Due to some territorial disputes, Iraq was thrust into war with Iran, a country that had recently undergone a fundamentalist Islamic revolution. During the fighting, Saddam Hussein deployed chemical weapons on his own people in the Kurdish areas, where Iran’s forces were advancing. At the time, the US, an ally of Iraq, turned a blind eye to these war crimes. However, the war eventually came to an end with no real winner on either side. However, because of the effort it took, Iraq had a lot of countries donate money, weapons and resources. One such country was Kuwait.
Kuwait was an incredibly rich country due to its plentiful oil fields however was currently undergoing a financial recession due to a stock market crash. Kuwait was in desperate need of money so they began asking Saddam Hussein for the money back. However, Iraq was in no position itself to give the money back. Iraq, as well as many other countries in OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) were also frustrated that Kuwait was producing too much oil and overfilling their quotas. Once Kuwait announced it would limit oil production, Hussein found another bone to pick with Kuwait, claiming that they were tapping Iraqi oil fields for their own production.
It is also possible that Hussein had an ulterior motive. Iraq and Kuwait were both formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire until its collapse after World War 1 and Hussein believed that Kuwait was rightful Iraqi territory.
Iraq demanded that Kuwait pay $10 billion to them. In exchange, Kuwait offered only a fraction of that, at $500 million. Outraged by this, Hussein ordered troops to begin invading Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990, around a year and a half before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kuwait, due to its dire lack of military … anything, put up practically no fight. A puppet government was established before Hussein declared that Kuwait was now simply a province of Iraq.
A photo of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait
The UN Security Council immediately denounced the invasion unanimously, and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. This council included the United States, who believed that Hussein was threatening US oil interests in the region. George H. W. Bush, the then president and former VP to Ronald Reagan and director of the CIA, feared that Hussein may invade Saudi Arabia next, a strong ally of the United States.
Bush managed to bring many other NATO countries on board for an attack if needed, including the United Kingdom, France, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with many others providing support. However, the US would still lead the majority of the effort. Due to Gorbachev’s policies, the US had now become the lone superpower. However, Gorbachev and Bush both agreed that the Iraqi aggression had to be crushed.
[Gorbachev and I] are united in the belief that Iraq’s aggression must not be tolerated. No peaceful international order is possible if larger states can devour their smaller neighbors. [I]f old adversaries like the Soviet Union and the United States can work in common cause, then surely we who are so fortunate to be in this great Chamber—Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives—can come together to fulfill our responsibilities here.
George H. W. Bush, Joint Congress Session, 1990
A trade embargo was then established on August 6th. However, despite all this, Hussein refused to back down, as many Kuwaiti protests occurred, which were often violently crushed. Eventually, an ultimatum was issued to Iraq, for troops to leave Kuwait by January of 1991 or the United Nations (and when I say the UN here, I mean the US but that’s not technically official but we move) would “use all necessary means” to force him out. Hussein, obviously, ignored this ultimatum and, on January 16th, Operation Desert Storm began.
A photo from the Battle of Medina Ridge
Bombing raids were conducted from the air whilst marines began moving into the Persian Gulf. In an attempt to bring other Muslim majority countries into the war, Hussein attacked Israel with missiles, hoping they would counter attack. Israel did not and Iraq stood alone against the coalition. Soon, ground forces began moving through Kuwait and overwhelmed the Iraqi soldiers. Their vastly inferior technology and weaponry stood no chance against the United States. Iraqi troops began burning oil fields, causing massive air pollution and costing Kuwait $1.5 billion. Instead of choosing to fully invade Iraq, Bush chose to withhold coalition forces, stating that:
“To occupy Iraq would shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero,”
George H. W. Bush, “A World Transformed”, 1998
The embargo was never lifted on Iraq, which led to poverty and starvation skyrocketing to unforeseen levels. Northern Kurds and southern Shiites (a branch of Islam, like Catholicism or Protestantism in Christianity) both rebelled against Saddam in uprisings that were brutally crushed.
Due to the chemical weapons that were used in the Iran-Iraq War, the United States accused Hussein of hiding WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), which is a wider umbrella term that includes nuclear and biological weapons as well as chemical. After Hussein denied the United Nations to check for such weapons, Bill Clinton, the president after George H. W. Bush, initiated Operation Desert Fox, which involved the dropping of bombs on Iraqi military sites, in an attempt to destroy any possible WMDs that Iraq may have had. George H. W. Bush’s son, also called George Bush, later invaded Iraq in the Iraq War, with troops not leaving until 2011.
In 1973, Mohammad Daoud Khan overthrew his own first cousin, the King of Afghanistan, establishing an autocratic one party nation. Despite his many economic reforms, similar to those of his cousins, Khan’s foreign policy strained tension with neighbours and factions within his own country. Eventually, Khan was overthrown and killed by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan lead by Hafizullah Amin in 1978, making Afghanistan a Communist nation.
Insurgent cars arriving at the Presidential Palace, 1978
Soon, the new Communist Afghanistan, with new President, Nur Muhammed Taraki, began facing struggles. They tried to reform women’s rights, mainly to education, make the state more secular and enacted some awful land reforms. Anyone who spoke out about these reforms would be arrested. Soon, uprisings from Islamic Rural areas began occurring and Taraki began losing control of his nation. During the violence, Taraki was killed by Amin, allowing Amin to ascend to power
Meanwhile, Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Soviet Union, and the rest of the Kremlin did not trust Amin and decided that in order to secure their next door neighbour, not wanting yet another fundamentalist Islamic country on their doorstep like Iran before it, Amin had to die. On December 27th, 1979, Soviet forces raided the palace, killing Amin, putting a Soviet puppet in his place, Babrak Karmal. Whilst Soviet forces did manage to capture key military forts in cities and urban areas, they were unable to secure the insurgents in the mountainous countryside, who would use the mountainous terrain to wage brutal guerilla warfare. These insurgents were called the Mujahideen. And this was just the ticket, the US needed.
Outside of the Warsaw Pact, the international community strongly opposed the invasion, with many other Communist nations such as China, Muslim majority countries such as Pakistan and many more opposing the occupation. However, no-one was a stronger opponent than the United States, who imposed a trade embargo on Soviet products, boycotted the Olympic Games, which were being held in Moscow that year, and, most importantly funded the Mujahideen.
It was the height of the Cold War, and, after the Iran Hostage Crisis, Jimmy Carter had not won a second term. The new “tough on Communism” Ronald Reagan wanted to limit Soviet expansion as much as possible, whilst also wanting to give the Soviets their own Vietnam.
2/2/1983 President Reagan meeting with Afghan Freedom Fighters in the Oval Office to discuss Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan
We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.
Reagan in his 1985 State of the Union address.
Over six years, in Operation Cyclone, the CIA would funnel $3.2 billion worth of weapons, economic help and military training towards the Mujahideen. Pakistan was also a large supporter of the Mujahideen’s efforts against the Soviets, serving as an operational base for the Mujahideen. The British were also a key supplier of finances and weapons, with MI6 assisting from their base in Islamabad.
During the war, atrocities were committed by both sides, with the Soviet Forces engaging in chemical warfare and airstrikes on civilian targets, whilst the Mujahideen brutally tortured captives. These acts forced 4 million citizens to seek asylum and did nothing to help either side.
