 1923, with Soviet funds, Sun founded a military academy
to train military recruits for his new army. 
The recruits came from different ideological backgrounds: Chinese
traditionalists, right-wingers, left-wingers, Communists, etc.  Thus, the Kuomintang Army that ultimately was
formed included many political persuasions.

In 1936, Sun passed away. 
The Kuomintang was wracked by a power struggle, which ultimately split
the party into two factions: the left-wingers (including the small group of
Communists) led by Wang Jingwei, who was appointed chairman of the Kuomintang,
and therefore Sun’s legal successor, and the right-wingers led by General
Chiang Kai-shek who, as the commander of the Kuomintang Army, held the real
power.  Initially, the two sides worked
together.

July 31, 1941 – World War II: German forces capture Smolensk

On July 31, 1941, units of German Army Group Center led by two panzer groups entered the Russian city of Smolensk, located 400 km west of Moscow. The Germans met fierce Soviet resistance during the two-month battle, but with the city’s capture, German Army Group Center had advanced 500 km into Soviet territory within 18 days since the start of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. At Smolensk, the Germans encircled and destroyed three Soviet armies (the 16th, 19th, and 20th), capturing 300,000 troops and 3,200 tanks. As well, the Soviets suffered 180,000 troops killed and 170,000 wounded.  German infantry units again were delayed in closing the gap with their panzer spearheads, allowing large numbers of Soviet troops (from the 19th and 20th armies) to escape to the east.

German Army Group Center also suffered heavy losses in men and material in the drawn-out battle. Historians have conjectured that German Army Group Center’s two-month delay on its advance to Moscow was consequential to its eventual defeat at the Battle of Moscow in December 1941.

Operation Barbarossa

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

Operation Barbarossa: Central Sector On June 22, 1941, German Army Group Center (with 1.3 million troops, 2,600 tanks, and 7,800 artillery pieces), based in Poland, attacked into Soviet-occupied eastern Poland, where the uneven border arising from the 1939 partition of the country created salients whose weak flanks could be exploited by an invading force.  German Army Group Center had the greatest concentration of tanks comprising two panzer groups, as Hitler anticipated that this sector’s campaign into Moscow would be strongly resisted by the Red Army.  To exploit the Soviet salient at Bialystok, the two panzer groups crossed the frontier in a flanking maneuver, with the 2nd Panzer Group to the south and bypassing Brest, and 3rd Panzer Group to the north advancing for Vilnius, with both groups aiming for Minsk, 400 miles to the east.  Meanwhile, German Army Group Center’s three field armies also advanced north and south of the Bialystok salient, forming another set of pincers.

On June 23, 1941, a Red Army counter-attack was stopped.  The next day, another Soviet
counter-offensive, led by an armored force of over 1,000 tanks, advanced for Grodno to break the
looming encirclement, but met disaster caused as much by fierce German air attacks as by mechanical breakdowns of the tanks and shortage of fuel.  Another Soviet attack with 200 tanks on June 25 also ended in failure.

On June 27, 1941, the German 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups met up at Minsk, and the next day, German Army Group Center’s second pincers closed shut east of Bialystok.  The trapped Soviet forces at Bialystok, Navahrudak, and Minsk continued to resist, while elimination of these pockets by the Wehrmacht was delayed by lack of adequate German motor transports to hasten the advance of infantry units.  Full encirclement of Soviet forces also was compromised as the German 2nd Panzer, which was led by General Heinz Guderian (an advocate of armored blitzkrieg tactics), continued advancing east in contravention of Hitler’s pause order, which left gaps in the cordon that allowed Soviet units to escape.  In the end, in the Bialystok-Minsk battles, although the Germans captured 300,000 Soviet troops, as well as 3,000 tanks, and 1,500 artillery
pieces, some 250,000 Red Army soldiers escaped.

An annoyed Hitler faulted the panzer commanders for achieving only a partial capture of the trapped Soviets; in turn, the German commanders blamed the slow advance of the supporting infantry units.  But in the aftermath, the Soviet Western Front was destroyed, with two field armies obliterated and three others severely incapacitated.

German Army Group Center then continued east toward Smolensk, which commanded the road to Moscow.  The German advance was again spearheaded by panzers, with 2nd Panzer Group advancing in the south and 3rd Panzer Group in the north with the aim of meeting up and encircling Smolensk.  On Stalin’s orders, five Soviet armies from the strategic reserve were deployed in Smolensk,
reinforcing the Soviet 13th Army there in essentially reconstituting the Soviet Western Front.  The Soviets formed a new defensive line around the city, and also took up positions along the old Stalin Line along the Dnieper and Dvina rivers.

