These concerns had been raised by the aggressive use of the Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. The conflict saw the tactical co-ordination of air and ground troops and the razing of several Spanish cities, most famously Guernica.

Fears abounded that hostilities would have a far more devastating effect on the home front in any forthcoming conflict. These fears played a significant role in the British desire for peace during the 1930s, and consequently the campaign to continue appeasing Nazi Germany.

The Battle of Britain

After the Nazis invaded Poland, they turned their attention to the Western Front. They stormed through the French defences, circumventing the Maginot Line and attacking through Belgium.

The Battle of France ended quickly, and the Battle of Britain followed soon after.

The latter saw Britain’s Fighter Command take on the Luftwaffe in a struggle for air superiority over the Channel and south-east England. At stake was the possibility of a German invasion, codenamed Operation Sealion by German High Command.

The Battle of Britain lasted from July 1940 until the end of October. Having been underestimated by the chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, Fighter Command inflicted a decisive defeat on the German air force and Hitler was forced to suspend Operation Sealion indefinitely.

A point of no return

The Germans, suffering unsustainable losses, switched tactics away from attacking the beleaguered Fighter Command. Instead, they launched a sustained bombing campaign against London and other major British cities between September 1940 and May 1941.

The first major bombing raid against London’s civilian population  was accidental. A German bomber overshot its original target, the docks, in thick fog. This showcased the inaccuracy of bombing in the early part of the war.

More significantly, it served as a point of no return in the escalation of strategic bombing for the remainder of the war.

Bombing raids over cities were almost exclusively conducted in the hours of darkness after the end of the summer to reduce losses at the hands of the RAF, which did not yet have sufficient night-fighter capabilities.

Hawker Hurricanes of No 1 Squadron, Royal Air Force, based at Wittering, Cambridgeshire (UK), followed by a similar formation of Supermarine Spitfires of No 266 Squadron, during a flying display for aircraft factory workers, October 1940.

Image Credit: Public domain

The attacks resulted in as many as 180,000 Londoners spending their nights in tube stations during the autumn of 1940, when the attacks were at their most extreme.

By the end of the year, 32,000 ordinary people had died amongst the fires and rubble, although such numbers would be made to look paltry in comparison with the bombing raids conducted against Germany and Japan later in the war.

Other port cities across Britain, such as Liverpool, Glasgow and Hull, were targeted, together with industrial centres in the Midlands.

The Blitz left hundreds of thousands of civilians homeless and inflicted damage on many iconic buildings. Coventry Cathedral was famously destroyed during the night of 14 November. In early May 1941, an unrelenting attacks resulted in damage to buildings across central London, including the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London.

Extensive bomb and blast damage to Hallam Street and Duchess Street during the Blitz, Westminster, London 1940

Image Credit: City of Westminster Archives / Public Domain

Effects

Germany expected the bombing campaign, amounting to 57 consecutive nights between September and November in London, with attacks on major cities and industrial centres across the country, to crush British morale. The term ‘Blitz’ comes from the German ‘blitzkrieg’, literally translating as lightning war.

On the contrary, the British people, on the whole, were galvanised by the bombings and the underlying threat of German invasion. Many people signed up for voluntary service in one of the organisations set up to help remedy the devastating effects of the Blitz. In a show of defiance, many attempted to go about their daily lives ‘as usual’.

Furthermore, the bombing campaigns did little to damage Britain’s industrial production either, with output actually increasing over the winter of 1940/1 rather than suffering the effects of the Blitz.

As a consequence, by Churchill’s first anniversary in office Britain had emerged from the Blitz with far greater resolution than when he had taken charge in the ominous climate of May 1940.

A difficult start to the Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic was challenged frequently in its early years from both the left and the right in Germany, and the Russian Revolution had set a precedent that many feared Germany would follow.

There were active riots and widespread opposition to the government, and Bavaria in particular clashed with the federal government frequently. Bavarian authorities attempted to detach the army corps in Bavaria from the Reich by claiming authority over it.

Germany had failed to keep with reparations payments after the Treaty of Versailles, and the French and Belgium armies occupied the Ruhr in January 1923, causing further instability and outrage across the rest of the country.

Erich von Ludendorff, a famed World War One general, had spent the postwar years spreading the myth that the German armies had been “stabbed in the back” by the German authorities. This myth is known as the Dolchstoßlegende in German.

Munich Marienplatz during the failed Beer Hall Putsch.
(Image Credit: Bundesarchiv / CC).

The Bavarian crisis

In September 1923, following a period of protracted turmoil and unrest, Bavarian Prime Minister Eugen von Knilling announced a state of emergency, and Gustav von Kahr was appointed State commissioner with powers to govern the state.

Von Kahr formed a triumvirate (a political regime ruled by 3 powerful individuals) with the Bavarian state police chief Colonel Hans Ritter von Seisser and Otto von Lossow, the commander of the Bavarian Reichswehr – the reduced-strength German army stipulated by the Allies at Versailles.

Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler thought he would take advantage of the unrest at the Weimar government and plotted with Kahr and Lossow to take over Munich in a revolution. But then, on 4 October 1923, Kahr and Lossow called off the rebellion.