Soon, the USSR, under the new leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, realised that there was no winning this conflict. It began to slowly withdraw whilst stabilising a Communist government under their new puppet, Mohammad Najibullah, who, despite his decent reforms, did not help the trust in the communist government. They also restricted direct involvement, only training and funding a new Communist Afghan Army, which ultimately resulted in failure.
The Soviet-Afghan War was an absolute catastrophe for the Soviets. It showed the weakness in the Belly of the Bear, and proved that, with time, the Soviet Union could be defeated. Many historians cite the war as laying the groundwork for the collapse of the Soviet Union, only 2 years after the end of the war. The Communist regime eventually collapsed, thrusting Afghanistan into civil war, with one of the factions of the Mujahideen, the Taliban, taking control of the country in 1996 and were not deposed until 2001 during the War in Afghanistan, starting a terrorist insurgency that would last 2 decades, eventually returning to power in 2021 after the American withdrawal from the country. By many scholars, the Taliban and the rule they imposed over Afghanistan, as well as their insurgency, is currently considered to be one of the greatest enemies to the United States and the world at large
A modern day photo of Taliban Insurgents in Afghanistan
The United States respects the people of Afghanistan […] but we condemn the Taliban regime. […] It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder.
In 1952, Mohammed Mosaddegh was elected to the office of Prime Minister of Iran by the Iranian People. An openly socialist leader, he increased social security, mandated higher taxes and enacted mass land reforms. The most famous of his policies was to nationalise Iranian Oil. These oil fields were initially owned by the British in Persian land, through the private Anglo-Persian Oil Company. This meant that the fields were now under state ownership, posing a problem to British and American oil interests in the region. On August 19th, 1953, the MI6 and CIA backed a coup in Iran, overthrowing the democratically elected Mosaddegh and centralising power under the absolute monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been the Shah of Iran in a constitutional standing since the end of the Second World War.
A photo of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
The kings had been absolute rulers of Iran for millennia before a parliament was introduced in 1906. The rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the father of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was widespread with oppression and suppression of minority groups. He was forced to abdicate in 1941 and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took power. After the Second World War, Britain began to allow democracy to have more power in Iran. Once oil was nationalised under Mosaddegh, who was backed by an Iranian Communist party, the coup was orchestrated and democracy died.
Between 1963 and 1975, the Shah was considered to be quite a decent ruler. He reorganised the oil industry, which went from producing $555 million in 1964 to $20 billion by 1976. Much of this money was re-invested into infrastructure and education. The population grew, infant mortality fell and a professional middle class was beginning to develop. However, the problem was these reforms were coming fast and hard. Many universities pumped out graduates quicker than jobs could be made, especially prevalent in the capital city of Tehran, where this effect was most dire. After 1975, the Shah ruled with absolute autocratic power. Many political prisoners were tortured and arrested by a brutal secret police known as the SAVAK. He abolished all political parties, replacing them with the pro-Monarchy, Conservative Liberal Resurgence party.
Many of the positive reforms, however, were largely opposed by Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shia Cleric from Qom. He mainly complained that the reforms would give women too many rights, including the right to vote, as well as saying that the government neglected the poor and was strongly opposed to the sale of Iranian Oil to Israel. Khomeini believed that a king was inherently un-Islamic and that he must be deposed. Due to his opposition, he was exiled to Türkiye in 1964. Iran was a powder keg of economic inequality and vast oppression. All it needed was a match.
A photo of Khomeini
On January 7th, 1978, an Iranian Newspaper published an article that was highly critical of Khomeini. Small demonstrations began to break out across the country. However, these grew once the army began to fire on protestors. Once more protestors arrived, the army would once again crack down and the cycle would continue. Many had also grown discontent with the West’s influence in Iranian life and society.
American lifestyles had come to be imposed as an ideal, the ultimate goal. Americanism was the model. American popular culture – books, magazines, film – had swept over our country like a flood…We found ourselves wondering ‘Is there any room for our own culture?
A woman interviewed by Michael Axworthy
A confused Shah had no idea why the people were protesting him, suspecting them to either be Communists or controlled by the British. Despite his attempts to appease the people, he was forced to flee to the United States on January 16th, leading to a break down of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States from then on. Many say that these initial protests were not about fundamental Islam, however, but with a discontent with a decreased standard of living. In the second phase of the revolution, Khomeini moved to establish an Islamic Republic, which involved extreme anti-American fever and the taking of hostages inside the US Embassy in Iran.
Since the revolution, Iran has become a fundamentalist Islamist dictatorship, with the people’s vote in parliament and President ultimately being worthless, when all parliamentary legislation can be superseded by God, embodied by the Supreme Ruler, who, from 1979 until his death, was Khomeini. To ensure the support of an Islamic Republic in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary guards and Hezbollah were created in order to ensure there would be no counter coup. Sharia law was strictly enforced, with those who disobeyed receiving harsh punishments. By at least October of 1979, several hundred people had already been executed. Everything was owned by the state, including the media, who always bowed down to the Supreme Leader. Repression is still rife in Iran, perhaps even more than it was under the Shah, especially in relation to women’s rights, which have been highly supressed.
In the aftermath of World War 2, many of the war torn countries, such as France and Poland, began to turn to Communism in order to rebuild. Wanting to expand their influence, the Communist USSR, lead by Joseph Stalin, wanted to expand Communism all across Europe. Meanwhile, the United States opposed this, wanting more countries to embrace free market economies, capitalism and democracy. This lead to tensions rising between the two factions who were once allies against the Nazis. This divide between Western Capitalism and Eastern Communism was no clearer than in Greece.
A photo of Greek Nationalist troops
From 1946-1949, Greece was in a civil war, between the Nationalists, backed by the United States, and the Communists. Whilst Harry Truman, President of the United States, feared that the Soviets may back the Greek Communists, Stalin’s focus was more on Turkey, and seeing if they would become a Communist nation, due to their oil production in Iran needing to pass through Turkish waters, requesting a military base in the country and transit rights through the Dardanelles Strait and the Sea of Marmara. Due to the economic impacts of having the water being Soviet Occupied, the United States sought a democracy in Turkey.
Many people feared that the Soviet Union would have a monopoly over the Mediterranean if Greece and Turkey fell to Communism. Truman chose to take action and addressed Congress with his plan on March 12th, 1947
Truman addressing Congress
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.
An excerpt from Truman’s speech to Congress
Truman was very careful to not explicitly name Communism or the USSR, but everyone knew what he was talking about. In order to truly combat communism, Truman, with the advise from Senator Arthur Vandenburg, over exaggerated the crisis, to such a degree where it would scare the American people and get them to side against Communism. Many modern historians cite the Truman Doctrine as the declaration of the Cold War.
In 1932, in Cavendish University, J. D. Cockcroft and E. T. S. Walton bombarded lithium with protons from a particle accelerator. The protons caused the lithium atom to split. Many scientists, the most notably of whom were under Nazi governance in Germany, realised that if they continued to split uranium and plutonium atoms, with the protons from one atom splitting another and the process repeating in a process called fission, they could make a new source of energy. However, with this power, the results could also be used for much more sinister means.
