Daniel Orr's Blog, page 51

September 4, 1919 – Turkish War of Independence: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk leads an assembly of Turkish nationalists in the Sivas Congress

On September 4, 1919, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the TurkishNational Movement assembled at Sivas incentral-eastern Turkeyto formulate policy for the preservation of unity, independence, andterritorial integrity of the Turkish state. The week-long assembly (September4-11, 1919) following the preparatory Erzurum Congress. At this time, the Ottoman Empire was powerless and practically defunct, andunder military occupation by the Allied Powers: French, British, Italians, andGreeks.

(Taken from Turkish War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

As a result of this circular, Turkish nationalists mettwice: at the Erzerum Congress (July-August 1991) by regional leaders of theeastern provinces, and at the Sivas Congress (September 1919) of nationalistleaders from across Anatolia.  Two important decisions emerged from thesemeetings: the National Pact and the “Representative Committee”.

The National Pact set forth the guidelines for the Turkishstate, including what constituted the “homeland of the Turkish nation”, andthat the “country should be independent and free, all restrictions onpolitical, judicial, and financial developments will be removed”.  The “Representative Committee” was theprecursor of a quasi-government that ultimately took shape on May 3, 1920 asthe Turkish Provisional Government based in Ankara(in central Anatolia), founded and led byKemal.

Background of theTurkish War of Independence On October 30,1918, the Ottoman Empire ended its involvementin World War I by signing the Armistice of Mudros.  During the war, the Ottoman government hadfought as one of the Central Powers (in alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary,and Bulgaria),but in 1917 and 1918, it suffered many devastating defeats.  Then with the failure of the Germans’ 1918“Spring Offensive” in Western Europe, the Anatolian heartland of the Ottoman Empire became vulnerable to an invasion, forcingOttoman capitulation.

The victorious Allied Powers in Europe (Britain, France,and Italy) took steps tocarry out their many secret pre-war and war-time agreements regarding thedisposition of the Ottoman Empire.  Another Allied power, Russia, also was a party to some ofthese agreements, but it had been forced out of the war in 1914 andconsequently was not involved in the post-war negotiations.

As a first measure and provided by the terms of surrender,the French and British naval fleets seized control of the Turkish Straits(Dardanelles and Bosporus) on November 12-13, 1913, and landed troops inConstantinople, the Ottoman Empire’s capital.

During World War I, British forces gained possession of muchof the Ottoman Empire’s colonies in the Middle East, collectively called“Greater Syria”, a vast territory covering Mesopotamia (Iraq), the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, and Palestine.  When the war ended, most of the ArabianPeninsula gained independence under British sponsorship, including the Kingdom of Yemenand later the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz, the precursor of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The most significant war-time treaty to be implemented inthe Middle East was the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, where Britain and Francedrew up a plan to partition between them most of the remaining Ottomanpossessions, i.e. Syria and Lebanon to France, and Mesopotamia and Palestine toBritain*.  As a result, following war’send, Britain and France took control of their respectivepreviously agreed territories in the Middle East.  These annexations subsequently werelegitimized as mandates by the newly formed League of Nations: i.e. the 1923French Mandate for Syria andthe Lebanon, and the 1923British Mandate for Palestine.  British control of Mesopotamia was formalizedby the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1922, which also established the Kingdom of Iraq.

The Allies also had drawn up a partition plan for Anatolia,the Turkish heartland of the Ottoman Empire.  In this plan, Constantinople and the Turkish Straits were designated as a neutralzone under joint Allied administrations, with separate British, French, andItalian zones of occupations.  SouthwestAnatolia was allocated to Italy,the southeast (centered on Cilicia) to France,and a section of the northeast to Armenia.  Greece,a late-comer in World War I on the Allied side, was promised the historicHellenic region around Smyrna, as well as Eastern Thrace.

With these proposed changes, a much smaller Ottoman statewould consist of central Anatolia up to the Black Sea, but no coastal outlet inthe Mediterranean Sea.  The Allies subsequently incorporated thesestipulations in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres (Map 8), an agreement aimed atlegitimizing their annexations/occupations of Ottoman territories.

The Allies wanted a breakup of the Ottomans’ centralizedstate, to be replaced by a decentralized federal form of government.  In Constantinople,the national government led by the Sultan and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister)were resigned to these political and territorial changes.  However, Turkish nationalists, representing apolitical and ideological movement that became powerful in the early twentiethcentury, opposed the Allied impositions on Anatolia,perceiving them to be a deliberate dismembering of the Turkish traditionalhomeland.  As a result of the Alliedoccupation, many small Turkish nationalist armed resistance groups began toorganize all across Anatolia.

Rise of the Turkish Independence Movement Under thearmistice agreement, the Ottoman government was required to disarm anddemobilize its armed forces.  On April30, 1919, Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Ottoman Army, was appointed as theInspector-General of the Ottoman Ninth Army in Anatolia,with the task of demobilizing the remaining forces in the interior.  Kemal was a nationalist who opposed theAllied occupation, and upon arriving in Samsunon May 19, 1919, he and other like-minded colleagues set up what became theTurkish Nationalist Movement.

Contact was made with other nationalist politicians andmilitary officers, and alliances were formed with other nationalistorganizations in Anatolia.  Military units that were not yet demobilized,as well as the various armed bands and militias, were instructed to resist theoccupation forces.  These variousnationalist groups ultimately would merge to form the nationalists’ “NationalArmy” in the coming war.  Weapons andammunitions were stockpiled, and those previously surrendered were secretlytaken back and turned over to the nationalists.

On June 21, 1919, Kemal issued the Amasya Circular, whichdeclared among other things, that the unity and independence of the Turkishstate were in danger, that the Ottoman government was incapable of defendingthe country, and that a national effort was needed to secure the state’sintegrity.  As a result of this circular,Turkish nationalists met twice: at the Erzerum Congress (July-August 1991) byregional leaders of the eastern provinces, and at the Sivas Congress (September1919) of nationalist leaders from across Anatolia.  Two important decisions emerged from thesemeetings: the National Pact and the “Representative Committee”.

The National Pact set forth the guidelines for the Turkishstate, including what constituted the “homeland of the Turkish nation”, andthat the “country should be independent and free, all restrictions onpolitical, judicial, and financial developments will be removed”.  The “Representative Committee” was theprecursor of a quasi-government that ultimately took shape on May 3, 1920 asthe Turkish Provisional Government based in Ankara(in central Anatolia), founded and led byKemal.

Kemal and his Representative Committee “government”challenged the continued legitimacy of the national government, declaring that Constantinople was ruled by the Allied Powers from whomthe Sultan had to be liberated.  However,the Sultan condemned Kemal and the nationalists, since both the lattereffectively had established a second government that was a rival to that in Constantinople.

In July 1919, Kemal received an order from the nationalauthorities to return to Constantinople.  Fearing for his safety, he remained in Ankara; consequently, heceased all official duties with the Ottoman Army.  The Ottoman government then laid down treasoncharges against Kemal and other nationalist leaders; tried in absentia, he wasdeclared guilty on May 11, 1920 and sentenced to death.

Initially, British authorities played down the threat posedby the Turkish nationalists.  Then whenthe Ottoman parliament in Constantinopledeclared its support for the nationalists’ National Pact and the integrity ofthe Turkish state, the British violently closed down the legislature, an actionthat inflicted many civilian casualties. The next month, the Sultan affirmed the dissolution of the Ottomanparliament.

Many parliamentarians were arrested, but many others escapedcapture and fled to Ankarato join the nationalists.  On April 23,1920, a new parliament called the Grand National Assembly convened in Ankara, which electedKemal as its first president.

British authorities soon realized that the nationalistmovement threatened the Allied plans on the Ottoman Empire.  From civilian volunteers and units of theSultan’s Caliphate Army, the British organized a militia, which was tasked todefeat the nationalist forces in Anatolia.  Clashes soon broke out, with the most intensetaking place in June 1920 in and around Izmit, where Ottoman and British forcesdefeated the nationalists.  Defectionswere widespread among the Sultan’s forces, however, forcing the British todisband the militia.

