Moroccan Crisis (1905)

One of a string of international incidents that threatened to embroil Europe in war before 1914. In April 1904, France and Britain resolved some of their longstanding differences over Morocco and Egypt. When France attempted to enforce a reform program in Morocco in early 1905 and to extend its influence in the region, Germany decided to challenge France and provoked an international crisis. Arguably, Germany was less concerned for its economic interests in the region than for its international prestige. Resentful at not having been consulted by France and Britain over Morocco and worried about the recently concluded Entente Cordiale, Germany wanted to demonstrate that it was a power that could not simply be bypassed on important colonial matters. Friedrich von Holstein, a senior figure in the German Foreign Office, felt that Germany could not allow its "toes to be trodden on silently." The German Chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, persuaded a reluctant Kaiser Wilhelm II to land in the port of Tangiers on March 31 to stake Germany's claim and to ensure the Sultan of Germany's support.

In addition Germany sought to undermine the Entente and to intimidate the French. During the ensuing diplomatic crisis, Germany insisted on the dismissal of the anti-German French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé and even threatened France with war. In 1904-1905, the Russians were losing their war against Japan, and in January 1905, revolution further weakened Russia, so that France could not rely on Russian support during the crisis. Germany's bullying had the opposite effect, however, and led to a strengthening of the Entente. At the international conference at Algeciras in 1906, convened at the insistence of the German government, Germany was diplomatically isolated and unable to achieve its aim of limiting the extension of French interests in Morocco.

During and after the crisis, Germany began to feel the full effects of its own expansionist foreign policy. British involvement in a future war was now more likely and as a result, Italy, allied to Germany and Austria since 1882, would be a less reliable ally, for it would be unable to defend its long coastlines from Britain and might therefore opt to stay neutral in a future war. France also looked on Germany as a likely future enemy. Far from splitting its potential enemies, Germany had only managed to strengthen their resolve to oppose Germany if necessary.

Algeciras Conference (1906)

The Algeciras Conference was an international conference convened to resolve the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905; it was held at the Spanish port of Algeciras from January 16 to April 7, 1906. Germany had insisted on a conference to resolve its dispute with France over Morocco but found itself isolated at the conference, with support only from Austria-Hungary. Although the conference confirmed Moroccan independence under a Sultan, it granted France and Spain the right to police the country under a Swiss inspector-general and gave France economic control over Morocco. This amounted to a diplomatic defeat for Germany, leading to the resignation of Friedrich von Holstein from the Foreign Office. There could now be no talk of a Franco-German reconciliation. The Entente Cordiale between France and Britain was therefore strengthened by Germany's diplomatic blunder. In 1911, Germany provoked a further confrontation over Morocco in the Agadir Crisis, arguing that France had breached the Algeciras agreement.

Agadir Crisis (1911)

A Great Power crisis aggravating the tense atmosphere of European diplomacy leading to World War I. In the early part of the twentieth century, German's leaders viewed their country as increasingly "encircled" following a number of international crises. These fears increased following the Agadir, or Second Moroccan, Crisis of 1911. Specifically, Berlin resented French military intervention in Morocco in 1911, a move that amounted in effect to the establishment of a French protectorate in Morocco and ran counter to the Algeciras Conference of 1906 and to the Franco- German agreement on Morocco of 1909. In response to the French "dash for Fez" in the spring of 1911, Germany wanted to assert its status as a Great Power, achieve compensation for France's territorial gains, and possibly weaken the Entente Cordiale in the process. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter acted forcefully and was rewarded with an enthusiastic response in Germany. Germany's military leaders advocated a war, but Berlin instead dispatched the gun-boat Panther to the Moroccan port of Agadir to intimidate the French, an event that marked the beginning of the crisis. Berlin demanded the French Congo as compensation for the extension of French influence in Morocco, but France received diplomatic support from Britain so their Germany's action only strengthened rather weakened the links between the Entente partners. This was demonstrated by British Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, in his famous "Mansion House Speech" of July 21, 1911 in which he threatened to fight on France's side against Germany if necessary.

Thus, the crisis produced another German diplomatic defeat despite the fact that Berlin secured a small part of the French Congo as compensation. In Berlin, the defeat resulted in a bellicose anti-French and a particularly anti-British mood. Kiderlen-Wächter did not seek war in 1911, but he was willing to threaten it for diplomatic gains. But in the aftermath of the crisis, demands for a preventive war became widespread. Public enthusiasm for the army became more pronounced, especially as a result of the propaganda work of the German Army League, founded in January 1912. Agadir also had serious international consequences. In France, public mood turned distinctly anti-German. Because Britain and Germany were compensated for French gains in Morocco, Italy decided to annex Libya and Tripolitania in November 1911. Thereafter, enfeebled Turkey became an easy target for the Balkan League during the Balkan Wars of 1912/13. Italy became a less reliable alliance partner for Germany and Austria-Hungary, while the newly strengthened Serbia and Montenegro posed a more serious threat to the Dual Monarchy. The crisis gave rise to the Anglo-French naval agreement, discussed against the backdrop of the events of 1911 and signed in February 1913. Germany's "encirclement" was fast becoming reality.

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A concept of foreign policy emerging in the late nineteenth century in Imperial Germany against the background of the country's rise as a major industrial and trading nation. Coming out of the period of retarded economic growth known as the Great Depression of 1873-1895, German entrepreneurs were pushing for the acquisition of colonies in search of raw materials and markets for their goods. Already in the 1880s, Reich chancellor Otto von Bismarck had responded to these pressures and, in the larger context of the European "scramble for colonies," had acquired territories in Africa and Asia. His successors, and Bernhard von B端low in particular, promoted this overseas expansion even more vigorously after becoming the trusted adviser of Kaiser Wilhelm II, first as foreign secretary and from 1900 as chancellor. He was the person who coined such popular slogans of imperialist power politics as that of Germany seeking "a place in the sun" next to the other Great Powers. In the twentieth century, he added, Germany would either be "the hammer or the anvil" of world politics when it came to a redistribution of colonies and the allocation of territories that had not yet been annexed by the Europeans. Nor did he leave any doubt that he wanted Germany to be a hammer.

Given these claims, there has been a good deal of debate among historians as to the meaning of Weltpolitik. In the early years after World War II, most scholars tended to interpret it as some rather aimless yearning for prestige and for recognition of Germany as a latecomer to the international system, especially by Britain, then the dominant power in the world. No doubt Weltpolitik lacked precision in the public discourse of the time. But later work, based on newly discovered archival sources, has shown that this indeterminacy was more deliberate and that behind the slogans of the day there was a precise and well-thought-out strategy to make certain that Germany would succeed at the bargaining table when, as was widely expected, there would be a redistribution of colonies in the new century. Thus the ailing Portuguese Empire was thought to be an object of future power-political negotiation.

The kaiser and his advisers in the late 1890s were convinced that the German voice would not be heard unless it was backed up by military might. Although Germany had the strongest army in Europe, it was also clear that it would be useless against British naval power. Only a large German navy would be able to buttress future German claims. This is why it has been argued more recently that Weltpolitik, the vagueness of its definition for popular consumption notwithstanding, did have a hardcore plan to expand the Imperial navy into a powerful instrument that was capable of challenging even the Royal Navy. The fate of Weltpolitik was therefore inseparably linked to the success or failure of the kaiser's naval program. By 1910-1911, both had run into serious trouble. In 1909 B端low lost his job, not least because his Weltpolitik diplomacy had led to the isolation of Germany. He could not prevent the conclusion of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale in 1904, nor the formation of the Triple Entente of 1907, which brought in Russia. By 1911, it was also evident that the Tirpitz Plan was at its end, because the British, suspicious of German naval expansion, had "outbuilt" the kaiser in the arms competition that also began around 1904-1905.

Weltpolitik was now replaced by a retreat by Germany to the European continent. Stepped-up expenditure for the army began to replace the earlier massive funding of the navy. Berlin began to support its only reliable ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and developed a siege mentality that contributed to the attempt to break out of the perceived encirclement of this Dual Alliance by Britain, France, and Russia in July 1914. The unleashing of World War I was therefore a preventive strike against France and Russia before the position of the two Central European powers had deteriorated to the point where the armies of the former could no longer be defeated, that is, before it was too late and the latter would become the "anvils" of the great power system.

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Francis II was the last Holy Roman emperor, the first emperor of Austria, and king of Hungary and Bohemia. Francis Joseph Charles was born on February 12, 1768, in Florence. The eldest son of Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany and future Holy Roman emperor, and his wife, Archduchess Maria Louisa of Spain, Francis would have 15 siblings. He was reared by a gentle governess in simple surroundings. Through private tutors, Francis was taught religion, languages, translation, history, writing, arithmetic, and sports in a strict daily educational regimen that began at 7 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m. Exacting order combined with a methodical upbringing were his educational mainstays. Francis enjoyed learning about the historical vagaries of Europe's royal houses. He concluded that the downfall of Athens was due to its democratic form of government and distrusted the idea of letting the people take part in government. Francis became a steadfast and absolute conservative, his beliefs never wavering.

Francis grew up to be vain, arrogant, miserly, deceitful, suspicious, and critical. He scarcely paid attention to his lessons, often misbehaved, and was apathetic to matters not directly related to him. He moved to Vienna and joined his uncle Emperor Joseph II in 1784. Francis's work habits changed; he learned to work diligently and attained an encyclopedic knowledge. In Vienna he began to assemble what would become a 40,000-volume library and a magnificent portrait collection. Francis disagreed with Emperor Joseph's liberal innovations, and as a future monarch he tried to learn what mistakes to avoid.

To complete his studies, Francis became involved in the Habsburg Empire's military affairs, which he enjoyed. This final component of his education taught him an immense capacity for work, a trait that never deserted him. He studied every aspect of military affairs in excruciatingly close detail. Francis also fought in numerous battles and learned to enjoy war. He also traveled extensively through his uncle's domains and took copious notes in his journals about the places he visited and the characteristics of the people he met. Francis also demonstrated a strong interest in the economies and societies of the lands through which he traveled.

Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II arranged Francis's marriage to Duchess Elizabeth Wilhelmina Louise of Württemberg. The ceremony was held on January 6, 1788, but Elizabeth died on February 19, 1790, after a difficult birth. The baby, Ludovica, herself died 16 months later. Further tragedy in Francis's life ensued: Emperor Joseph died on March 1, and on May 15, Francis's mother died. His second marriage to a cousin, Maria Theresa of the Kingdom of Naples, on August 15, 1790, produced 12 children, of whom only 7 reached adulthood.

Upon Joseph II's death, Francis became Holy Roman emperor on March 1, 1792, at the age of 24. He inherited a troubling legacy: the Holy Roman Empire consisted of far-fl ung domains, from the Austrian Netherlands in the Low Countries to the middle of Europe, including most of Germany and parts of northern Italy, and of eastern Europe, consisting of present-day Croatia, Hungary, and Bohemia. These countries were populated by multiethnic groups who vied with one another for primacy. Francis also faced territorial encroachment, not only from Russia, Prussia, and the Ottoman Empire, but more ominously from France.

Francis strongly opposed the ideology behind the French Revolution, which preached the spread of equality and liberty not only throughout France but beyond her borders. Queen Marie Antoinette, Francis's aunt, and her husband, King Louis XVI, had both been guillotined in 1793. His cousins, the couple's children, were kept in prison, where 10-year-old Louis XVII died.

Francis fought against the French in five wars during his reign. His determination to maintain the status of his royal house led to several foreign policy disasters during his period of rule. The Treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797) not only destroyed the First Coalition against France but also substantially redrew the map of Europe. As a result of this settlement, Francis was forced to cede Belgium to France, by which he lost 1.5 million subjects, in exchange for Venice, Istria, Friuli, and Dalmatia, by which he gained a half-million subjects. He also ceded some islands in the Mediterranean, including Corfu. The French were guaranteed free navigation of the Rhine, Moselle, and Meuse rivers, and Austria was forced to recognize the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics-satellite states of revolutionary France.

As a result of French victories at the battles of Marengo and of Hohenlinden on June 14 and December 3, 1800, respectively, on February 9, 1801, Francis was forced to conclude the Treaty of Lunéville, which confirmed and extended the terms of Campo Formio. Austria was the principal member of the Second Coalition against France but was defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, as a result of which Francis had, by the Treaty of Pressburg on December 26, to cede Venice, Tyrol, Swabia, and Dalmatia to France or her allies. On August 6, 1806, Napoleon forced Francis to renounce his title as Holy Roman emperor and assume in its stead the designation of Emperor Francis I of Austria.

In 1806 Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine, which initially consisted of 16 German states that had been part of the Holy Roman Empire under Francis. Napoleon used the territory, with a population of 15 million inhabitants, as a counterbalance to Austria and Prussia. The Confederation would eventually accept 23 more German states. Napoleon created the kingdoms of Württemberg and Bavaria as well as grand duchies and principalities, all under his auspices. As part of the Fifth Coalition, Austria was again defeated in 1809. The Treaty of Schönbrunn, signed on October 14, 1809, cost the Habsburgs considerable territorial losses, and nearly 2 million inhabitants found themselves under new rulers.

In 1810 Napoleon stood at the height of his power, but only after making many enemies. Francis had little choice but to allow his daughter Archduchess Marie Louise to marry the French emperor on March 11, 1810, in Vienna, and on April 1 in Paris. The marriage was politically arranged by Austrian foreign minister Clemens von Metternich and produced a son, Napoleon II, known as the king of Rome.

Austria was finally victorious in the campaigns against Napoleon of 1813 and 1814 as a result of a grand alliance with Russia, Prussia, and Britain. The Congress of Vienna, which convened in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, largely returned Europe back to the conservative style of politics that had existed before the French Revolution. Francis himself, who believed his authority was granted by God, vehemently opposed the influence of revolutionary thought in Austria, where he strictly adhered to the repressive policies pursued by Metternich despite the criticism he received from liberals throughout Europe who deemed him a tyrant. Francis opposed reform and insisted on employing his own antiquated methods of governance, as a result of which the Habsburg political system grew stagnant. Francis died in Vienna on March 2, 1835, and was buried in the Imperial Crypt.

Battle of Lake George 1755. The image illustrates the British fortified camp on the right. Lake George is to the British rear. The French are attacking from the left side of the image.

(1701-September 8, 1767)

French Army Officer

Dieskau was the capable French second in command during initial phases of the French and Indian War. However, by violating strict instructions not to divide his army, he was beaten by the British at the Battle of Lake George and captured.

Baron Jean-Armand Dieskau was born in the German state of Saxony in 1701 and joined the military at an early age. Like many German mercenaries he journeyed to France in 1720; he was appointed aide-de-camp to Maurice de Saxe, the great French marshal. For the next two and a half decades, Dieskau accompanied de Saxe in his numerous campaigns and was present at the victory of Fontenoy in 1745 as a cavalry colonel. Dieskau was apparently a thoroughly competent professional soldier, and in 1747 he made major general and gained appointment as military governor of Brest, an important French naval base. Prior to the onset of the French and Indian War in 1755, he was dispatched to Canada as second in command under Governor-General Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil. He arrived at Quebec that March, being in control of French regular forces, but completely subordinate to Vaudreuil in matters of military strategy.

The defeat of British Gen. Edward Braddock at Monongahela in July 1755 resulted in the capture of his official papers. Through them, the French were alerted to forthcoming British offensives and drew up plans of their own to counter them. Vaudreuil considered an anticipated British assault upon Fort St. Frederic (Crown Point, New York), particularly menacing to New France, so he instructed Dieskau to preempt enemy plans by reducing British forts at Oswego. While assembling an army of 4,000 regulars, militia, and Indians at Fort Frontenac (present-day Kingston, Ontario), Dieskau learned of an impending British attack against Fort St. Frederic conducted by Col. William Johnson. Vaudreuil promptly recalled Dieskau to Montreal in August 1755 and dispatched French forces down the Richelieu River to intercept the Americans near Lake George. Prior to departing, Dieskau was specifically advised by the governor-general to keep his force united to ensure maximum military effectiveness.

En route, Dieskau paused briefly to erect a new fort at Carillon (Ticonderoga) before proceeding with 1,500 regulars, 1,000 militia, and 600 Indians. Johnson approached from the south at the head of 3,000 militia and 300 Mohawk Indians. Once informed of Dieskau's activities, Johnson fortified the head of Lake George by erecting a primitive work that later evolved into Fort William Henry. Dieskau watched British movements carefully, and he anticipated that the bulk of Johnson's forces were divided. Intelligence was received that only 500 regulars protected his main base at Fort Edward, 14 miles below the lake. Seeking to capture the fort's garrison while possibly isolating Johnson at Lake George, Dieskau thereupon ordered an immediate advance. It was an audacious move, yet he divided his army against orders, advancing with only 200 regulars, 600 militia, and 700 Indians. The bulk of his forces, 1,300 regulars and 400 militia, remained behind at Ticonderoga to protect it from attack. The French commander was acutely aware that regular soldiers were a precious commodity and could not be easily replaced, so he sought to preserve them. Historians today attribute this fatal parceling to Dieskau's disdain for the colonial troops opposing him.

Approaching Fort Edward, the French Indians grew skittish and stated that they would not attack there owing to the presence of many large cannons. Dieskau had little recourse other than to suggest hitting Johnson's main force at Lake George, which was then only partially entrenched. When the Indians agreed, the French march resumed, and on September 8, 1755, Dieskau's forces took up ambush positions along the wagon road. Johnson, meanwhile, had dispatched 1,000 militia and Indians, under Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk Chief Theyanoguin, back to Fort Edward for additional security. The Americans had nearly walked into the French trap before the Indians sprang it prematurely. A confused but deadly firefight then erupted, and Dieskau's force routed its opponent, killing both Williams and Theyanoguin. The French and Indian force hotly pursued the fleeing colonials right up to their camp, which Johnson hastily fortified with overturned wagons, boats, and anything else that provided cover. A decisive French victory seemed looming.

The error of Dieskau's earlier mistake now became clear. With his militia and Indians dispersed and fatigued, he had only 200 regulars available to attack Johnson's entire camp. Badly outnumbered, these professional soldiers marched in perfect formation to within musket range, then traded volleys with more numerous defenders for several hours. Both sides sustained heavy losses, and Dieskau, directing the action under fire, sustained three leg wounds. He nonetheless continued directing the battle while propped up against a tree. Unable to sustain the stalemate further, he finally ordered a complete withdrawal. Dieskau himself, however, refused to fall back, preferring death or capture to defeat. After being shot one more time by a French renegade, the Baron was taken and the action concluded.

Baron de Dieskau: Letter to Count D'Argenson (September 14, 1755).