August, 1939. About a month before the outbreak of WW2, Albert Einstein, a highly accomplished scientist who discovered the theory of relativity (E=mc2) sent a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, then President of the United States, on a highly serious matter. Einstein believed that the Germans were working on a super weapon, a super weapon that would harness the power of Cockcroft and Walton’s work and make a fission bomb, that could wipe cities off the map. Despite being a pacifist, Einstein believed that such a weapon would be better in the hands of the Americans than the Germans. By August of 1942, the development of an atomic weapon was granted by FDR. A group of hundreds of scientists all were called upon by the US government to assist in the development of the technology.
One of the top scientists on the project, who led the scientific research and design of the bomb, was Dr J Robert Oppenheimer. He graduated in chemistry from Harvard and obtained his doctorate in physics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Whilst abroad in Europe, he learned a lot about quantum physics, a field that was not that expanded in the United States. One of the most notable German physicians was Werner Heisenberg, who thought of the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Many believed that Heisenberg was working on the German Nuclear bomb.
A photo of Oppenheimer
Back to Oppenheimer, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkley, where he expanded the field of Quantum Physics in the United States, becoming a professor in 1936. He even partially discovered a black hole in 1939. He was considered to be one of the greatest minds in Atomic Research, the kind of man that the US was after. However, he was under observation by the FBI since 1941 due to his ties to communist groups and union activity whilst in California. Most notably, he was a leading figure in the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT), a white collar union for technical professions, and met many close friends through the Communist Party of the USA, of which his brother Frank was a member.
His wife, Kitty, was a former member of the Communist Party before leaving in the 1930s before they met. He also had an on and off affair with active Communist Party member, Jean Tatlock, who committed suicide in 1944. However, whether he was actually a member of the party was heavily debated. During his 1954 security clearance hearing, he testified that he agreed with many of the ideas of communism but would not tow a party line. He also openly campaigned and funded the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, before joining the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, which campaigned against Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany. The group was later branded as communist during the era of McCarthyism. As Chief of Security for the Manhattan Project, Colonel Boris Pash was asked to assess Oppenheimer regarding his alleged communist ties. Whilst stating that he “may still be connected with the Communist Party”, Pash did not believe Oppenheimer to be a spy, believing that “Oppenheimer’s personal honour and concern for his reputation would deter him from such action”. Pash therefore did not recommend his removal from the project, but instead that Oppenheimer be accompanied by counter-intelligence agents.
Oppenheimer, as well as many other notable scientists such as Richard Feynman, Edward Teller and Isidor Isaac Rabi, were gathered in Los Alamos, a remote part of the New Mexican Desert where a small town was built in order for the scientists to do their research and accommodate their families. The bomb, codenamed the Manhattan Project, was worked on for months on end. The first contained chain reaction occurred in a secret lab under a Chicago University football stadium. The theory’s were now fact and the development of the bomb begun. During the time creating the bomb, Italy fell after an allied invasion and a small civil war. The Axis powers were on the ropes and the President, now Harry Truman after the death of FDR on April 12th of 1945, was confident that this bomb would be the final push to end the German War Machine. However, it ended a lot sooner than expected.
A newspaper about the death of Hitler
On the 21st of April 1945, the Soviet forces entered Berlin. Only 9 days later, Hitler fed cyanide to his wife, Eva Braun, and shot himself in his bunker in Berlin. A little over a week later, Germany surrendered. 2 out of the 3 major Axis powers were out of the war as well as the bomb’s target. Truman began to reconsider the target. He had been bombing the Japanese for months on end and he believed that a mainland invasion of Japan would only cost more American lives. With the Soviets beginning to invade Japanese occupied Manchuria, he decided what to do.
A photo of the bomb test
On July 16th 1945, in the middle of the New Mexican desert, a fireball erupted. The infamous Trinity Test had been conducted. The bomb worked. Around a month later, in the city of Hiroshima, Japan, the first bomb was dropped.
Photos of the bombings (Hiroshima left and Nagasaki right)
Buildings were instantly turned to rubble and people were vaporised on the spot, leaving only their shadows on the pavement. However, some would consider these the lucky ones. Akiko Takakura was at the Bank of Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Despite being within 300 metres of the hypo-centre, she survived the initial bomb.
When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the dark. […] After a while, it began to rain. The fire and the smoke made us so thirsty and there was nothing to drink, no water, and the smoke even disturbed our eyes. As it began to rain, people opened their mouths and turned their faces towards the sky and try to drink the rain, but it wasn’t easy to catch the rain drops in our mouths. It was a black rain with big drops. […] We opened our mouths just like this, as wide as possible in an effort to quench our thirst. Everybody did the same thing. But it just wasn’t enough.
Takakura’s account of the aftermath of the bombing
A drawing that Takakura made of her drinking the thick black rain
Takakura’s account is likely due to the bomb vapourising all the exposed water in the surrounding area, hence her dire thirst. The evaporated water had then mixed with the radioactive soot in the atmosphere, producing the thick black rain. Her friend, who also drank the water, succumbed to radiation sickness.
Private Shigeru Shimoyama just stepped into a concrete reinforced warehouse that was only 6 blocks away from the hypo-centre. He was flug against a back wall by the force of the explosion, saving him from falling debris. When he awoke, he found that his arms and shoulders had been impaled on nails protruding from the wall, leaving him hanging about a metre off the ground. Upon freeing himself and leaving the building, he spotted a group of bureucrats carrying a life sized portrait of Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) throught the rubble. He spied a naval vessel patrolling through the river, full of dead bodies, which paused and the crew bowed to the Emperor.
A photo of Hirohito
He then turned around and saw a peculiar, pinkish white, fleshy horse. It was then that he realised the horse had gone through a phenomenon known as de-gloving, in which the skin of the horse was removed by the force of the blast, but still kept the horse alive. Shigeru, horrified, ran from the scene. Whenever he turned back, the horse continued to follow him.
Another soldier stationed outside the city heard the bomb go off and saw the mushroom cloud arise from the horizon. At the train station he was at, a passenger train rolled through from Hiroshima, all its windows smashed and most of its passengers burnt to a crisp. Those who weren’t stared out the windows with blank expressions on their faces. Every coach was at least smouldering with two coahces entirely engulfed in flames. After bringing a train to a stop, the group of soldiers decided to turn back in an effort to help survivors. On their way back, they encountered lines of people walking along the railway line, who all had their clothes, skin and muscles peeling off. These people were dubbed the Ant Walkers of Hiroshima.
A drawing of the Ant-Walkers by a survivor of the bombing
3 days later, another bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, another nearby city. Anywhere between 150,000 and 246,000 people were killed in the bombings, the majority of which were civilians. The Japanese issued surrender on August 15th, with the surrender taking effect on September 2nd. World War 2 was over, lasting 6 years and 1 day.
The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mamoru Shigemitsu, signing the peace proclamation aboard the USS Missouri
In the ensuing Tokyo Trials, seven out of the 28 people on trial were executed for crimes against peace, war crimes or crimes against humanity, including the Japanese Prime Ministers, Kōki Hirota and Hideki Tojo. Other Prime Ministers during this time were not executed, either sentenced to prison, dying before Japanese surrender or simply not being tried. Most notably, Senjūrō Hayashi and Fumimaro Konoe both died before Japanese surrender, from a brain haemorrhage and cyanide ingestion respectively. Kiichirō Hiranuma was sentenced to life at Tokyo before passing away in 1953. Nobuyuki Abe was arrested by the American occupation government but was never tried for any war crimes. The Emperor, however, was not tried on such crimes, despite being complicit in them, as the United States believed that in order to secure Japan for a democratic future, a stable Emperor must help them in their efforts. In addition, no-one on trial ever implicated Hirohito in any of the atrocities they committed in China and the Pacific.