Hitler had a large army of stormtroopers at his disposal, but he knew he would lose control of them if he didn’t give them something to do. In response, Hitler modelled his plans on Mussolini’s successful March on Rome, in October 1922. He wanted to replicate this idea, and proposed a march on Berlin to his followers.

The ‘Beer Hall Putsch’

On 8 November von Kahr was making a speech to around 3,000 assembled people. Hitler, along with around 600 members of the SA, surrounded the Beer Hall.

Hitler climbed onto a chair and fired a shot, yelling that “The national revolution has broken out! The hall is filled with six hundred men. Nobody is allowed to leave.”

Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial. From left to right: Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kriebel, Ludendorff, Hitler, Bruckner, Röhm, and Wagner. Note that only two of the defendants (Hitler and Frick) were wearing civilian clothes. All those in uniform are carrying swords, indicating officer or aristocratic status. (Image Credit: Bundesarchiv / CC).

He forced Kahr, Lossow and Seisser into an adjoining room at gunpoint and demanded they support the putsch and accept positions in the new government. They were unwilling to accept this, and Kahr explicitly refused to collaborate as he had been taken out of the auditorium under heavy guard.

Some of Hitler’s loyal followers were sent to fetch Ludendorff in order to lend legitimacy to the putsch.

Hitler returned to the beer hall to give a speech, exclaiming that his action was aimed not at the police or Reichswehr but at “the Berlin Jew government and the November criminals of 1918.”

His speech ended triumphantly:

“You can see that what motivates us is neither self-conceit or self-interest, but only a burning desire to join the battle in this grave eleventh hour for our German Fatherland … One last thing I can tell you. Either the German revolution begins tonight or we will all be dead by dawn!”

While there was little coherent plan, it was eventually decided that they would march on the Feldherrnhalle, where the Bavarian Defence Ministry was.

Hitler’s shock troops arrested city councillors during the Putsch. (Image Credit: Bundesarchiv / Commons).

Meanwhile, von Kahr, Lenk and Seisser were freed, and instantly disowned Hitler before moving against him. When the Nazis arrived at the plaza outside the defence ministry, they were confronted by the police. There was a violent clash, in which 16 Nazis and 4 police officers were killed.

Hitler was wounded in the clash, and escaped briefly before being arrested two days later. He was subsequently put on trial which was essentially a farce.

Hitler exploits the trial

By German law, Hitler and his co-conspirators should have been tried in the supreme Reich court, but because many in the Bavarian government were sympathetic to Hitler’s cause, the case ended up being tried in the Bavarian People’s Court.

The trial itself received worldwide publicity and gave Hitler a platform with which he promoted his nationalistic ideas.

The judges were chosen by a Nazi sympathiser in the Bavarian government and they allowed Hitler to use the courtroom as a propaganda platform from which he could speak at length on his own behalf, interrupt others whenever he felt like it and cross-examine witnesses.

The case rolled on for 24 days, while Hitler employed long, rambling arguments which were more to do with his political views than the trial itself. Newspapers quoted Hitler at length, spreading his arguments beyond the courtroom.

As the trial concluded, sensing the impact on national sentiment he was having, Hitler gave this closing statement:

“I nourish the proud hope that one day the hour will come when these rough companies will grow to battalions, the battalions to regiments, the regiments to divisions, that the old cockade will be taken from the mud, that the old flags will wave again, that that there will be a reconciliation at the last great divine judgement which we are prepared to face.

For it is not you, gentlemen, who pass judgement on us. That judgement is spoken by the eternal court of history…Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the State Prosecutor’s submissions and the court’s verdict; for she acquits us.”

Ludendorff, due to his status as a war hero, was acquitted, while Hitler received the minimum sentence for high treason, five years. The trial itself received worldwide publicity and gave Hitler a platform with which he promoted his nationalistic ideas.

Long term consequences of the Putsch

Hitler was incarcerated in Landsberg Prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf, his propaganda book setting out Nazi beliefs. He was released in December 1924, having served only nine months of his sentence, and he now believed that the route to power lay through legal, democratic means as opposed to force.

This caused him to place much greater emphasis on developing Nazi propaganda. Millions of Germans would read Mein Kampf, making Hitler’s ideas well-known. The fact the judge had been so lenient with Hitler’s sentence and how Hitler served so little time suggested that some German judges and courts were also opposed to the Weimar Government, and had sympathy with Hitler and what he had tried to do.

Hitler would ultimately take revenge on von Kahr when he had him murdered in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.

Header image credit: Hitler’s shock troops keep watch in the streets with machine guns. Bundesarchiv / Commons.

This conviction arose for a few reasons. Firstly the German army had come so close to Paris at the First Battle of the Marne there was no option for commander-in-chief Joffre but to keep attacking in the hope of removing the Germans from French soil.

This was not only a practical concern but one of pride. Secondly there were concerns that if not comprehensively defeated Germany may launch another war.

New French offensives

In line with this new outlook on the war the French began two new offensives. The First Battle of Artois began on 17 December and attempted unsuccessfully to break the stalemate on the Western Front.

This was one of a number of battles which would be fought for control of the strategic heights of Vimy Ridge. A further 250,000 troops were deployed in the Champagne offensive also intended to break the deadlock and take the Mézières railway junction.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917), a painting by Richard Jack.

German leaders cannot cooperate

Unlike the French high command the Germans were not united in their goals. The German high command had been riven by infighting for some time but as the war progressed this worsened.