The British then considered using their own troops, but backeddown knowing that the British public would oppose Britain being involved in anotherwar, especially one coming right after World War I.  The British soon found another ally to fightthe war against the nationalists – Greece.  On June 10, 1920, the Allies presented theTreaty of Sevres to the Sultan.  Thetreaty was signed by the Ottoman government but was not ratified, since waralready had broken out.

In the coming war, Kemal crucially gained the support of thenewly established Soviet Union, particularly in the Caucasuswhere for centuries, the Russians and Ottomans had fought for domination.  This Soviet-Turkish alliance resulted fromboth sides’ condemnation of the Allied intervention in their local affairs,i.e. the British and French enforcing the Treaty of Sevres on the Ottoman Empire, and the Allies’ open support foranti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War.

War Turkish nationalists fought in three fronts: in the eastagainst Armenia, in thesouth against France and the French Armenian Legion, and in the west against Greece, which was backed by Britain.

September 3, 1939 – World War II: France and the United Kingdom declare war on Germany

On September 2, 1939, one day after theGermans invaded Poland, Britain and Franceissued a joint ultimatum to Germanyto withdraw within 12 hours, and after receiving no response, they declared warthe following day.  The BritishCommonwealth countries Australiaand New Zealand alsodeclared war on Germany.  However, no significant military actionfollowed: British ships blockaded the German coastline and British planesdropped propaganda leaflets over German cities; while the French launched alackluster offensive on the German Saar region on September 7, capturing anumber of towns and villages without meeting any resistance, and thenwithdrawing most of their forces after a week. In mid-October 1939 and after the Polish campaign, German forcesrecaptured all the areas occupied by the French, who retreated behind theMaginot Line.  The failure of Britain and Franceto launch any significant military action (which likely could have changed thecourse of World War II) on Germany’sweak western border in 1939) in compliance with their treaty obligations to Poland,has been called the “Western Betrayal”.

(Taken from Invasion of Poland – Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe: Vol. 6)

WarTheoretically, the Polish Army was a potentially formidable force, havingnearly 1 million troops, 4,300 artillery pieces, 900 tanks, and 400planes.  However, many of its troops werepoorly trained and equipped, while most of its equipment was obsolete.  Weapons that were locally manufactured werecomparable in quality to those used by the Germans, but they were produced onlyin small quantities.  Moreover, at thestart of the war, Polandhad only partially mobilized.  In lateAugust 1939, with war becoming imminent, the Polish government had issued anumber of directives for full mobilization, but these were reversed on theinsistence of France,which still hoped for a negotiated settlement of the crisis.  The small Polish Navy did succeed inevacuating three destroyers from their Baltic Sea port to Britain on August 30, 1939, with the advice ofthe British, who saw that if war broke out, these ships would be trapped in theBaltic Sea and destroyed by the much biggerGerman Navy.

Poland’smilitary strategy was “Plan West”, where most of the Polish forces were massedalong the 3,500-mile border with Germanyproper, East Prussia, and Germany-allied Slovakia, for the defense of Danzig, PolishCorridor, and Silesia, which were the vitalindustrial and economic regions of Poland.  The Polish military rejected the advice ofthe French to not focus the defense along the less defensible western borderregions (where flat open plains predominated), and instead concentrate Polishforces along the Vistula and other rivers in Central Poland, which offeredsound natural barriers.

But for Poland,abandoning Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and Silesiawould simply allow the German Army to march into them, and then Germanycould announce that the war was over. Furthermore, for the Polish Army, putting up strong resistance to aGerman invasion would compel Britainand Franceto intervene militarily to comply with the terms of their mutual defensepacts.  Plan West also considered that in the event the Polishwestern defenses failed, the Polish Army could make an orderly retreat to thesecond line of defense in Central Poland, and if that also collapsed, to thesoutheast region of the country, the so-called Romanian Bridgehead, where themountains, rivers, swamps, and valleys offered excellent defensivecapabilities, and where in the previous months, Poland had stockpiledammunitions and supplies.  Here, thePoles expected to hold out for many months, long enough for France and Britain to launch their offensivein the west, which would force the Germans to pull back forces to confront thenew threat.  The Allied offensive in thewest, and a subsequent Polish counter-offensive in the east, would lead to Germany’sdefeat.

The German invasion of Poland was basedon Fall Weiss (“Plan White”), whichinvolved coordinated multi-front attacks from the north, south, and west (whichthe Poles had anticipated in “Plan West”). Hitler called for a swift conquest (within six months; the German staffestimated a campaign of three months), which would deny the French and British enoughtime to intervene.  Hitler also orderedthat German forces along the western border not provoke or engage the Frenchand British, particularly since much of the German Army was massed for Poland,and also because the western border defenses (the Siegfried Line) were notprepared to resist a powerful Allied invasion.

German officials and the press alsodenounced the Polish government, accusing it of tolerating persecutions of ethnicGermans in Poland.  These accusations had some merit; forexample, although some Germans had voluntarily left the former Germanterritories that became part of reconstituted Poland, those who remained weresubject to discrimination and repression, had their lands taken through landreform, and also occasionally experienced physical violence by the Poles.

In the lead-up to the war, Germanoperatives launched a series of sabotage operations in German territory in theguise that these were committed by Poles, in order to give Germany a pretext to invade Poland.  These actions, implemented under OperationHimmler, targetedrailway stations, customs houses, communication lines, etc.  As part of Operation Himmler, on the night ofAugust 31, 1939, German saboteurs wearing Polish uniforms seized the Gleiwitzradio station in Silesia, Germany, and aired a shortanti-German message in Polish.  This andother supposed Polish provocations were used by Hitler to launch what he calleda “defensive war” against Poland,stating that “the series of border violations, which are unbearable to a greatpower, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the Germanfrontier.”

The German invasion of Poland,made by a force that had at its peak 1.5 million troops, 9,000 artillerypieces, 2,700 tanks, and 2,300 planes, was a combined-arms, infantry-led seriesof rapid-advance encirclement operations, and not the armor-led blitzkrieg thatcontemporary news media reported at the time. The Polish war doctrine also similarly emphasized maneuver, led byhorse-mounted cavalry units, which contrary to being described at the time asbeing armed only with spears and swords, in fact launched attacks on Germantanks with anti-tank rifles and were quite successful against German infantryand also against German armor; Polish cavalry destroyed some 25% of Germantanks during the campaign.  Consequently,the war was characterized by mobile units, not the static trench warfare ofWorld War I that the British and French had anticipated.

Before dawn on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland,starting with the Luftwaffe bombing the town of Wielun,and the German battleship SMSSchleswig-Holstein, which was docked at the port of Danzig,opening an artillery barrage on a Polish military facility atWesterplatte.  A few hours later, underPlan White, the two main German invasion forces advanced into Poland: ArmyGroup North with 3rd Army launching from East Prussia into northernPoland and 4th Army from northern Germany into the Polish Corridor;and Army Group South in Silesia, with 8th Army advancing east forLodz and 14th Army for Krakow, with these two armies protecting theflanks of 10th Army, the main southern force which advancednortheast into central Poland.  A smallSlovakian contingent also participated as part of Army Group South, invadingsouthern Poland.  The two main German thrusts were directed at Warsaw,the Polish capital, and comprised two prongs of a giant pincers aimed atflanking, trapping, and then destroying the Polish armies that were massed nearthe western border.  During theoffensive, a second pincers was formed further east at Brest-Litovsk, to trapand destroy Polish forces that had escaped the first pincers.

Invasion of Poland

The Luftwaffe launched bombing attackson Warsaw andother cities, killing thousands of civilians and causing extensive damage tobuildings.  German planes also targetedmilitary installations and troop concentrations, communication systems, publicutilities, and other military-related infrastructures.  The Polish Air Force, despite itslimitations, was a fairly competent fighting unit, since it had a corps ofwell-trained pilots, and was not destroyed on the ground as was earlier widelybelieved.  Many Polish planes also hadbeen moved away from the major air bases to the many small airfields scatteredacross the country, escaping destruction from the many German bombings launchedearly in the war.  As well, Polishanti-aircraft guns were effective and caused some 25% of all German aircraftlost during the campaign.  But theLuftwaffe had overwhelming air superiority in numbers and firepower, and seizedfull control of the sky by the second week.