However, the head of Unit 731, the Japanese human experimentation unit, Shirō Ishii, was not indicted for such crimes, as the Americans wanted to exchange their findings for immunity in court. Some of Unit 731’s experiments involved largely biological research. On occasion, they would release the bubonic plague into populated Chinese villages to study the rate of infection. They would give various diseases to prisoners of war and vivisecting them to observe the results on the human body. They would also cut open a person whilst they were still alive to remove organs to observe what impact it would have on the human body, including connecting the guts back up to the throat. This is only the tip of the iceberg of these experiments and the man behind these experiments got off Scott free.
After the bombing, Oppenheimer became and advisor to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), where he strongly advocated for international control of nuclear power in order to prevent a nuclear arms race with the Soviets. After the testing of the first Soviet nuclear bomb in 1949, Oppenheimer was suspected of allowing Russian spies into Los Alamos due to his communist ties. He had a feud with Lewis Strauss, the commissioner of the AEC, who felt sidelined by Oppenheimer’s contributions to the commission and atomic policy at large. Most notably, Oppenheimer believed that the government should be more open about American nuclear capabilities, whilst Strauss believed that such openness would benefit nobody but Soviet military planners. In 1949, Oppenheimer mocked a suggestion by Strauss in a public hearing regarding the medical use of isotopes. This was something that Strauss found humiliating and would never forget.
A photo of Strauss testifying in the 1950s
Eventually, Strauss began to develop a feud beyond just personal and political disagreements. He eventually began to suspect Oppenheimer of being a Soviet Spy. Strauss requested of J Edgar Hoover that he conduct surveillance on Oppenheimer, who discovered no evidence of disloyalty to the United States. However, Strauss persisted, organising with William L. Borden, former executive director of the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Borden sent a letter to the FBI, stating that “more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.” The clearance hearing was organised by Strauss, who appointed the board of three men as well as the lawyer to lead the case against Oppenheimer. Most of the evidence used against Oppenheimer was obtained illegally and was not shared with Oppenheimer’s lawyers in advance. Many government officials and scientists at Los Alamos testified at the hearing. Most notably, Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, Military Director of the Manhattan Project, stated the following.
In this case I refer particularly to associations and not to the associations as they exist today but the past record of the associations. I would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today if I were a member of the Commission on the basis of this interpretation.
Excerpt from Groves’ testimony on Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer’s clearance was revoked in a 2-1 vote. He was shunned from the scientific community and political life for years until Lyndon B. Johnson gave him the Enrico Fermi Award, named after the Italian Physicist who created the first artificial nuclear reactor.
Many scholars today still wonder if the use of nuclear bombs on Japan was necessary. Some say that Japan would’ve surrendered regardless and that the bombing was merely Truman showing the power of the United States. No matter what you may think of the ethics of the bombing may be, the impact of the bombing was undeniable, with many people fearing nuclear annihilation due to rising tensions between nuclear powers, a fear that began in the 40s and is still very prevalent to this day.
A military parade in North Korea in present day, showing off North Korea’s nuclear warheads
The longer the fighting goes on [in Ukraine], the more lives will be lost and the greater risk of nuclear escalation. Those who fuel escalation must know that in the event of a nuclear war, nobody wins.
Jeremy Corbyn, former UK Labour Party Leader, in an article for ‘Tribune’ magazine
On May 2nd, 1945, the 77th and 307th Infantry Division alongside the remnants of the 96th and 381st looked up at the intimidating Maeda Escarpment on the island of Okinawa, known to the soldiers as Hacksaw Ridge, a 400 foot cliff which was a natural barrier to a series of trenches, tunnels and fortifications set up by the Imperial Japanese Forces. The climb up Hacksaw Ridge would determine the outcome of the Battle of Okinawa.
A photo of Hacksaw Ridge
By April of 1945, the Empire of Japan was on the ropes. With all their allies in the Axis Powers out of the picture, with Mussolini dead at a service station and Hitler cowering in the Führerbunker, the Japanese were the last members of the Axis with their homeland intact. Facing increasing partisan activity from the Chinese, causing massive losses on the front, and the United States having captured almost every island of theirs in the Pacific, including Iwo Jima a month prior, the last obstacle between the Americans and mainland Japan was the small island of Okinawa.
Located just 563km (350 miles) off the coast of Kyushu island, the southern most part of mainland Japan, Okinawa was a 1,207km² island, home to a vast amount of naval and air bases that would be useful in the event of an invasion of mainland Japan by the United States. Despite the fact that the 10th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr, and the 5th Fleet, overseen by Admiral Raymond Spruance, vastly outnumbered the Japanese forces on Okinawa, the Japanese had come prepared.
Map of Japanese Army positions on Okinawa
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima of the Japanese 32nd Army stationed only what was necessary in other parts of the island, focusing the majority of his forces in the south, due to its irregular and hilly terrain, opting to build a vast complex of tunnels, trenches and fortifications. By April, they had constructed 96km (60 miles) of tunnels, enough to accommodate the entire 32nd Army and everything it needed to fight against the Americans. In order to prevent the Americans from getting any supplies of their own, command ordered the massacre of every livestock animal on the island and that the civilians and soldiers live off sweet potatoes instead of the traditional rice.
By now, the Japanese fighting doctrine of Fumeiyo Yorimo Shi, or Death Before Dishonour, had really been set in stone, with many Japanese soldiers, airmen and naval vessels doing suicide runs against American forces. With the infantry, “Banzai attacks”, in which mass numbers Japanese infantry would run at American forces with bayonets screaming “Tenno Heika Banzai” meaning “Long live the Emperor” had become common place. Planes would often fly into American naval vessels, in what were dubbed Kamikaze attacks, named after the Japanese term for “divine wind”, which dates back to at least the 13th century.
A GIF of a Kamikaze aircraft crashing into a US Warship in May 1945
On March 25th, 1945, the US Navy began shelling the island in a week long bombardment in order to soften up defences and support mine clearing. The next day, US Marines landed in the archipelago of Kerama Retto, rooting out Japanese forces there over the next five days, with its capture providing a sheltered anchorage for ships attacked by Kamikaze strikes. Eventually, the full battle began on April 1st, known as L-Day. However, the beach head was formed relatively easily, due to the fact that there was literally no Japanese resistance at the beaches that they landed at.
Having eventually secured a decent chunk of the island, with 60,000 US Troops having landed, they eventually encountered opposition in the North and South. Whilst the North was very easily taken care of, the South, where all the fortifications were, was a bloodbath. Americans would often advance into carefully prepared Japanese killing zones where they were slaughtered in their hundreds by concealed machine guns and mortars. Their idea for an offensive would involve mass artillery shelling of Japanese positions before advancing towards the Japanese pillboxes, which often included the use of flamethrowers against Japanese positions. However, this strategy lead to little success, due to the Japanese remaining sheltered in their fortified tunnels, and caused more bloodshed on both sides, as the Japanese would often launch night attacks after Americans had captured positions. Eventually, the battle reached a stalemate on the Shuri Line, a heavily fortified area located near Shuri Castle.