Some like Ludendorff advocated focusing on the Eastern Front. This party attracted a lot of public support. Commander-in-chief Falkenhayn in contrast desired more emphasis on the Western Front and even speculated about a possible conquest of France.

This divide between the giants of German command continued into 1915.

Erich von Falkenhayn, who desired more emphasis on the Western Front and even speculated about a possible conquest of France.

Terrorist action on the British Coast

The British sustained their first civilian casualties on home soil since 1669 when, on 16 December, a German fleet under Admiral von Hipper attacked Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitley.

The attack had no military objectives and was meant only to terrorise the British. Even von Hipper was sceptical of its value as he felt there were more strategically important uses for his fleet.

This attack nearly led to a much bigger naval engagement when a small British force approached the much larger fleet of admiral von Ingenohl who was escorting von Hipper.

Some destroyers fired on one another but von Ingenohl, unsure of the British strength and unwilling to risk a major engagement, pulled his ships back into German waters. Neither fleet lost any ships in the skirmish.

The attack on Scarborough became part of a British propaganda campaign. ‘Remember Scarborough’, to drive recruitment.

Germany and Portugal clash in Africa

After some earlier small scale fighting German forces invaded Portuguese controlled Angola on 18 December. They took the town of Naulila where a previous breakdown of negotiations had led to the deaths of 3 German officers.

The two countries were officially not yet at war and in spite of this invasion it would be 1916 before war broke out between them.

Russia’s planned invasion of East Prussia was ended before it could even begin by the encirclement and annihilation of the Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg.

Two-pronged assault

Russia’s invading force was split into two Armies – the First Army under General Rennenkampf, which would invade north-east Prussia, and the Second Army under General Samsonov, which would concentrate its efforts further south.

These armies had mobilised and advanced much farther than the Germans had expected, and the bulk of the German armies were concentrated in the west against the French and the British.

The Russian plan involved a pincer movement, wherein the outnumbered German Eighth Army would be caught between the Russian 1st and 2nd armies.

Rennenkampf, having driven back the overconfident German General François in the Battle of Gumbinnen, paused to consolidate his forces.

German defeat saw the recall of François’ superior, Maximilian von Prittwitz. He was replaced by the markedly more aggressive combination of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, and the pair immediately went on the offensive.

The German strategy

Ludendorff immediately concentrated six divisions against Samsonov’s advance, but this force was not as strong as the Russian Second Army, and would have made little headway on its own.

Here Ludendorff and Hindenberg took a calculated risk, and withdrew the rest of the German troops, aside from a light cavalry screen, from the Rennenkampf front, sending them against Samsonov’s wing.

Reproduction of a 1914 photograph of Paul von Hindenburg. Credit: Nicola Perscheid (1864-1930). Restoration by Adam Cuerden / Commons.

By engaging Rennenkampf’s forces with cavalry troops in the north, the Germans hoped to delay the ability of the First Army to reinforce Samsonov’s Second Army in the southwest.

Once the armies were separated, Samsonov’s flanks would be crushed quickly, and the Russian centre completely surrounded. German forces would encircle the Russian Second Army.

The Russian generals were operating with insufficient communication lines. There was a particular problem imminently prior to the battle, as messages had to circumvent the great Masurian Lakes.

The Germans had also cracked Russian codes prior to the war, and while the Russians were aware of this, and there were some provisional new codes in place, new codebooks had not been fully distributed.

Zhilinskiy, the commander and co-ordinator of both Rennenkampf and Samsonov’s armies, and Rennenkampf each had a codebook, but Samsonov did not.

German infantry on the march in East Prussia. Credit: Bundesarchiv / Commons.

Many Russian messages were sent unencrypted, in the hope that they would not be intercepted, which allowed Ludendorff and Hindenberg to advance much more aggressively, as they frequently received intelligence on the messages that were sent between Rennenkampf and Samsonov.

Samsonov, unaware either of the German plan or that Rennenkampf had decided to pause, advanced unwittingly into the German trap.

The battle commences

After a brief delay German forces under General Francois initiated an attack on Samsonov’s left flank at Usdau.

The battle began on the 26 August, with François’ forces enjoying rapid success. Ludendorff and Hindenburg were not convinced that Rennenkampf would not intervene and so ordered that François wheel north, but François ignored this order.

Burning house during the fighting at Usdau on 27 August 1914. Credit: Commons.

The Germans then intercepted more missives, outlining more detailed marching plans and making it clear that Rennenkampf’s forces would and could not intervene if Samsonov’s army was engaged.

Even as the Germans surrounded the Second Army, Rennenkampf’s continued to march westward away from Samsonov.

Samsonov had eventually become aware of the peril of the situation by the evening of 28 August and ordered a general retreat, but it was too late, and the encirclement was completed by the 29 August.

On retreating, many Russian soldiers encountered German defensive lines cutting them off, and were either gunned down or taken prisoner.

The scale of the defeat

95,000 Russians troops were captured, with a further 78,000 estimated as killed or wounded, and of his original 150,000-strong army, only around 10,000 of Samsonov’s men escaped.

The Germans suffered fewer than 20,000 casualties and also captured over 300 guns. 60 trains were required to transport captured equipment to Germany.