Meanwhile, the German ground offensivemade rapid gains.  On September 3, 1939,in the north, the German 3rd Army approached the Narew River,and the 4th Army reached the VistulaRiver after cutting through the Polish Corridor.  In the south, theGerman 10th Army crossed the WartaRiver, the 8th Army waseast of Lodz, and the 14th Army wasbeyond Kielce.  By the end of the first week, the “BorderBattles” were settled, with German forces seizing control of Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and Polish Silesia.  By September 9, advance units of the Germannorthern and southern prongs had reached the outskirts of Warsaw and had encircled the city, with thePolish government and high command earlier having abandoned the capital for theRomanian Bridgehead.

September 2, 1945 – First Indochina War: Vietnam declares independence

On September2, 1945 (the same day Japansurrendered to the Allies), Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the country’s independenceas the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), taking the position of Presidentof a provisional government.

At thispoint, Ho sought U.S.diplomatic support for Vietnam’sindependence, and incorporated part of the 1776 U.S. Declaration ofIndependence in his own proclamation of Vietnamese independence.  Ho also wrote several letters to U.S. President Harry Truman (which were unanswered), and metwith U.S. State Department and OSS officials in Hanoi.  However, during the war-timePotsdam Conference (July 17 – August 2, 1945), the Allied Powers (including theSoviet Union) decided to allow France to restore colonial rulein Indochina, but that in the meantime that France was yet preparing to return,Vietnam was to be partitioned into two zones north and south of the 16thparallel, with Chinese Nationalist forces tasked to occupy the northern zone,and British forces (with some French units) tasked to enter the southern zone.

(Taken from First Indochina War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia: Vol. 5)

In February1930, three communist movements merged into a unified Vietnamese CommunistParty, which in October 1930, was renamed the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) which had as its missionthe overthrow of French colonial rule. In Vietnamduring the early 1930s, the growing militancy of labor organizations and fearsof a general uprising forced French authorities to tighten measures againstdissent.  As a result, the ICP wassuppressed, with thousands of its leaders and members executed, imprisoned, orexiled.  Despite these setbacks, the ICPcontinued to operate secretly.

On September1, 1939, World War II broke out in Europe.  In June 1940, after a six-week lightningcampaign, German forces overran France,capturing Paris, and ending the French ThirdRepublic and replacing it with theGerman-controlled Vichy regime (centered inVichy, Central France).  Thereafter, French Indochina was ruled byVichy France.

In September1940, Japanese forces seized control of Tonkin (northernFrench Indochina) to prevent the flow of Allied war supplies to China(China was engaged in a protracted war with Japan after the latter launched afull-scale invasion of China in July 1937). Subsequently, Japan gained full control of French Indochina, from wherethe Japanese invaded British Malaya further south during the Asia-Pacifictheater of World War II, which began in December 1941.  In Indochina,the Japanese military allowed the French administration[1] tocontinue exercising civilian and policing duties, thereby freeing the Japanesemilitary to continue prosecuting the war in the Asia-Pacific.

In May 1941,after a thirty-year absence from Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh returned andorganized in northern Vietnam the “League for the Independence of Vietnam”, morecommonly known as Viet Minh (Vietnamese:Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội), anICP-led merger of Vietnamese nationalist movements, aimed at ending both Frenchand Japanese rule.  Ho became the leaderof the Vietnamese independence struggle, a position he would hold permanentlyuntil his death in 1969.

During WorldWar II, the Viet Minh and AlliedPowers formed a tactical alliance in their shared effort to defeat a commonenemy.  In particular, Ho’s fledgingsmall band of fighters liaisoned with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), furnishing the Americans with intelligenceinformation on the Japanese, while the U.S. military provided theVietnamese fighters with training, some weapons, and other military support.

By early1945, World War II invariably had turned in favor of the Allies, with Germany verging on defeat and Japan becoming increasinglythreatened by the Allied island-hopping Pacific campaign.  In March 1945, the Japanese militaryoverthrew the French administration in Indochina, because of fears of an Alliedinvasion of the region following the U.S.recapture of the Philippines(October 1944–April 1945), and also because the Japanese began to distrustFrench loyalty following the end of Vichy France (November 1942) and the subsequent Alliedliberation of France(early 1945).  In place of the Frenchadministration, on March 11, 1945, Japanese authorities installed a Vietnamesegovernment led by former emperor Bao Dai, and then proclaimed the “independence” of Vietnam,an act that was largely dismissed as spurious by the Vietnamese people.

On August 14,1945, Japanannounced its acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, marking the end of the Asia-Pacific theatre of World War II (theEuropean theater of World War II had ended earlier, on May 8, 1945).  The sudden Japanese capitulation left a powervacuum that was quickly filled by the Viet Minh, which in the preceding months, had secretlyorganized so-called “People’s Revolutionary Committees” throughout much of thecolony.  These “People’s RevolutionaryCommittees” now seized power and organized local administrations in many townsand cities, more particularly in the northern and central regions, including thecapital Hanoi.  Thisseizure of power, historically called the August Revolution, led to theabdication of ex-emperor Bao Dao and the collapse of his Japanese-sponsoredgovernment.

The AugustRevolution succeeded largely because the Viet Minh had gained muchpopular support following a severe famine that hit northern Vietnam in thesummer of 1944 to 1945 (which caused some 400,000 to 2 million deaths).  During the famine, the Viet Minh raidedseveral Japanese and private grain warehouses. On September 2, 1945 (the same day Japan surrendered to the Allies),Ho proclaimed the country’s independence as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam(DRV), taking the position of President of a provisional government.

At thispoint, Ho sought U.S.diplomatic support for Vietnam’sindependence, and incorporated part of the 1776 U.S. Declaration ofIndependence in his own proclamation of Vietnamese independence.  Ho also wrote several letters to U.S. President Harry Truman (which were unanswered), and metwith U.S. State Department and OSS officials in Hanoi.  However, during the war-timePotsdam Conference (July 17 – August 2, 1945), the Allied Powers (including theSoviet Union) decided to allow France to restore colonial rulein Indochina, but that in the meantime that France was yet preparing to return,Vietnam was to be partitioned into two zones north and south of the 16thparallel, with Chinese Nationalist forces tasked to occupy the northern zone,and British forces (with some French units) tasked to enter the southern zone.

Bymid-September 1945, Chinese and British forces had occupied their respectivezones.  They then completed theirassigned tasks of accepting the surrender of, as well as disarming andrepatriating the Japanese forces within their zones.  In Saigon,British forces disbanded the Vietnamese revolutionary government that had takenover the administration of the city. This Vietnamese government in Saigon, called the “Provisional ExecutiveCommittee”, was a coalition of many organizations, including the religiousgroups Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, the organized crime syndicate Binh Xuyen, the communists, and nationalistorganizations.  In Cochinchina and parts ofAnnam, unlike in Tonkin, the Viet Minh had onlyestablished partial authority because of the presence of these many rival ideologicalmovements.  But believing thatnationalism was more important than ideology to achieve Vietnam’s independence,the Viet Minh was willing to work with other groups to form a united front tooppose the return of French rule.

As a resultof the British military actions in the southern zone, on September 17, 1945,the DRV in Hanoi launched a general strike in Saigon.  Britishauthorities responded to the strikes by declaring martial law.  The British also released and armed some1,400 French former prisoners of war; the latter then launched attacks on theViet Minh, and seized key government infrastructures in thesouth.  On September 24, 1945, elementsof the Binh Xuyen crimesyndicate attacked and killed some 150 French nationals, which provokedretaliatory actions by the French that led to increased fighting.  British and French forces soon dispersed theViet Minh from Saigon.  The latter responded by sabotaging ports,power plants, communication systems, and other government facilities.

By the thirdweek of September 1945, much of southern Vietnam was controlled by theFrench, and the British ceded administration of the region to them.  In late October 1945, another British-ledoperation broke the remaining Viet Minh resistancein the south, and the Vietnamese revolutionaries retreated to the countrysidewhere they engaged in guerilla warfare. Also in October, some 35,000 French troops arrived in Saigon.  In March 1946, British forces departed from Indochina, ending their involvement in the region.