M. De Contrecoeur, Captain of Infantry, Commandant of Fort Duquesne, on the Ohio, having been informed that the English were taking up arms in Virginia for the purpose of coming to attack him, was advised, shortly afterwards, that they were on the march. He dispatched scouts, who reported to him faithfully their progress. On the 17th instant he was advised that their army, consisting of 3000 regulars from Old England, were within six leagues of this fort. That officer employed the next day in making his arrangements; and on the ninth detached M. de Beaujeu, seconded by Messrs Dumas and de Lignery, all three Captains, together with four Lieutenants, 6 Ensigns, 20 Cadets, 100 Soldiers, 100 Canadians and 600 Indians, with orders to lie in ambush at a favorable spot, which he had reconnoitred the previous evening. The detachment, before it could reach its place of destination, found itself in presence of the enemy within three leagues of that fort. Mr de Beaujeu, finding his ambush had failed, decided on an attack. This he made with so much vigor as to astonish the enemy, who were waiting for us in the best possible order; but their artillery, loaded with grade (a cartouche), having opened its fire, our men gave way in turn. The Indians, also, frightened by the report of the cannon rather than by any damage it could inflict, began to yield, when M. de Beaujeu was killed. M. Dumas began to encourage his detachment. He ordered the officers in command of the Indians to spread themselves along the wings so as to take the enemy in flank, whilst he, M. de Lignery and the other officers who led the French, were attacking them in front. This order was executed so promptly that the enemy, who were already shouting their "Long live the King," thought now only of defending themselves. The fight was obstinate on both sides and success long doubtful; but the enemy at last gave way. Efforts were made, in vain, to introduce some sort of order in their retreat. The whoop of the Indians, which echoed through the forest, struck terror into the hearts of the entire enemy. The rout was complete. We remained in possession of the field with six brass twelves and sixes, four howitz-carriages of 50, 11 small royal grenade mortars, all their ammunition, and, generally, their entire baggage. Some deserters, who have come in since, have told us that we had been engaged with only 2000 men, the remainder of the army being four leagues further off. These same deserters have informed us that the enemy were retreating to Virginia, and some scouts, sent as far as the height of land, have confirmed this by reporting that the thousand men who were not engaged, had been equally panic-stricken and abandoned both provisions and ammunition on the way. On this intelligence, a detachment was dispatched after them, which destroyed and burnt everything that could be found. The enemy have left more than 1000 men on the field of battle. They have lost a great portion of the artillery and ammunition, provisions, as also their General, whose name was Mr Braddock, and almost all their officers. We have had 3 officers killed; 2 officers and 2 cadets wounded. Such a victory, so entirely unexpected, seeing the inequality of the forces, is the fruit of Mr Dumas' experience, and of the activity and valor of the officers under his command.

The British claimed a great victory at Lake George, and William Johnson was knighted as a consequence. They had bested the French in a stand-up fight and, more important, captured the second-highest-ranking French officer in Canada. However, Lake George proved itself a hollow victory, for Johnson's offensive was permanently derailed while French forces remained strongly entrenched at Ticonderoga. Furthermore, within a year they would advance down the Champlain Valley again and capture Fort William Henry under the aegis of a new general, Louis-Joseph Montcalm, Dieskau's successor. Dieskau survived his injuries and was eventually transferred to London. He was finally repatriated to France in 1763 and died near Paris on September 8, 1767.

Bibliography

Chartrand, Rene. Canadian Military Heritage. 2 vols. Montreal: Art Global, 1994-2000; Coolidge, Guy O. The French Occupation of the Champlain Valley from 1609 to 1759. Fleischmanns, NY: Purple Mountain Press, 1999; Kemmer, Brenton. Redcoats, Yankees, and Allies: A History of the Uniforms, Clothing, and Gear of the British Army in the Lake George-Lake Champlain Corridor, 1755-1760. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1998; Krueger, John W. A Most Memorable Day: The Battle of Lake George. Saranac, NY: Center for Adriondack Studies, North County Community College, 1980; Nicolai, Martin L. "Subjects and Citizens: French Officers and the North American Experience, 1755-1783." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Queen's University, 1992; Starbuck, David R. The Great Warpath: British Military Sites from Albany to Crown Point. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999; Steele, Ian K. Guerrillas and Grenadiers: The Struggle for Canada, 1689-1760. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1969; Williams, Noel S. Redcoats Along the Hudson: The Struggle For North America, 1754-63. Hendon, VA: Brassey's, 1998.

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German armour, some ex-French army captured in 1940, destroyed at the Jardin du Luxembourg.

On August 17, 1944, Patton's troops had reached the river Seine, northwest and southeast of Paris. But the Allies were not planning to capture Paris immediately. They did not want a battle that might destroy the famous monuments, historic buildings, and artistic treasures of the city. They did not want to risk the lives of the people of Paris. And, perhaps most of all, they did not want to have to supply the city with food and fuel. All their trucks were being used to supply the armored divisions that were trying to destroy the retreating German army.

But Paris was not just a great city; it was the symbol of France. Liberating Paris from the Germans had political as well as military importance. General Eisenhower had long since promised that the first Allied troops to enter Paris would be French.

Although the different resistance organizations and movements were supposed to be united under the authority of General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French, there were many conflicts among them. One of the most important resistance organizations was dominated by the French Communist Party. They did not trust de Gaulle's plans for postwar France, and he did not trust theirs. The Communists wanted the people of Paris to rise up and liberate themselves from the Germans, not wait for the American army to free them. De Gaulle's supporters were afraid this would lead to a bloodbath if it failed, and they were also afraid that it would lead to Communist control of the city if it succeeded. On the other hand, de Gaulle's supporters also wanted to fight the Germans and regain the honor that France had lost in the surrender of 1940.

As tensions mounted in Paris and the Allied armies began to break out of Normandy, the Germans ordered the French police in Paris to be disarmed, fearing their weapons would be used by the resistance. The police went on strike instead. Other workers were also on strike, defying the Germans.

On August 17, 1944, the police took over the main police headquarters in central Paris, barricaded themselves, and raised the French flag above the building-the first time it had flown in Paris since June 1940.

Soon other barricades appeared on the streets of the city. Young men and women, armed with rifles, pistols, and homemade gasoline bombs called Molotov cocktails, attacked German patrols. Resistance groups began taking over official buildings. Some of the buildings were now empty; in others, there was heavy fighting against the Germans. Similar small actions occurred throughout the city. By the standards of the great battles in Russia and Normandy, these did not amount to a major military action. Even so, about 1,500 French resistance fighters died in the next few days, and another 3,000 were wounded-more than the number of American soldiers who had been killed or wounded on Omaha beach on D-Day.

A German general's honor

For the next several days, the fighting in Paris spread. After a short truce, arranged by the representative of neutral Sweden, the fighting broke out again. On August 22, Hitler ordered the Germans to destroy Paris rather than surrender. He told the German military commander Dietrich von Choltitz that only a "field of ruins" should be left. Von Choltitz did not want to be remembered as the man who had blown up Paris, no matter what Hitler ordered. Destroying bridges, to prevent the Allies from crossing the Seine, was one thing. But dynamiting famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre Museum made no military sense. It went against his idea of military honor.

But von Choltitz's sense of honor also would not allow him to surrender without putting up a fight. And he felt he could not surrender to a bunch of armed civilians, only to officers of a regular army. In addition, on July 20 there had been an attempt by some German officers to kill Hitler. Von Choltitz knew that any sign of disobeying Hitler's orders would put him under suspicion of being part of the anti-Hitler plot and would endanger his family back home in Germany.

The Second Armored Division

As news of the uprising reached the Allied commanders, the French Second Armored Division, which had been among the best Allied forces in the recent battle around Falaise, received new orders. It was to move immediately to Paris, 120 miles away. The next day, August 23, the division sped along the roads toward Paris, avoiding the Germans as much as possible. On August 24, as they reached the suburbs, they were held up several times by German antitank defenses.

Their advance was also slowed by the crowds and celebrations that broke out along their route. One American general accused them of "dancing to Paris." Afraid that American troops would be ordered to take the city, the French commander, General Philippe Leclerc, decided to send a small force into Paris that night.

One platoon of soldiers (about thirty men) and three tanks headed into the city, turning down side streets and going around any defended position. At 9:30 that night, they reached the Paris City Hall, near the center of town. Even though it was only three tanks, church bells began to ring all over Paris, as the fighting between the resistance and the Germans continued.

At seven the next morning, Leclerc's main force entered the city from the south. Huge crowds-sometimes twenty deep-cheered them. At first, the Parisians thought that American troops had arrived, since the tanks and jeeps and even the uniforms were American. The celebrations were even more joyful when it became clear that the soldiers were French.

The crowds passed them food and drink and flowers. They opened bottles of champagne that had been hidden away for more than four years, waiting for this day. Women hugged and kissed the liberating troops.

Many of the French soldiers were from Paris. They passed notes to people in the crowd, asking them to phone their families with the news they had come home. Some of these soldiers died before they could see their families, however. In the rush of happiness, the crowds had forgotten that the Germans were still fighting in Paris.

As Leclerc's men approached the center of Paris, many German positions held out fiercely. At about 2:30 in the afternoon of August 25, 1944, some of the French troops reached German headquarters, fought their way in, and captured General von Choltitz. The French drove him to police headquarters, where Leclerc was waiting. The two generals signed the terms of the German surrender of Paris. A little while later, one of the leaders of the resistance added his name. The people of Paris and the French army had freed Paris together.

Chronology of the Liberation

* Tuesday 15 August 1944 - Strike of the Police and métro.

* Wednesday 16 - Postal strike.

* Thursday 17 - Radio-Paris ends transmissions.

o The BBC announces the occupation of Chartres, Dreux and Orléans.

o Debates at the C.N.R., C.P.L. and C.O.M.A.C. regarding the opportunities for starting an insurrection.

o 12h30 - Raoul Nordling, Swedish Consul General consul signs an agreement at the Hôtel Majestic and takes custody of political detainees.

o 18h30 - Pierre Laval presides over the last meeting of Ministers.

o 19h30 - Maréchal Pétain is ``invited'' by the Germans to leave for the East.

o 22h - Pierre Laval charges the Préfet de la Seine and the Préfet de Police to represent the government.

o 23h30 - Pierre Laval leaves the Hôtel Matignon for a destination in the east with a German escort.

* Friday 18 (morning) - No edition of the collaborationist press.

o Strike of the PTT (Post, Telephone and Telegraph).

o Afternoon - Notices and posters of Colonel Rol and elected communists proclaiming a general mobilization and calling the people of Paris to an insurrection, appear on the walls of the city.

* Saturday 19 - The first combat of the insurrection.

o Occupation of the municipal buildings, ministries, newspaper offices.

o 8h - The Resistance occupies the Prefecture of Police.

o 8h15 - Maréchal Pétain leaves Vichy for the East, under a German escort.

o 11h - C.N.R. and the C.P.L. and make an appeal for an insurrection.

o 11h15 - Luizet assumes the functions of Préfet de Police.

o 13h - Parodi puts all of the forces of the Resistance under the orders of Colonel Rol.

o After 14h - German attack against the Préfecture de Police.

o 15h30 - Germans attack the town hall of Neuilly.

o 17h30 - At the instigation of Nordling, General von Choltitz, makes initial contact with the Resistance.

o 18h - Parodi gives the order to evacuate the Préfecture de police.

o 20h40 - A cease-fire of 45 minutes is agreed upon at the Préfecture de police.

o 21h40 The cease-fire is extended until the next day.

o 23h - 24h - Attack of the Hotel de Ville is planned.

* Sunday 20 - Street combat continues.

o The Americans enter Fontainbleau and cross the Seine at Mantes.

o Morning - Général de Gaulle, flies from Cherbourg to General Eisenhower near Mans.

o 6h15 - Occupation of the Hotel de Ville.

o 9h - Negotiations at the Swedish Consulate toward extending the cease-fire.

o 10h30 - The C.N.R. accepts the cease-fire extension.

o 14h15 - Colonel Lizé declairs all discussions with the enemy as an ``act of treason.''

o 14h45 - Arrest of Parodi.

o 15h30 - Loudspeaker trucks from the Préfecture de police announce the cease-fire.

o 17h - Flouret assumes his functions at the Préfecture de la Seine.

o 18h30 - Parodi is released.

o 24h - The C.O.M.A.C. and adopts a memorandum against the cease-fire.

* Monday 21 - Despite the cease-fire, street combat continues.

o 11h - The C.P.L. proposes ending the cease-fire.

o 12h - Général Leclerc sends a preliminary detachment toward Paris.

o End of the afternoon - Newspapers of the Resistance sold.

o 19 h - The C.N.R. decides to end the cease-fire.

o 19h30 - Colonel Lizé gives the order to strengthen the barricades.

* Tuesday 22 - Fighting in the streets reach its maximum intensity.

o Paris becomes covered with barricades.

o 9h - Commandant F.F.I. Gallois arrives at the HQ of General Bradley.

o 10h - 12h - General Eisenhower receives Generals Bradley and Koenig.

o Meeting of the General Secretaries at the Hôtel Matignon; presided over by Parodi.

o 15h30 Proclamation of Colonel Rol.

o 18h - Nordling mission to the Allies leaves

o 19h15 - General Bradley gives Général Leclerc the order to march on Paris.

* Wednesday 23 - Street combat less frequent than the day before.

o General von Choltitz receives the order calling for the maximum destruction of Paris.

o 6h30 - The 2nd French Armored Division drives toward Paris.

o 9h - Grand Palais is burned.

o 12h30 - French radio in London prematurely announces the liberation of Paris.

o Afternoon - General von Choltitz threatens to attack the public buildings with heavy arms.

* Thursday 24 - Street combat is less vigorous than the day before.

o 7h - The 2nd French Armored Division leaves the region around Rambouillent and d'Arpajon. It advances while in combat the entire day.

o 19h - The group under Billotte arrives at the crossing Croix-de-Berny.

o 20h - French radio's announcement of the arrival of the 2nd French Armored Division leads to enthusiasm among the people.

o 20h45 - Captain Dronne arrives at the Hotel de Ville with a few tanks.

o 21h30 - The group under Langlande arrives at the Pont de Sèvres.

o 23h - German batteries on the Longchamp fire on the 15th arrondissement.

* Friday 25, 7h45 - Billotte's group enters Paris.

o 10h - Colonel Billotte sends an ultimatum to General von Choltitz.

o 14h - Langlade's group arrives at Place de l'Etoile.

o 14h30 - Discussions at the Majestic Hotel.

o 14h45 - Discussions with General von Choltitz regarding capitulation at the Préfecture de police.

o 15h30 - General von Choltitz signs the act of surrender at the Préfecture de police.

o 16h15 Général de Gaulle arrives at the Gare Montparnasse.

o 17h20 - Discussion regarding German strongholds in the city.

o 19h - Général de Gaulle is received at the Hotel de Ville, and delivers speech.

* Saturday 26 - Colonel Roumianzoff pushes elements of the 2nd French Armored Division in the North of Paris.

o 11h30 - Cardinal Suhard is asked to not preside over the ceremony at Notre Dame.

o 15h - 15h45 - Général de Gaulle is acclaimed by the people of Paris as he walks from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame.

o 15h45 - A fusillade rings out at the place du Parvis Notre-Dame and at numerous other points of the march.

o 23h45 Aerial bombardment of Paris.

* Sunday 27 - Leclerc's division attains northern front of Paris at Aulnay-sous-Bois, Blanc, Mesnil, Dugny, Pierrefitte, Montmorency.

* Monday 28 - The 2nd French Armored Division moves beyond the Gennevilliers loop and attains Gonesse.

* Tuesday 29 - The 28th US Infantry Division marches down the Champs Elysées and into combat that same day.

* Thursday 31 - The seat of the Provisional Government is transferred to Paris.

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The Crusader Forces

The Novgorodian Army

Lake Peipus, April 5th, 1242 AD

In the spring of 1242, the Teutonic knights defeated a reconnaissance detachment of Novgorodians about 20 km south of the fortress of Dorpat, now Tartu. The knights, lead by the Prince-Bishop of Dorpat Hermann I of Buxhoeveden and auxiliary troops of local Ugaunian Estonians then met with Alexander's forces by the narrow strait that connects the northern and southern parts of Lake Peipus (Lake Peipus proper with Lake Pskovskoe) on April 5, 1242. Alexander, intending to fight in a place of his own choosing, retreated in efforts to draw the often over-confident Crusaders to the frozen lake.

The Crusader forces likely numbered somewhere in the area of 2,000 to 2,500 soldiers. Most of the Knights were German, although there also were a large number of Danes, and the army also included large numbers of Swedish and Estonian mercenaries. The Russian force in contrast numbered around 6,000 soldiers.

What is known of the battle is very simple. The Crusader knights charged across the lake on the ice towards Nevsky's positions on the eastern shore at a place known as "Raven's Rock," with the Danes on the left, the Teutonic Knights in the center, and the Livonian feudal knight contingent on the right, followed at a great distance by the Estonian foot.

Alexander placed his Novgorod militia foot in the center on the shoreline to absorb this charge, which was probably aimed at capturing Nevsky himself, with the reserve cavalry in the center. To his right, he placed his strong Druzhina cavalry wing, reinforced by Mongol horse archers, to outflank and destroy the Danes. On his left, was a weaker wing of cavalry to confront the feudal knights.

Apparently these flank elements did their jobs, repulsing and driving off the two crusader wings. This resulted in the encirclement and destruction of the Teutonic knights in the center, who were now too deeply engaged with the Russian foot to extricate themselves.

The battle was decided more by the impetuosity of charging into the center, and being doubly-enveloped, than by any collapse of the ice that was so popularized in the movie.

But, according to contemporary Russian chronicles, after hours of hand-to-hand fighting, Alexander ordered the left and right wings of his archers to enter the battle. The knights by this time were exhausted from the constant fighting and struggling with the slippery surface of the frozen lake. The Crusaders started to retreat in disarray deeper onto the ice, and the appearance of the fresh Russian cavalry made them run for their lives. Under the weight of their heavy armor, the thin ice started to collapse, and many knights drowned (this is the theme of the Alexander Nevsky movie, and the painting you find on books and model box tops). Only "the Grand Master, some bishops, and a handful of mounted knights" managed to return back to Dorpat (Tartu) after the battle.

This battle was significant in that it was the last major attempt by the Germans to break into Russia proper for several centuries, and the Russians used this aggression as a popular myth to support their propaganda campaigns against German expansionism in the 20th century. Four years after defeating the Teutonic Order, Alexander Nevsky would submit to the Mongols.

There is apparently some debate on the details and significance if the Battle of Lake Peipus. My sources are: "The Northern Crusades" by C. Christiensen, and "The Teutonic Knights" by W. Urban.

1. The actual bone of contention was the town of Pskov, which was ruled by Novgorod, but right on the border of land claimed by the Bishop of Dorpat. There were rival factions in Pskov, one of which wished to align more closely with the German Livonians. In the early winter of 1241-1242 that faction essentially opened the gates of Pskov to a small Livonian "Crusader" force that took charge of the town without a fight. They were only able to get away with this because Alexander Nevsky and the Novgorodian army were on the eastern border trying to defend against the Mongols.

2.Realizing that they couldn't hold the town against a real assault, which was expected when Prince Alexander finally figured out what happened, the Bishop called for help from the Livonians, the Teutonic Knights, the Danes and anyone else who he could call on in the depths of winter. It was not an offensive push against Novgorod, but a reinforcement of the puny garrison at Pskov.

3. Numbers are hard to pin down, but the figure of 2,000 is probably reasonable. Only a very small number were Teutonic Knights, and they were not running the show. There simply weren't many Knight Brothers in the territory at that time - it was only 6 years after the Sword Brothers were almost wiped out at Saule, a year after the Battle of Leignitz, and the year of a major tribal revolt in Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order was still in Acre, and even the Livonian Provincial Master was physically in Prussia in 1242. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle indicated that the highest ranking Knight lost at Lake Peipus was a Komtur, and that he and his men were all killed - so that's what? Maybe a dozen Knight Brothers and twice that number of sergeants? The Order was hard up for manpower, and couldn't really afford to lose any more than they had to, but this was hardly a huge loss for them. Leignitz, Saule, and the Prussian Revolt were all much worse.

4. None of the various contemporary sources talk about anybody breaking through the ice. This doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that there's no historical evidence that it did. Both the Knights and the Novgorodians were experienced at winter fighting, and would likely have been able to avoid that kind of problem.