On July 6, 1941, Soviet armored units, comprising 1,500 tanks, attacked toward Lepiel, but were repulsed and nearly wiped out by a German tank and anti-tank counter-attack.  Then on July 11 and the following days, the Red Army launched more counter-attacks, which all failed to stall the Germans.  On July 13, German 2nd Panzer Group took Mogilev, trapping several Soviet armies.   Two days later, the Germans entered Smolensk, leading to fierce house-to-house fighting in the city.  German 3rd Panzer Group, advancing from the north, was stalled by swampy terrain that was exacerbated by the seasonal rains.  But in late July 1941, it too entered Smolensk, and the two panzer groups closed shut and trapped three Soviet armies comprising 300,000 troops and 3,200 tanks.  As well, the Soviets suffered 180,000 troops killed and 170,000 wounded.  German infantry units again were delayed in closing the gap with the panzer spearheads, which allowed large numbers of Soviet troops to escape to the east.

July 30, 1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes a surprise visit to South Vietnam

On July 30, 1969, President Richard Nixon made an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, spending five hours in the capital Saigon meeting with President Nguyen Van Thieu and also with U.S. military commanders. He also visited U.S. troops at Di Am, twelve miles north of Saigon. The trip was part of a broad itinerary, where he made stops in Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Romania, and Britain.

A divided country: North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

In South Vietnam, he stated that the war must allow the South Vietnamese to “choose their own way”, a reference to the ongoing “Vietnamization” process, where the U.S. military was gradually disengaging from the war, concurrent with building up the South Vietnamese military which would take over the fighting. “Vietnamization” had begun the previous year, near the end of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s tenure in office.

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

In 1969, newly elected U.S. president, Richard Nixon, who took office in January of that year, continued with the previous government’s policy of American disengagement and phased troop withdrawal from Vietnam, while simultaneously expanding Vietnamization, with U.S. military advice and material support.  He also was determined to achieve his election campaign promise of securing a peace settlement with North Vietnam under the Paris peace talks, ironically through the use of force, if North Vietnam refused to negotiate.

In February 1969, the Viet Cong again launched a large-scale Tet-like coordinated offensive across South Vietnam, attacking villages, towns, and cities, and American bases. Two weeks later, the Viet Cong launched another offensive.  Because of these attacks, in March 1968, on President Nixon’s orders, U.S. planes, including B-52 bombers, attacked Viet Cong/North Vietnamese bases in eastern Cambodia
(along the Ho Chi Minh Trail).  This bombing campaign, codenamed Operation Menu, lasted 14 months (until May 1970), and segued into Operation Freedom Deal (May 1970-August 1973), with the latter targeting a wider insurgent-held territory in eastern Cambodia.

In the 1954 Geneva Accords, Cambodia had declared its neutrality in regional conflicts, a policy it maintained in the early years of the Vietnam War.  However, by the early 1960s, Cambodia’s reigning monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, came under great pressure by the escalating war in Vietnam, and especially after 1963, when North Vietnamese forces occupied sections of eastern Cambodia as part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail system to South Vietnam.  Then in the mid-1960s, Sihanouk signed security agreements with China and North Vietnam, where in exchange for receiving economic incentives, he acquiesced to the North Vietnamese occupation of eastern Cambodia.  He also allowed the use of the port of Sihanoukville (located in southern Cambodia) for shipments from communist countries for the Viet Cong/NLF through a newly opened land route across Cambodia.  This new route, called the Sihanouk Trail (Figure 5) by the Western media, became a major alternative logistical system by North Vietnam during the period of intense American air operations over the Laotian side of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail and other key areas during the Vietnam War.

In July 1968, under strong local and regional pressures, Sihanouk re-opened diplomatic relations with the United States, and his government swung to being pro-West.  However, in March 1970, he was overthrown in a coup, and a hard-line pro-U.S. government under President Lon Nol abolished the monarchy and restructured the country as the Khmer Republic.  For Cambodia, the spill-over of the Vietnam War into its territory would have disastrous
consequences, as the fledging communist Khmer Rouge insurgents would soon obtain large North Vietnamese support that would plunge Cambodia into a full-scale civil war.  For the United States (and South Vietnam), the pro-U.S. Lon Nol government served as a green light for American (and South Vietnamese) forces to conduct military operations in Cambodia.