Meanwhile inthe northern zone, some 200,000 Chinese occupation forces, led by the warlordGeneral Lu Han, allowed Ho Chi Minh and the VietMinh to continueexercising power in the north, on the condition that Ho include non-communistsin the Viet Minh government.  To downplayhis communist ties, in November 1945, Ho dissolved the ICP and called forVietnamese nationalist unity.  In late1945, a provisional coalition government was formed in the northern zone,comprising the Viet Minh and other nationalist organizations.  In January 1946, elections to the NationalAssembly were held in northern and central Vietnam, where the coalitionparties agreed to a pre-set division of electoral seats.

[1] Officially and by extension, French Indochina was now aligned with Japan through the German-sponsored Vichy France.

September 1, 1961 – Eritrean War of Independence – Eritrean insurgents attack Ethiopian police posts in western Eritrean

On September 1, 1961, insurgents of the Eritrean LiberationFront (ELF) stormed a number of police posts in western Eritrean, sparking theEritrean War of Independence, a protracted conflict that would last threedecades. The insurgents subsequently carried out more attacks against securityforces.  In the period that followed, theELF gained local support in its areas of operations in the ruralMuslim-populated rural northern and western regions of Eritrea and increased its numberswith the inflow of many new recruits. The rebels also increased their frequency of attacks against policetargets, primarily to capture much-needed weapons.  By June 1962, the ELF had some 500 fighters,which included some police defectors who took along their weapons andammunitions.  At this time, Muslimsformed the vast majority of the ELF, which also advocated a pro-Muslim,pro-Arab ideological and religious struggle against the predominantly ChristianEthiopia.  Also for this reason, the ELF gained somemilitary and financial support from a number of Muslim countries, including Syria, Iraq,Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

On May 24, 1991, Eritreagained its independence from Ethiopiafollowing a 30-year armed revolution. Ethiopiahad annexed Eritreaas a province in November 1962, inciting Eritrean nationalists to launch arebellion. Following the war, as Eritrea was still legally bound as part ofEthiopia, in early July 1991, at a conference held in Addis Ababa, an interimEthiopian government was formed, which stated that Eritreans had the right todetermine their own political future, i.e. to remain with or secede fromEthiopia.

Then in a UN-monitored referendum held in April 23 and 25,1993, Eritreans voted overwhelmingly (99.8%) for independence; two days later(April 27), Eritreadeclared its independence. In May 1993, the new country was admitted as amember of the UN.

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

Background InSeptember 1948, a special body called the Inquiry Commission, which was set upby the Allied Powers (Britain,France, Soviet Union, and United States),failed to establish a future course for Eritrea and referred the matter tothe United Nations (UN). The main obstacle to granting Eritrea its independence was that for much ofits history, Eritreawas not a single political sovereign entity but had been a part of andsubordinate to a greater colonial power, and as such, was deemed incapable ofsurviving on its own as a fully independent state. Furthermore, variouscountries put forth competing claims to Eritrea. Italywanted Eritrea returned, tobe governed for a pre-set period until the territory’s independence, anarrangement that was similar to that of Italian Somaliland.The Arab countries of the Middle East pressed for self-determination of Eritrea’s large Muslim population, and as such,called for Eritreato be granted its independence. Britain,as the current administrative power, wanted to partition Eritrea, with the Christian-population regionsto be incorporated into Ethiopiaand the Muslim regions to be assimilated into Sudan. Emperor Haile Selassie, theEthiopian monarch, also claimed ownership of Eritrea, citing historical andcultural ties, as well as the need for Ethiopia to have access to the seathrough the Red Sea (Ethiopia had been landlocked after Italy established Eritrea).

Ultimately, the United Statesinfluenced the future course for Eritrea. The U.S. government saw Eritreain the regional balance of power in Cold War politics: an independent but weak Eritrea could potentially fall to communist(Soviet) domination, which would destabilize the vital oil-rich Middle East. Unbeknown to the general public at the time,a U.S. diplomatic cable fromEthiopia to the U.S. StateDepartment in August 1949 stated that British officials in Eritrea believed that as much as75% of the local population desired independence.

In February 1950, a UN commission sent to Eritrea to determine the localpeople’s political aspirations submitted its findings to the United NationsGeneral Assembly (UNGA). In December 1950, the UNGA, which was stronglyinfluenced by U.S. wishes,released Resolution 390A (V) that called for establishing a loose federationbetween Ethiopia and Eritrea to be facilitated by Britain and to be realized no laterthan September 15, 1952. The UN plan, which subsequently was implemented,allowed Eritreabroad autonomy in controlling its internal affairs, including localadministrative, police, and fiscal and taxation functions. TheEthiopian-Eritrean Federation would affirm the sovereignty of the Ethiopianmonarch whose government would exert jurisdiction over Eritrea’s foreign affairs,including military defense, national finance, and transportation.

In March 1952, under British initiative, Eritrea elected a 68-seatRepresentative Assembly, a legislature composed equally of Christians andMuslim members, which subsequently adopted a constitution proposed by the UN.Just days before the September 1952 deadline for federation, the Ethiopiangovernment ratified the Eritrean constitution and upheld Eritrea’s Representative Assemblyas the renamed Eritrean Assembly. On September 15, 1952, the Ethiopian-EritreanFederation was established, and Britainturned over administration to the new authorities, and withdrew from Eritrea.

However, Emperor Haile Selassie was determined to bring Eritrea under Ethiopia’s full authority. Eritrea’shead of government (called Chief Executive who was elected by the EritreanAssembly) was forced to resign, and successors to the post were appointed bythe Ethiopian emperor. Ethiopians were appointed to many high-level Eritreangovernment posts. Many Eritrean political parties were banned and presscensorship was imposed. Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language, was imposed, whileArabic and Tigrayan,  Eritrea’smain languages, were replaced with Amharic as the medium for education. Manylocal businesses were moved to Ethiopia,while local tax revenues were sent to Ethiopia. By the early 1960s, Eritrea’sautonomy status virtually had ceased to exist. In November 1962, the EritreanAssembly, under strong pressure from Emperor Haile Selassie, dissolved theEthiopian-Eritrean Federation and voted to incorporate Eritrea as Ethiopia’s14th province.

Eritreans were outraged by these developments. Civiliandissent in the form of rallies and demonstrations broke out, and was dealt withharshly by Ethiopia,causing scores of deaths and injuries among protesters in confrontations withsecurity forces. Opposition leaders, particularly those calling forindependence, were suppressed, forcing many to flee into exile abroad; scoresof their supporters also were jailed. In April 1958, the first organizedresistance to Ethiopian rule emerged with the formation of the clandestineEritrean Liberation Movement (ELM), consisting originally of Eritrean exiles inSudan.At its peak in Eritrea, the ELM had some 40,000 members who organized in cellsof 7 people and carried out a campaign of destabilization, including engagingin some militant actions such as assassinating government officials, aimed atforcing the Ethiopian government to reverse some of its centralizing policiesthat were undercutting Eritrea’s autonomous status under the federatedarrangement with Ethiopia. By 1962, the government’s anti-dissident campaignshad weakened the ELM, although the militant group continued to exist, albeitwith limited success. Also by 1962, another Eritrean nationalist organization,the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), had emerged, having been organized in July1960 by Eritrean exiles in Cairo, Egypt which in contrast to the ELM, had as itsobjective the use of armed force to achieve Eritrean’s independence.

In its early years, the ELF leadership, called the “SupremeCouncil”, operated out of Cairoto more effectively spread its political goals to the international communityand to lobby and secure military support from foreign donors.

August 31, 1939 – World War II: German saboteurs seize the Gleiwitz radio station and broadcast anti-German propaganda, giving Germany a pretext to invade Poland and starting World War II

In the lead-up to the war, German operatives launched aseries of sabotage operations in German territory in the guise that these werecommitted by Poles, in order to give Germanya pretext to invade Poland.  These actions, implemented under OperationHimmler, targeted railway stations, customs houses, communication lines,etc.  As part of Operation Himmler, onthe night of August 31, 1939, German saboteurs wearing Polish uniforms seizedthe Gleiwitz radio station in Silesia, Germany,and aired a short anti-German message in Polish.  This and other supposed Polish provocationswere used by Hitler to launch what he called a “defensive war” against Poland,stating that “the series of border violations, which are unbearable to a greatpower, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the Germanfrontier.”