5. The sum and total result of the Battle was that Pskov returned to Novgorodian control, and the Livonian/Novgorodian border returned to status quo ante- again, there had not been any grand offensive scheme on the the part of the German Livonians, just an attempt to secure a lucky acquisition. Alexander didn't press his advantage. After a few retaliatory raids, he returned to facing the real threat to Novgorod - the Mongols. The Novgorodian Chronicles celebrated it (obviously) but the battle's significance is questionable. It certainly made for a neat movie, but it wasn't one of the decisive battles of history.

ALEXANDER YAROSLAVICH

(1220-1263), known as Alexander Nevsky, prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Vladimir, grand prince of Kiev, and progenitor of the princes of Moscow.

Born around 1220, Alexander was the grandson of Vsevolod Yurevich "Big Nest." Between the years 1228 and 1233 he and his elder brother, Fyodor, ruled Novgorod in the name of their father Yaroslav of Pereyaslavl Zalessky. After Fyodor's death in 1233, Alexander's younger brother Andrei helped him to expand Novgorod's lands and to increase the prince's control over the town. In 1238 the Tatars invaded Suzdalia but bypassed Novgorod. Nevertheless, the town's expansion into the neighboring Finnish lands was challenged by the Swedes and by German Knights (the Order of Livonian Swordbearers, joined later by the Teutonic Order). In 1240, when the Swedes marched against Novgorod, Alexander and a small force confronted the enemy at the river Neva and routed them. He thereby secured Novgorod's outlet to the Baltic Sea and earned the sobriquet "Nevsky" (of the Neva). After his brilliant victory, he quarreled with the Novgorodians and withdrew to Pereyaslavl Zalessky. But less than a year later the Germans seized Pskov and threatened Novgorod's commerce, therewith forcing the citizens to bring back Nevsky on his terms. He arrived in 1241 and began reclaiming Novgorod's lost territories, including neighboring Pskov. He confronted the main force of Teutonic Knights on the frozen Lake Chud (Lake Peypus) where, on April 5, 1242, he defeated them in the famous "battle on the ice." The next year the Knights and the Novgorodians concluded peace. This allowed Nevsky to continue asserting Novgorod's jurisdiction over the Finns and to wage war against the encroaching Lithuanians.

After his father died in 1246, Nevsky visited Khan Batu in Saray who sent him to the Great Khan at Karakorum in Mongolia. He came home in 1249 as the grand prince of Kiev and of all Rus, including Novgorod, to which he returned. However, his younger brother Andrei received the patrimonial domain of Vladimir on the Klyazma. After Nevsky visited the Golden Horde in 1252, the khan sent a punitive force against Andrei because he had rebelled against the khan. The Tatars drove him out of Vladimir. Nevsky succeeded him and gained jurisdiction over Suzdalia and Novgorod. Because he was a subservient vassal, the khan let him centralize his control over the other towns of Suzdalia. He also served the khan faithfully by suppressing opposition to the khan's policies, with the help of the Tatar army. Nevertheless, after the citizens of many towns rebelled against the Tatar census takers, Nevsky interceded, evidently successfully, on behalf of his people. In 1262, on his fourth visit to the Golden Horde, he fell ill. While returning home he became a monk and died at Gorodets on the Volga on November 14, 1263.

Although Nevsky's valor was generally admired, his collaboration with the Tatars was criticized by his contemporaries and by historians. Metropolitan Cyril, however, exonerated the prince in his "Life of Alexander Nevsky," and the church canonized him during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible).

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Coastal Command played a crucial role in the hunt for the Bismarck, the largest battleship afloat which, in May 1943, broke out into the Atlantic sinking HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, on the way. Bismarck, in company with the Prinz Eugen, a heavy cruiser, posed the most serious surface threat to convoys yet faced. Ships of the Royal Navy chased the Bismarck for several days but lost contact on 25 May. Air Chief Marshal Bowhill himself redirected the air search for Bismarck on to a south-easterly course. He was rewarded when a Catalina of 209 Squadron piloted by Pilot Officer D A Briggs found the Bismarck on 26 May enabling the Royal Navy to attack and sink her.

Bismarck. German 247 m long 50,000-ton battleship with eight 38 cm guns, top speed 30 knots, and a 2100 men crew, built in 1939. Bismarck sank HMS Hood in May, 1941 in the North Atlantic. Shortly after that, off the French coast, Bismarck was attacked by British torpedo-carrying aircraft. One of the torpedoes (too weak to penetrate the hull) got stuck in Bismarck's rudder without exploding. The steering was jammed and the ship doomed to spin in circles.

The "linkage" for the rudder was jammed. This was down in a flooded compartment. Divers reached the linkage but were unable to fix it. Diving over the side was not practicable due to the sea being rough--impossible conditions. Explosives were discussed and rejected. Basically the stern was going up and down so much in the seas they could do nothing, and the flooded compartments were also affected by this, as when a hatch was opened and a fountain of water shot up to the deckhead and then was sucked back down each time the stern fell and rose. They tried everything but no go.

The ship could only head into the wind, which was from the direction the British battleships were coming, and not from France, so BISMARCK was doomed.

There was a big hole aft which flooded the steering gear compartments and shock or other distortions had jammed the "linkage" The rudder was not jammed by having a torpedo stuck in it as far as the crew could tell. The one diver who managed to get in there could not shift it, which is not surprising as how could he brace himself and tug on a wrench or whatever to do it? It needed a major repair with proper heavy equipment to do anything. The force of the sea swooshing in and out made everything impossible.

They had an idea to weld an opposing sort of rudder to the ship's side aft, but could not because of the large motion of the stern in the seaway. Diving over the side was especially difficult as would be placing such explosives, even if the explosives would have done any good. They also worried the explosion would damage the propellers, which were at least then still working. Hard to judge how much explosive to use was a problem they discussed.

They tried and tried, but there just was no way. See chapter 27, "Mortal Hit" in "Battleship Bismarck" People have been trying to think of what they could have done that they didn't try since it happened, but nobody has solved the problem.

After receiving thousands of shells Bismarck sank. Whether she sank from the shells, or was scuttled by her own crew remains disputed, but no matter which, the Germans lost the battle. 115 men survived. Even if the ship had not been sunk it wouldn't change history. A single ship like the Bismarck would only dare occasional hit-and-run attacks in the Atlantic. The wreck was discovered in 1989 by Dr Robert Ballard on 4700 m depth. The hull was surprisingly intact, which might support the theory that the ship was sunk by its own crew rather than surrender it.

In 2002, James Cameron, the guy who directed the movie, "Titanic," mounted an expedition to film the wreck of the Bismarck. He made a documentary of the expedition, "Expedition: Bismarck." It was shown on one of the high definition cable channels a couple of weeks ago and I watched it.

One of the biggest puzzles of Bismarck's sinking was whether Bismarck went down as a result of British attacks or was scuttled by her crew. Cameron used state-of-the-art underwater gear and a battery of experts in his quest for the truth about why Bismarck went down. After watching the documentary, I was convinced by Cameron's analysis that Bismarck was scuttled.

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There's no question in my mind that Bismarck was scuttled by her own crew. As disheartening as it may be to the British, the end result was the same.

Bismarck's torpedo bulging did its job, and of the 700+ heavy caliber shells that hit her, only 4 penetrated her side, and they were the 16in shells, not the 14s being thrown by King George V.

It is also possible the Bismarck was low enough in the water the torpedoes hit her armor belt. At any rate, it is inexcusable for torpedo belts to fail on a capital ship unless multiple hits are scored in the same relative area, or vulnerable areas like the bow and stern are hit.

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This Panther D is being powered by Acetylene gas at a training school; showing the desperate state of the German economy by 1944.

Drinkwater, John F. The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi, 408. ÂŁ60.00. ISBN 10:0-19-929568-9; ISBN-13:978-0-19-929568-5.

Reviewed by Sebastian Brather Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg sebastian.brather@ufg.uni-freiburg.de

Drinkwater's detailed book is another "Roman frontier study" which does not look for the collapse of the antique civilisation under Germanic attacks but for the complex developments in late antiquity. The well-known Lyon medallion (365, fig. 27) may show this complexity: it can be seen as representing a) the settlement of Germanic war-captives, b) fleeing Alamannic groups or c) the happy return of Roman troops. The main achievement of such a perspective is that it does not follow a separated view but integrates both sites--Romans and barbarians--into the analysis, here from the first information on the Alamanni until their integration into the Frankish kingdom.

Drinkwater's study on the Alamanni has nine chapters. A prelude describes the first three centuries AD. It underlines a major argument of the book: that the Germanic groups were subordinate to Rome at all times. There was no Germanic threat, which was instead an "invention" of the Roman administration. This does not mean, as some readers may think, that the groups did not exist and did not act, but they were more an object of Roman authorities than a historical subject in their own right and a unified people. From this perspective it becomes obvious that every name of a "tribe" was "a generic, not an ethnic" description (45).

The next three chapters, dealing with "arrival," "settlement" and "society", have a successful arrangement of both written and archaeological sources. A good idea seems to be the description of an "Elbgermanic triangle" (47, fig. 5), which makes clear that the wider cultural area the Alamanni belonged to ranged from northern Germany to Bohemia. It makes clear that "the Alamanni" came from nowhere, because they became Alamanni in Alamannia (Drinkwater calls this "ethnogenesis sur place"). Drinkwater comes--after some doubts in recent years, formulated by L. Okamura and M. Springer-- back to the earliest mention of the name "Alamanni" in 213 AD, grounded on B. Bleckmann's argument. [1] The picture drawn by the Romans saw them in a pejorative and regional perspective. Rome's intent was to tolerate a population in theAgri decumates--to buoy the situation by paying subsidies. It is true that there are not many archaeological finds of Alamannic settlements. "Normal" settlements are rarely found, even today. Only "hill stations" of differing functions (from military meeting points to residential sites) are known in growing number, which Drinkwater groups into four areas (97, fig. 11); these groups reflect geographical reasoning more than historical reality because hill sites were spread throughout the whole of Germania. Settlements in the central plains are still missing, as Drinkwater points out, but we lack any archaeological evidence as of yet. Seen in a wider context Drinkwater sees them as totally different from parallel hill settlements in the Roman world but this seems not to be the case. [2]

With respect to society the "reges" of the sources were better called chieftains. One cannot derive more than a hierarchy of chieftains, noblemen and ordinary people from the texts. The four "Teilstamme" as Drinkwater calls them, referring to German studies, mentioned in different sources of different times, probably were Roman regional terms. Until the Frankish dukedom there was no "unified" population or centralised power among the Alamans. To Drinkwater as to many other historians and archaeologists it seems unlikely that during the second half of the third century the whole "Roman" population had left the area between the Rhine and the Danube. The archaeological evidence is probably misleading, but itself dangerously dated by historical events. Roman bronze coins are disputed in their relevance and interpretation. Following K. Stribrny [3] Drinkwater sees them as an indication of ongoing Roman presence--not as wide-spread settlement, but as a reflection of traffic or patrols along still used roads and villas at certain points (these would have been the villas mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus as "Alamannic villas" built in a Roman manner, in Drinkwater's view essentially Roman villas). It seems quite obvious that the Alamanni were characterised by "warrior societies," of which again and again military groups came out.

The military service of the Alamanni is reflected in Roman officers and troops. The first were a Romanised and successful elite with ongoing contacts "home"; they acted as other groups within the Roman military and society. Their eventual disappearance was a normal development, an "accelerated evolution." The troops consisted of six different groups as Drinkwater shows: I. allies for specific purposes, II. incorporated auxiliary troops, III. single soldiers, IV. groups of captured soldiers (dediticii and laeti), V. hired regional contingents (as in the Notitia dignitatum), and VI. Alamanni in Roman garrisons of the fifth century. Their names are not tribal names but military descriptions.

The three chapters on 110 years of history of Roman-Alamannic conflicts from 285 to 394 are based on written evidence (with helpful maps). Despite the fact that only a few Roman campaigns can be understood in detail, Drinkwater is convinced that the texts did not lack any major development during this period. The main source is of course Ammian. A la longue the Alamanni were not a major threat for Rome, as Drinkwater underlines (despite some bigger clashes as at Strasbourg 357). There were minor attacks which provoked Roman reaction, but they were not any major challenge for the army. Some of the raids may have been answers to Roman provocation (as Julian challenged Alamanni to have an opportunity to demonstrate his victorious charisma), or they just tried to take advantage of Roman weakness caused by civil war or major threats elsewhere. The Alamanni, as other "tribes," had three major implications for Imperial propaganda: 1. they could, if defeated, enhance the military's reputation, 2. they could justify a standing army, and 3. they could be an argument for the stasis or the movement of the emperor or his troops (359). Following Drinkwater, even Valentinian's fortifications along the Rhine should be seen in this light: little hostility, much propaganda. It is apparent that coins and triumphal titles reflected this propaganda much more than real and specific historical events.

Rome promoted Alamannic settlement east of the Upper Rhine, because it was interested in a strengthening of the situation to prevent invasions from Germanic groups beyond. Roman ships controlled the Rhine, and probably there was a claim on the right bank of the river (a potential Alamannic province). There were several supplies from the Alamannia to Rome: grain, timber, stone, iron, and salt. The last chapter about the fifth century relies on archaeology because of the lack of written evidence. And in this part Drinkwater follows more traditional archaeological interpretations. The "eastern types" of material culture are not only due to "invading" East Germanic groups, but also to cultural contacts along the Upper Danube, for instance. The earlier argument for East Germanic graves with swords (112-113) is weak, too, because weapons are very seldom seen in burials, so that one cannot draw any conclusion from that. "Germanic" weapon types also do not necessarily indicate Germanic soldiers. The archaeological argumentum e silentio is valid in all cases. The vast terraces at the Zahringer Burgberg near present-day Freiburg are not so well dated that they could be seen as a strong argument for "positive" relations with Rome in the fifth century. Drinkwater describes the Alamanni as "Mischzivilisation", a mixed civilisation, which is historically and archaeologically unconvincing. It may be true analytically, but in the view of contemporaries it was irrelevant. The future belonged to the Franks because of Childeric's and Clovis' successful politics, founded on an intense "Romanisation." But even within Alamannia Roman roots went further: the fifth to seventh century row grave cemeteries (Reihengraberfelder) all lay inside the former limes which had gone more than two hundred years before (Drinkwater ends his study with AD 496, but shows a map of these cemeteries at p. 342, fig. 26). Drinkwater's stimulating book lacks a summary. Together with the sparse use of section headings this makes it difficult to read for the superficies reader. It is a fundamental and detailed analysis of three hundred years of Romano-Alamannic connections in present- day southwest Germany, modern in its shape and successful in integrating the written and the archaeological record. Even all- important studies written in German are taken into consideration; some recent works came of course too late to have been cited. [4] The book will promote further research not only on the Alamanni, which in some respects have been a very special case outside the late antique empire, but on late antique societies at the periphery in general.

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[1] B. Bleckmann, "Die Alamannen im 3. Jahrhundert. Althistorische Bemerkungen zur Ersterwahnung und zur Ethnogenese," Museum Helveticum 59, 2002, 145-171. [2] K.-J. Gilles, Spatromische Hohensiedlungen in Eifel und Hunsruck, Trier 1985. [3] K. Stribrny, "Romer rechts des Rheins nach 260 n. Chr. Kartierung, Strukturanalyse und Synopse spatromischer Munzreihen zwischen Koblenz und Regensburg," Bericht der Romisch- Germanischen Kommission 70, 1989 (1990) 351-505. [4] Imperium Romanum. Romer, Christen, Alamannen. Die Spatantike am Oberrhein, Stuttgart 2005. - C. Theune, Germanen und Romanen in der Alamannia. Strukturveranderungen aufgrund der archaologischen Quellen vom 3. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert, Berlin, New York 2004.

Charles Martel, a Frank of the Merovingian dynasty, quashed the uprising of the western Franks in Neustria (now Normandy), defeated the Moslems at Poitiers (732) and Berri (737) and, by conquering Aquitaine (now Brittany) enabled his son Pepin the Short to found the Carolingian dynasty in AD751. King Charles I (Charlemagne) (768-814) continued the Frankish expansion initiated by his predecessors. He subjugated the Langobards in Italy, proclaimed himself king of Lombards in 774, vanquished the Avars and spread his rule over the Pannonian valley. After war with the Saxon Germanic tribe, he extended his domain to the Laba River in the north-east. He created a powerful Frankish state which included all the countries of western and central Europe, and proclaimed himself Roman Emperor in 800.

By the time of Charlemagne, the feudal system had taken deep root in the Frankish state. His laws (capitularia) regulated obligatory military service and the recruiting system. At his call the feudal lords gathered at a predetermined point; failure to turn up resulted in a fine and confiscation of holdings. Every rider had to have body-armour (brunia), shield, spear, helmet, sword and knife, a fully equipped horse, a wagon with all the necessary tools (axe, spade, pickaxe, auger) and provisions for three months.

It is now impossible to determine whether brunia was a particular type of armour, named after the metal platelets and rings (brynja) sewn on to a goatskin shirt, or just a generic term for body-armour. Carolingian knights used armour found throughout Europe, of the type worn by Avars and Byzantines: lamellar, mail or scale hauberk and mail coif. The sword was the most expensive and important piece of equipment; its production required great forging skill, and its quality reflected the status of its owner. Although their first neighbours - Arabs, Lombards and Avars - used stirrups, the Carolingians showed little interest at first in this particular piece of equipment, as their battle tactics gave equal importance to fighting on horseback and on foot. Stirrups became standard equipment only towards the end of the ninth century.

Charlemagne also had a standing force organized into independent units (scarae), numbering several hundred men, under the local administration and command of a count (graf). These units guarded the borders of the state and garrisoned important forts; they could also be used for police duty. Several border counties were joined in administrative provinces called marcae, under the rule of a comes marcae, or markgraf.

From the time of King Pepin, the sovereign was protected by a standing elite unit of noblemen (scola), who lived at court, or in the near vicinity. It was expected that a nobleman's military role would benefit from the profits of his estate, so the richer warriors had to have better equipment and use it more effectively. The scola were the elite and best mounted and equipped fighting unit of the Carolingian cavalry.

In February 1935 the Thai Ministry of Defence alerted British intelligence to the fact that they were in 'possession of a Japanese plan for attacking the naval base at Singapore in the event of war'. By extension, Japanese naval planners would have been extremely interested in how quickly a relieving fleet could reach Singapore. The destruction of the mass of Japanese diplomatic and military records renders it nigh impossible to reconstruct with precision their interest in Britain's strategic jugular vein. At the same time, it was palpably obvious that the Suez route was the fastest means for a British fleet to reach Singapore and tantalising clues have been left which suggest that Tokyo took more than a passing interest in the Canal. Indeed, it seems likely that a Japanese fixation with Suez predated the official designation of Britain as a prospective enemy (1937). Evidence for such an interpretation emerges from the fragmentary Malcolm papers.

For security reasons, the majority of Canal pilots were of British and French extraction. In October 1924 the Director of British Naval Intelligence complained at the Suez Canal Company's appointment of a Japanese ship pilot following pressure from the Japanese Consul General in Egypt. The decision was taken without consulting the Suez Canal Company's management committee, on which Malcolm, as the senior British director, was a leading member. Subsequently he elicited the company's assurance that no further Japanese pilots would be countenanced. At the instigation of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the Foreign Office approached the Suez Canal Company to ensure that the proportion of British pilots more truly reflected the preponderance of British Canal traffic, a request that was acceded to.