Russian prisoners and guns captured at Tannenberg. Credit: Photos of the Great War / Commons.

Samsonov committed suicide after the battle, unable to face the disgrace of such a comprehensive defeat.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff were fêted as heroes back in Germany, with Hindenburg later replacing Erich von Falkenhayn as the German Chief of Staff.

Russia’s allies were shocked by the defeat, and it raised fears that a conquest of Russia may prove imminent.

The battle meant a deeper psychological victory for the Germans. At the Battle of Grunwald (known as the Battle of Tannenberg in German) in 1410, the Teutonic Knights had been routed by the Slavs.

Despite Hindenberg’s victory occurring around 30km away from the site of that defeat, he ensured that the battle would be known as the Battle of Tannenberg.

Header image credit: Russian prisoners of war at the Tilsit transit station after Tannenberg. Credit: Berlin Illustrated Newspaper / Commons.

Veritable represented the northern thrust of this pincer movement, spearheaded by British and Canadian forces.

It was designed to destroy German positions between the River Maas and the River Rhine and to break through between these two rivers, allowing the formation of a front along the Rhine with the 21st Army Group.

This was part of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “broad front” strategy to occupy the entirety of the Rhine’s west bank before bridging over.

Churchill tanks of 34th Tank Brigade towing ammunition sledges at the start of Operation ‘Veritable’, 8 February 1945. Credit: Imperial War Museums / Commons.

Poor weather and delays

German forces managed to flood the River Roer to such an extent that the U.S. forces in the south, carrying out Operation Grenade which was the southern half of the pincer, had to postpone their assault.

The fighting was slow and difficult. Poor weather meant that the allies could not use their air force effectively. The Reichswald ridge is a remnant from a glacier, and consequently when it becomes wet, it easily turned to mud.

While Operation Veritable was ongoing, the ground was thawing and thus largely unsuitable for wheeled or tracked vehicles. Tanks frequently broke down in these conditions, and there was a distinct lack of suitable roads that the Allies could use for armour and troop supply.

Churchill tanks of 34th Tank Brigade in the Reichswald during Operation ‘Veritable’, 8 February 1945. Credit: Imperial War Museums / Commons.

The lack of useful roads was exacerbated by soft ground, which armour could not roll across easily without sinking, and deliberate flooding of fields by German forces. Roads that were usable were quickly torn up and broken up by the excessive traffic that had to carry during Allied assaults.

A note from one Allied report reads:

“The state of the ground caused great problems… The Churchill Tanks and the bridge layers managed to keep up with the infantry but the Flails and Crocodiles were immediately bogged down after crossing the start line.”

General Dwight Eisenhower remarked that “Operation Veritable was some of the fiercest fighting of the whole war, a bitter slugging match” between Allied and German forces.

When the Germans noticed the inhibited Allied mobility, they quickly set-up strongpoints on the roads that could be used, making advances even more difficult.

Attempts to use armour in isolation during Operation Veritable generally saw heavy casualties, which meant that armour had to be combined with and preceded by infantry at all times.

One commander noted much of the advance was dictated by fighting between infantry units, stating, “it was Spandau versus Bren the whole way through.”

A column of Churchill tanks and other vehicles at the start of Operation ‘Veritable’, NW Europe, 8 February 1945. Credit: Imperial War Museums / Commons.

Tactical changes

One way the issue of flooding was circumvented was by using Buffalo amphibious vehicles to move through the flooded areas.

Water had rendered minefields and field defences ineffective, and isolated German forces on artificial fortified islands, where they could be picked off without counter-attack.

Another adaptation was the use of flamethrowers attached to Churchill ‘Crocodile’ tanks. Tanks equipped with Wasp flamethrowers found that the weapon was extremely effective at forcing German soldiers out of their strongpoints.

According to Steven Zaloga, the mechanical flamethrowers, which were not exceedingly impressive in their own right, scared the German infantry, who feared them more than any other weapon.

In contrast to flamethrowers carried by infantry, which were exposed to bullets and shrapnel that threatened to explode their tanks of liquid fuel at any point, flame tanks were difficult to destroy.

The Churchill ‘Crocodile’ stored the liquid container behind the actual tank, making it no riskier than a standard tank.

The container could be easily attacked, but the crew remained secure inside the tank itself.

German soldiers perceived flame tanks as inhumane contraptions, and were liable to treat captured flame tank crews with far less clemency than they might other crews.

A Churchill tank and a Valentine Mk XI Royal Artillery OP tank (left) in Goch, 21 February 1945. Credit: Imperial War Museum / Commons.

The execution of ‘flametankers’ was frequent, and this reached an extent where British troops received sixpence a day on top of their salary as ‘danger money’ due to this threat.

Operation Veritable was ultimately successful, capturing the towns of Kleve and Goch.

Canadian and British forces faced fierce resistance and suffered 15,634 casualties during Operation Veritable.

German troops incurred 44,239 casualties during the same period and were commended for their ferocity and fanaticism by Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery, respectively.

Header image credit: Infantry and armour in action at the start of Operation ‘Veritable’, 8 February 1945. Imperial War Museum / Commons.

The Tehran Conference had happened prior in November 1943, and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. Yalta was the last conference that Roosevelt would attend before his death in April 1945.