(Taken from Invasion of Poland – Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe: Vol. 6)

BackgroundAt the end of World War I, the Allies reconstituted Poland as a sovereign nation, incorporating into the new state portions of the eastern German territories of Pomerania and Silesia, which contained majority Polish populations.  In the 1920s, the German Weimar Republic sought to restore to Germany all its lost territories, but was restrained by certain stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles, which had been imposed on Germany after World War I.  Polish Pomerania was known worldwide as the “Polish Corridor”, as it allowed Poland access to international waters through the Baltic Sea.  The German city of Danzig in East Prussia, as well as nearby areas, also was detached from Germany, and renamed the “Free City of Danzig”, administered by the League of Nations, but whose port, customs, and public infrastructures were controlled by Poland.

In 1933, Hitler came to power and implemented Germany’smassive rearmament program, and later began to pursue his irredentist ambitionsin earnest.  Previously in January 1934,Nazi Germany and Poland hadsigned a ten-year non-aggression pact, where the German government recognizedthe territorial integrity of the Polish state, which included the Germanregions that had been ceded to Poland.  But by the late 1930s, the now militarilypowerful Germanywas actively pushing to redefine the German-Polish border.

In October 1938, Germanyproposed to Poland renewingtheir non-aggression treaty, but subject to two conditions: that Danzig berestored to Germany and thatGermany be allowed to buildroad and railway lines through the Polish Corridor to connect Germany proper and East Prussia.  Poland refused, and in April 1939,Hitler abolished the non-aggression pact. To Poland, Hitler wasusing the same aggressive tactics that he had used against Czechoslovakia, and that if it yielded to theGerman demands on Danzig and the Polish Corridor, ultimately the rest of Poland would be swallowed up by Germany.

Meanwhile, Britainand France, which had pursuedappeasement toward Hitler, had become wary after the German occupation of therest of Czechoslovakia,which had a non-ethnic German majority population, which was in contrast towhat Hitler had said that he only wanted returned those German-populated territories.  Britainand France were nowdetermined to resist Germanydiplomatically and resolve the crisis through firm negotiations.  On March 31, 1939, Britainand Franceannounced that they would “guarantee Polish independence” in case of foreignaggression.  Since 1921, as per theFranco-Polish Military Alliance, France had pledged military assistance to Polandif that latter was attacked.

In fact, Hitler’s intentions on Poland was not only thereturn of lost German territories, but the elimination of the Polish state andannexation of Poland as part of Lebensraum (“living space”), German expansioninto Eastern Europe and Russia. Lebensraum called for the eradication of the native populations in theseconquered areas.  For Poland specifically, on August 22,1939 in the lead-up to the German invasion, Hitler had said that “the object ofthe war is … to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children ofPolish descent or language.  Only in thisway can we obtain the living space we need.” In April 1939, Hitler instructed the German military High Command tobegin preparations for an invasion of Poland, to be launched later in thesummer.  By May 1939, the German militaryhad drawn up the invasion plan.

In May 1939, Britainand France held high-leveltalks with the Soviet Union regarding forming a tripartite military allianceagainst Germany, especiallyin light of the possible German invasion of Poland.  These talks stalled, because Poland refused to allow Soviet forces into itsterritory in case Germanyattacked.  Unbeknown to Britain and France,the Soviet Union and Germanywere also conducting (secret) separate talks regarding bilateral political,military, and economic concerns, which on August 23, 1939, led to the signingof a non-aggression treaty.  This treaty,which was broadcast to the world and widely known as the Molotov RibbentropPact (named after Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German ForeignMinister Joachim von Ribbentrop), brought a radical shift to the European powerbalance, as Germany was now free to invade Poland without fear of Sovietreprisal.  The pact also included asecret protocol where Poland,Finland, Estonia, Latvia,Lithuania, and Romaniawere divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence.

One day earlier, August 22, with the non-aggression treatyvirtually assured, Hitler set the invasion date of Poland for August 26, 1939.  On August 25, Hitler told the Britishambassador that Britain mustagree to the German demands on Poland,as the non-aggression pact freed Germany from facing a two-front warwith major powers.  But on that same day,Britain and Poland signed a mutual defense pact, whichcontained a secret clause where the British promised military assistance if Poland was attacked by Germany.  This agreement, as well as British overturesthat Britain and Poland were willing to restart the stalled talkswith Germany,forced Hitler to abort the invasion set for the next day.

The Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) stood down, except forsome units that did not receive the new stop order and crossed into Poland,skirmishing with the Poles.  These Germanunits soon withdrew back across the border, but the Polish High Command,informed through intelligence reports of massive German build-up at the border,was unaware that the border skirmishes were part of an aborted German invasion.

German negotiations with Britainand Francecontinued, but they failed to make progress. Poland had refused tonegotiate on the basis of ceding territory, and its determination wasstrengthened by the military guarantees of the Western Powers, particularly inthat if the Germans invaded, the British and French would attack from the west,and Germanywould be confronted with a two-front war.

On August 29, 1939, Germanysent Poland a set ofproposals for negotiations, which included two points: that Danzig be returnedto Germany and that aplebiscite be held in the Polish Corridor to determine whether the territoryshould remain with Poland orbe returned to Germany.  In the latter, Poles who were born or hadsettled in the Corridor since 1919 could not vote, while Germans born there butnot living there could vote.  Germanydemanded that negotiations were subject to a Polish official with signingpowers arriving by the following day, August 30.

Britaindeemed that the German proposal was an ultimatum to Poland, and tried but failed toconvince the Polish government to negotiate. On August 30, the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop presented theBritish ambassador with a 16-point proposal for negotiations, but refused thelatter’s request that a copy be sent to the Polish government, as no Polishrepresentative had arrived by the set date. The next day, August 31, the Polish Ambassador Jozef Lipski conferredwith Ribbentrop, but as Lipski had no signing powers, the talks did notproceed.  Later that day, Hitlerannounced that the German-Polish talks had ended because of Poland’s refusal to negotiate.  He then ordered the German High Command toproceed with the invasion of Polandfor the next day, September 1, 1939.

August 30, 1922 – Greco-Turkish War: Turkish forces capture Dumlupinar

The long anticipated Turkish counter-attack began onAugust 26, 1922, nearly one year after the Battle of Sakarya.  Now holding a 3:1 numerical and considerablematerial advantage, the Turkish forces, within a short time, would easilyoverpower and expel the Greek Army from Anatolia.

The main Turkish thrust began in the south.  Afyon fell on August 27, followed byDumlupinar on September 1, where Greek forces suffered considerable losses inmen and material.  Usak also fell to theTurks, with one Greek Army division surrendering after being surrounded.

With its flank exposed by the collapse of thesouthern front, the Greek Army in the north made a hasty retreat to the west,accompanied by thousands of terrified Greek civilians, and pursued by Turkishforces.  The withdrawal was carried outwith a scorched-earth campaign, as Greek soldiers destroyed villages andfarmlands and committed many atrocities against Turkish civilians.  In turn, Turkish forces retaliated similarlyagainst the Greek population as they passed through villages.  In the north, Turkish forces captured Eskisehir, Inonu, Bursa,and Balikesir in quick succession.

(Taken from Turkish War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century: Vol. 3)

Western Front Greecehad entered World War I on the side of the Allies because of Britain’s promise to reward Greece with a large territorialconcession of Ottoman Anatolia at the end of the war.  Greeceparticularly was interested in the Ottoman territories that contained a largeethnic Greek population, notably Smyrna, which had a sizable toperhaps even a majority Greek population and was the Greeks’ cultural andeconomic center in Anatolia, and Eastern Thrace, as well as the islands ofImbros and Tenedos on the Aegean Sea.

As the Ottoman government had repressed ethnicGreeks in Anatolia during the war, the Allied Powers invoked a stipulation inthe Armistice of Mudros to allow Greek forces to occupy Smyrna.  The presumption was that despite the Ottomancapitulation, ethnic Greeks continued to be threatened by the Ottomans withmassacres and dispossession of properties, which were reported to have takenplace extensively during the war.

A post-war complication arose since Britain, France,and Italy previously hadsigned a treaty (Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne of April 1917), whereby Smyrna and western Anatoliawere to be allocated to the Italians.  Atthe Paris Peace Conference held after the war, both the Italian and Greek delegationslobbied hard for Smyrna; in the end, the otherAllied powers (led by Britain)voted in favor of Greece.