There remained the problem of the solitary Japanese pilot. Malcolm persuaded the Suez Canal Company that under no circumstances would he be permitted to accompany a British warship through the Canal; otherwise he might report on the vessel's armaments and speed of passage. At the same time Lord Inchape, primed by the Admiralty, made representations to the Suez Canal Company on behalf of British shipowners requesting that the repugnant pilot's duties be confined to non-British vessels. Even this was not sufficient for the Admiralty, with Inchape conveying its fear that the 'resident spy' would allow his government 'to get to know the ropes' with operational details remitted home and 'put into the archives and . . . made use of should and when [the] occasion arise'. Fortuitously the much-maligned pilot failed his exams and was removed. He would have no successors.

The year before the Japanese pilot took up his short-lived position the British Naval Staff suggested there was a need for intelligence officers to report from Japan on the loading of merchantmen destined to transit Suez.

As a result there was liaison between the Naval Staff and the Mercantile

Marine Department of the Board of Trade. The movements officer of the

Naval Intelligence Department also kept in touch with Lloyds to help monitor

the voyages of foreign ships. By 1934 arrangements were in hand 'for

watching Japanese merchant shipping with a view to detecting any extraordinary

movements which might be made in anticipation of early hostilities'. In January 1939 Captain Godfrey went to Paris to coordinate the exchange of information with French intelligence centres abroad 'chiefly about the movements of German, Italian and Japanese men of war and merchant ships'. Just how they might deduce that their cargoes were intended to block Suez is unclear. By January 1941 extensive surveillance was in place but the Japanese were aware of this. More successful was the government Code and Cipher School, which was reading Japanese naval traffic signals by the early 1930s. In 1935 the Far East Combined Bureau was established in Hong Kong to intercept and decipher Japanese naval signals. By the end of 1939 an even more important advance was achieved when Bletchley Park ('Station X') broke the higher grade JN-25 code book involving messages passed between naval headquarters in Tokyo and all their ships and shore stations. Where appropriate, information procured was relayed to the more important empire ports, including Suez.

Further evidence that the Japanese had indeed singled out Suez for close scrutiny is provided by the unpublished memoirs of Brigadier R. J. Maunsell, appointed head of Security Intelligence Middle East in September 1939. It derived much amusement from the activities of its 'favourite spy', Ohno, the Japanese Vice Consul at Port Said. He first came to prominence when he approached two British inspectors with Irish surnames in the Egyptian police in the mistaken belief that they would be willing to act as secret agents. In 1938 Ohno was arrested by an Egyptian police officer while in the process of photographing the Canal. Before Security Intelligence Middle East could intervene, Lampson had bullied the Egyptians into agreeing to transfer Ohno to Alexandria, thereby placing him in prime position to report on the movements of the Mediterranean Fleet!

The Italians, by contrast, transparently lacked a motive to block Suez provided it remained open to their vessels trawling to and from east Africa. Mussolini had threatened war during the Italo-Abyssinian Crisis if the Canal were denied to Italian vessels. And in the negotiations leading to the Easter Pact the Italians insisted that London reaffirm its adherence to the 1888 convention. As Mussolini emphasised to the Fascist Grand Council in February 1939, he wanted to wrest control of Suez from the perfidious British precisely because it could be blocked so easily. The dictator's fear was not without justification for, from at least 1939, the British Admiralty laid plans to sabotage the waterway good and proper in the event of Italy (and subsequently Nazi Germany) overwhelming Egypt. 'Should it appear at any time', Pound advised Cunningham on 16 June 1940, 'that the Army was likely to lose control of Suez Canal we should be prepared to block it'. By June 1942, with Rommel seemingly near total victory, the Americans estimated that Britain's planned sabotage would incapacitate Suez for at least six months. The British then, ironically, were always in the best position to inflict the paralysing blockage they so feared.

Italian war planners did contemplate, in November 1938, landing a force from east Africa at Port Suez but no detailed scheme was drawn up. On 20 May 1940 the British Naval Liaison Officer at Marceau alerted the Admiralty to an anonymous letter received by the French Consul at Trieste. It warned that Rome planned to block the Canal with old warships before declaring war. More specifically, the seaplane carrier Miraglia, due to enter Suez around 25 May and ostensibly bound for Italian East Africa, intended to scuttle itself to block the waterway. The First Sea Lord alerted Admiral Cunningham but in the event nothing transpired. Upon entering the conflict, Mussolini remarked that the seizure of the Canal would be 'more deadly to the British Empire than the capture of London'. But while this might have formed a major Italian war aim, the means and resolve were lacking to achieve the coveted prize. At his most optimistic, Mussolini envisioned Cunningham's fleet being compelled by saturation air attacks to vacate the Mediterranean via Gibraltar. At the same time, Mussolini recognised that there would be stiff British resistance based upon the realisation that to lose Egypt 'would possibly result in the collapse of the entire [British] empire'.

For the Germans there were divided voices over the significance of Suez. As early as July 1940 Hitler offered aircraft to his Italian allies to attack the Canal but found them unreceptive. Unwilling to impinge upon Mussolini's designated sphere of influence and already planning to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler was content to leave matters alone. The German Navy took a different view. Its chief, Admiral Raeder, considered the Mediterranean theatre crucial in defeating Britain and instigated a plan to deprive it of the two choke points, Gibraltar and Suez. This would free the Italian navy for operations in the Atlantic and expose Britain's vulnerability in the Indian Ocean. At two meetings in September 1940 Raeder tried in vain to convince Hitler to adopt his scheme and abandon his inclination to march east. General Jodl, the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces, offered Rome two armoured divisions to assist in the drive on Suez but Italian pride passed up the best opportunity of success when the British were at their weakest. While the Italians hesitated in the Western Desert, the German Naval Staff recognised that the British were taking full advantage of the lull in the fighting to bring in reinforcements via Port Suez. 'In this decisive phase of the war', they cautioned, 'the Axis powers must not act too late'. Regarding German-Japanese collaboration, the Wennecker diaries make it apparent that the Japanese intelligence network in Egypt was providing Berlin with important military data. The entry for 19 October 1939 records that two British battleships had been spotted moving south from Suez, apparently as part of a group hunting the Admiral Scheer. Just after the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, the Japanese let it be known they wished to establish another consulate at Port Suez which would have further improved intelligence gathering. Alive to this, Security Intelligence Middle East headed off the move by persuading the Egyptians to turn down the proposal as 'inopportune'.

On British grand strategy Japan was better informed, especially through its closer contacts with the Axis. The Japanese gained a detailed insight into Allied intentions when they penetrated the Anglo-French regional strategical conference at Singapore in June 1940, from which they learned that Britain did not intend to hold Hong Kong if war came to the Far East. On 11 November the German raider Atlantis sank the Blue Funnel liner Automeden just west of Singapore after it was initially tracked by Italian signals intelligence based in East Africa. Among the documentation recovered was a Chiefs of Staff memorandum, dated 5 August, which was passed onto Tokyo on Hitler's orders. Couched in deeply pessimistic terms the document promoted Vice-Admiral Kondu, the Vice-Chief of the Japanese Naval Staff, to remark that 'such a significant weakening of the British Empire could not have been identified [from outside appearances]'. Singapore and Malaya's defence shortcomings were alluded to and the fact that they could not be remedied because of the prior calls of Europe and the Middle East. Spurred on by this startling revelation, at the end of 1940 Admiral Yamamoto drew up his infamous plan to launch simultaneous strikes against Hawaii and Singapore.

The document did however contain one disturbing sentence from the Japanese viewpoint: the hope that successful operations in the Mediterranean would yet make it practical to dispatch a fleet to Singapore. On the very day that Automeden was captured, the Fleet Air Arm struck at Taranto. Moreover, the same month British forces finally overcame Italian air and naval forces operating in the Red Sea. It thus remained within the realms of possibility that a fleet could go out to the Far East. This was certainly Churchill's view:

The naval and military successes in the Mediterranean and our growing advantage there by land, sea and air will not be lost upon Japan. It is quite impossible for our fleet to leave the Mediterranean at the present juncture . . . [but] with every weakening of the Italian naval power, the mobility of our Mediterranean Fleet becomes potentially greater, and should the Italian fleet be knocked out as a factor, and Italy herself broken as a combatant as she may well be, we could send strong naval forces to Singapore without suffering any serious disadvantages. As this was being written, Graziani's Tenth Army was receiving a stunning blow from the Western Desert Force.

The turn of events was not lost on the Japanese and it appears that at some time late in 1940 Tokyo urged Berlin to mount air raids against Suez in an effort to deny it to the Royal Navy. Several British Foreign Office files, unfortunately destroyed but obviously based upon intelligence gathering, made reference to such collusion. Also in December 1940 the Japanese Navy sought closer ties with German air and naval forces, leading, the following July, to the deployment of Luftwaffe torpedo bombers against the Canal. As 1941 unfolded, it would become foolhardy for the British to risk sending more than the odd warship through Suez. The irony was that the Suez Canal Defence Plan was operational but its purpose now was to keep the Canal open to receive reinforcements for the defence of Egypt rather than to secure a fleet's passage en route to Singapore. Remote as the latter prospect was by the close of 1940, one year later events in the Mediterranean and Middle East conspired to rule it out altogether. As A. J. P. Taylor wryly remarked, the much-vaunted Main Fleet had become 'the fleet that never was'.

Baron Adrian von Fölkersam

In the early spring of 1942, Adolf Hitler hoped to regain the momentum his armies had lost in Russia during the bitter winter of 1941. He told his generals that he was going to mount a new offensive to capture the rich oil fields at Maikop, Baku, and Grozny in the Caucasus Mountains of southwestern Russia.

Seizing these vast resources would provide the Führer's thirsty war machine with fuel to keep driving into Russia. And it would deprive Soviet dictator Josef Stalin of his own badly needed oil. The German offensive would kick off in June 1942.

"If I do not get the oil of the Caucasus," Hitler told General Friedrich von Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army, "then I must end the war." Stalin could have said the same thing.

When preparations for the all-out attack got underway, Baron Adrian von Fölkersam, who was regarded as one of the German Army's most gifted young officers, was called to a high headquarters and assigned a crucial role for his curious little private army. He called his men the "wild bunch," and with ample reason.

Captain Fölkersam was elated on learning of his mission: he and his men, who officially belonged to an elite Commando-type outfit called the Brandenburgers, were to work their way into the Caucasus and prevent the oil fields at Maikop from being blown up by the Russians before German spearheads arrived.

Fölkersam, the grandson of a Russian admiral, was ideally suited for the daunting task behind enemy lines. He spoke Russian fluently (as well as English and French), and was noted for his coolness in tight situations. Earlier in the year, he had recruited and trained a force of sixty-two Russian-speaking Balts and disillusioned Germans, and he pledged to take them farther behind Russian lines than any Brandenburg unit had ever gone. Now that chance was at hand.

Dressed in the military uniforms of the NKVD, the Russian secret service, Fölkersam and his "wild bunch" sneaked through Red Army lines under the veil of night in July 1942, and headed for the Caucasus in captured Russian vehicles.

A week later, the Brandenburgers tagged on to the rear of a long Russian convoy of trucks on the road to Maikop. On the outskirts of town, they encountered a group of real NKVD men who were trying to sort out a confused traffic jam. Fölkersam, whom his men thought relished perilous situations, halted his truck and approached one of the genuine NKVD officers.

"Well, you finally got here," the Russian exclaimed with a snarl. "Well, we don't need you now!"

"Major" Fölkersam had no idea to what the Russian was referring, but he saluted, got into his truck, and the convoy drove on into Maikop. In the city, the caravan pulled up in front of the NKVD headquarters. Fölkersam went inside and presented himself to a Russian general as "Major Turchin from Stalingrad."

A friendly type, the general seemed to be delighted to have a visitor from where the real war was being fought, apparently disappointed with his assignment in the seeming backwaters of the conflict in Russia. After an amiable conversation with "Major Turchin," the general arranged for comfortable quarters for the newcomers.

For several days, the Brandenburgers meandered around Maikop in their Russian uniforms, sizing up the defenses of the city and those of the nearby oil fields. On the night of August 8, Fölkersam could hear the distant rumble of German artillery firing shells, and the much louder roar of Russian guns emplaced around Maikop. He learned from a genuine Russian officer that the German army was only ten miles from Maikop.

At dawn, Fölkersam called his men together and gave them final instructions. In teams of four or five, they were to stir up mass confusion among the Russians and prevent them from destroying the oil wells.

Lieutenant Franz Koudele and a few men were sent to seize the local telegraph office. When he told the Russian officer in charge that Maikop was being abandoned and that he had better get out while he could, the Russian was not inclined to argue, and he and his staff fled.

Now the Russian-speaking Koudele was in charge of a telegraph system connected to various headquarters and posts throughout much of the northern Caucuses. Messages flooded the office. Soviet commanders demanded to be connected with some officer who knew what was going on at the front. "We cannot connect you, sir," Koudele replied with just the proper tone of anxiety in his voice. "Maikop has been abandoned."

By now, there was a stampede of Russian officers and soldiers heading out of Maikop, away from the front. No one wanted to be left in town to confront the oncoming German army.

Meanwhile, at the Maikop oil fields, army engineers were preparing to blow up the wells, storage tanks, and pumps. Then the counterfeit NKVD men raced up in their Russian trucks and shouted at the engineers to hold up on the demolitions. They quoted Fölkersam's Soviet friend, the general, who had already left for the rear, as the authority for the hold-up order.

As matters turned out, the failure of the Russian engineers to blow up the oil fields played right into the hands of Josef Stalin. Although German panzers reached the outskirts of Maikop, Adolf Hitler's offensive ground to a halt, and Stalin retained his crucial oil source.

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Fielding Brandenburgers in Flames Of War

The Brandenburgers represent another force ideally suited to the Raid Missions first devised for use with the LRDG and SAS. Use the Raid Missions with the following Brandenburger Intelligence Briefing. This Briefing is intended for use only in Mid War Raid Games.

Download Brandenburger Kompanie Mid War Raiding Intelligence Brieifng...

(November 20, 1885-July 16, 1960)

German General

Jovial Kesselring was an accomplished defensive tactician who contested U.S. forces for possession of Italy during World War II. He was also the only senior German commander whom Adolf Hitler did not remove from command. His success on land is even more impressive considering that Kesselring was previously an aerial strategist.

Albert Kesselring was born in Marktsheft, Bavaria, on November 20, 1885, the son of a schoolmaster. After attending the Classical Grammar School, he joined the army as an artillery officer in 1904. Throughout World War I, Kesselring performed staff functions and was also trained as a balloon observer. He was subsequently retained by the postwar Reichswehr and by 1932 had advanced to colonel. His open, friendly demeanor led to the less-than-flattering sobriquet of "Smiling" Albert. The turning point in Kesselring's career happened in 1933 following the ascent of Adolf Hitler to power as Germany's chancellor. Hitler commenced a covert rearmament that year, and by 1935 a new air force-the Luftwaffe-was born. Kesselring, acknowledged as a brilliant administrator, was then tapped to serve as a high-ranking official within that organization, and he acquired his pilot's license at the age of 48. In 1936, he became Luftwaffe chief of staff following the death of Gen. Walter Wever in a plane crash. As such he promoted new classes of bombers and fighters that made Germany's air arm the most advanced in the world. More important, he helped pioneer and codify the close-air support tactics necessary to assist land units-the essence of blitzkrieg warfare. By 1937, his exceptional performance resulted in a promotion to general, and he departed staff functions to command Luftflotte I (Air Fleet) the following year.

World War II commenced with a German attack upon Poland, and Kesselring's aircraft played a decisive role throughout that successful campaign. His bombers wreaked havoc ahead of German tank columns, and he developed the mass-bombing tactics that gutted Warsaw. In the spring of 1940, Hitler's attention turned west, and Kesselring, now commanding Luftflotte II, became actively engaged in the campaign against the Low Countries and France. Both were speedily overcome thanks in part to his excellent aircrews and equipment. However, the Luftwaffe was stunned after encountering British Supermarine Spitfires over Dunkirk, which extracted a heavy toll from Kesselring's previously unstoppable armadas. Consequently, thanks to Marshal Hermann Gรถring's mismanagement of airpower, the British escaped from Dunkirk with their army intact. That summer the Luftwaffe was pitted against the Royal Air Force (RAF) for control of the skies over England. Both sides fought with marvelous tenacity and courage, but German losses were approximately twice as large as England's. Kesselring originated the strategy of bombing RAF airfields as a direct way of stripping British aerial defenses, but, with Gรถring, he eventually approved Hitler's shifting of priorities from military to civilian targets. This proved a gross strategic miscalculation, for it granted the hard-pressed British Fighter Command the time needed to regroup and finally win the battle. Consequently, the Germans canceled their intended invasion of England. Hitler was nonetheless pleased by Kesselring's performance as an air chief, and in July 1940 he was elevated to field marshal. The following spring he transferred his refurbished command to Poland in anticipation of invading Russia. Throughout the summer and fall, waves of his bombers spearheaded Gen. Fedor von Bock's armored columns during the drive to Moscow. His talents were suddenly required on another front, and in the fall of 1941 Kesselring established new headquarters at Rome.

Now situated as commander in chief South, Kesselring accepted responsibility for conducting the war in North Africa. His mission also included shoring up the flagging defenses of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, as well as coordinating supplies and offensive moves by German forces. His brilliant but mercurial subordinate, Gen. Erwin Rommel, proved difficult to restrain at a distance, yet the British were nearly run out of Egypt. But lengthening supply lines posed difficult problems, and Kesselring advocated capturing the British-held island of Malta. He then began an 11-day aerial offensive against airfields, port facilities, and defenses, but Hitler suddenly canceled the invasion, sending most of Kesselring's aircraft to Russia. Within six months, U.S. forces under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had landed in Algeria and began pressing east while victorious British forces under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery advanced to the west. Rommel was caught between the pincer, and Kesselring helped orchestrate an effective rear-guard action. However, an ambitious and possibly decisive counterblow was lost when Rommel's attack through Kasserine Pass was not properly supported by forces under Gen. Hans-Jurgen Arnim. By May 1943, it no longer mattered, as Allied forces captured the whole of Tunisia and all German forces stationed there. The focus of war now shifted to Italy.

Given the gravity of the situation, Kesselring arrived in Sicily to direct its defense personally. When the Allied invasion materialized that July, it proved unstoppable, but he nonetheless executed a brilliant fighting withdrawal whereby 100,000 German soldiers and 10,000 vehicles were evacuated to the mainland. He then spent several weeks preparing for the defense of Italy, a rugged, mountainous peninsula that neutralized most Allied advantages in tanks and manpower. Over the next 20 months, Kesselring proved himself a master at defensive tactics. American forces under Gen. Mark Clark landed at Salerno on September 9, 1943, which partly caught the defenders by surprise, but Kesselring rushed men and tanks to the threatened zone and nearly pushed the Allies into the sea. For the remainder of the war, German forces gave ground slowly and in good order, making their enemy pay heavily for every inch of terrain. Snug in their positions along the well-prepared defensive position designated the Gustav Line, Kesselring's men defied several hard-pressed attempts to evict them. From November 1943 to May 1944, the strong points around Monte Cassino under Gen. Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin were an embarrassing thorn in Clark's side. Frustrated by a lack of success, the Allies tried mounting an end run around the Germans by landing at Anzio, near Rome. Kesselring reacted with his usual promptness and the beachhead was contained. It was not until May 1944 that the Germans forcibly abandoned the Gustav Line, which enabled the Americans to finally enter Rome. The defenders, meanwhile, fell back to prepared positions called the Gothic Line, and the entire bloody process repeated itself. Despite numerical superiority and command of the air and sea, the Allies would not push the remaining Germans out of Italy until war's end. Kesselring's excellent eye for defensive terrain, and his masterful shifting of resources, were decisive factors in maintaining that agonizing pace.