The conference was held in Yalta because Stalin was unwilling to travel very far. He was supposedly advised by his doctors that he should not take any long-haul trips. Stalin was also afraid of flying, a fear that was connected to his general paranoia.

By the time of the Yalta Conference, the Allies were assured of victory in Europe. Zhukov’s forces were a mere 65 kilometres from Berlin, having driven the Nazis out of the majority of Eastern Europe, while the Allies had control of the entirety of France and Belgium.

Soldiers of 130th Latvian Rifle Corps of the Red Army in Riga. October 1944. Credit: Commons.

The goals of each power

Each leader aimed at different objectives for the post-war settlement. Roosevelt wanted Russian assistance in the war against Japan, and was prepared to concede influence in Europe if it meant that the lives of GIs could be spared in the Pacific theatre.

It should be noted that Roosevelt was under the impression that the Russians would be sorely needed to defeat the Japanese.

There is still historical dispute about whether the Japanese surrender was forced by the nuclear bombs or the Soviet establishment of a second front in the Pacific.

Consensus is shifting slowly towards the Soviet attack on Manchuria and the northern islands of Japan as the key factor in ending the war with unconditional Japanese surrender.

The American delegation also wanted Soviet participation in the United Nations, which was set to be created after the end of the war.

Churchill wanted democratic governments created by free elections in Eastern and Central Europe and to contain the Soviet share of the postwar settlement as much as was feasibly possible.

It was difficult to assure the independence of nations such as Poland, despite Polish assistance in the RAF and the British army more generally. The Red Army had overrun Eastern Europe during Operation Bagration, and was essentially at Stalin’s mercy.

Stalin wanted the inverse, and pushed for greater Soviet control and influence over the postwar makeup of Eastern Europe. This was a critical part of the USSR’s security strategy.

The issue of Poland

Much of the debate centred around Poland. The Allies were keen to press for Polish independence because of the assistance of Polish troops on the Western front.

As mentioned however, the Soviets held most of the cards when it came to negotiations over Poland. According to one member of the U.S. delegation, James F. Byrnes, “it was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, but what we could get the Russians to do.”

For the Russians, Poland held strategic and historic significance. Poland had served as a historical corridor for armies set on invading Russia. Stalin’s statements concerning Poland employed extensive doublespeak. Stalin argued that:

“…because the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland, the Soviet government was trying to atone for those sins. Poland must be strong [and] the Soviet Union is interested in the creation of a mighty, free and independent Poland.”

This ultimately meant that the USSR kept the territory it had annexed in 1939, and instead Poland’s territory would be extended at the expense of Germany.

Stalin promised that there would be free Polish elections whilst establishing a Soviet sponsored provincial government in Polish territories occupied by the Red Army.

Stalin did also eventually agree to entering the Pacific war three months after the defeat of Germany, provided that he could recover lands that the Russians had lost to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, and that the Americans recognised Mongolian independence from China.

Winston Churchill shares a joke with Marshal Stalin (with the help of Pavlov, Stalin’s interpreter, left) in the conference room at Livadia Palace during the Yalta Conference. Credit: Imperial War Museums / Commons.

The Mongolian People’s Republic had been a Soviet satellite state since its creation in 1924.

The Soviets also agreed to join the United Nations, provided that the UN employed the Security Council system wherein it could veto any unwanted decisions or actions.

Each power also ratified an agreement around the division of postwar Germany into zones. The USSR, USA and the UK all had zones, with the UK and the USA agreeing to subdivide their zones further to create a French zone.

General Charles de Gaulle was not allowed to attend the Yalta conference, which he attributed to longstanding tension between him and Roosevelt. The Soviet Union also were unwilling to accept the French representation as full participants.

Since de Gaulle did not attend Yalta, he also could not attend Potsdam, as he would have been honour-bound to re-negotiate issues discussed in his absence at Yalta.

Joseph Stalin gesturing as he speaks with Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov during the conference at Yalta. Credit: National Museum of the U.S. Navy / Commons.

The Soviet totalitarian turn

By mid-March, the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. messaged Roosevelt to argue that:

“…the Soviet program is the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty and democracy as we know it.”

Roosevelt realised that his view of Stalin had been excessively optimistic and conceded that “Averell is right.”

A communist government was installed in Poland on the end of the war, and many Poles in England and elsewhere felt betrayed by their allies.

A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the PKWN Manifesto.The PKWN was the Polish Committee of National Liberation, also known as the Lublin Committee. It was the puppet provisional government of Poland. Credit: Commons.

The NKVD arrested many Polish opposition leaders who had been invited to participate in negotiations for a provisional government. They were taken to Moscow, forced through a show trial and sent to the Gulag.

The Russians consolidated control over Poland, which became a full communist state in 1949.

While Yalta was initially celebrated as proof that the US and Soviet wartime co-operation through lend-lease and the like could be continued into the postwar period, it became more controversial with Russian actions towards eastern Europe.

Stalin broke his promise of free elections, and installed Soviet-controlled government in the region. Western critics alleged that Roosevelt had “sold out” eastern Europe to the Soviets.

Header image credit: The National Archives / Commons.

It pitted French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre’s Plan XVII against the German Schlieffen plan, commanded by Helmuth von Moltke.

The key battles, at Mulhouse, Lorraine, the Ardennes, Charleroi and Mons, were launched more or less simultaneously.