The U.S. bombing operations on Viet Cong/North Vietnamese bases in eastern Cambodia forced North
Vietnam to increase its military presence in other parts of Cambodia.  The North Vietnamese Army seized control particularly of northeastern Cambodia,
where its forces defeated and expelled the Cambodian Army.  Then in response to the Cambodian government’s request for military assistance, starting in late April to early May 1970, American and South Vietnamese forces launched a major ground offensive into eastern Cambodia.  The main U.S. objective was to clear the region of the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong in order to allow the planned American disengagement from the Vietnam War to proceed smoothly and on schedule.  The offensive  also served as a gauge of the progress of Vietnamization, particularly the performance of the South Vietnamese Army in large-scale operations.

In the nearly three-month successful operation (known as the Cambodian Campaign) which lasted until July 1970, American and South Vietnamese
forces, which at their peak numbered over 100,000 troops, uncovered several abandoned major Viet Cong/North Vietnamese bases and dozens of underground storage bunkers containing huge quantities of materiel and supplies.  In all, American and South Vietnamese troops captured over 20,000 weapons, 6,000 tons of rice, 1,800 tons of ammunition, 29 tons of communications equipment, over 400 vehicles, and 55 tons of medical supplies.  Some 10,000 Viet Cong/North Vietnamese were killed in the fighting, although the majority of their forces (some 40,000) fled deeper into Cambodia.  However, the campaign failed to achieve one
of its objectives: capturing the Viet Cong/NLF leadership COSVN (Central Office for South Vietnam).  The Nixon administration also came under
domestic political pressure: in December 1970, and U.S. Congress passed a law that prohibited U.S. ground forces from engaging in combat inside Cambodia and Laos.

Before the Cambodian Campaign began, President Nixon had announced in a nationwide broadcast that he had committed U.S. ground troops to the operation.  Within days, large demonstrations of up to 100,000 to 150,000 protesters broke out in the United States, with the unrest again centered in universities and colleges.  On May 4, 1970, at Kent State University, Ohio, National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing four people
and wounding eight others.  This incident sparked even wider, increasingly militant and violent protests across the country.  Anti-war sentiment already was
intense in the United States following news reports in November 1969 of what became known as the My Lai Massacre, where U.S. troops on a search and destroy mission descended on My Lai and My Khe villages and killed between 347 and 504 civilians, including women and children.

American public outrage further was fueled when in June 1971, the New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers” (officially titled: United States
– Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense), a highly classified study by the U.S. Department of Defense that was leaked to the press.  The Pentagon Papers showed
that successive past administrations, including those of Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, but especially of President Johnson, had many times
misled the American people regarding U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.  President Nixon sought legal grounds to stop the document’s publication for national security reasons, but the U.S. Supreme
Court subsequently decided in favor of the New York Times and publication continued, and which was also later taken up by the Washington Post and other
newspapers.

July 29, 1921 – Interwar Period: Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the Nazi Party

On July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler became the leader of the far-right National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more commonly known in the West as the Nazi Party, which was the successor movement of the German Workers’ Party.

Hitler first participated in the German Workers’ Party in July 1919 not as a recruit but to infiltrate the newly formed organization. At that time, he was an intelligence agent of the German Army. However, he soon was won over by the movement’s ultra-nationalist, anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist ideas.

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

Hitler and the Nazis in Power In October 1929, the severe economic crisis known as the Great Depression began in the United States, and then spread out and affected many countries around the world.  Germany, whose economy was dependent on the United States for reparations payments and corporate investments, was badly hit, and millions of workers lost their jobs, many banks closed down, and industrial production and foreign trade dropped considerably.

The Weimar government weakened politically, as many Germans turned to radical ideologies, particularly Hitler’s ultra-right wing nationalist Nazi Party, as well as the German Communist Party.  In the 1930 federal elections, the Nazi Party made spectacular gains and became a major political party with a platform of improving the economy, restoring political stability, and raising Germany’s international standing by dealing with the “unjust” Versailles treaty.  Then in two elections held in 1932, the Nazis
became the dominant party in the Reichstag (German parliament), albeit without gaining a majority.  Hitler long sought the post of German Chancellor, which was the head of government, but he was rebuffed by the elderly President Paul von Hindenburg , who distrusted Hitler.  At this time, Hitler’s ambitions
were not fully known, and following a political compromise by rival parties, in January 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor, with few Nazis initially holding seats in the new Cabinet.  The Chancellorship itself had little power,
and the real authority was held by the President (the head of state).