Meanwhile, Operation Ten-Go went ahead, a one way suicide mission by the Japanese, dispatching the Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, to counter offensives by the US Navy on Japanese infantry positions. It was spotted before it could reach Okinawa and was sunk, along side 5 of its escort ships and the destruction of 100 Japanese fighters, largely in Kamikaze attacks, by an American carrier force, which only lost 10 fighters in comparison. It demonstrated US air superiority and served as a great anti-climax to the largest battleship to ever be made.
A photo of the Yamato being attacked
Despite the stalemate and consistent bloodshed, Buckner refused to change his tactics, much to the surprise of both US Army high command and the Japanese. Whilst a somewhat successful counter offence was launched by the Japanese after his refusal to change tactics, they still lost 7,000 men in doing so. This allowed Buckner’s forces to gain the upper hand and gain back half a mile of land
During the stalemate on the island, a combat medic known as Desmond Doss served at Hacksaw Ridge, managing to rescue hundreds of men from the rain of fire without being armed with a single weapon due to his Christian beliefs. He was awarded the Medal of Honour, of which Truman said “I’m proud of you. You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honour than being president.” Doss passed away in 2006 due to breathing complications and his memory was immortalised in the 2016 Mel Gibson Film “Hacksaw Ridge”, in which Doss is played by Andrew Garfield.
Desmond Doss receiving the Medal of Honour
Over the next few months, the situation became progressively more dire for the Japanese. Whilst spring rain had slowed the American advance even more than before, Nazi Germany had surrendered and more forces from Europe were now available. In a desperate effort to maintain control over the island, mass Kamikaze strikes were ordered against American Vessels, including the USS Bunker Hill and the USS Enterprise, knocking both vessels out of the war.
Eventually, the Shuri Line became untenable by late May. The Japanese began organising a retreat in stages to the Kiyan Peninsula, the southern most point of the island. Starting on May 24th, the Japanese slowly retreated down the island towards the peninsula. Despite the death of Buckner on the battlefield during an artillery strike, making him the highest ranked US Military officer killed in action during WW2, the entire Japanese garrison was massacred to a man, with a little over 7,000 troops surrendering to the Americans out of the 110,000 stationed on Okinawa before the battle. Out of shame, Ushijima committed Seppuku or more commonly referred to as Harakiri, a traditional Samurai form of suicide via disembowelment, on June 21st. The military garrison on Okinawa had also used much of the civilian population as human shields and convinced many of them to commit suicide or simply killed them, in order to cover up their atrocities perpetrated on the island, saying that the Americans would do worse. The Americans too lost many men in the battle of Okinawa, leading them to question if a mainland invasion of Japan would simply cost more lives, possibly influencing the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan 2 months later.
US Marine Corps plane flying over the razed capital city of Okinawa
John F. Kennedy was, in 1941, a young up-and-comer in the political and law world. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was appointed as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom by Franklin Roosevelt. Once World War 2 had begun, Joe spoke on this, saying that “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]” and was forced to resign his position due to the controversy around this statement. Due to his father’s position in government, the young John travelled all across Europe, accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the lead up to the war. During this time, he wrote his thesis for Harvard, on Neville Chamberlains appeasement methods with Adolf Hitler. The thesis was published and, as one of the first sources of information about these events, quickly became a best-seller. Kennedy was adamant that the US must intervene in the war, opposing his father’s beliefs.
A photo of the young JFK in 1941
He attempted to join the Officer Candidate School, but wasn’t allowed in due to his physical health, which may have included the chronic back pain that he may have had since he was very young. Eventually, he was assigned to the United States Naval Reserve, commissioned to ensign in October of 1941.
Once Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese, the US was thrust into World War 2. In January of 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office in Charleston. Kennedy had wanted to command a Patrol Torpedo Boat but believed that he would be stopped from doing so due to his medical conditions. His father ended up falsifying medical records and convincing PT command that his son’s presence would bring good publicity. He completed his sixth months training and was assigned to the PT-101. Not wanting to be stuck in the Panama canal, Kennedy convinced the Massachusetts Senator to assign him to the South Pacific in order to get some real combat action. By April 1943, he had been assigned to the PT-109.
A model of the PT-109
The PT-109 was a 80 foot (20m) long patrol torpedo boat. It had 3 twelve cylinder, 1,500 horsepower engines, and had a top speed of 41 knots (76 km/h or 47 mph). It was fitted with four 21-inch torpedoes and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun and four .50 calibre machine guns but was not equipped with a radar. At the start of the ship’s deployment, it had a crew of 15:
Lieutenant and Commanding Officer John F. Kennedy
Executive Officer Leonard Jay Thom
Quartermaster, cook and signalman Edgar E. Mauer
Radioman John E. Maguire
Gunners Raymond Albert, Charles A. Harris, Harold W. Marney, Maurice L. Kowal, Edmund T. Drewitch, Leon E. Drawdy and William Johnston
Motor Mechanics Gerald E. Zinser and Patrick Henry McMahon
And Torpedomen Raymond L. Starkey and Andrew Jackson Kirksey
The crew of the PT-109. Top row left to right are Al Webb (friend and not a crew member) Leon E. Drawdy, Edgar E. Mauer, Edmund T. Drewitch, John E. Maguire. Bottom row left to right are Charles A. Harris, Maurice L. Kowal, Andrew J. Kirkesy, Leonard J. Thom, and John F. Kennedy.
In June of 1943, Drewitch had to be discharged after an injury occured when a depth charge was dislodged and landed on his bunk bed. Kowal and Drwady were both injured in July during an attack from Japanese Aircraft.
By the time of the 109’s final mission, there were 13 men aboard, as George H. R. Ross was assigned after his boat was destroyed and was an observer aboard the boat. A 37mm gun was lashed down to the front of the boat in August.
On the night of August 1st, fourteen PT boats, including the 109, were assigned to Kolombangra, an island in the middle of the Solomon islands, where 4 Japanese destroyers were alleged to appear, carrying food supplies and 900 Japanese soldiers to the Japanese Garrison on the island and were set to pass through that night. Their orders were to repel or block the Japanese advance to the island. 24 torpedoes were shot from 8 of the PTs and not one hit the convoy. The entire convoy arrived unscathed at the Naval Base in Kolombangra, due to attacks taking place at night and radio silence being enforced throughout the PTs
The region that the PTs were assigned. The naval base is stationed on the south of the island and was coming south through the Vella Gulf
At around 2:27 am, Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, returning from the base, heading north, straight at them. Kennedy decided to turn the boat to attack the destroyer with a torpedo and the newly mounted 37mm. Ross was assigned to the 37mm but he unfortunately suffered from night blindness, meaning that the could not effectively attack the boat. Within the next ten seconds, the 109 began to turn to the starboard side, with the Amagiri being commanded to match the turn.
The collision path of the two boats, graphics by Historigraph (YouTube)
After having made a sharp right turn to avoid a potential collision, the PT-109 was rammed by the Amagiri and split in half. A large fireball erupted from the 109, rising to around 100ft (30m) in the air. Some of the oil that had spilled from the boat had ignited the surface of the water. Kirksey and Marney were killed instantly, whilst McMahon was burnt from being thrown into the flaming water.