The German Plan to wheel through Belgium and launch a massive attack on the French left flank was delayed by the advance of the French forces and the intervention of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

After ferocious fighting the Franco-British force was driven back into France, eventually making at stand at the Marne.

Despite determined resistance, the French in particular suffered catastrophic losses. Between 6 August and 5 September they suffered 329,000 casualties as well as swathes of land. They were subsequently engaged in a long struggle to drive the Germans out of France.

Three reasons contributed to the high death toll — sub-standard equipment, inferior reservists and ill-formed tactics.

Equipment

Both German and French armies were formidable in terms of size, but the numbers disguise severe weaknesses in the French forces.

The French were equipped with the Lebel Model 1886 rifle, which as the name suggests, was an older rifle model by 1914, and it came with a bayonet which was 20 inches long, very thin and liable to snap.

It utilised a tube magazine, which was particularly slow to reload in comparison to other rifles of the period.

Early French uniforms were brightly coloured, while they were equipped with no helmets and an outdated rifle.

The French ‘poilu’ uniform was totally ill-suited to modern warfare, matching red trousers with a bright blue jacket in a style unchanged since 1870.

French prisoners would be openly derided by their German captors, who had uniforms designed to blend with a bleak landscape.

The French army had one advantage in that its field gun, the 75mm, was a modern piece of artillery. However, while the French artillery worked well in open warfare, it had too low a trajectory to trouble strong defensive installations and was doomed to lose in any counter-battery duel.

Reservists

The roughly 4 million German reservists were by and large better equipped, better trained and better led than their French counterparts. Germany operated on a Prussian ideology of militarism, and even reservists treated their profession as a vocation of which to be proud.

The Germans drew extensively from the ‘Landwehr’ and ‘Landsturm’, and these reservists were trained to the competency of regular soldiers and equipped with robust weaponry.

By contrast the French reserves were far less competent. They did not undergo the same level of training as regular soldiers and were issued sub-par weaponry.

Tactics

All sides in the First World War suffered from a military culture based on the cult of the offensive and the short glorious war, but France suffered the most.

By the time the reality of industrial warfare had exposed redundant notions of classical warfare, and armies understood that modern weaponry favoured the defender, the Germans had established a foothold in France.

Before that, the idea that France’s best opportunity lay with in offence was hugely damaging.

Joffre committed large armies to reckless, chaotic advances that were cut down by a stronger German force. He failed to utilise the advantage of defence against an invading German force.

French intelligence, which was essential to the co-ordination of offensives, proved inaccurate. It underestimated the size of the German army in Belgium and the forces opposite the 3rd and 4th French armies.

The advantage of Plan XVII lay in seizing the initiative and making rapid, substantial gains. Errors such as this jeopardised the plan’s potential.

Map depicting troop manoeuvres of both sides. The Germans advances are depicted in red, the French in Blue. The Battle of the Frontiers, August 1914. Credit: Lvcvlvs / Commons.

German war plans worked on the principle that units should be adaptable and able to work together. Infantry were trained to accurately fire individually and concentrate their collective fire on a single target.

They were also trained to work with machine gun units in defensive and offensive operations.

By contrast, the French often had no-one to liaise between different units, and suffered when attacking by not co-ordinating infantry surges with suppressing artillery fire. An excess of offensive spirit, generated to some extent by patriotism at home, exacerbated this failing.

Going on the offensive exposed the frailties and deficiencies in the French armed forces, and British reinforcements were never going to make a decisive difference to the outcome of the battles.

France’s offensives ultimately forced them backwards, and it was only British intervention that stabilised the French position, and forced the Germans into trench warfare and lengthy stalemates.

There was significant debate over the Louisiana Purchase in the Union itself. The purchase of Louisiana fit into the construction of a new American republic, a topic of significant debate among American leaders.

It is worth remembering that America developed across the continent of North America in fits and starts. In the late 1700s, there was still a strong French and Spanish presence in Florida and Louisiana.

The British were still a threat in forts in the north and in Canada, and the Royal Navy would not recognise American sailors as American, impressing them into service of the British Empire. Britain had cut America out of the imperial trading system, and American finances were suffering as a result.

Louisiana Purchase, 1803, doubling the size of the United States. Credit: Commons.

America remained weak and exposed to European influence. The Ohio river led to the Mississippi river, whose mouth was controlled by the French and Spanish in the south.

There is an argument that had the French retained Louisiana, America would have been forced to develop a much stronger government to raise taxes and secure its borders, and consequently would have had to tighten control over state independence.

The version of federalised America that we know today, where the states can act freely of federal action in a lot of areas, would not exist.

Jefferson’s vision

Thomas Jefferson’s famous vision for the United States was that it should be an “Empire of Liberty”, despite the seeming contradiction in terms.

Jefferson’s vision required territory. As the lands were being gradually settled by a few American migrants, many Americans, including Jefferson, assumed that the territory would be acquired “piece by piece.”

The risk of another power taking it from a weakened Spain made a profound reconsideration of this policy necessary.

Jefferson believed that small farmers, who owned the land they worked, constituted an ideal form of society. He saw factories as nightmarish places, where people lost their freedoms and where tyranny was constructed.

He believed that these places trapped poorer people within the orbit of manufacturing, and given no route to independence.