On the night of February 27, 1933, fire broke out at the Reichstag, which led to the arrest and execution of a Dutch arsonist, a communist, who was found inside the building.  The next day, Hitler announced that the fire was the signal for German communists to launch a nationwide revolution. 
On February 28, 1933, the German parliament passed the “Reichstag Fire Decree” which repealed civil liberties, including the right of assembly and
freedom of the press.  Also rescinded was the writ of habeas corpus, allowing authorities to arrest any person without the need to press charges or a court order.  In the next few weeks, the police and Nazi SA paramilitary carried out a suppression campaign against communists (and other political enemies) across Germany, executing communist leaders, jailing tens of thousands of their members, and effectively ending the German Communist Party.  Then in March 1933, with the communists suppressed and other parties intimidated, Hitler forced the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Act, which allowed the government (i.e. Hitler) to enact laws, even those that violated the
constitution, without the approval of parliament or the president.  With nearly absolute power, the Nazis gained control of all aspects of the state.  In July 1933, with the banning of political parties and coercion into closure of the others, the Nazi Party became the sole legal party, and Germany became de facto a one-party state.

At this time, Hitler grew increasingly alarmed at the military power of the SA, particularly distrusting the political ambitions of its leader, Ernst Rohm.  On June 30-July 2, 1934, on Hitler’s orders, the loyalist Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel; English: Protection Squadron) and Gestapo (Secret Police) purged the SA, killing
hundreds of its leaders including Rohm, and jailing thousands of its members, violently bringing the SA organization (which had some three million members)
to its knees.  The purge benefited Hitler in two ways: First, he became the undisputed leader of the Nazi apparatus, and Second and equally important, his standing greatly increased with the upper class, business and industrial elite, and German military; the latter, numbering only 100,000 troops because of the Versailles treaty restrictions, also felt threatened by the enormous size of the SA.

In early August 1934, with the death of President
Hindenburg, Hitler gained absolute power, as his Cabinet passed a law that abolished the presidency, and its powers were merged with those of the
chancellor.  Hitler thus became both German head of state and head of government, with the dual roles of Fuhrer (leader) and Chancellor.  As head of state, he also was Supreme Commander of the armed forces, making him absolute ruler and dictator of Germany.

In domestic matters, the Nazi government made great gains, improving the economy and industrial production, reducing unemployment, embarking on ambitious infrastructure projects, and restoring political and social order.  As a result, the Nazis
became extremely popular, and party membership grew enormously.  This success was brought about from sound policies as well as through threat and intimidation, e.g. labor unions and job actions were suppressed.

Hitler also began to impose Nazi racial policies, which saw ethnic Germans as the “master race” comprising “super-humans” (Ubermensch), while certain races such as Slavs, Jews, and Roma (gypsies) were considered “sub-humans” (Untermenschen); also lumped with the latter were non-ethnic-based
groups, i.e. communists, liberals, and other political enemies, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.  Nazi lebensraum (“living space”) expansionism into Eastern Europe and Russia
called for eliminating the Slavic and other populations there and replacing them with German farm settlers to help realize Hitler’s dream of a 1,000-year German Empire.

In Germany itself, starting in April 1933 until the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and beyond, Nazi racial policy was directed against the local Jews, stripping them of civil rights, banning them from employment and education, revoking their citizenship, excluding them from political and social
life, disallowing inter-marriages with Germans, and essentially declaring them undesirables in Germany.  As a result, tens of thousands of Jews left Germany.  Hitler blamed the Jews (and communists) for the civilian and workers’ unrest and revolution near the end of World War I, ostensibly that had led to Germany’s defeat, and for the many social and economic problems currently afflicting the nation.  Following anti-Nazi boycotts in the United States, Britain, and other countries, Hitler retaliated with a call to boycott Jewish businesses in Germany, which degenerated into violent riots by SA mobs that attacked and killed, and jailed hundreds of Jews,
looted and destroyed Jewish properties, and seized Jewish assets.  The most notorious of these attacks occurred in November 1938 in “Kristallnacht” (Crystal Night), where in response to the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew in Paris, the Nazi SA and civilian mobs in Germany went on a violent rampage, killing hundreds of Jews, jailing tens of thousands of others, and looting and destroying Jewish homes, schools, synagogues, hospitals, and other buildings.  Some 1,000 synagogues were burned, and 7,000 businesses destroyed. 