A drawing of the crash
The 11 survivors clung to the side of the bow, that had not yet gone under water. They drifted south, down the Vella Gulf. Eventually, Kennedy decided that they needed to reach land before another destroyer found them or the bow sunk. The two largest islands wither side of them, Kolombangara and Ghizo were, at the time, occupied by Japanese forces. Kennedy decided to go to the small Plum Pudding Island, about 3.5 miles (5.6km) south west of their position. Unfortunately, McMahon was unable to swim, as well as two others who had been badly injured during the crash. Kennedy decided to make a raft out of a spare piece of drift wood, broken off from the boat. He then loaded two of the injured men onto the raft, whilst he hoisted McMahon onto his back and swam to Plum Pudding Island. They started the swim at 2pm on August 2 and lasted 4 hours.
Eventually, Kennedy with McMahon on his back reached the northern tip of the island, with the other 9 survivors arriving a little behind. The nearby American naval base at Rendova had received word of the 109’s crash but due to the size of the fireball reported believed that there would be no survivors so no rescue attempt was made. However, American coast watchers on Kolombangara had seen the wreckage of the bow drift down the gulf, who sent out the message to look out for any survivors
Both Kennedy and Ross swam out relatively far off the coast of the island on separate occasions. Both times came up fruitless. The crew had now been stranded for 2 days and were beginning to get hungry and thirsty. Kennedy organised the group to swim a mile (1.6km) south to the larger island of Olasana in search of supplies. Upon arrival, there was no fresh water and nothing to eat but unripe coconuts. That night, the weather worsened, meaning that they could not travel to another island in search of supplies
The next day, Kennedy and Ross swam half a mile over to Naru Island, finding an abandoned wreckage of a Japanese Barge upon their arrival, where there was food, water and other various supplies, including a small canoe. Meanwhile, a patrol boat of Solomon Natives, on the orders of the coast watchers, were investigating the barge from the water and saw Kennedy and Ross aboard the island, heavily sunburnt. Believing them to be the survivors of the barge, they decided to turn away from Naru Island, heading north to Olasana for some water. They passed by the beach, spotting the rest of the heavily sunburnt crew, believing them to also be Japanese. However, Thom’s distinct blonde beard made them realise that they were not Japanese.
The scouts informed the coast watch of the survivors, who immediately organised food and provisions to be sent over to the crew. A torpedo boat was then deployed to rescue the crew and brought them back to the base on Rendova. Battered, bruised but breathing, the crew had made it home.
The much more seriously injured crew were treated while the rest were reassigned to other PT boats. Kennedy would later go on to tell this story of survival whilst campaigning for Senator of Massachusetts and President of the United States.
A campaign parade for JFK’s 1960 Presidential Campaign
Amelia Earhart, one of, if not the most famous woman in the world. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane, the first time she was accompanied by 2 male pilots who flew the plane however the second time, in 1932, she flew solo and almost died multiple times but managed to make it over the course of just two days, only being the second person to do that trip. Just a reminder only this took place almost 30 years since the invention of flight. She flew from LA to Newark without refuelling, setting a world record for longest distance flown without refuelling once. She was also the first female pilot to complete a nonstop transcontinental flight. She was nicknamed the Babe of the Sky, and rightfully so, there was nothing she couldn’t do. That was until the fateful year of 1937.
A photo of Earhart in a cockpit
On May 21st 1937, Amelia Earhart took off with navigator Fred Noonan, a heavy drinker but very skilled aerial navigator, from Oakland, California in a modified twin engine Lockheed Electra L-10E. This was her second attempt, since her first was short lived after she crashed during her take off at Honolulu in Hawaii. If this mission was accomplished, she would be the first pilot, man or woman to circumnavigate the globe, not only boosting her already incredibly high popularity but also helping the finances of her family.
She, along with Noonan, were useless when it came to wireless code. This made her throw her CW Transmitter, a telegraph code key, off the flight, saying it would be “dead weight.” with just her and Noonan on board. They flew for 42 days, 2 days over their ETA for when they would finish. That date was July 2nd of 1937, at 10 am local time, when they prepped to leave Lae in New Guinea with full tanks of fuel, modified to carry 119.8 gallons instead of the usual 24 gallons, with only 7,000 miles until her final destination of California and a planned stop on Pacific Island of Howland, taking about 18 hours.
The Radio Operator at Lae, Harry Balfour, planned for him and Earhart to send transmissions to each other every hour, later noting that headwinds were stronger than thought to be that day, sending 3 transmissions of his findings, none of which appeared to be received. For those non aerial enthusiasts, like myself, high headwinds effect plane speed, gas consumption and length of flight.
Earhart’s previously blocked transmissions reported her speed, 140 knots or 161.1 miles per hour, and her altitude, 7,000 feet and that everything was fine. Her next transmission stated she had climbed 3,000 feet to 10,000 feet, believed to be to avoid cloud cover or mountains, but would also use up fuel. These transmissions, as I said earlier, were delayed but by this point, an experienced pilot such as Earhart would’ve noticed the headwinds by this point. As they neared the island, it is possible the plane was only on 97 gallons of fuel, which would get you about 1200 kilometres.
A ship next to Howland Island, called the Itasca, transmitted communications with Earhart. 14 hours and 15 minutes into the flight, Earhart sent a message to the Itasca about “cloudy weather” They were very close, so Earhart, in one of her last transmissions with the ship, said “We must be on you but cannot see you.” She then later said, “Gas is running low.” The final words heard from Amelia Earhart at 8:43 am are as follows “We are on the line 157, 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait.” The line 157, 337 is past Howland Island. She was also described as frantic in her final words.
As you probably guessed, Earhart never landed on Howland Island. As such, the Itasca search the waters northwest of the island. Soon, USS Colorado joined the search in the south and USS Lexington in the northeast. The ships search finished on July 18th. To this day, the Electra, Noonan and, most importantly, Earhart have never been found. Now, it’s time to get the tin foil hats, because it’s time to look into some theories as to what happened.
Theory #1
An image of the waters from 1937
The first is the most widely accepted and simple one, that the Electra ran out of fuel and crashed in the waters around Howland Island. Sceptics of this theory say that with that amount of fuel, the plane should’ve flown for 24 hours instead of Earhart’s recorded 20, but due to headwinds, it caused more fuel consumption and according to the Jet Propulsion Centre said her plane was out of fuel when she vanished. This was caused by the aforementioned headwinds and the 3,000 foot climb. The waters around Howland Island are 18,000 feet deep and in 2002, when Nauticos launched an investigation, searching a 2,000 square nautical mile radius, in 15 years, they found nothing, using sonar mapping to search the seabed floor.
Theory #2
An old photo of Nikumaroro
The second theory is that she became a castaway at Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, which is only 350 nautical miles south from Howland. The island is along the 157, 337 line. Two years later, a British Colonial Officer, Gerald Gallagher, found campsite remains on Nikumaroro. He also found a sextant, a tool used to determine latitude and longitude on aircraft, and the remains of a skeleton of a human, which were analysed by physician, D.W. Hoodless, who determined they belonged to a man who was short, stocky and a of European background, which could be neither of the 2. Unfortunately, after this, the bones were disposed of, preventing DNA analysis in the future.
But, The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar for short, determined that it could belong to a just above average height woman of European descent. Amelia was 5’7”. The director of Tighar said that the reason that only partial bones were found there was because of the coconut crabs that live on the island, which have special claws designed for cracking, you guessed it, coconuts. They can also grow up to 3 feet long and are the largest anthropoids on land.