Then in the Treaty of Sevres of 1920, Italy was granted southern Anatolia centered in Antalya, while Greecewas given western Anatolia around Smyrna (aswell as most of Eastern Thrace).  The Italians, however, felt that they hadreceived the short end of the deal without Smyrna, a resentment that would influence theoutcome of the western front.

On May 16, 1919, with Allied approval, 20,000 Greeksoldiers landed in Smyrna,where they were greeted as liberators by a large crowd of ethnic Greeks.  A commotion broke out when a Turkish gunmanfired at the Greek Army, killing one soldier. The Greek Army then opened fire, triggering a spate of violence acrossthe city.  When order later was restored,some 300 Turkish and 100 Greek civilians had been killed; many incidents oflootings, beatings, rapes, and other crimes also took place.

War Of the Allied occupations, the Greek entry in Smyrna greatly provokedthe Turks.  As a result, many Turkishguerilla groups formed, while it was at this time that Kemal began organizinghis revolutionary nationalist government. The western front (more commonly known as the Greco-Turkish War of1919-1922) began in earnest inmid-1920 (eleven months after the initial Greek landing) as a result of Britain’sattempt to implement the newly released Treaty of Sevres.  The treaty was presented to and signed by theOttoman government, but was not ratified; Ottoman authorities insisted that thetreaty must be concurred to also by Kemal, who clearly would not agree toit.  In fact, Kemal’s nationalist forces,by this time, were fighting the French in the southern front and were preparinga major offensive against the Armenians in the eastern front.

Furthermore, by the time of the Treaty of Sevres, divisions caused bycompeting interests had developed among the Allies: Franceresented Britain’sdomineering position; Italywanted to curb British and French domination and Greek expansionism; and theFrench-Armenian alliance was faltering.

After the failed attempt by the Sultan’s CaliphateArmy todefeat the nationalists, Britainconsidered sending its regular army to Anatoliawhich, however, was unlikely to gain the British parliament’s approval and toovercome the British public’s opposition to a new war.  British authorities turned to Greece.  Greek Prime Minister, EleftheriosVenizelos, a strong advocate of Greek expansionism, agreed to take on Kemal’snationalist forces in battle.

Greek expansionism wasrooted in the Megali (Great) Idea, a strong desire among Greeks to extend their country’s borders toinclude those lands with large Greek populations, and in Anatolia, to thosecoastal territories extending from western Anatolia, Constantinople, and the Black Sea.  Thisterritory roughly corresponded to the ethnically and culturally Greek dominantregions of the former Byzantine Empire (330 AD– 1453 AD).

At the outset, withweapons provided by Britain,the Greek Army was expected to overcome easilythe Turkish nationalists, whose forces initially were made up of manydisorganized guerilla groups equipped only with obsolete firearms.  On June 22, 1920, two Greek Army columns fromSmyrna advancedeast, one (main) column headed for Salihli and the other for Aydin.  Another column headed north, with Bursa as its mainobjective.  These offensives met littleopposition; by July 24, the northern advance had entered Balikesir, while oneof the Greeks’ southern forces had taken Alaşehir.  In early July, the Greeks occupied Bursa and nearby towns,including Mudanya and Panderma.

August 29, 1910 – Japan annexes Korea

For Japan,the long-term effects of the Russo-Japanese War were much more favorable, as itbecame the supreme power in East Asia, and itsstatus as an equal of the major European powers was strengthened.  In August 1910, Japanabrogated Korea’s nominalindependence (long recognized by the major powers) and annexed Korea,generating no response from the European powers.  Japan then continued to expandmilitarily.

(Taken from Russo-Japanese War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia: Vol. 6)

Background Bythe 19th century, Russia’sterritorial expansion into eastern Asia was encroaching into China, which was then ruled by theweakening Qing Dynasty.  Russia and Chinasigned two treaties (the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and theConvention of Peking in 1860), where China ceded to Russia the territory known as OuterManchuria (present-day southern region of the Russian Far East).  Then in 1896, by the terms of a constructionconcession, China allowed Russia to build the Chinese Eastern Railway, which would connect the eastern end of theTrans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, through northernInner Manchuria (present-day Northeast China).  In July 1897, construction work on this newrailway line began.

In December 1897, the RussianNavy started to use the port of Lushunkou, located at the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.  Four months later, in March 1898, Russia and Chinasigned an agreement, where the Chinese government granted a 25-year lease(called the “Convention for the Lease of the LiaotungPeninsula”) to Russia for Lushunkou and the surrounding areas,collectively called the Kwantung Leased Territory.  The Russians soon renamed Lushunkou as Port Arthur, and developed it intoits main naval base in the Far East.  Port Arthurwas operational all year long, compared to the other Russian naval base at Vladivostok, which was unusableduring winter.  Both the Chinese EasternRailway and Kwantung Leased Territory allowed Russiato consolidate its hold over Inner Manchuria (although the region legallyremained part of China), which was furthered when Russia began constructing, in1899, the South Manchuria Railway to connect Harbinwith Port Arthur, via Mukden.  Also by thelatter 19th century, Russiawas establishing firmer political and economic ties with the Korean Empire’sweak Joseon Dynasty.

Meanwhile, Japan (which had only recently industrializedand was emerging as a regional military power) also harbored ambitions insouthern Manchuria and Korea.  For over two centuries (1633-1853), Japanhad implemented a near total isolationist policy from the outside world.  But in the 1850s, Japanwas forced (under threat of military action) to sign treaties with the United Statesand European powers to establish diplomatic and trade relations.  Seeing itself powerless against an attack bythe West, Japan reunifiedunder its emperor and then began a massive industrialization and modernizationprogram patterned after the West, which dramatically overturned and completelyaltered Japan’straditional feudal-based agricultural society.  Within a period of one generation, Japan had become a modern,industrialized, and prosperous state, with the government placing particularemphasis on building up its military forces to the level matching those in theWest.

In the 1870s, Japan set its sights to emulating European-styleimperialist expansion (during this time, European powers were aggressivelyestablishing colonies in Asia and Africa), and turned to its old rival, Korea.  Korea,although nominally sovereign and independent, was a tributary state of China.  In September 1875, after failing to establishdiplomatic relations with Korea,Japan sent a warship to Korea.  Using its artillery, the Japanese ship openedfire and devastated the coastal defenses of Ganghwa Island, Korea.  Six months later, February 1876, Japan sentsix warships to Korea, forcing the Korean government to sign a treaty withJapan, the Gangwa Treaty, which among other provisions, established diplomaticrelations between the two countries, and forced Korea to open a number of portsto trade with Japan.  Thereafter,European powers followed, opening diplomatic and trade ties with Korea, and ending the latter’s self-imposedisolationist policy (Koreauntil then had been known as the “Hermit Kingdom”).

But Japan was interested not only in opening tradewith Korea, but indominating the whole Korean Peninsula.  Subsequently, Japanstarted to interfere in Korea’sinternal affairs.  Before long, theKorean ruling elite became divided into two factions: the pro-Japanese faction,comprising progressives who wanted to modernize Korea in association withJapan; and the pro-Chinese faction, comprising the conservatives, including theruling Joseon monarchy, who were firmly anti-Japanese and wanted Korea’snational development under the tutelage of China or with the West.

The growing Japaneseinterference in Korea’saffairs made conflict between Japanand Chinainevitable.  War finally broke out in theFirst Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), where Japanese forces triumpheddecisively.  In the peace treaty (April1895) that ended the war, Chinarecognized Korea’sindependence, (until then, Koreawas a tributary state of China),China paid Japan an indemnity, and ceded to Japan theeastern part of the Liaodong Peninsula (as well as Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands).  In the aftermath, Japanreplaced China as thedominant controlling power in Korea.

But immediately thereafter, Russia, which also had power ambitions in southernManchuria, particularly the vital Lushunkou (later Port Arthur), convinced Franceand Germany to join itscause and force Japan toreturn the Liaodong Peninsula to China,in exchange for China payingJapana larger indemnity.  Japan reluctantly acquiesced,seeing that its forces were powerless to fight three European powers at thesame time.