In foreign affairs, Hitler, like most Germans, denounced the Versailles treaty, and wanted it rescinded.  In 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany
from the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva,
and in October of that year, from the League of Nations, in both cases denouncing why Germany
was not allowed to re-arm to the level of the other major powers.

In March 1935, Hitler announced that German military strength would be increased to 550,000 troops, military conscription would be introduced, and an air force built, which essentially meant repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles and the start of full-scale rearmament.  In response, Britain, France, and Italy formed the Stresa Front meant to stop further German violations, but this alliance quickly broke down because the three parties disagreed on how to deal with Hitler.

Italy, after being denounced by the League of Nations and slapped with economic sanctions after its invasion of Ethiopia, switched sides to Germany.  Mussolini and Hitler signed a series of agreements that soon led to a military alliance.  Meanwhile, Britain and France continued their indecisive foreign policies toward Germany.  In March 1936, in a bold move, Hitler sent troops to the Rhineland, remilitarizing the region in another violation of the Versailles treaty, but met no hostile response from the other powers.  Hitler justified this move as a defensive response to the recently concluded French-Soviet mutual assistance pact, which he accused the two countries of encircling Germany, a statement that drew sympathy from some British politicians.

Nazi ideology called for unification of all Germanic peoples into a Greater German Reich.  In this context, Hitler had long sought to annex Austria,
whose indigenous population was German, into Germany.  An annexation attempt in 1934 was foiled by Italian intervention, with Mussolini determined to go to war if Germany invaded Austria.  But by 1938, German-Italian relations had warmed and were moving toward a military alliance.  With Britain
and France watching by, in March 1938, Hitler put political pressure on Austria, and with the threat of
invasion, forced the Austrian government to resign, and cede power to the Austrian Nazi Party.  Within days, the latter relinquished Austrian independence to Germany, and German troops occupied Austria.  In a Nazi-controlled plebiscite held in April 1938, an improbable 99.7% of Austrians voted for “Anschluss” (political union) with Germany.

In late March 1938, while Germany was yet in the process of annexing Austria, another conflict, the “Sudetenland Crisis” occurred, where ethnic Germans, who formed the majority population in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia, demanded autonomy and the right to join the Nazi Party.  Hitler supported these demands, citing the Sudeten Germans’ right to self-determination.  The Czechoslovak government refused, and in May 1938, mobilized for war. In response, Hitler secretly asked the German High Command to prepare for war, to be launched in October 1938.  Britain and France, anxious to avoid war at all costs by not antagonizing Hitler (a policy called appeasement), pressed Czechoslovakia to yield, with the British even stating that the Sudeten Germans’ demand for autonomy was reasonable.  In early September 1938, the Czechoslovak government agreed to the demands.  Then when civilian unrest broke out in the Sudetenland which the Czechoslovakian police quelled, in mid-September 1938, a furious Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany in order to stop the supposed slaughter of Sudeten Germans.  Under great pressure from Britain and France, on September 21, 1938, the Czechoslovak government relented, and agreed to cede the Sudetenland.  But the next day, Hitler made new demands, which Czechoslovakia rejected and again mobilized for war.  In a frantic move to avert war, the Prime Ministers of Britain
and France, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, respectively, together with Mussolini, met
with Hitler, and on September 29, 1938, the four men signed the Munich Pact, where the Sudetenland was formally ceded to Germany.  Two days later, Czechoslovakia accepted the fait accompli, knowing it would not be supported by Britain and France in a war with Germany.  In succeeding months, Czechoslovakia disintegrated as a sovereign
state: the Slovak region separated, aligning with Germany as a puppet state; other regions were annexed by Hungary and Poland; and in March
1939, the rest of the Czech portion of the country was occupied by Germany.

Hitler then turned to Poland, and proposed to renew their ten-year non-aggression pact (signed in 1934) in exchange for revising their common border, specifically returning to Germany some territories that were ceded to Poland after World War I.  The Polish government refused, causing Hitler to rescind the pact in April 1939.  By then, Britain and France had abandoned appeasement in favor of assertive diplomacy, and promised military support to Poland if Germany invaded.  In the period May-August 1939, as war loomed, frantic efforts were made by Britain
and France jointly, and by Germany, to win over to their side the last remaining undecided major European power, the Soviet Union.  The Germans prevailed, and a non-aggression pact was signed with the Soviets on August 23, 1939, which prompted Hitler to begin hostilities with Poland under the mistaken belief that Britain and France would not react militarily.