A photo of a coconut crab
He also saw a photo taken in 1937 from a British ship at Nikumaroro of, what appears to be, landing gear from Earhart’s plane. Several transmissions believed to be that of Earhart’s. we heard in the week following the incident and all of them coincided with low tide. Teenage Radio operator, Betty Klenck, heard on her shortwave radio, “This is Amelia Earhart. Help me!”, a female voice arguing with a male voice and “Water’s knee deep! Let me out!” She listened for 3 hours and recorded everything. Her father reported it to the coast guard, who didn’t pay attention to it, since this was happening all over the world in the days following the vanishing.
The director of Tighar found, in 1991, a partial rubber soul of a shoe, branded “CAT’S PAW RUBBER COMPANY USA”, the same type of shoe Earhart was wearing at the time of the flight and in a photo taken in Indonesia shortly before her disappearance. But the sole was a size 9, too big for Earhart’s 7.5. He also found a 19 inch by 23 inch plate of aluminium, believed to be from the tail of Earhart’s plane. However, veteran pilot, Elgen Long says otherwise, saying there is no chance of it being as such, and so did a Lockheed employee who made the Electra. Planes flew over Nikumaroro in search of Earhart and saw nothing on the island.
Theory #3
Another theory is from retired US Air Force Colonel, Rollin C. Reineck, that Earhart was in cahoots with the US Secret service. He states that Amelia had a plan B, that if she couldn’t find Howland Island, she was to land at the then Japanese occupied Marshall Islands, only being 800 miles away from Howland Island. This would let the US Air force scout the Marshall Islands under the guise of searching for Earhart. The citizens of the Marshall Islands say that they saw the Electra crash off the coast of their island. But the plan went south when they were found out by the Japanese and taken as POWs but released after the war. They then took on assumed names, Amelia’s was Irene Craigmile but married to become Irene Bolam. This is thought to be inconclusive, as the real Irene Bolam sued Rollin for the book he wrote on it and the resemblance between Bolam and Earhart is very weak.
An alternate timeline to this theory is that Noonan and Earhart we executed in the POW camps. A general met a group of US Marines in 1944, who were guarding a hangar with Earhart’s Electra inside on the formerly Japanese Island of Saipan. They then subsequently destroyed the plane. At the National Archives, an obscured image of Earhart and Noonan was found, but was proven to be taken in 1935 by two bloggers. Also, given the dire fuel situation, she wouldn’t be able to make it to the Marshalls.
The photo allegedly featuring the two
Theory #4
This brings us to our final theory, that Earhart was abducted by aliens. There is basically 0 evidence and the tinfoil hat I mentioned early is very tight on this one but an episode of Star Trek adapted the idea.
All this being said, until her Electra, Noonan’s and Earhart’s bodies or any conclusive evidence to where famous Aviator, Amelia Earhart, might be is found we will never truly know the answer.
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party in Germany, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30th, 1933. He proposed a foreign policy ideal when he was appointed, that being the ‘Heim ins Reich’ or ‘Back Home to the Reich’ in English. It was the idea that all German speaking peoples should be united under a “Greater Germany”. One of the main targets of this policy was Austria.
A photo of Hitler addressing a crowd after his appointment to Chancellor
Austria has an almost entirely German speaking population and is the second largest population of German speakers. The First Austrian Republic was established in the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Due to much political instability, massive violent riots and economic hardship, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of the Fatherland Front, a right-wing conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, corporatist, and Catholic organisation that opposed what it called “heathen” Nazism, took power in March 1933. Dollfuss suspended parliament in 1933 and gradually established an authoritarian state, replacing Austria’s democratic system by 1934. However, political instability persisted, leading to a short civil war between the Fatherland Front and social democrats in February of 1934, ending in Dollfuss’ assassination by Austrian Nazis in July. Because of Hitler’s policy regarding the Austrians, they began receiving political and economic backing from Fascist Italy.
Italy, governed by Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini, was the birthplace of fascism which German Nazism came from. It stemmed from groups of veterans of the First World War, who believed that much of the territory that Italy gained in the Treaty of London was not worth the struggle, especially considering it was a lot less than what was originally promised to them by the British and French in 1915. They were organised into the National Fascist Party by Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist, and seized power by marching on Rome in 1922, demanding that Mussolini be appointed Prime Minister by the King. He would often threaten political opponents through extrajudicial violence through a violent fascist paramilitary group known as the Blackshirts. These threats materialised with the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, an anti-fascist, socialist opposition leader in the Italian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. When the Blackshirts met with Mussolini after the murder, they demanded that he crush the opposition or they would undermine his position and do it themselves. At a speech in the Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini took responsibility for the murder and other political violence waged by the Blackshirts and challenged the Deputies to depose him. When nobody did, he assumed absolute power and transformed Italy into a one party state.
Fascism, the Government and the Party, is at its highest efficiency. Gentlemen, you have deceived yourselves! You thought that Fascism was over because I was restraining it, that the Party was dead because I was holding it back. If I would use one one-hundredth part of the energy that I used to contain the Fascists, to unleash them…. Oh! You would see, you would see then…
An excerpt from Mussolini’s Speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 1925
A photo of Mussolini standing in front of a statue of Julius Caesar
Attempting to establish a Greater Italy, Mussolini waged war against Libyan rebels, leading to the Libyan Genocide, with estimates ranging from 40,000 to over 70,000 killed. He also bombed Corfu and secured Fiume through the Treaty of Rome in 1924 after diplomatic pressure. Mussolini feared that German action in Austria would threaten the Italian province of South Tyrol, as it is a German speaking former territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This led to Italian and German relations being initially sour by the first half of the 1930s.
In 1934, Hitler met with Mussolini in Venice, where he promised him that he would leave Austria alone, at least for now. However, after Dollfuss’ assassination and the failed Nazi coup, Mussolini, feeling his position to be insecure, turned to France for an alliance. He was eventually pushed away after the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and was sanctioned. However, when Hitler remilitarised the Western Rhineland province of Germany, he demonstrated the weakness of British and French opposition, encouraging Mussolini to seek closer ties with Germany as sanctions collapsed. This softened Mussolini’s initially hardline stance on Austria and began speaking of a potential Rome-Berlin axis by 1936. German Italian relations would soon be brought closer together by the Spanish Civil War.
Hitler and Mussolini standing together upon Hitler’s state visit to Rome in 1938
Entering the 20th Century, Spain was strongly divided between a growing liberal movement and the old elitist collective of bureaucrats, landowners and the clergy, the latter of which manipulated politics in order to remain in power. Eventually, General Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in a coup in 1923, which had backing from King Alfonso XIII. However, his military dictatorship alienated the leftists and the conservative elite and was eventually forced into resigning in 1930 after great economic downturn that led to civil unrest.
After the loss of Rivera, support for the monarchy collapsed, Alfonso fled the country and the Second Republic was born. Leftists sought radical change, by curbing the power and influence of the clergy, army and landowners, which the right saw as an existential threat. After an attempted coup by General José Sanjurjo in 1932, leftists began to suspect that there was a fascist conspiracy to stop their reforms. By 1933, a right wing government undid much of the leftist reforms and led to mass civil unrest. However, by 1936, the leftists had narrowly won a majority. However, the right and military factions believed that this government, which some suspected had committed fraud in the election, was unacceptable so organised a coup in July 1936. However, it failed in capturing Madrid, so a civil war was born between the right-wing Nationalists and the left-wing Republicans.