In March 1945, Hitler summoned Kesselring from Italy to succeed Gerd von Rundstedt as commander in chief West. His orders were to hold everywhere and drive the Allies back, but Germany's position was essentially hopeless. Following a few stiff rearguard actions, Kesselring surrendered to the Americans at Saalfield on May 6, 1945. By that time he was one of few high-ranking German officials that Hitler had not sacked. After the war, Kesselring was imprisoned and charged with war crimes. Apparently, several units under his command executed 332 Italian citizens in retaliation for partisan activities. Kesselring was found guilty and condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This was done apparently at the behest of several Allied commanders. He gained an early release on account of poor health in October 1952 and retired to private life to write his memoirs. Kesselring died at Bad Nauheim on July 16, 1960, hailed by his former enemies as one of Germany's top commanders. His far-sighted aviation policies as the Luftwaffe's chief administrator should not be overlooked.

Bibliography

Barnett, Correlli, ed. Hitler's Generals. New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1989; Botjer, George F. Sideshow War: The Italian Campaign, 1943-1945. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996; Brett-Smith, Richard. Hitler's Generals. London: Osprey, 1976; Chant, Christopher, ed. Hitler's Generals and Their Battles. London: Salamander Books, 1977; Fraschka, Gunter. Knights of the Reich. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1994; Humble, Richard. Hitler's Generals. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974; Kesselring, Albert. The Memoirs of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. London: Kimber, 1974; Lucas, James S. Hitler's Commanders: German Bravery in the Field, 1939-1945. London: Cassell, 2000; Lucas, James S. Hitler's Enforcers. London: Arms and Armour, 1996; Macksey, Kenneth. Kesselring: German Master Strategist of the Second World War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996; Mitcham, Samuel W. Hitler's Field Marshals and Their Battles. Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1990.

Bremen Piracy and Scottish Periphery: The North Sea World in the 1440s

By David Ditchburn

from: Ships, Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and Baltic States, c.1350-c.1700 (2000)

Bremen and Hamburg were the eyes through which medieval Saxony viewed the North Sea. The two cities were not only the joint centres of a metropolitan archbishopric whose jurisdiction originally stretched across Scandinavia as well as northern Germany; they were also great commercial centres. Hamburg was to play a leading role in that amorphous federation of merchants and towns, the Hansa, which came to dominate the later medieval trade of the Baltic and North Sea worlds. Initially, however, commercial pre-eminence lay with the more westerly of the two towns. Indeed, as early as the eleventh century, the chronicler Adam of Bremen claimed that the merchants of the whole world congregated in Bremen.1 Although such a comment was laced more with local pride than statistical rigour, the city did develop into a bustling port, internationally famous from the thirteenth century for its manufacture of beer, with a population of perhaps 15,000 on the eve of the Black Death.2

via Bremen Piracy and Scottish Periphery.

Published by H-German@h-net.msu.edu (January 2009)

Helmut Walser Smith. _The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race across the Long Nineteenth Century_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. vii + 246 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-89588-0; $22.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-72025-0.

Reviewed for H-German by Anthony J. Steinhoff, Department of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The Holocaust and the Course of German History

Writing about historical continuity, especially in the context of modern German history, seems to have lost much of its credibility. To a degree, this reflects the notoriety of books like Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's _Hitler's Willing Executioners_ (1996) and its poorly supported contention of a continuous history in Germany of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. But even the once powerful _Sonderweg_ thesis, which depicted 1933 as the culmination of a series of nineteenth-century German missteps on the path to modernity, no longer convinces, thanks largely to research that denies that a single, normative template for European modernization even existed. Instead, inspired partly by Michel Foucault, scholars have tended lately to emphasize not continuities, but ruptures. It is the new, rather than the old or the enduring that holds our attention, a mindset that the short shelf life of modern technology only reinforces. And just as it is difficult for contemporary society to think forward in the long term, so too has the general appreciation of the past undergone a foreshortening. Five, fifteen, or at most fifty years now seem sufficient to provide historical understanding. And even this "past" is viewed differently, for in the face of twentieth-century violence and dislocation, memory and history alike have become resolutely fragmented, seemingly incapable of being "whole."

In _The Continuities of German History_, Helmut Walser Smith urges scholars to resist such temporal narrow-mindedness and engage seriously with long-term historical analysis. In language reminiscent of the _Annalistes_, he argues that only by paying attention to continuity of forms across long spans of time "is it possible to see with acuity the specific kink, the significant shift [in the form], that structures later developments" (p.11).

Yet, this methodological _plaidoyer_ is ultimately a means to an end, a way to provide a more profound understanding of the Holocaust's historical origins and provoke deeper reflection on its broader meaning for modern German history. Filled with insight and erudition, this book underscores the critical importance that nineteenth-century developments with respect to ideas of nation, religion, and race played in preparing Germany's path towards Auschwitz. Smith departs from convention, though,by arguing that what made this period fateful was not the invention of new forms _per se_, but rather the radical reinterpretation and intertwining of existing ones after 1800. This powerful, scintillating assertion raises a number of central questions about both German and European history.

Smith describes his book as a set of five essays, five efforts at historical analysis in the _longue durĂŠe_. In fact, the five pieces work as elements in a larger, graceful argument about the Holocaust. The volume's formal introduction lays out the major themes and provides an overview of the chapters' main points. Yet, the real introduction to the book can be considered the first essay: "The Vanishing Point of German History." This piece will already be familiar to many readers, since it appeared previously in _History and Memory_.[1] In short, Smith contends here that critical events in Germany's twentieth-century history have functioned much like visual artists' vanishing points. Using the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933 as his primary example, Smith demonstrates how scholarly emphasis on this event not only generated considerable research but also powerfully structured the broader historical picture. It determined which elements of German history should be placed in the foreground (for example, high politics, culture, and social structures) and which consigned to the background (liberal dimensions of nationalism, antisemitism). Moreover, by investigating the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century antecedents of modern German political and cultural history, historians like Hajo Halborn and Friedrich Meinecke gave 1933-as-vanishing point considerable "depth of field" (p. 19). It is precisely this kind of depth of field, Smith asserts, that is missing in the wave of recent historical writing that takes 1941 as its vanishing point. And this, even though the shift from 1933 to 1941 brings a number of new issues to the fore--notions of community, race, religion, and nation, above all--whose import cannot be adequately grasped if the analysis is limited to twentieth-century developments.

Smith's remarks on historiographical vanishing points also place his employment of the word "essay" in new light. The remaining essays do indeed constitute a series of attempts: at providing depth of field to the 1941-oriented historical canvas and, in the process, new insights into the nature and origins of anti-Jewish violence. In chapter 2, Smith focuses on the German idea of "nation." Its invention as a formal concept, he contends, occurred not in the nineteenth century, _Ă  la_ Benedict Anderson or Ernest Gellner, but in the sixteenth century. And, yet, momentous changes to the form had occurred by 1800. Whereas early modern Germans conceived of a nation in external terms, with reference to tangible objects like rivers, mountains, and even the printed page, around 1800 men like Johann Gottlieb Fichte were describing the nation as an internal construct, "a projected space of [personal] identity" (p. 67). It was this shift to "nation as identity," Smith avers, that gave nationalism its power during the nineteenth and, even more fatefully, the twentieth century (p. 7).

The interplay between religious affiliation and popular violence lies at the center of chapter 3. Smith reminds the reader that religious violence, even of a catastrophic nature, was not an innovation of the twentieth century.

Nor were its targets limited to a single religious group. Jews were repeatedly massacred and expelled from German towns between 1350 and 1550.

Similarly, differences between Catholics and Protestants provoked the destruction of entire areas and villages during the Thirty Years' War. As Smith points out, though, Christians and Jews remembered this violent past differently, especially during the nineteenth century. Until 1800, Catholics and Protestants largely forgot the Thirty Years' War. Thereafter, the act of remembering drew attention to the tragic loss of German unity, but this discourse, while confessionally charged, still recognized Catholics as members of the national community. By contrast, Smith asserts, neither Jews nor Gentiles forgot the anti-Jewish violence. Christians built churches where Jewish synagogues once stood, and Jewish liturgies included prayers for the martyrs of medieval massacres. During the nineteenth century, moreover, these memories increasingly placed Jews outside of the nation.

Indeed, from the perspective of integralist nationalists like Heinrich von Treitschke, the Jews' efforts to "solidify a Jewish identity through historical memory" (p. 114)--that is, their refusal to forget--only emphasized the alterity of Jews' experiences, marking them not as Germans but only as foreigners.

Smith continues with the theme of anti-Jewish violence in chapter 4, arguably the most impressive essay in the book. Drawing on evidence from across Europe, Smith demonstrates how profoundly such violence changed over the course of the nineteenth century. When, in 1815, anti-Jewish violence reemerged after a relative hiatus of some hundred years, Smith suggests it represented an archaic mode of protest and largely remained so until the 1870s. Triggered by concerns over communal rights and rumors of ritual murder, such incidents almost always took the form of violent "play," namely ritualized (and thus controlled) violence that targeted property more than persons. Between 1880 and 1900, Smith declares, a more modern approach to anti-Jewish violence set in. Labor problems and nationalist politics (one might think of the Dreyfus Affair) now also served to incite popular violence. Most riots remained ritually bounded and instances of fatality limited,but the magnitude and number of anti-Jewish incidents rose markedly.

And, singular as the Russian pogroms of the early 1880s were, they still marked a first crossing of the "murderous threshold" (p. 137). Events after 1900, Smith concludes, show how anti-Jewish violence had finally broken free from its archaic roots, especially in the Russian Empire. Bloody ritual replaced bounded ritual, with Jews being attacked in word and deed as traitors to the nation. Furthermore, instead of using their power to control violence, states (primarily Russia) began exploiting and fomenting anti-Jewish violence for their own ends. In Germany itself, Smith stresses, murderous rhetoric did not become murderous act until quite late, namely during _Kristallnacht_. Nevertheless, after 1918 the degree of general, indeed, popular anti-Jewish violence there increased steadily, placing Germany very much on the verge of the Final Solution.

Chapter 5 addresses the topic of eliminationist antisemitism. Rejecting Goldhagen's views on the subject, Smith maintains that as late as August 1914, genocide remained unthinkable in Germany. However, forms of racial "elimination" short of genocide were not beyond the pale, thanks to the gradual intertwining of once separate strands of discourse concerning race, antisemitism, and elimination. To trace this development, Smith examines the views of three late-nineteenth-century German intellectuals. Although noted historian Heinrich von Treitschke considered Jews primarily from the perspective of state and nation, Smith contends that by the 1880s, his antisemitic remarks had helped make race an acceptable framework for discussing Germany's Jews. For Smith, the work of Friedrich Ratzel, a Leipzig-based geographer, evinces the growing racialization of nationalist discourse during the Wilhelmine period, even if Ratzel himself opposed the eugenics movement and the "metaphors of disease that [also] accompanied the new language of race" (p. 192). With Paul Rohrbach, a one-time student of Treitschke's, Smith identifies awining of racist and eliminationist ideas, above all as a result of Rohrbach's experiences as settlement commissioner in German Southwest Africa. Yet, while Rohrbach defended the cultural annihilation of Africans, justified brutal retaliations against uprisings, and sanctioned the creation of concentration camps for the native Nama and Herero groups, even he stopped short of advocating racial elimination. In short, while racial elimination could be thought, at least with respect to non-European peoples, it had not yet been developed into actual policy. In his popular work of 1912, _If I Were the Kaiser_, Heinrich Class connected this racial discourse with popular antisemitism. But there too, Smith emphasizes, Class never pushed his thinking about "elimination" to go beyond the physical removal of Jews from German territorial space, much as had already occurred during the Middle Ages.

Finally, in the conclusion, Smith attends to two questions that lurk in the background throughout the entire book: why did the Final Solution occur and why did Germans launch it? The history of anti-Jewish violence _per se_, he asserts, sheds little light on this matter.After all, the centuries-old drama of Jewish denigration intimated both exclusion and murder, and the German variants of these rituals hardly differed from those enacted in other European lands. Rather, Smith argues, it was the breakdown of a sense of solidarity with strangers in Germany during the nineteenth century that made

1941 possible. Not only did the new languages of nationhood and race in Germany increasingly mark Jews as outside the national community, but they also steadily legitimated the mistreatment of such outsiders, in thought, word, and deed. Thus, even if only a small number of Germans emerged as active perpetrators the fateful combination of antisemitism, racism, and nationalism enabled thousands of Germans to watch the anti-Jewish activities of the 1930s and 1940s as bystanders.

Imaginative and elegantly written, this book is a major piece of scholarship. Smith's deft use of comparative and interdisciplinary methods, coupled with his long-term perspective, has yielded both depth of field and keen insights into such central topics in Holocaust historiography as modern antisemitism, eliminationist racism, popular violence, and the changing valences of nation and national community. Equally important, Smith has provided a compelling demonstration of why the nineteenth century, not least in Germany, still matters. One can only hope that historians--and university officials--will respond accordingly.

Masterful as Smith's analysis is, some rough edges remain. Three points in particular deserve mention. First among these is the fairly flat treatment of the topic of religion. I concur wholeheartedly that religion constitutes an important element in Smith's puzzle. And yet, especially in chapter 2, "religion" seems to be just a form of group reference, denoting people who belong to a specific religious community. Smith includes little about actual religious practices or beliefs or even about how Jews, Catholics, and Protestants constructed their respective identities. The second area of weakness is noticeable in the conclusion. Smith's assertion that the breakdown of communal ties to strangers during the nineteenth century made the Final Solution possible is brilliant. But it also sits uneasily with the rest of the book. Smith provideslittle information on the types of affective relationships that did exist between strangers in Germany and how these evolved over time.It is also debatable whether German Jews' status as "outsiders" also made them "strangers." Third, and perhaps most contentiously, Smith's vanishing point metaphor raises fundamental questions about historical practice. Ultimately, this metaphor is profoundly teleological. The selection of 1941 as vanishing point logically implies that German history should be read as the run up to and aftermath of Auschwitz. It also produces "necessary" distortions and even marginalizations of the historical past, obstructing efforts to appreciate "how things actually were." Must one,then,paint the canvas using only single-point perspective? Is it legitimate to investigate topics that do not bear, even indirectly, on the origins of the Final Solution? For now, Smith is silent on such important points. But this does nothing to detract from the accomplishment he has achieved with this book.

This is a wonderful work that will spur reflection and further research on the Holocaust and German history for years to come.

Note

[1]. Helmut Walser Smith, "The Vanishing Point of German History: An Essay on Perspective," _History&Memory_ 17 (2005): 269-295.

When assessing German involvement in Spain two questions are paramount: to what extent did it ensure Franco's ultimate victory and what impact did it have on the weapons and tactics that the Wehrmacht deployed during World War 2? In the first days of the civil war, from August to November 1936, when the Condor Legion proper was organised, the commitment was seen as short-term and limited in scale. Yet the score or so of Luftwaffe transports sent to Spain enabled Franco's Army of Africa to reach the Spanish mainland. Its arrival did not guarantee a Nationalist victory but probably ensured that the rebellion would survive the initial chaos that surrounded it. Subsequently, the German commitment grew massively in response to the foreign aid dispatched to the Republic the Condor Legion was sent as were smaller numbers of army and naval personnel and vast quantities of supplies to fuel the Nationalist war effort. German ground, sea and air forces undertook combat missions but the value of the training they gave to the Nationalists, although less glamorous, was probably of equal if not greater value. Equally noteworthy was the contribution of the German officers who joined Franco's staff. After the failure to take Madrid in late 1936 and early 1937 they convinced him to nibble away successively at Republican territory-a strategy that prolonged the war but probably made victory more likely-and also played significant roles in the direction of the battles that followed the stalemate around the capital.

German military personnel undoubtedly played a major part in developing the skills of Franco's forces. The Condor Legion established various schools where Nationalists were taught anti-aircraft, aircraft maintenance, signals and flying techniques. In all, some 500 Spanish aircrew received flight instruction, while a further 60 or so were trained in Germany. On the ground, Gruppe Imker contained probably no more than 600 Germans but a network of bases was established across Spain to train Nationalist recruits in various military skills. These included officer schools, non-commissioned officer facilities and an infantry training school. Of equal importance were facilities where other German instructors taught artillery, mortar, and chemical warfare and signal techniques. Armour and anti-tank training was also undertaken near Madrid and Toledo, where recruits were taught on both German and captured Soviet tanks. Reports suggest that some 56,000 Nationalists soldiers were schooled by the various German detachments, thereby providing Franco with a large corps of well-trained and technically proficient soldiers. The North Sea Group, although the smallest of Germany's detachments, trained Nationalists in the use of torpedo-boats, communications and seamanship but the naval campaign during the civil war was of comparatively minor importance.

The Condor Legion played a major part spearheading many Nationalist victories. Its chief responsibilities were to gain air superiority, interdict the flow of supplies to the front, and support ground offensives-all roles that were successfully accomplished in Spain. By operating in these ways in Spain, the Legion undoubtedly gave the Nationalists air superiority over many battlefields from 1937 and eventually over all Spain. Its fighter pilots scored a little more than 300 confirmed kills, a not insignificant contribution to the battle for air superiority but one actually dwarfed by the Italians, who claimed 903, and one nearly matched by the Nationalists, who recorded 294 aerial victories.

The Legion's Kl88 bombers dropped some 21,000 tons of ordnance and the German pilots claimed to have sunk 60 vessels of all types. It is also clear that German instructors from Imker and Drohne were sent to the front and engaged in combat but the paucity of adequate armour on both sides meant that tanks never had more than localised significance in combat. Although used against Republican aircraft with success, being credited with 61 enemy aircraft shot down, the heavy 8.8 cm Flak batteries also performed well in support of Nationalist ground attacks and in the anti-tank role.

Spain confirmed Germany's faith in the evolving concept of Blitzkrieg that was based on the close co-operation between ground and air units but also effectively subordinated the latter to the needs of the former. Tactically, the Luftwaffe drew several lessons from the civil war that for good or bad influenced its performance during World War 2. Werner Molders developed the highly effective Rotte and Schwarm, loose two and four-aircraft formations of fighters that allowed them to fly at faster speeds and gave greater flexibility and manoeuvrability in combat. Germany's medium bombers proved inaccurate when attacking pinpoint targets, but this failure was seemingly offset by the success of the ground-attack and dive-bombing tactics developed by Wolfram von Richthofen. Losses of ground-attack aircraft and bombers were comparatively low because the Condor Legion had effectively gained the air superiority that allowed these types to operate at will over mostly short ranges with often little or no fighter escort. Luftwaffe strategists recognised to some degree that these circumstances might not apply in the future and partly addressed the potential problems by developing faster, more heavily armed bombers, boosting the firepower of the Bf 109 by adding a cannon, developing a long-range fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf 110, and giving generally greater emphasis to fighter production. Yet, as the Battle of Britain showed, the Luftwaffe's experiences in Spain did not prepare it to meet and defeat independently at long range an enemy equipped with modern fighters.

Spain was also something of a proving ground for Germany's untried tanks and evolving armoured tactics. Although the number of tanks in action was comparatively small and they saw limited service, several conclusions were reached that aided the development of Blitzkrieg. Akey moment came in early January 1937 when a Nationalist assault on Madrid led by German tanks was easily repulsed by Republican anti-tank guns.