Cash-strapped China sought financial assistance from Russia to pay its large indemnity to Japan.  Russiareleased a loan to China,but also proposed a Sino-Russian alliance against Japan.  In June 1896, Chinaand Russia signed the secretLi-Lobanov Treaty where Russiaagreed to intervene if Chinawas attacked by Japan.  In exchange, Chinaallowed Russia the use ofChinese ports for the Russian Navy, as well as for Russiato build a railway line across North East China (the Chinese Eastern Railway) to Vladivostok.  As the treaty also permitted the presence ofRussian troops in the region, Russiasoon gained full control of northeast China.  Then after signing the lease for the Liaodong Peninsula, particularly vital Port Arthur, Russiagained control of southern Manchuria as well.

August 28, 1990 – Gulf War: Iraq annexes Kuwait as its 19th province

On August 4, 1990, Saddam appointed a 9-member militaryjunta composed of Kuwaiti Army officers headed by Colonel Alaa Hussein Ali, tolead the “Provisional Government of Free Kuwait”.  Then on August 7, Kuwaitwas declared a republic (“Republic of Kuwait”).  The next day, however, the Iraqi governmentannounced the political and territorial merger of Iraqand Kuwait.  Three weeks later, on August 28, Iraqdeclared a Kuwait Governorate, Iraq’s 19th province, under Governor Ali Hassanal-Majid, Saddam’s first cousin (and also better known as heading the al-Anfalcampaign (1986-1989), where Iraqi forces violently quelled an uprising by IraqiKurds during the Iran-Iraq War).

A few hours into the invasion, the Kuwaiti government hadappealed to the international community for assistance.  In a number of resolutions, the UnitedNations Security Council (UNSC) condemned the invasion, demanded that Saddamwithdraw his forces, and imposed economic sanctions on Iraq.  The Arab League, the regional body in which Iraq was a member, also condemned Iraq’saggression.  On the invitation of SaudiKing Fahd who felt that his country would be invaded next, the United States sent troops to Saudi Arabia.  The international community, and particularlythe U.S. government, enteredinto negotiations with Iraqregarding the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  These talks subsequently broke down, leadingto the Gulf War, where U.S.-led coalition forces attacked Kuwait to drive out the Iraqi Army.

(Taken from Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)

Background of theIraqi Invasion of Kuwait OnJune 19, 1961, Kuwait gainedits independence from Britain.  In 1963, Iraq, which by this time had becomea republic and was presently governed by a military government under GeneralAbd al-Karim Qasim, pursued its claim of ownership to Kuwait based onhistorical grounds, and threatened to invade. Swift intervention by Britainand Arab countries, which sent military units to defend Kuwait, forced Iraq to back down.  Then in 1963, Iraqappeared to acquiesce, declaring that it recognized Kuwait.  But tensions remained throughout the 1960sand 1970s, which sometimes broke out into border clashes that included a moresignificant incident where Iraqi forces attacked and seized control of theAl-Samitah border outpost in Kuwait.  Subsequent mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia succeeded in persuading Iraqto withdraw from occupied Kuwaiti territory.

Meanwhile, Iraqalso had a long-standing border dispute with Iran,its eastern neighbor, which broke out in September 1980 into total war (theIran-Iraq War, separate article) following the success of the IranianRevolution that transformed Iraninto a fundamentalist Islamic state. Iran’s new Islamic government then called for the overthrow of“un-Islamic” Arab monarchies, alarming Gulf state monarchical governmentsincluding Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, which gave largefinancial assistance in the form of loans to Iraq.  By this time, Iraq was ruled by SaddamHussein.  Iraq-Kuwait relations improveddramatically, and Kuwait’s$14 billion loan to Iraqallowed the Iraqi Army to reverse its losses against Iran and take the initiative.

By the war’s end in August 1988, Iraq was in deep financial crisis,with its oil industry severely affected by the widespread destruction of oilinfrastructures.  Before the war, Iraqwas awash in cash, holding some $35 billion in foreign reserves, but by 1988,was mired in $80 billion in foreign debt to various Western and Arabcountries.  Then in negotiations with itsArab creditors, the Iraqi government declared that its loans must be writtenoff on the grounds that Iraqsinglehandedly stopped Iran’shegemonic ambitions and thus prevented the overthrow of the various Arabgovernments in the Middle East.  Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, remarked thus, “How canthese amounts be regarded as Iraqi debts to its Arab brothers when Iraqmade sacrifices that are many times more than those debts in terms of Iraqiresources during the grinding war and offered rivers of blood of its youth indefense of the (Arab) nation’s soil, dignity, honor, and wealth?”

Furthermore, Kuwaitexceeded its oil production quota imposed by the Organization of PetroleumExporting Countries (OPEC), causing a glut in the international market anddriving down oil prices.  The Iraqigovernment complained that the low world prices meant lesser revenues, andtherefore lower capacity for Iraqto repay its loans and restore its war-damaged oil infrastructures that wereneeded to rebuild the country.

Another source of dispute was the Rumalia oil field, locatedbetween Kuwait and Iraq and inside both countries’ territories, inwhich Iraq accused Kuwait of using an oil extraction techniqueknown as slant drilling in order to pump out oil inside Iraq.  The Iraqi government demanded payment for the“stolen” oil.  Kuwait vehemently denied the accusation.

With economic troubles mounting, Saddam began to believethat a conspiracy stirred up by neighboring countries was aimed at undermininghis country.  Consequently, the Iraqileader turned his appeals for financial reprieve into open threats, at onepoint remarking (in reference to Iraq’s request for more loans),“Let the Gulf regimes know, that if they will not give this money to me, I willknow how to get it.”

On July 16, 1990, on Saddam’s orders, units of theRepublican Guard, Iraq’selite force, deployed along the border with Kuwait.  By the following day, the arrival of moreunits increased Iraqi strength to 10,000 troops and 300 tanks.  And by July 25, Iraq had massed some 30,000 troops(in four divisions) and over 800 tanks along two fronts on the border.

United Statesintelligence detected this military movement, which later was disseminated bythe U.S.media.  On July 25, 1990 April Glaspie,the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq,in a meeting with Saddam, indicated that the U.S. government was aware of theIraqi military’s deployment and that this was a cause for concern.  However, Ambassador Glaspie also said the United States has “no opinion on Arab-Arabconflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait”,a remark that has since generated controversy among political analysts, onepoint being that the United Stateswould not intervene militarily if war broke out between fellow Arab Iraq and Kuwait.

During the closing week of July 1990, with mediation effortsby Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Kuwaiti and Iraqi representatives heldtalks in Riyadh and Jeddah,Saudi Arabia, which alsofailed to reach a settlement despite Kuwaitagreeing to pay $9 billion of the Iraqi government’s demand of $10 billion for Iraq’spurported revenue losses in the Rumalia oil field.

August 27, 1928 – Interwar Period: Fifteen countries sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounces war as an instrument of foreign policy

On August 27, 1928, fifteen countries signed the agreementknown as the “General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument ofNational Policy”, more commonly known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Its secondaryname stems from its authors, U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg andFrench foreign minister Aristide Briand. The instrument, first agreed to inAugust 1928 by the United States, France, and Germany, was joined within a yearby 62 countries, including Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union,and China. The instrument’s objective was for signatory states not to use warto resolve “disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever originthey may be, which may arise among them”, and states that fail to adherewould be “denied of the benefits furnished by the treaty”.  The pact went into effect on July 24, 1929.

The Kellogg-Brian Pact failed in its objective: militarismgrew in the 1930s, leading to the outbreak of World War II near the end of thedecade.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe: Vol. 6)

Post-World War IPacifism Because World War I had caused considerable toll on lives andbrought enormous political, economic, and social troubles, a genuine desire forlasting peace prevailed in post-war Europe,and it was hoped that the last war would be “the war that ended all wars”.  By the mid-1920s, most European countries,especially in the West, had completed reconstruction and were on the road toprosperity, and pursued a policy of openness and collective security.  This pacifism led to the formation in January1920 of the League of Nations (LN), an international organization which hadmembership of most of the countries existing at that time, including most majorWestern Powers (excluding the United States). The League had the following aims: to maintain world peace throughcollective security, encourage general disarmament, and mediate and arbitratedisputes between member states.  In thepacifism of the 1920s, the League resolved a number of conflicts (and had somefailures as well), and by mid-decade, the major powers sought the League as aforum to engage in diplomacy, arbitration, and disarmament.