A group of Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War
Both Germany and Italy began assisting the side of the nationalists. Mussolini and Hitler both supported the fascist elements of the nationalist movement whilst also opposing much of the socialist, Marxist, Stalinist and anarchist sects of the republican movement. Specifically, Hitler wanted to create an ally south of France in the event that France acted upon his planned annexations of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. One of the first key operations was helping General Francisco Franco, a key leader of the nationalist movement and commander of the elite and brutal colonial Moroccan forces, bring his troops out of Morocco and across the strait of Gibraltar. However, this, as well as many other actions taken by German and Italian forces, was in violation of the Non-Intervention Committee of 1936, organised by the British and French which aimed to stop intervention by foreign powers in the Spanish Civil War. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following Stanley Baldwin’s resignation in 1937, especially prioritised Italy in the agreement, as he saw keeping Mussolini on side as incredibly important. However, as the war continued, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union consistently violated the Committee ruling. France also was prone to violating it from time to time.
A leaky dam, better than no dam at all.
Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary (1935-1938)
A Soviet officer photographed with Spanish Republicans in 1936
Specifically, Soviet intervention on the side of the republicans came at a price, forcing communist voices, especially those who were pro-Stalin, to become more influential in the movement, enabling the nationalists to decry that the Republic was nothing more than a Bolshevist movement set on destroying Spain. This further envigorated the firmly anti-socialist Germany and Italy to continue their support for Spain, which also helped their relationship. One notable instance of assistance was at the bombing of Guernica during a northern Campaign.
Guernica was an old town in North Spain with, at the time, a population of 7,000 people. At around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 26th of April 1937, Luftwaffe and Italian planes blotted out the Sun as the whistling of bombs echoed through the streets. For an hour and a half, Italian and German planes flew over and bombed the town, killing between 170 and 300 people. The indiscriminate nature of the attack caused the bombing to become a symbol of fascist terror. This event was immortalised by Pablo Picasso in one of his most well-known works, simply titled ‘Guernica’. Picasso was in Paris at the time of the German Occupation of France. When a German Officer came into his apartment, he spotted ‘Guernica’. The officer asked Pablo, “Did you do that?” to which Pablo replied, “No, you did.”
A reproduction of Guernica on a tiled wall
The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain.
George Orwell in ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War‘
The war would continue for another 3 years. Whilst Franco, who later became the leader of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, was not a fascist, he practiced a very authoritarian and dictatorial government, incorporated much fascist symbolism into his regime and did appreciate Hitler. Spain never formally joined the Axis powers and were never involved in direct fighting in the Second World War, with only limited logistical support given to the Germans. As Spain was otherwise occupied, Hitler turned his attention elsewhere, specifically to the far east and the Empire of Japan.
After the First World War, Imperial Japan had claimed many of the former German territories of the Pacific Ocean. However, by the 1930s, the Great Depression had caused a global trade halt, key to the economy of the island nation of Japan. After a far-right military faction instigated a false flag operation, the Japanese conquered Manchuria, an eastern Chinese province, and established the puppet state of Manchukuo, which was also created to establish dominance against the Soviet East. However, this conquest was done without oversight from the civilian government, undermining their influence in Japanese governance.
The Imperial Japanese Army celebrating a victory at Shanghai
In February of 1936, the Kōdōha faction, or the Imperial Way, in the Japanese Military had attempted to organise a coup by murdering a series of government and police officials. Once the uprising was suppressed, the faction purged and the partakers executed, the Japanese military began exerting more control over the civilian government, weaponising their role in the suppression of the coup in order to gain more influence. They pressured the new Prime Minister, Kōki Hirota, about his cabinet appointments and demanded that only active duty officers could serve in ministerial defence positions, a role only reserved for retired officers before this. This meant that a defence Minister could resign and refuse to appoint a successor and a government would bend to their will, shown when Hisaichi Terauchi resigned as Minister of War when Hirota refused to dissolve the Japanese Parliament, the Diet. Whilst Hitler believed that he could secure neutrality with the British, he believed that an alliance with the Japanese would be more prudent, as he thought that Japan was under threat from a Jewish plot and that securing them as an ally would stop the Jews from whatever plans he believed they had.
It was not in the interests of Great Britain to have Germany annihilated, but primarily a Jewish interest. And to-day the destruction of Japan would serve British political interests less than it would serve the far-reaching intentions of those who are leading the movement that hopes to establish a Jewish world-empire.
Hitler in Mein Kampf
Both Japan and Germany also shared a hatred of communism, demonstrated through their war plans against the Soviet Union, further strengthening Hitler’s want for an alliance. Hokushin-ron, the Japanese doctrine, and Lebensraum, the German doctrine, both stated that expansion into the Soviet Union was inevitable. Soon, the pair agreed upon and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, an agreement to undermine the Communist International, a Soviet international body committed to global revolutionary socialism. The Nazis officially qualified the Japanese as those it considered to be honorary Aryans. Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, brother of incumbent Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), visited the Nazi Party Congress, more commonly known as the Nuremberg Rally, of 1937. Mussolini later signed the pact, one of the first stepping stones in the creation of the Axis Powers, that would come to terrify the world in years to come.
Joachim von Ribbentrop (German Minister of Foreign Affairs, central) signing the Anti-Comintern Pact, with Kintomo Mushanokōji (Japanese Ambassador to Germany, left, seated)
As the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, the war against Russia in the Caucuses had reached a stalemate. One thing Russia desperately needed was supplies. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, believed that they needed to secure the land around the Dardanelles Strait, which would then lead into the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea beyond, allowing a secure supply line to Russia. It could also possibly help the Western Front, by opening up a new front to divert the German forces onto 3 fronts.
A map of the area
The first attempt at securing the strait was on March 18th, 1915 via a naval attack through the straight in an attempt to take out the Ottoman artillery guns. However, Ottoman sea mines had been placed in the strait and that, combined with the Ottoman gun fire, sank 3 battleships and the ships eventually had to retreat. On the 25th of April, 75,000 troops, comprising of French, British, Australian and Kiwi troops, commanded by General Ian Hamilton landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Despite not having proper landing craft, instead having to row over, a decent beach head was formed.
The Anzac forces had landed North of their intended target and were now inside a cove. Due to their valiant efforts, the cove was named Anzac Cove.
British Officers in a trench at Gallipoli
However, once the beach head was formed, trench warfare soon began to set in. What made the trench warfare here worse was the glaring sun and the dysentery epidemic. Hamilton ordered another 60,000 men to attack Suvla Bay from the water. However, due to hesitation from Allied high command, the Ottoman’s had managed to dig defences and the bay was eventually recaptured by Mustafa Kemal Pasha on August 10th. The attempt to break the stalemate was a disastrous failure.
As allied and Ottoman casualties began to increase, the stalemate was no closer to breaking. Eventually, on December 7th, an evacuation was ordered, with the last troops leaving Gallipoli on January 6th of the next year.
Despite its significance in Australian, Kiwi and Turkish history, the Gallipoli campaign is still considered to be one of the greatest catastrophe for the allies during the war. One of the main problems with the campaign was that, despite the Allied advantage, no orders were issued and due to the lack of coordination the allies could not advance. They were instead ordered to dig in, which was considered to be highly counterproductive. The campaign ultimately failed to take the pressure off Russia, which many attribute as the reason of the Russian Revolutions of February and October of 1917.