Many foreign observers argued that tanks were far too easily destroyed by anti-tank guns and could only operate successfully in the infantry support role as a type of mobile artillery rather than as the spearhead of an offensive. Von Thoma and others drew different conclusions from the Madrid battle. They argued that the tanks had fought in much smaller numbers than appropriate for a leading role and that motorised infantry and anti-tank guns able to keep up with the armour and close air support to neutralise the enemy artillery were vital.

Finally, the PzKpfw I tanks, never seen as more than an interim design for training Germany's own armoured corps, were clearly too thinly armoured, under-gunned and under-powered to survive on the battlefield. Consequently, added emphasis was given to newer designs that overcame these weaknesses, although few were available for the Blitzkriegs of 1939 and 1940.

Ramcke was one of the best loved and most respected of the German Fallschirmjaeger commanders. He fought in numerous actions, including Crete and North Africa, and became a kind of father figure to his men who came to call him "Vater Ramcke."

I noticed in the autobiography of General der Fallschirmtruppe Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, the Fortress Commander of Brest in WWII that he was stationed in the trenches around Nieuport when he was a Matrosen in the Marinekorps Flandern in WWI. He was an interesting person who served in the German Navy, Marine-Infantrie, Army and Luftwaffe.

Bernhard-Hermann Ramcke was born on January 24th 1889 into a family of farmers. He decided not to follow in the family trade but instead joined the Navy. Ramcke fought on the Western Front in WW1 as a Marine Infantryman. He took part in the fighting at Flanders and was awarded both Iron Crosses. In 1918 he was awarded the Imperial Prussian Service Cross and promoted to Leutnant. He ended WW1 as an Oberleutnant and remained in the post war 100 000 man army of the Reichswehr.

He was promoted to Hauptmann on February 1st 1927, Major on September 1st 1934 and Oberstleutnant on March 16th 1937. On July 19th 1940, Ramcke was transferred to the 7th Flieger Division and on July 31st joined the Fallschirmtruppe and was awarded the parachute qualification badge at the age of 51.

He first served in a parachute replacement Battalion and tried everything in his power to procure heavy weapons for the 7th Flieger Division. It was only after promotion to Oberst and command of the battalion did he manage to obtain his request.

Ramcke took part in the planning of troop employment in the forthcoming operation to invade Crete. He did not fly into Crete on May 20th but was chosen by General Student to drop into Maleme on the 21st. The commander of the Sturm Regiment, Oberst Meindl had been seriously wounded on the first day of the invasion and Group West lacked a capable commander to carry on with the momentum of the attacks at Maleme. Maleme had now become the primary objective of the invasion.

At 1800 on May 21st, Ramcke and 500 Fallschirmjäger reinforcements dropped into Crete west of the Tavronitis and east of the airfield at Maleme. Upon landing, Ramcke was briefed on the current situation by Oberleutnant Göttsche, the Nachrichtenoffizier of Luftlande Sturmregiment Stab.

Oberst Meindl had been evacuated; many of the Sturm Regiment officers had been killed or wounded in the fighting. However, there was some good news. Maleme airfield had been captured but enemy artillery spotters were dug in on the slopes of Hill 107, which overlooked the airfield and were directing fire on to the airstrip. One assault group was about to launch an attack on Hill 107 and the first of the JU52's carrying the badly needed Mountain Troops had just landed, although under heavy artillery fire. Once grouped, the Gebirgsjäger were ordered to head south and outflank the enemy positions. Two battle groups of Fallschirmjäger were ordered eastwards to try and break through to Group Centre at Chania.

In the evening of the 21st, Ramcke was informed that the assault on Hill 107 had failed. Hours later he was informed that the seaborne armada had been destroyed whilst en-route to Crete.

Overnight on 21st/22nd, the NZ defenders on Hill 107 withdrew from their positions fearing they would be outflanked. The empty positions were found early morning on May 22nd. More and more JU52's began to land on the airfield at Maleme, no longer under artillery fire. The Gebirgsjäger commander, General Ringel, landed on the 22nd and Ramcke handed over command of German forces in the west of the island. He then joined his battlegroups who had broken out to the east and took part in the fierce fighting for the Platanias Ridge, which overlooked the northern coast toward Chania.

During the night of 24th/25th. Ramcke's forces broke through to Oberst Heidrich at Galatos. The New Zealand defence line was smashed by Stuka dive bombers and the way to Chania was open. The town fell on May 27th.

Ramcke was appalled at the atrocities carried out by the Cretan population and ordered many reprisals. Villages where mutilated bodies of Fallschirmjäger were discovered were raised to the ground.

Operation Mercury ended on June 2nd and on the 18th Ramcke returned to his replacement battalion to teach the men valuable lessons learnt on Crete.

On August 1st 1941, Ramcke was promoted to Generalmajor.

On August 21st, Ramcke was ordered to Görings HQ at Goldap in East Prussia and presented with the Knights Cross.

In early 1942, Ramcke served briefly with the Italian Army before being recalled to Berlin with new orders.

Rommel had asked Berlin for reinforcements to be sent to North Afrika. Early in the summer of 1942, General Student received orders to form a Fallschirm-Brigade to be sent to Afrika. Ramcke was given command of 4 Jäger Battalions, an Artillery Battalion and a Signals&Pioneer Platoon and an Anti-Tank Kompanie, to be known as Fallschirm-Brigade Ramcke.

They arrived in Afrika in July 1942 and were to be used to exploit any gap in the El Alamein line and break through to the Suez Canal, the British lifeline to the far-east.

Montgomery launched a counteroffensive in October 1942, which successfully broke the Axis line. The Ramcke Brigade were threatened with being cut off and surrounded. Due to the lack of transport, Ramcke's men had to march back toward the German lines but the line had moved due to increasing British pressure. As far as the German command was aware, the Ramcke Brigade was missing in action.

Whilst marching across the desert Ramcke's men intercepted and captured a British 8th Army supply column and the trucks were used to drive through the British lines and back to the safety of German held territory.

Ramkce was then posted back to Germany and was given command of FJD2. On November 13th 1942, he was informed that he was the 145th recipient of the Oakleaves to the Knights Cross.
FJD2 was being raised in Brittany, France from remnants of his Afrikan Brigade and veterans of the eastern front. It was subordinated to the German 7th Army until May 1943 when it went to Southern France, subordinated to General Student's XI Flieger Korps.

When the Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943, FJD2 was put on standby south of Rome. When the Italian Army capitulated in September 1943 it was FJD2 who restored order in Rome. Units from the Division carried out 4 air assaults whilst in Italy.

On September 9th, II/FJR6, parachuted onto Monte Rotondo north east of Rome to capture the Italian general staff. On September 12th, I/FJR7 landed in gliders on the Gran Sasso to rescue Mussolini. On September 17th, III/FJR7, parachuted onto the island of Elba to capture the Italian garrison stationed there.

After order had been restored, FJD2 assumed coastal defence duties until early November 1943 when it was mobilized for Russia. The division arrived in Russia between November 17th-27th minus 3 battalions, (On November 12th, I/FJR2 parachuted onto Leros. 2 other battalions were still committed in Italy).

The division took up position near the Russian held town of Zhitomir and whilst in Russia the division suffered heavy casualties. Ramcke left the division on two occasions and rejoined them again in March 1944. He returned to Berlin before the division was withdrawn from Russia to Cologne in May of that year when he resumed command.

The losses to FJD had been appalling; it would be the last time that Ramckes division would fight in Russia.

On June 13th, FJD2 was ordered to move to Brittany to defend against further allied airborne assaults. The divisions FJR6 had been operation in Normandy since May 1944 and had taken heavy casualties in the Cotentin Peninsula.

The division suffered heavily in its transit to Brittany. Allied aircraft ruled the skies above Normandy and Brittany and the French Resistance movement was attacking any German units they could find.

On August 3rd, elements of FJD2 were attacked at Avranches.

On August 5th, the divisional recon battalion was almost destroyed near Gouarec. FJR7 saw fierce fighting at Hulegoat and suffered heavy casualties.

On August 8th, US forces approached the town of Brest and demanded their surrender. When FJD2 arrived, Ramcke took command of Brest as senior officer and when the fighting continued Ramcke found his forces were facing 3 US armoured divisions and constant attacks by resistance units.
Ramcke successfully managed to evacuate 40 000 civilians from the Brest area before new American assaults began on August 20th.

On September 1st, Festung Brest was completely surrounded. The gauge of the fighting at Brest can be measured by the amount of Knights Crosses that were awarded. 7 Knights Crosses were awarded with many recommendations. 6 of these were to men of FJR7.

On September 13th, Ramcke was again asked to surrender by US General Middleton. Ramcke refused and the fighting continued until September 19th, when American forces reached Ramcke's command bunker. General der Fallschirmtruppe Bernhard Hermann Ramcke surrendered Fortress Brest and resistance ceased in the evening of the 19th, the same day he was awarded the Swords (99th Recipient)&Diamonds (20th recipient) to the Knights Cross.

Ramcke was shipped to the USA as a POW and later to England and France. In France he managed to escape from captivity but soon gave himself up. He was given an additional 5 years sentence, which was subsequently dropped.

Ramcke's only wish whilst in captivity was that his men were fairly treated. He had always been affectionately called "Papa" by his men.

On his release, Ramcke returned to Germany and died on July 4th 1968 at Kappeln in Northern Germany.

At a reunion of former paratroopers in Braunschweig in July 1951, during which former Parachute-General Hermann Ramcke was carried into the hall on the shoulders of veterans, led to highly critical press articles of the speech by the general in Swiss and French newspapers. ("Kritik an Ramcke-Rede. Zeitungen in Frankreich und der Schweiz tiber 'politische Akzente' besorgt," Braunschweiger Zeitung, I Aug. 1951).

IDENTIFICATION SIGNS

These, which appeared both on motorised vehicles and, with modifications, on flags, signboards and other plaques, were of two basic types:

COMBAT IDENTIFICATION SIGNS: These were officially restricted to front line vehicles and comprised variations on the national insignia, with large identification letters and numbers of various patterns. The Nazi swastika was little used for this purpose except as part of the national flag which in the early years of the war was often draped over the top of vehicles to identify them to friendly aircraft.

Crosses (kreuzen), however, were widely used, mainly for ground identification of AFVs; as the photographs in this book show, patterns differed widely with local painting but in general German built, and therefore easily recognised, vehicles had small black-filled crosses on the sides and rear, while larger white outline crosses adorned captured or unfamiliar vehicles.

In addition to the insignia, tactical numbers were provided to enable a unit commander easily to recognise and communicate with individual vehicles within his unit. These were normally three-figure numbers of which the first showed the company within the mother unit, the second the Zug or platoon within that company, the third indicating the individual vehicle within the platoon. HQ vehicles carried distinctive ciphers consisting of either a capital R (Regiment) or a big Roman I, II or III (Abteilung) with a two-figure number from 01 to 09 indicating specific Officers (eg R01 was the regimental commander). Within the companies certain combinations also identified the sub-unit commanders and their aides: 01 the company commander, 02 the CSM, while platoon leaders took 11, 21, etc. Thus the commander of 3rd Zug in the 2nd kompanie of the 2nd Abteilung (6th company in the regiment) would be 631.

These numbers were officially restricted to tank units, armoured infantry and armoured engineer units, armoured infantry companies of the recce Abteilung and unit staff armoured vehicle up to Regiment level. They were normally displayed prominently on armour or turret sides and rear in a variety of types. Originally they were on detachable rhomboid boards, presumably to facilitate transfer to a replacement vehicle, but these were replaced after the French campaign by painted numbers usually a white outline with black or red centre depending on the vehicle camouflage. In practice these codes were also used by some SP artillery and assault guns which officially had battery letters instead, and by some armoured units that should have come under the scheme outlined below.

NON-AFV IDENTIFICATION SIGNS: These were normally unit or sub-unit identification signs but in two distinct series - Divisional or organic abteilung (eg assault gun brigade) signs; and tactical insignia for lesser units.

DIVISIONAL SIGNS

Every Division or Brigade had its own identifying symbol as in other armies. Examples are given in above but in general the less potent the unit the more elaborate was its sign. Thus the Panzer Divisions normally had strictly simple signs in yellow or white; the few exceptions were those reformed from infantry units fairly late on or were SS. These insignia were at times changed or swapped between Divisions for security reasons and examples of variations are shown.

Infantry Divisions, on the other hand, usually had quite elaborate heraldic or pseudo-heraldic emblems based on their territorial associations and these were normally retained throughout a Division's career. The Divisional sign normally appeared on all vehicles and was extensively used on signposts, etc.

TACTICAL INSIGNIA

These were based on the symbols described earlier but adapted for their particular purpose. They were officially applied to all motor, and many horse-drawn vehicles other than AFVs and there were standard sizes and positions for them as shown above. The latter were the front left-hand mudguard or front armour plate, and the rear mud flap or tailboard. Those for motorcycles were half size and applied to front and rear mudguards. In practice, however, size and shape and position all varied, only the yellow or white colouring being standardised. These signs were also used on signboards and indicator posts to denote unit areas in a large camp or assembly area.

OTHER FIELD SIGNS: Other markings found were standard lettered signs, often in Gothic characters; indicating the direction and position of various HQs and administrative formations, and the various pieces of information often painted on vehicles - weight restrictions, etc. The most important of these were the vehicle number plate, each consisting of two letters and six or seven numbers and carried by all motor transport. There were various series of which the most important were WH - army; WL - Luftwaffe; WM - Navy; and SS (as the formalised double-lightning flash) for the Waffen SS. The army also had such things as minefield warning signs and other items, often produced in differing forms to indicate 'true' and 'dummy' hazards to the initiated.

AIR-GROUND RECOGNITION SIGNS These were either various combinations of light signals, fired from signal pistols, or else patterns made by laying out strips of cloth. The light signal varied widely.

The popular assumption that Nazi Germany was a well organized war machine is patently false. It is true, however, that no time was likely to be as favorable as September 1939 for German leader Adolf Hitler to join in war with the western powers. Britain and France were only then rearming, and Germany had a population of 80 million people, a strong industrial base, and the world's most powerful army and air force. The economy was unbalanced, with imports running well in excess of exports, but Hitler planned to redress this imbalance by seizing in war all that the Reich required.

The National Socialist state controlled the media, with propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels adroitly manipulating the press, radio, film, and party rallies. Informers on every block and the Gestapo (secret state police) kept a close watch on activities, but most Germans accepted the Führer's policies. Sullen resignation over the start of the war in September 1939 turned to euphoria after Germany's victories over France and the Low Countries. In the winter of 1941, when the military situation began to deteriorate on the Russian plains, Germans settled into a sort of stoic determination that lasted until near the end. Most Germans were aware of the price their nation was exacting from the rest of Europe, and they could thus believe the Allies would repay them in kind. However, to ensure the loyalty of the Reich's citizens, Hitler ordered that judges ignore established law and procedure and dispense only "National Socialist justice." Hitler expressly approved the Gestapo's use of torture. The complete subversion of the German legal system to Nazi rule came with the appointment in August 1942 of Roland Freisler as president of the Volksgerichthof (people's court).

Once he had secured power in 1933, Hitler sought to harness the German economy for war preparation. He well understood that his desire for new lands in the east (lebensraum) had to be realized through a series of swift and decisive military victories. The German economy could not sustain a long drawn-out war. Thus the blitzkrieg (lightning war) was born of economic necessity.

In 1936, Hitler instituted a Four-Year Plan for the economy under Reichsmarschall (Reich Marshal) Herman Göring. The idea was designed to centralize the economy. However, as with everything else in the Third Reich, the rivalry of higher-ranking officials, encouraged by Hitler, meant that the economy remained a battlefield for various competing interests, even within the armed forces themselves. Despite these inefficiencies, Germany rebuilt its military. Spending on the armed forces, however, was consuming 50 percent of the budget, or approximately 60 billion reichsmarks, per year. Hjalmar Schacht, head of the Reichsbank, pointed out that this level of expenditure could not be sustained.

Besides military growth, another goal of the Four-Year Plan was German economic autarky in such key areas as the petrochemical industry and reduction of imports of other raw materials necessary for war production, including rubber and minerals. From 1936 to 1938, the Four-Year Plan concentrated on production of raw materials; after 1938, attention was focused on production of finished goods such as tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces for immediate war use. Between 1936 and 1942, the Four-Year Plan represented 50 percent (13.25 billion reichsmarks) of total German industrial investment.

Memories of World War I, when the British naval blockade starved Germany of raw materials and foodstuffs, underpinned German planning. The August 1939 German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact, however, removed much of the impact of the blockade during World War II, as did the addition of Romania-with its important oil fields of Ploesti-to the Axis alliance after the war began.

Despite emphasis on military production, the Nazi hierarchy feared the impact on home-front morale of shortages of consumer goods. Production of consumer goods from 1936 to 1939, when Germany was straining to increase its armaments, actually went up by 25 percent. This continued during the war; Germans enjoyed both "guns and butter" and a relatively high standard of living until 1944. After the successful military campaigns of 1939 and 1940, Hitler recommended a reduction in arms production in order not to affect civilian morale. The government pacified the population with incentives such as bonuses for night shifts and overtime pay on holidays. Despite an official decree to freeze salaries, average wages from September 1939 to March 1941 rose by 10.4 percent.

Even in 1942, consumer expenditures were maintained at about the 1937 level, and few new economic restrictions were imposed. Raw materials were in short supply, but these were deliberately depleted in the expectation of a quick victory over the Soviet Union. This optimistic outlook changed with the German reverses in the winter of 1941-1942. In February 1942, when Fritz Todt, minister of armaments and production, died in a plane crash, Hitler named Albert Speer as Todt's replacement.

An organizing genius with a keen interest in efficiency rather than ideology, Speer created a centralized machinery of control in the Central Planning Board. By 1943, Speer had nearly complete control of the national economy and was able substantially to boost production. He also enacted industrial policies to standardize production by limiting the number of different types of armaments produced and promoting factory assembly-line methods. In fact, German war production was at its height in 1944, despite Allied bombing, and production of consumer goods dropped only slightly. In March 1944, German aircraft plants went on double shifts and a seven-day workweek. Thus Germany attained its highest levels of aircraft, tanks, and munitions production in late 1944 while bearing the full brunt of Allied bombing. But by then it was too late. When the Allies shifted their bombing emphasis to lines of communication and petroleum production, the transportation system collapsed and there was no fuel to operate the tanks and new jet aircraft.

Speer might have accomplished more had he not been handicapped by jealous rivals, such as the multi-hatted Hermann Göring and Reichsführer-Schutzstaffel (leader for the Reich, RFSS) Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was a major hindrance. Constantly scheming to enhance the power of the SS within the Reich, he actually undermined the economy. The SS grew to be a state within a state, and Hitler even approved Himmler's proposal to build an SS-owned industrial concern to make it independent of the state budget.

Major factors in Speer's success, of course, were the substantial territory and resources Germany had acquired by 1942. Germany could exploit the resources of this new empire-skilled labor, industry, and metallurgical resources from France and Belgium; foodstuffs and other resources from Denmark, Norway, and the Balkans. There were also substantial resources in the vast stretches of the Soviet Union occupied by the German army from June 1941 onward, although many of these resources were simply those Germany had depended on in the past.

Spain was a friendly neutral country, and Sweden, Portugal, and Switzerland continued to trade with the Reich and conduct its business. In addition, ruthless German economic exactions helped finance the war. German-occupied Western Europe provided substantial raw materials and money to fuel the German war machine. Of the total German war expenditure of 657 billion reichsmarks, the German people paid only 184.7 billion. France alone paid "administrative costs" to Germany at the absurdly high sum of 20 million reichsmarks a day, calculated at the greatly inflated rate of exchange of 20 francs per reichsmark and amounting to some 60 percent of French national income.