In September 1926, Germanyended its diplomatic near-isolation with its admittance to the League of Nations. This came about with the signing in December 1926 of the LocarnoTreaties (in Locarno, Switzerland),which settled the common borders of Germany,France, and Belgium.  These countries pledged not to attack eachother, with a guarantee made by Britainand Italyto come to the aid of a party that was attacked by the other.  Future disputes were to be resolved througharbitration.  The Locarno Treaties alsodealt with Germany’s easternfrontier with Poland and Czechoslovakia,and although their common borders were not fixed, the parties agreed thatfuture disputes would be settled through arbitration.  The Treaties were seen as a high point in international diplomacy, and ushered in a climate of peacein Western Europe for the rest of the1920s.  A popular optimism, called “thespirit of Locarno”,gave hope that all future disputes could be settled through peaceful means.

In June 1930, the last French troops withdrew from the Rhineland, ending the Allied occupation five yearsearlier than the original fifteen-year schedule.  And in March 1935, the League of Nationsreturned the Saar region to Germanyfollowing a referendum where over 90% of Saar residents voted to bereintegrated with Germany.

In August 1938, at the urging of the United States and France, the Kellogg-BriandPact  (officially titled “General Treatyfor Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy”) was signed, whichencouraged all countries to renounce war and implement a pacifist foreignpolicy.  Within a year, 62 countriessigned the Pact, including Britain,Germany, Italy, Japan,the Soviet Union, and China.  In February 1929, the Soviet Union, asignatory and keen advocate of the Pact, initiated a similar agreement, calledthe Litvinov Protocol, with its Eastern European neighbors, which emphasizedthe immediate implementation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact among themselves.  Pacifism in the interwar period alsomanifested in the collective efforts by the major powers to limit their weapons.  In February 1922, the five naval powers: United States, Britain,France, Italy, and Japan signed the Washington NavalTreaty, which restricted construction of the larger classes of warships.  In April 1930, these countries signed theLondon Naval Treaty, which modified a number of clauses in the Washington treaty butalso regulated naval construction.  Afurther attempt at naval regulation was made in March 1936, which was signedonly by the United States, Britain, and France, since by this time, the previousother signatories, Italy and Japan, were pursuing expansionist policies thatrequired greater naval power.

An effort by the League of Nations and non-League member United States to achieve general disarmament inthe international community led to the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932-1934,attended by sixty countries.  The talksbogged down from a number of issues, the most dominant relating to thedisagreement between Germany and France, with the Germans insisting on beingallowed weapons equality with the great powers (or that they disarm to thelevel of the Treaty of Versailles, i.e. to Germany’s current militarystrength), and the French resisting increased German power for fear of aresurgent Germany and a repeat of World War I, which had caused heavy Frenchlosses.  Germany,now led by Adolf Hitler (starting in January 1933), pulled out of the WorldDisarmament Conference, and in October 1933, withdrew from the League of Nations. The Genevadisarmament conference thus ended in failure.

August 26, 1922 – Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish Army launches the “Great Offensive” to expel Greek forces from Western Anatolia

On August 26, 1922, the Turkish Army launched its long awaitedcounter-attack against the Greek forces. Holding a 3:1 numerical andconsiderable material advantage, the Turkish forces easily overpowered andexpelled the Greek Army from Anatolia. OnSeptember 9, the Turkish Army reached the Aegean cost with the recapture of Smyrna (present-day Izmir).On September 18, Erdek and Biga were taken, which ended the fighting. By then,Greek forces had ceased to be an effective fighting unit, and demoralizationand dissension had forced a hasty, disorganized retreat. In the aftermath, theGreeks withdrew from western Anatolia.

The Greco-Turkish War formed one part of the Turkish War of Independence

(Taken from Turkish War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Rise of the Turkish Independence MovementUnder the armistice agreement, the Ottoman government was required to disarmand demobilize its armed forces.  OnApril 30, 1919, Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Ottoman Army, was appointed asthe Inspector-General of the Ottoman Ninth Army in Anatolia,with the task of demobilizing the remaining forces in the interior.  Kemal was a nationalist who opposed theAllied occupation, and upon arriving in Samsunon May 19, 1919, he and other like-minded colleagues set up what became theTurkish Nationalist Movement.

Contact was made with other nationalist politicians andmilitary officers, and alliances were formed with other nationalistorganizations in Anatolia.  Military units that were not yet demobilized,as well as the various armed bands and militias, were instructed to resist theoccupation forces.  These variousnationalist groups ultimately would merge to form the nationalists’ “NationalArmy” in the coming war.  Weapons and ammunitionswere stockpiled, and those previously surrendered were secretly taken back andturned over to the nationalists.

On June 21, 1919, Kemal issued the Amasya Circular, whichdeclared among other things, that the unity and independence of the Turkishstate were in danger, that the Ottoman government was incapable of defending thecountry, and that a national effort was needed to secure the state’sintegrity.  As a result of this circular,Turkish nationalists met twice: at the Erzerum Congress (July-August 1991) byregional leaders of the eastern provinces, and at the Sivas Congress (September1919) of nationalist leaders from across Anatolia.  Two important decisions emerged from thesemeetings: the National Pact and the “Representative Committee”.

The National Pact set forth the guidelines for the Turkishstate, including what constituted the “homeland of the Turkish nation”, andthat the “country should be independent and free, all restrictions onpolitical, judicial, and financial developments will be removed”.  The “Representative Committee” was theprecursor of a quasi-government that ultimately took shape on May 3, 1920 asthe Turkish Provisional Government based in Ankara(in central Anatolia), founded and led byKemal.

Kemal and his Representative Committee “government”challenged the continued legitimacy of the national government, declaring that Constantinople was ruled by the Allied Powers from whomthe Sultan had to be liberated.  However,the Sultan condemned Kemal and the nationalists, since both the lattereffectively had established a second government that was a rival to that in Constantinople.

In July 1919, Kemal received an order from the nationalauthorities to return to Constantinople.  Fearing for his safety, he remained in Ankara; consequently, heceased all official duties with the Ottoman Army.  The Ottoman government then laid down treasoncharges against Kemal and other nationalist leaders; tried in absentia, he wasdeclared guilty on May 11, 1920 and sentenced to death.

Initially, British authorities played down the threat posedby the Turkish nationalists.  Then whenthe Ottoman parliament in Constantinopledeclared its support for the nationalists’ National Pact and the integrity ofthe Turkish state, the British violently closed down the legislature, an actionthat inflicted many civilian casualties. The next month, the Sultan affirmed the dissolution of the Ottomanparliament.

Many parliamentarians were arrested, but many others escapedcapture and fled to Ankarato join the nationalists.  On April 23,1920, a new parliament called the Grand National Assembly convened in Ankara, which electedKemal as its first president.

British authorities soon realized that the nationalistmovement threatened the Allied plans on the Ottoman Empire.  From civilian volunteers and units of theSultan’s Caliphate Army, the British organized a militia, which was tasked todefeat the nationalist forces in Anatolia.  Clashes soon broke out, with the most intensetaking place in June 1920 in and around Izmit, where Ottoman and British forcesdefeated the nationalists.  Defectionswere widespread among the Sultan’s forces, however, forcing the British todisband the militia.

The British then considered using their own troops, butbacked down knowing that the British public would oppose Britain being involved in anotherwar, especially one coming right after World War I.  The British soon found another ally to fightthe war against the nationalists – Greece.  On June 10, 1920, the Allies presented theTreaty of Sevres to the Sultan.  Thetreaty was signed by the Ottoman government but was not ratified, since waralready had broken out.

In the coming war, Kemal crucially gained the support of thenewly established Soviet Union, particularly in the Caucasuswhere for centuries, the Russians and Ottomans had fought for domination.  This Soviet-Turkish alliance resulted fromboth sides’ condemnation of the Allied intervention in their local affairs,i.e. the British and French enforcing the Treaty of Sevres on the Ottoman Empire, and the Allies’ open support foranti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War.