Wage labour was anathema to Jefferson, and he saw the factory towns of Manchester and Birmingham in England as ominous examples of what could lie in store for America.

The massive expansion of U.S. territory would allow the Jeffersonian vision of a society of small farmers to flourish.

There was a significant set of concerns that caused problems for Jefferson however. Jefferson disapproved of the idea of buying Louisiana from France, as that implied that the French had a right to the territory in the first place.

He also held concerns about whether he had the authority as president to purchase the territory, as it represented an extension of constitutional power to the executive branch of U.S. government. However, he recognised that France posed a greater threat to American sovereignty and was prepared to go to war to prevent a strong French presence in the region.

Another concern lingered that the expansion of American territory would require a form of autocratic government to keep it together, which was anathema to many senators. David Ramsey wrote: “…that this immense population will divide into separate independent governments; or can only be kept together by the strong arm of the monarchy, or despotism, to the destruction of elective principles, which pervade our present constitution.”

The purchase

Nonetheless, James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston were dispatched to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans in January 1803. They were instructed to purchase New Orleans and its environs, and did not anticipate the vast territory they would later acquire.

The purchase of Louisiana was prompted by the Haitian Revolution, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture. The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 as a slave rebellion and saw the French continually attempted to re-assert their control over the colony, before eventually conceding its independence in 1804.

Attack and take of the Crête-à-Pierrot. Credit: Original illustration by Auguste Raffet, engraving by Hébert / Commons.

Without Haiti, Napoleon felt the French New World Empire lacked support, and without revenue from the Caribbean sugar colony, Louisiana held little importance for him.

His foreign minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand opposed the idea of selling the territory, but Napoleon pressed ahead, and ordered François Barbé-Marbois, the French Treasury Minister, to offer the entire territory for $15 million.

The American delegation had been willing to pay up to $10 million for New Orleans, but were dumbstruck when the vast territory was offered for $15 million.

The territory of the Louisiana Purchase placed over a modern map. Credit: Natural Earth and Portland State University / Commons.

Livingston did not think that Americans back home would reject the offer, and seeing that the French might change their minds at any point, which would lead to the loss of New Orleans, purchased the territory.

The Louisiana Purchase was by far the largest territorial gain in U.S. history, and was one of Jefferson’s greatest contributions to the nascent Union. Stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, the purchase doubled the size of the United States.

The territory itself was gargantuan, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to Rupert’s Land in the north, and from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west, and the French had sold it to the Americans at a price of less than 3 cents an acre.

A mixture of SA troopers and German citizens destroyed Jewish houses and businesses as well as attacking synagogues. The name Kristallnacht refers to the scattered broken glass that was left in the streets after the incident.

The historian Martin Gilbert argues that Kristallnacht was the most widely-reported event in the history of Jewish persecution.

Accounts from foreign journalists who were working in Germany at the time shocked the world.

Destroyed Jewish shops on Kristallnacht, Nov. 1938.

Background

While Kristallnacht was not rigidly planned, it is believed blueprints for its execution had existed for at least a year prior.

Jews had been harassed by the Nazi government since the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Enabling Act of 1933.

German Jews had fought in the German army in World War One and were well established within society. The Nazis subsequently blamed them for defeat in the War and enacted a series of anti-Jewish laws restricting their rights.

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade racial mixing – the intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews.

Anti-semitic activity grew consistently throughout the 1930s, but historian Eric Johnson suggests that Kristallnacht marked an important turning point in the nature of anti-semitic activity.

Nominally, Kristallnacht was triggered by the killing of a German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath by 17 year old Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan.

But it is not even clear that Grynszpan shot vom Rath for political reasons, as there is considerable evidence of a homosexual affair between the two.

Synagogue of Siegen, Germany, burning during Kristallnacht.

Nonetheless, the Nazi High Command pounced on this opportunity. While they did not directly order the destruction and murder of Kristallnacht, they sanctioned the events and the destruction that occurred.

On learning of the death of vom Rath, Hitler left a commemoration of the Beer Hall Putsch early. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a speech instead, exclaiming that:

“the Führer has decided that… demonstrations should not be prepared or organised by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered.”

Goebbels had essentially ordered a pogrom.

German historian Hans Mommsen believed that the Nazi party’s treasurer, Franz Schwarz, kept local and regional organisations of the party short of money. This meant there was already a great desire from local officials to raise funds by expropriating Jewish businesses.

The order from Goebbels gave these men a chance to exploit that desire.

The destruction of Jewish property

There was widespread looting and pillaging, and over 7,500 Jewish businesses had their storefronts caved in, and their valuables seized. Over 1,400 synagogues and many Jewish cemeteries were also damaged or destroyed.

These synagogues were sometimes centuries old, and objects of historical significance. In Cologne, the Jewish community had been a crucial part of the social fabric of the city for hundreds of years.

Violence took many forms. Tombstones were destroyed and uprooted, with graves violated. Talmudic texts were destroyed and burnt, and other Jewish books and paintings from synagogue libraries were also destroyed. The Nazi press wrote vociferously in support of the attacks.