The National Socialist regime failed to use two readily available sources of labor, however. The Nazis had done all in their power to reverse the emancipation of women during the Weimar Republic. Restricting women to the "three Ks" of Kinder, Kirche, and Küche (children, church, and kitchen) meant that during the Great Depression jobs were secured only for men. This system carried forward into the war with serious implications for the war economy. Speer claimed that mobilizing the 5 million women capable of war service would have released 3 million German males for military service. Such a step might have altered the results of battles and campaigns, although it probably would not have affected the overall outcome of the war.

As early as 1942, Speer recommended that women be recruited for industry, but Hitler rejected this advice. Not until 1943 were women between 17 and 45 years of age required to register for compulsory work. Later, the upper age limit for women was raised to 50, and the age span for men was set at 16 to 65. By 1944, German women actually outnumbered men in the civilian labor force at 51.6 percent.

Another available source of skilled labor that had served the Fatherland well during World War I was the Jews. Numbering about 600,000 when Hitler came to power, many German Jews soon escaped abroad. Virtually all who remained and were identified perished in the "final solution." The systematic extermination of European Jewry also took its toll on the war effort, as considerable manpower was absorbed simply in rounding up and transporting European Jews to the death camps.

The Third Reich sought to compensate for labor shortages by using foreign workers. In March 1942, Fritz Sauckel became general Reich director for labor, or minister of labor. In 1942, there were 3.8 million fewer people employed in the German economy than in 1939. The Germans tried to attract foreign skilled workers with financial incentives. When this approach failed, the occupiers simply rounded up those they thought necessary and shipped them to Germany to work in appalling conditions. By the end of 1942, the total number of people working in the German arms industry had risen by 1.3 million. By September 1944, there were 7.5 million foreign and 28.4 million German workers, and at the end of the war there were upward of 10 million foreign workers in the Reich. Such labor was hardly efficient. Speer noted that in October 1943, some 30,000 prisoners working in armaments production produced over a seven-month period only 40,000 carbines, whereas 14,000 U.S. workers turned out 1,050,000 carbines in the same amount of time. Until 1944, most German factories only ran a single shift per day, and only 10 percent of employees were working a second or third shift.

Only at the very end of the war, when it was clear even to the German leadership that the war was lost, did the regime risk disrupting the German home front. By then, of course, German cities were being devastated by Allied strategic bombing. The suffering of his people did not seem to disturb Hitler. He held that Germans had proven "unworthy" of him and thus deserved to perish with him.

References

Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany,

1933-45. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Kershaw, I. The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Baltimore, MD: E. Arnold, 1985.

Koonz, Claudia. Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. New York: St. Martin's, 1987.

Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.

Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs. New York: Macmillan, 1970.

Stern, J. P. Hitler: The Führer and the People. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Charles R. Bowlus. _The Battle of Lechfeld and Its Aftermath, August

955: The End of the Age of Migrations in the Latin West_. Aldershot:

Ashgate, 2006. xxiv + 223 pp. Maps, illustrations, appendices, bibliography, index. $94.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7546-5470-4.

Reviewed for H-German by Jonathan R. Lyon, Department of History, University of Chicago

A New Theory on the Campaign that Ended the Hungarian Invasions

In 955 Otto I, the ruler of the East Frankish kingdom, led an army comprised predominantly of Bavarians, Swabians, Franconians, and Bohemians against a Magyar (Hungarian) military force that had launched a raid into the south of the kingdom from the Carpathian basin. The two armies first came into contact with one another near the Lech River, in the region around Augsburg, in what is today the German state of Bavaria. Though few extant sources provide details about how the battle unfolded, it is clear that the encounter between the two sides eventually resulted in a decisive victory for Otto I. After approximately a half-century of raids into Italy and the East Frankish kingdom, the Magyars would never seriously threaten the Latin West again. Indeed, in subsequent centuries they would convert to Christianity and emerge as an important buffer between western Europe and other nomadic peoples from the steppes of Asia. For Otto I, the victory set the stage for his emergence as the dominant ruler in Latin Christendom. Seven years after the battle of Lechfeld, in 962, he would be crowned emperor by the pope, setting the stage for German, and later Austrian, control of the western imperial title until the nineteenth century.

Despite its unquestioned significance as a battle that helped to shape the history of western Europe, the battle of Lechfeld has remained a mystery to historians because of the scarcity of sources for its study.

Various scholars have interpreted the few scraps of evidence in different ways and have arrived at a range of often contradictory conclusions. In this book, Charles Bowlus offers a new theory for understanding the events of August 955. He has brought together a remarkably diverse body of sources in order to argue that there was not a single decisive "Battle of Lechfeld" but rather a series of skirmishes that gradually decimated the Hungarians as they attempted to retreat back through Bavaria in the days after the initial encounter. According to Bowlus, a number of factors--ranging from improved Ottonian military tactics to rainy weather and flooded river valleys--all conspired against the Magyars in the fateful summer of 955.

The book is divided into six chapters that effectively lay out the central elements of this argument. In chapter 1, Bowlus summarizes many of the key points of his thesis and argues that the few written sources that provide evidence for the events of August 955 are all fundamentally reliable, though they may seem at first glance to contradict each other on various points. Chapter 2 focuses on Hungarian society and military culture in the tenth century. Because written evidence is virtually non-existent, Bowlus employs a broad range of interdisciplinary approaches to explore this topic and to argue that, contrary to the assumptions of most historians, the Carpathian basin and western Europe were ill-suited for the type of warfare practiced by the Magyars. In chapter 3, Bowlus examines Ottonian military strategy in the decades leading up to 955 and suggests that German rulers had gradually adopted a "defense-in-depth" strategy during the first half of the tenth century to counter the threat of the Magyars. Chapter 4 looks at Hungarian incursions into the duchy of Bavaria in the years before 955. Bowlus argues here that the relationship between the Hungarians and the Bavarians prior to 955 was complex and that both sides understood each other very well on the eve of the Lechfeld campaign. Chapters 5 and 6 suggest a possible narrative for the events of August 955, with chapter 5 charting the activities of both parties in the days leading up to the so-called "main battle." In chapter 6, Bowlus posits the theory that it was actually during the days after this battle that most of the Hungarian army was destroyed. The volume ends with a brief conclusion followed by a series of appendices with translated passages from the key written sources used by Bowlus throughout the book.

Much of Bowlus's argument is appealing. For example, his discussion of the challenges the Hungarians would have faced trying to escape from the Augsburg region back to the Carpathian basin is excellent. As anyone who has traveled extensively in Bavaria and Austria knows, and as the book makes clear, the Magyars would have had to make a series of difficult river crossings along the way. And if, as Bowlus argues, many of these rivers were overflowing with rainwater and key fords were well-guarded by garrisoned fortifications, the Magyars would have found the return journey to their homes extraordinarily treacherous in August 955.

In the end, however, because of the nature of the evidence Bowlus employs, it is very much in the hands of the individual reader to determine whether or not the book's argument is believable. Even Bowlus concedes that he cannot prove his theory definitively. The entire book is filled with such phrases as "What probably happened is as follows" (p. 102); "the following scenario is very plausible" (p. 108); "It is highly probable that" (p. 139); and "It is logical to assume" (p. 147).

The reader must, therefore, decide how convincing Bowlus's interpretations of the written sources are as well as judge the credibility of his translation choices for some of the key Latin terms and phrases that have vexed scholars for decades, such as _agrarii milites_. Furthermore, as a result of the limited base of written sources for the battle, the reader must also decide how convincing Bowlus's use of non-traditional historical sources is. Archaeology, geography, meteorology, climatology, ecology, animal husbandry, naming patterns, and archery are only some of the fields Bowlus mines in search of support for his theory. Since the majority of medievalists and other historians who are most likely to pick up this work are probably not experts in all these fields, each reader will be forced to accept or reject many of Bowlus's key claims based on his or her own impressions of how the author employs his diverse body of evidence. Thus, while Bowlus's theory is intriguing, I suspect that this book will ultimately not solve any of the long-standing disputes about the battle of Lechfeld.

A German U-boat engages a target during the campaign in the Atlantic. One unfortunate consequence of deck guns was to reduce underwater performance.

U-boats alongside a depot ship in Kiel in 1913: (left to right) U.12, U.7, U. W and U.6. The Germany Navy's U-boat designs steadily improved during the war.

"The United States Naval Air Force, Foreign Service, executed 30 attacks against enemy submarines, of which ten were considered to have been at least partially successful; it dropped 100 tons of high explosives on enemy objectives, and it had to its credit a total of 22,000 flights in the course of which it patrolled more than 800,000 nautical miles of submarine infested areas. In point of fact, it did immeasurably more than this, for these figures are very far from being a just or fair method of appraising the value of aircraft in naval warfare. I say this because almost always the damage inflicted by aircraft, when operating against surface craft, was of a contributory and indirect nature-the seaplane summoned destroyers to the scene of action and the submarine was destroyed' describes what is meant by 'indirect' in this sense. The destroyers almost always got the credit, wherein the aircraft, the indirect destructive agency, was really responsible for bringing about the action in which the submarine was destroyed."

So spake LCdr. W. Atlee Edwards, former aid for aviation on the staff of Admiral W. S. Sims, testifying before the Lampert Committee in 1925.

The primary role of Naval Aviation in WW I was antisubmarine warfare. The first recorded attack on an enemy submarine by a U.S. Naval Aviator was made by Ens. John F. McNamara on March 25, 1918, while serving at the Royal Navy Air Station, Portland, England. Although his attack was successful enough to warrant special commendations from the Secretary of the Navy and Adm. Sims, the later evaluation was "possibly damaged."

The first attack from a U.S. Naval Air Station was from Ile Tudy, France, which, perhaps because of its location, had more antisubmarine action than any of our overseas stations. Two coastal convoys passed through its sector daily, one bound north, the other south. Around Penmarch Point, the water was deep near shore, free of reefs and sand bars and ideally suited to submarine operations. A majority of the "allos" received at Ile Tudy were from this area.

The operating routine was described by the station historian. "The sector was marked off into 25-mile squares, subdivided into squares of five miles. By this means planes were able to report position every half hour and be quickly and accurately located. Communication was maintained with shore bases by radio and pigeons, and with vessels by message buoys, phosphorous buoys, Very pistols and the blinker system. . . .

"A section of two planes escorted each convoy. As the sector was too long to be covered entirely by two planes, it was necessary to send out another section to relieve the first, when the convoy was approximately halfway through the area. This necessitated using at least eight planes per day for convoy work alone. In addition, there was always a section known as the 'Alert' ready to take the air from daybreak to dark in response to any 'allos' received. When the convoy was picked up, the planes would first circle over it. Then while one plane would remain around the convoy the other would fly as far as 10 to 15 miles ahead, zigzagging broadly on both sides. This plane would return, again circle the convoy, repeating the same maneuver again and again. Before leaving a convoy, the planes circled a last time in its neighborhood. In this way the convoy was well protected from surprise."

On April 23, 1918, a convoy escort of two Donnet-Denhaut seaplanes, piloted by Ens. K. R. Smith and R. H. Harrell, QM1c, saw the first action. They joined the southbound convoy of about 20 ships, approximately six miles north of Penmarch Point. As the weather was very foggy, they first flew to the rear of the convoy to look for stragglers, then flew a wide circle toward the main body. Shortly after, they sighted a suspicious wake, apparently being made by a submarine moving at good speed, and went in to attack. Smith dropped two bombs, the first landing on the fore part of the wake and the second ten feet ahead. The explosions created a heavy disturbance in the water followed by many air bubbles and appeared so successful that Harrell did not drop his bombs. Instead, he marked the spot with a phosphorous buoy and circled. Smith then flew to a destroyer, USS Stewart, and dropped a message buoy. Stewart arrived in the target area, followed soon after by the French gunboat Ardente, and dropped three depth charges. The pilots circling overhead saw small pieces of wreckage, particles of sea growth and large quantities of oil coming to the surface, and shortly after returned to their base. The oil was still visible from the air as late as the sixth of May. Ens. Smith and his observer, Chief O. E. Williams, were officially credited by the French naval authorities with a submarine, were cited in the Order of the Day and awarded Croix de Guerre with Palm.

The North Sea coast of England, where NAS KILLINGHOLME was located, was also a favorite sub-hunting ground. In the month before the station was under U.S. command, Ens. J. J. Schieffelin attacked a submarine which, possibly because of damage, surfaced after he left the scene and was sunk by gunfire from British destroyers. Ten days later he was again in action. While he was en route to the Whitby area, extremely rough air over Flamborough Head bounced his plane so hard that one of the suspending bomb hooks was bent and he was forced to jettison half his bomb load. Off Whitby, he sighted a surfaced submarine and attacked. His one bomb exploded under the stern of the submarine, kicking it clear of the water and exposing its rotating screw to view. The sub then disappeared under water at a steep angle. Later that day, after he had directed surface craft to the position, a submarine surfaced in the general area only to be rammed and sunk by the destroyer HMS Garry. There was initial confusion over whether this submarine was the one attacked by Schieffelin, but later information confirmed that his submarine returned to base in damaged condition. The evaluation of both attacks was "probably seriously damaged."

NAS LOUGH FOYLE in Northern Ireland, which guarded the north entrance to the Irish Sea, made its first attack October 19, 1918. Ens. George S. Montgomery, in seaplane LF-4, was escorting a 32-ship convoy when he sighted and successfully bombed a submarine apparently moving into position for an attack. Both bombs functioned, one striking 30 feet to the right of the periscope and the other ten feet forward. The assessment was "probably damaged" and the station history reported that "undoubtedly at least one ship in the convoy was saved by the timely bombing."

Submarines did not always react passively to these attacks. On at least one occasion against a seaplane and once against an airship, the U-boats fought back. On August 13, 1918, four seaplanes, one piloted by Ens. J. F. Carson, left NAS DUNKIRK o n patrol. A short distance off the coast, a large submarine was sighted proceeding on the surface at high speed. Since it carried no identification marks, Carson fired a challenging signal. At that point, the submarine apparently spotted the planes and opened fire with its four-inch gun. Five shots were fired, three passing close to Carson's plane, and several pieces of shrapnel pierced his fuselage and wings. Carson immediately returned fire with his machine guns and moved into bombing position. The submarine cleared the deck and dived. As she went down, Carson dropped two bombs, one exploding in the swirl and the second slightly forward of it. The submarine reappeared, her bow projecting from the water at a sharp angle. Within four minutes she again submerged, sliding stern first under water. Carson was credited with a sinking by the French government and awarded the Croix de Guerre.

The airship involved was the AT-13 out of NAS PAIMBOEUF. On October 1, 1918, after escorting one convoy through the area, the airship turned to meet another. On the way, she fired two shots on a rock for target practice. On the second shot the firing spring broke, putting her only gun out of action and reducing her offensive capability to bombs. At about two-thirty, the convoy was picked up and the airship made the usual circle overhead. Then, as two storms were observed approaching from the north and northeast, the airship took a heading to pass between them. Shortly after, a suspicious object sighted to the north was investigated. While still a mile away, it was made out to be a submarine and when it opened fire there was no doubt that it was enemy. Thirteen shells burst near the airship but none struck her. The airship took up the chase to get into bombing position but the head wind was so strong that the submarine could not be overtaken. Signals by radio and Aldis lamp informed the convoy of the situation and the chase continued until the submarine disappeared in the darkness.

Action against the U-boat was not confined to overseas waters. On a Sunday morning, July 21, 1918, the U-156 surfaced off Nauset Beach, Cape Cod, and began what has since been called the Battle of Chatham. It was tersely reported in the weekly Aviation Bulletin as: "Sunday morning off Chatham, German submarine of the latest type appeared. She had two 6-inch guns with which she shelled and sank some barges. Seaplanes were sent out and submarine submerged." There was more to it. Details were reported by dispatch and telephone. The gist of it was that an enemy submarine was reported at 10:10, three miles off Coast Guard Station 50. Four minutes later, an HS-2, piloted by Ens. Eric Lingard, left the station, flew over the submarine at 400 feet and dropped a bomb which failed to explode. At 11:15, the C.O. of the station, Lt. Philip Eaton, USCG, took off in an R-9, reached the scene a few minutes later and bombed from 500 feet. The bomb hit about 100 feet off the starboard quarter. It too failed to explode. After firing four shots at the seaplanes, the sub submerged and was lost in thick smoke.

These are but a few of the 30 attacks reported by LCdr. Edwards. The evaluation of results was difficult, even as it was in a later war. The appearance of oil and sea growth on the surface after an attack was a common feature of reports in both wars. Then, as later, early assessments leaned toward the optimistic; post-war records gave the hard, cold facts. But more important than confirmed destruction was the extent to which Naval Aviators met the challenge of their first test in combat and presented a real threat to submarine commanders and kept them from their appointed tasks.

Luftwaffe Over America: The Secret Plans to Bomb the United States in World War IIby Manfred Griehl. Hardcover with dust jacket. Published by Greenhill Books. 256 pages with black and white photographs and illustrations. Text ends on page 245, followed by Acknowledgements, Bibliography and Index.

The subject of this book is German long-range bomber development during the Second World War. The plans to attack America were more in the category of "It would be desirable," but the motivation was its propaganda value and the possibility that a successful attack might cause the Americans to divert manpower and resources to round the clock air defense, at least along the eastern seaboard. Of greater urgency was adapting the bombers to assist the U-Boat fleet with reconnaissance.

The book's Introduction reveals pre-war plans to attack America. Chapter One covers attempts to build long-range bombers in the 1930s. It also starts a common thread carried throughout the book: the availability, or lack thereof, of engines that were reliable enough, powerful enough and produced in sufficient quantity to equip the proposed bombers. Just prior to the war, the Me 261 prototype became available. The BV 222 flying boat is also mentioned.

Chapter Two: From the Outbreak of War to December 1940, begins with He 177 V-1 (W.Nr. 177 0001) powered by two DB 606 paired engines that flew two months after the outbreak of the war. The maiden flight of the BV 222 prototype V-1 (D-ANTE, CC+ER, X4+AH, W.Nr. 0365) takes place on 7 September 1940. By 23 December, the prototype Me 261 V-1 (W.Nr. 2445-2610000001, BJ+CP) flies for the first time. It is in this chapter that long-range aircraft are mentioned as needed for Colonial work in Central Africa. [Writer's note: Yes, all those zeroes are in the text.]

Chapter Three: The Year 1941. The Arado Ar E 340 built but no capacity for series production. By 1941, all that had been built for actual operations was the Fw 200, which was used in the anti-shipping role. The Fw 300 is proposed but there is uncertainty about engine availability. It could be powered by four DB 603s or four Jumo 222s. If that was not possible, four BMW 802s or Jumo 223s or DB 604s. Then an order is issued to build the Ju 290, but all are earmarked as transports for North Africa or the Eastern Front. There is talk of modifying the He 177 to the He 177B but the added weight changes its classification from long-range bomber to heavy bomber. Air refueling of a He 177 A-1 variant with the MK 101Z mid-air refueling system is mentioned. The Do 214 is cancelled.

Chapter Four: The Year 1942 - First Half. Development of the Me 264 is stalled due to a lack of workshop capacity. Delivery date of 1944 or 1945 is given. A "Potential [American] Targets" list is shown. The He 177 is grounded due to engine trouble. The first mention of mother aircraft for parasite fighters and bombers. All the way up to this point and in subsequent chapters, there are mentions of the attempts to juggle bomb load, armaments and radar to achieve best range and performance/defense. It is announced that Me 264 production will not begin until 1946/47.

Chapter Five: The Year 1942 - Second Half. Problems with wings and control surfaces are mentioned. As well as methods to reduce weight by using a jettisonable undercarriage, towing and rocket assist.