Eric Lucas, who lived through Kristallnacht, remembered the destruction of one synagogue as such:

“It did not take long before the first heavy grey stones came tumbling down, and the children of the village amused themselves as they flung stones into the many coloured windows. When the first rays of a cold and pale November sun penetrated the heavy dark clouds, the little synagogue was but a heap of stone, broken glass and smashed-up woodwork.”

Many Germans were ashamed of the actions of the Nazis. Supposedly, the son of one US consular official heard someone cry: “They must have emptied the insane asylums and penitentiaries to find people who would do things like that.”

But the reaction varied across the country. Spectators gathered on the scene just to watch the burning, many of them remaining silent. Fire departments restricted themselves to containing the spread of fire, as opposed to actually dousing the flames of Jewish businesses.

One policeman in Berlin, Otto Bellgardt, prevented SA stormtroopers from igniting the New synagogue, receiving a verbal reprimand from the commissioner for his actions.

The aftermath

Kristallnacht was undeniably a critical step on the road to the “Final Solution” and the Holocaust, which saw the systematic genocide of millions of European Jews.

Göring wrote after Kristallnacht that he had:

“received a letter written on the Führer’s orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another… and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.”

Kristallnacht was the moment when the Nazi High Command realised that they could not simply intimidate every Jew into leaving the country.

Jewish people did try to escape persecution and flee, but the more Jewish people that fled, the tighter immigration restrictions became abroad. In 1936, Chaim Weizmann, a leader among British Zionists, had written that:

“the world seemed to be divided into two parts—those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter.”

It could be considered as the actual beginning of the Holocaust.

Much of the destroyed Jewish property expropriated during Kristallnacht was dumped near Brandenburg. Yaron Svoray, an investigative journalist, discovered this site in 2008, which contains Jewish personal and ceremonial items looted during the night spread across four football fields.

These items included mezuzot, glass bottles engraved with the Star of David, and the armrests of chairs found in synagogues, among others.

There is debate over the word ‘Kristallnacht’ itself. Some scholars believe that since the word was actually coined by the Nazis to minimise the suffering of the Jews, we should instead use a different word.

Froma Zeitlin writes that “whether or not the name came into existence as a Nazi euphemism or not, the event itself and what it has come to signify has transformed an ‘innocent’ name into one of unforgettable and dramatic meaning.”

One branch of this propaganda has been christened “careless talk”, and focused on discouraging the discussion of sensitive information about the war effort. Creative posters were made to depict the ways in which information might be leaked. It was also intended to prevent the spread of rumours which might drain morale.

In Britain, one of the most creators of such propaganda was “Fougasse” or Cyril Bird, who was a comic artist.

The government concluded that this nature of talk was not a real source of enemy intelligence, and that such talk would often be dismissed as planted information, the campaign decreased in intensity.

Here are 20 posters discouraging ‘careless talk’.

1. You Never Know Who’s Listening

One of Fougasse’s most famous pieces. Hitler and Göring depicted as listening behind two women on a train gossiping. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

2. Tell Nobody Not Even Her

Persuading soldiers not to share military details with loved ones was an important aspect of these campaigns. Credit: The National Archive / Commons.

3. Keep This Strictly Between These Four Walls

Another famous Fougasse poster. Hitler’s face can be seen in the painting. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

4. Less Dangerous Than Careless Talk

Imagery based on fear was also important. Credit: Boston Public Library / Commons.

5. Careless Talk Costs Lives

A more simplistic but informative poster. Credit: Library and Archives Canada / Commons.

6. Careless Talks Brings Tragedy in Wartime

This poster outlines the dangers of discussing sensitive information. Credit: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco / Commons.

7. Careless Talk Is Pieced Together By the Enemy

This poster attempts to demonstrate the danger of leaking even minor pieces of information. Credit: Boston Public Library / Commons.

8. Award For Careless Talk

This poster attempts to link staying quiet with patriotism, and the potential that one might help the Nazis was intended to discourage careless talk. Credit: U.S. National Archives / Commons.

9. There’s Often A Listener

This poster was part of a widespread concern about spies. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

10. The More You Keep Under Your Hat the Safer He’ll Be Under His

British propaganda poster. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

11. Someone Talked

The U-Boat threat was enough to warrant a specific set of posters attempting to suppress leakage of naval information. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

12. Never Mention Sailing Dates

Another more aggressive poster in the same light, showing the dangers that U-Boats posed. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

13. German Intelligence Officer

This poster relied on instilling fear of the ruthless Nazi. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

14. Furtive Fritz Is Always Listening

A cartoon depicting Furtive Fritz, a caricature of a Nazi. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

15. Look Who’s Listening!

Propaganda would often caricature foreign leaders, particularly Hitler. Credit: U.S. National Archives / Commons.

16. Keep Your Trap Shut!

Posters would also often rely on racist caricatures. Credit: U.S. Nationals Archives / Commons.

17. Mr Hitler Wants To Know!

Another caricature of Hitler. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

18. Free Speech Doesn’t Mean Careless Talk

An American poster. Credit: C. R. Martin / U.S. National Archives / Commons.

19. You Forget, But She Remembers

Talking to women in bars was a familiar trope. It was believed that the Nazi spies might exploit soldiers while they were drunk. Credit: The National Archives / Commons.

20. Zipp It!

American poster encouraging GIs to be careful about sharing information. Credit: U.S. National Archives / Commons.

Header image credit: Commons.