Chapter Six: The Year 1943 - First Half. The Ta 400 is mentioned. Continued problems with engines, control surfaces, and, additionally, flight instruments.

Chapter Seven: The Year 1943- Second Half. Me 262 is top priority and work space is used to capacity.

Chapter Eight: Techniques to Increase Range. Along with aircraft towing, the idea is proposed to use towed, winged fuel containers. There is mention of refueling flying boats from U-Boats (later deemed impractical unless done in calm waters). This book also shows the role played by the DFS in aerial refueling. A successful refueling flight involving a Ju 90 V-5 (W.Nr. 4917, D-ANBS) towing up and then refueling an Fw 58 V-18 (W.Nr. 2207, D-OXLR) was filmed, but the problem of doing this during bad weather was brought up. Another method was the Mistel concept, and yet another was to stow the Me 328 or Me P 1073 with retractable or folding wings inside a Ju 390 or Me 264. Mention is also made of the DFS receiving an order to build ten Me 328s (V-1 to V-10) at Ainring near Bad Reichenhall.

Chapter Nine: The Year 1944 - First Half. Allied air war intensifies. The He 274 prototypes being built in France are coming along slowly. The Allies capture the second and third prototypes after the landings, have them completed and flight test them.

Chapter Ten: The Year 1944 - Second Half. The Me 264 is cancelled. The BV 238 V-1 prototype makes its maiden flight on 11 March 1944, but is evacuated and later destroyed in 1945. The Reich begins to shrink.

Chapter Eleven: The Year 1945. Hitler orders giant, high speed bombers with great range and large bomb loads. Now the projects begin to flow in profusion. The Horten Ho IX. The Storch VII Flying Wing (?) of 1931 is mentioned. Then the Me P 1107/I and II, as well as the Me P 1108 I and II. The Junkers EF 130 is cancelled at the beginning of 1945 and personnel are transferred to work on the EF 126 and EF 131. The Junkers EF 132 is also mentioned. Then we move on to the incredible Sanger bomber.

Chapter Twelve: Rocket Attack. A quick history of the A (Aggregate) series is given. The winged version of the A4. Underground rocket silos in France large enough to hold the A9. And then the reader is presented with the "America Rocket" and its gyroscopic navigation system being manufactured at the underground factory "Polte 2." We learn a little about the underground weapons factory called "Zement." Was the 'America Rocket' a myth? The author has no evidence from the period. However, sworn eyewitness testimony given in 1962 describes the launch of a two-stage rocket of about 30 meters on 16 March 1945. Next the author turns to firing rockets from U-Boats and a defensive rocket to be launched from a torpedo tube which was code named "Ursel." Finally, the plan to tow A-4 rockets behind a U-Boat in special containers is explained.

Chapter Thirteen: The Ordnance. Here the various types of bombs are mentioned, finally coming to the subject of a possible atom bomb. At this point, I would like to point out that what I believe about this subject is not important, but it is sometimes the job of the researcher to "go with a hunch." My "hunch" is that there is something to this. The author presents an account about a man named Zinsser who apparently witnessed an atom bomb test in 1944. There is reference to following declassified papers: "NARA/RG 38, Box 9-13 Entry 98c. Top Secret Naval Attache Reports 1944-1947." It is a report "...issued by COMNAVEU London on 25 January 1946 by Captain R.F. Hickey, USN, and entitled 'Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb'. A footnote to the enclosure states: Enclosure (A) is a discussion of the German atomic bomb. Listed are the principle scientists involved, plus what is known by them of similar developments in the United States. A short discussion of the materials required and the energy capable of being released is included.' The whereabouts of this enclosure is not known. The declassified portion of the report, signed by Captain Helenes T. Freiberger..." gives this man's full statement. "This interrogation was evaluated B-1 on a reliability scale A-1 to E-0." The following statements by the author indicate that this rating is low on the scale.

In conclusion, the development of long-range bombers to attack the U.S. began but the usual "teething" problems associated with any new aircraft development came up, as well as shifting priorities, lack of work space for new projects, materials shortages, lack of trained personnel, and finally, the intensifying Allied air attacks. The year 1945, in my opinion, still holds some secrets. The SS are mentioned in different parts of the book, including the mysterious SS-Obergruppenfeuhrer and Waffen-SS General Dr. (Ing.) Kammler. After the attempt on Hitler's life, if not before, the SS gradually and then more rapidly, took charge. Kammler was given plenipotentiary powers by Hitler as regards secret weapons projects. Also, the very first illustration in the book may, or may not, be a clue. It is a drawing that I believe has been available since the 1950s in the U.S. Although the caption indicates that it shows the "Calculated effect of a bomb dropped on the centre of Manhattan from a rocket bomber in the stratosphere." there is a 'side view' illustration of this effect at the top of the drawing. The shape and size of this affect appears to show a blast radius similar to that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The book is a bit dry, but well researched. It is mostly translated documents on Germany's plans for nuisance raids against America and the aircraft intended to be used. It is mostly concerned with the development of the Me-264, BV 222/BV238 and Ju-390 and their intended use (including long range U-Boat support). Most of the information is translated memo and minutes from meetings on the subject. I did not find any wild speculation of what if, but more a detailed look at the plans for long range aircraft and the frustration these large planes presented to German. I would recommend it to anyone interested in this subject. This is not a picture book, but does present some nice drawings of some of the paper projects proposed. It also covers the plan for U-boat fired V-2s and V-1s. As to Atomics, Manfred outlines the known German development. No claims of A-bombs here, just the facts and a few interesting documents such as unsubstantiated eye witness reports that are on record. Manfred does state that the documents captured by the American's at German's atomic research facilities are still sealed till to at least 2046 or longer. Any one want to pursue this through the Freedoms of Information Act?

LINK

The Vergeltungswaffe l (the revenge, or retaliation, weapon), or V1, had a plethora of names. To the Luftwaffe, it was the Fliegerabwehrkanonezielger채t 76 (Flakzielger채t 76, or just FZG 76), but that was a cover-name: Fliegerabwehrkanonezielger채t means 'anti-aircraft gun aiming device' or conceivably 'antiaircraft gun target device'. Its official codename was 'Kirschkern' ('Cherrystone') and it was also known as 'Krahe' ('Crow'); while to the RLM it was the Fi 103; and to the airframe manufacturers, Fieseler, it began life as P. 35. To the British public it was the Buzzbomb, the P-Plane or the Doodlebug, while the RAF knew it as 'Diver'. In effect a first-generation cruise missile, it was an unmanned air-breathing jet aircraft with an explosive warhead and a simple guidance/targeting device.

The Fieseler Fi 103 A-1, the original and technically most common version of the flying bomb, was about 8m (26ft) long. Its wingspan was of around 5m (17ft) although there were two different wings produced in slightly different form and dimensions, and it had a maximum fuselage diameter of 0.84m (2.75ft); the warhead comprised 830kg (18321b) of Trialen (amatol), which was sometimes supplemented by incendiary bombs. Provision was made to replace the explosive with gas, though this never happened in practice. A full load of 75-80 octane fuel added 515kg (11331b) to the all-up launch weight total of 2180kg (48061b). It had an autonomous range of 240km (150 miles) at a maximum speed of 645km/h (400mph), and an operational ceiling of 3000m (9800ft). It was fabricated from sheet steel pressings, with an aluminium nosecone and sheet-steel wings around a single tubular steel spar. The emphasis was on keeping costs to a minimum, and little effort was put into reducing weight by employing more exotic materials. In 1945, the Fi 103 F-l was produced. Basically similar to the A-l, its warhead contained 436kg (9621b) of amatol, and its fuel tanks were enlarged from 568 litres (125 gallons) to 756 litres (166 gallons), increasing range to 370km (230 miles).

The V1 was very cost-effective, even if it was at best only 20 per cent effective. Estimates of the unit cost vary, but around 5000 Reichsmarks seems reasonable at a time when the standard German infantry rifle, the Mauser 98K, was costing RM56, and a PzKpfw IV tank over RM 100,000.

An aspect of the V1 operational story is frequently overlooked. The Germans also launched about 7,400 to 9,000 V-ls against targets on the continent, mostly (4,900) against the port of Antwerp, Belgium. In the city's defense the Allies deployed 18,000 troops manning 208 90-mm guns, 128 3.7-inch guns, and 188 40-mm guns. In addition, they used 280 balloons later augmented to 1,400. No fighters were employed in the defense of Antwerp. In the attack on Antwerp, the Germans deployed their first missiles from the southeast. In mid-December, they shifted to the northeast and finally, by the end of January, to the north. The last direction of attack created a particular problem for the defense because a large airfield in that sector was not closed until 21 February 1945. Nevertheless, the defenders downed 2,183 (91 .2 percent) of the 2,394 missiles plotted. More to the point, only 211 V1 s reached a 7,000-yard radius area around the docks that the defenders designated as the vital area.

The Germans also attacked Liege, Belgium, with about 3,000 V1 s. It was defended between 23 November and 11 December 1944, when the urgent needs of the Battle of the Bulge pulled the defenders out.

V1s killed a total of 947 military and 3,736 civilians and wounded 1,909 military and 8,166 civilians on the continent. Antwerp suffered 1,812 military and 8,333 civilian casualties, or 10,145 of the 14,758 V-1 casualties on the continent.

by Ben Scott

The evils of National Socialism have cast a great shadow across German history. Half a century on from the horrors of the Final Solution, the historian's task of establishing a consensus explanation for the inexplicable has foundered in controversy. Though it has not been for lack of trying. In the frantic search for answers, virtually no German from Martin Luther to Helmut Kohl has evaded inspection for traces of Nazi roots or lingering legacies. The pursuit of truth and justice rightly produces such sensitivity. Yet, until recently, the emotional need for a single, devastating truth has masked the full scope of history between the Kaiserreich and the Dritte Reich. New inquiries have revealed not only the potential-laden seeds of fascism, but concurrent liberal ideologies, and non-ideological elements of German society. Viewed as both apologist and ground-breaking, these works seek a new understanding of the interwar period without detracting from the primacy of the Holocaust. This approach distinguishes between parallel and causal narratives, resists "hindsight history", and counters the tendency to cover weak analysis with castigation. Perhaps more importantly, it is a neutralizing strategy which invites the re-reading of existing histories with the purpose of critically "de-selecting" interpretations of the German past which presuppose a fascist taint.

This study will review in this way the history of the Freikorps, the mass of volunteer soldiers who served as the repressive military force in the Weimar Republic from January 1919, to April 1920. In the eyes of popular history, they are the direct predecessors to the Nazi paramilitary groups. Historiographically, this label is not difficult to trace. The first histories of the Freikorps were written in the 1930s by Nazi myth-makers intent on glorifying the ideological precursor to the SA.¹ Postwar historians have been far more even handed, but nonetheless reinforce a deterministic narrative of proto-Nazism. Even the best of these texts which adopt thoroughgoing methodologies tend to corrupt their neutrality by de-emphasizing characteristics which are apparently unconnected to Hitler's Germany. If analysis presupposes that nationalist paramilitary groups in interwar Germany are necessarily fascist in character, seeking critically only this conclusion, the possibility of dissociating the early Freikorps from the SS is nullified by prior implication. Witness the success and popularity with which Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies (1987) has located "fascism as inner experience" in a psychoanalysis of Freikorps soldiers, and it is difficult to ignore the potential problems of guilt by association.²

Rather than read history backward in search of a lineage of ideological militants, this study will give significant weight to a discussion of the stormtroops in the Great War, the physical and spiritual predecessors to the Friekorps. It will finish with the dissolution of the last volunteer units in April 1920. The volunteers movement will be approached as an extension of WWI and the subsequent revolution rather than a prelude to fascism. Though the ex-Freikorpssoldiers did devolve into the reactionary Right and thus serve in the cause of Nazism, they did not begin so, nor were they characterized by political conviction during their sixteen months in action.

The true identity of the Freikorpslies not in a nascent genocidal impulse, but in the trench experience and the conditions of a revolutionary society. The lineage of the Freikorps lies more appropriately as a descendent of the elite stormtroopers (Sturmtruppen) of the Western Front, and the myths surrounding them. It was not politics, but war which interested these men. It was not ideology, but activism which characterized their movement. They were less patriots than mercenaries; less zealous reactionaries than opportunistic war lovers. Their history is one of chaotic circumstance, traumatic identity, and vacillating purpose. They did not so much drive the proto-Nazi movement as they were harnessed to it through chance and contingency. For all the myths of a foreword-looking legacy to another war, there is the simple truth that the attention of these men, while they were Freikorpskämpfer, was firmly fixed backwards, towards the war they had just left or just missed.

Legend and Legacy

The German stormtroops were born of necessity.³ In early 1916, the Imperial German Army was locked into a two front war of attrition which with time could only mean defeat. Outnumbered and outgunned in the West, but buoyed by successes in the East, the High Command gambled on a massive assault at Verdun. In a similar spirit of hopeful risk, Captain Willy Rohr revamped a special project which had false-started in 1914, stormtroops, elite units of carefully selected, specially trained men. Physically fit weapons specialists with tactical mobility, these units were designed to literally storm the enemy lines with concentrated fire power, creating a breach which could then be exploited by massed assault waves. Trial combat engagements in May of 1916, though too limited to bring victory, were promising. Training schools for new strategies and special weaponry sprung up behind the lines.

During the Battle of the Somme, stormtroops served as an "elastic defense" against attackers.⁴ Self-contained, highly independent companies launched explosive counter-attacks to relieve pressure on sensitive portions of the line. Heavily armed, but isolated between massive armies, stormtroops' viability hinged on officers' initiative both for a successful sortie, and a suitable line of retreat. Laden with mobile machine guns, flamethrowers, light artillery, hand grenades, semi-automatic carbines and pistols, stormtroopers maneuvered recklessly, blasting deep into the opposing trench system, and back out again. This atypical style of mobile combat was both highly effective and costly, building up a mystique of hardened, mechanized warriors around the survivors of these units.

Offensively, most notably in the counter-attack at Cambrai in November 1917, and in the March Offensive of 1918, stormtroops used "infiltration tactics."⁵ Squads of men from 10 to 100 strong spearheaded German assault waves, probing enemy lines and skirting strong points. Sectors with weaker defenses were stormed with grenade attacks, and held only briefly before moving off to the next line of trenches. Units were not to await reinforcement, orders to attack, or artillery support, but were to advance until exhaustion or the complete penetration of enemy artillery emplacements. Disrupting enemy communications, opening the flanks on strongly held redoubts, and destabilizing lines of support, stormtroopers are often credited with the German successes in 1918.⁶

As success mythified their reputation, the stormtroopers grew in distinctiveness. Always unmarried, under 25, and physically fit, these soldiers fought, appeared, and thought of themselves as superior. Many units shed the traditional Reichswehr accouterments for a kit specially adapted for mobility and firepower. These alterations, including the donning of a "death's head" collar insignia, set them apart physically and psychologically from the mass of soldiers, contributing to the ethos of elitism earned in battle. Additionally, officer/men ratios dipped as low as 1-to-4, and soldiers were issued officers' pistols. Discipline was relaxed and cohesive relations encouraged within units. Men conversed with officers using the familiar "du" form, unheard of in the history of the Prussian army. Stormtroops received better rations, longer periods in rest billets, and extended leave. In action, companies were trucked to the front lines for a mission and returned upon completion, never obliged to simply hold a position. Permanently on the offensive in action, and pampered in reserve, stormtroop morale remained high despite appalling casualty rates. Frequently this aggressive group confidence was invested in a company commander whose name, rather than regiment number, was used to refer to his troops. These officers, super-human in reputation, enjoyed a blind allegiance from their men.

Though the tactical, mechanized prowess of these elite, cohesive units will be of interest when mirrored in the Freikorps, the legacy of the powerful identity and world view forged through combat experiences is of primary importance. The meaning that stormtroopers derived from the war set them apart from any group of men, then or since. For many, notably represented by Ernst Jünger (himself a decorated officer), the Fronterlebnis had generated a new kind of man with new insights into the workings of the world. The "new man" (der neue Mensch) was intimately bound to the euphoric destruction in the combat experience. It had smelted a steel being with a primitive virtue, both fused with and triumphant over the mechanical slaughter that surrounded him. Though concepts like Fronterlebnis, Frontgemeinschaft, der neue Mensch, and the Mannesidealhave since become strongly connoted with ideological racism, it is crucial for an understanding of both the stormtroops and the Freikorps to formulate the original, non-political meaning of this soldier's legend.

Ernst Jünger, in Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis (1922), provides this illuminating description of the product of the stormtroopers' war experience.

"This was a whole new race, energy incarnate, charged with supreme energy. Supple bodies, lean and sinewy, striking features, stone eyes petrified in a thousand terrors beneath their helmets. These were conquerors, men of steel tuned to the most grisly battle. Sweeping across a splintered landscape, they heralded the final triumph of all imagined horror. Unimaginable energies were released as these brave troops broke out to regain lost outposts where pale figures gaped at them with madness in their eyes. Jugglers of death, masters of explosive and flame, glorious predators, they sprang easily through the trenches. In the moment of encounter, they encapsulated the spirit of battle as no other human beings could. Theirs was the keenest assembly of bodies, intelligence, will, and sensation."⁷

Faced with destructive force of modern warfare, assigned both to wield and attack it, the stormtroops derived an identity from their occupation which invested them with a Zarathustrean will to power. Empowered by a primitive lust for action, the fusion of men and machines raised human awareness to a higher plane. Though on the surface an alien fantasy with disturbingly real manifestations in wartime, the psychological roots of the myth are grounded in comprehensible reactions. Omer Bartov theorizes that the very scale of destruction deployed in total war "enhanced the need for an heroic image of war" even as it negated the value of romantic conceptions of valor.⁸ The traditional notions of heroism, chivalry and martial prowess, had somehow to be salvaged from the anonymity of industrial killing. The stormtroops, through their unique combat status, found in themselves a reconciliation of individual heroism and mass death. Man and machine merged into a "steel man", a new hero with a mechanically altered body, mind, and ability. "Here was a fascination with technology bound together with an attempt to rediscover the heroic virtues of the past, an obsession with surpassing the limits of human endurance, combined with a longing for death, an assertion of individualism along with a passionate desire to merge with the mass."⁹ Paradoxes of individuality and anonymity, human virtue and mechanical precision, human limits and technological possibility were harmonized in the self-conception of the "new men", "anachronistic heroes" with "futuristic machines."¹⁰

The image of the primitive, battle hardened warrior was not new to history, only its manifestation in tandem with technological weapons. What made the "new man" such an enduring concept was the coupling of the "steel man" with the primitive, spiritual awareness that could expand human limits to defeat machines. In the heat of battle, a hyper-sensitive clarity overtook these men, enabling super-human acts of will power and comprehension that thwarted mechanized weapons with mechanized men. As Jünger describes, "We've been harnessed and chiseled, but we are also such as swing the hammer and guide the chisel, we are at once the smith and the flashing steel."¹¹ The savage clarity of a primitive will blends with the cool precision of the killing machine to actualize the sacred potential of man.¹² Moreover, the very nature of the stormtroops military function supported this fantasy world. In a war of massed metal and men, elite soldiers (or rather their tactics) hadturned the tide of battle. The weight of numbers had not defeated the prowess of the hero. This vindication of the power of the steel soldiers gave the stormtroopers a reckless pride, a Draufgängertum.¹³ Franz Schauwecker, a line officer, described the near-cyborg spirit: "These men were living guns, with melinite muscles and tripod legs; their eyes narrowed to slits, thin blue horizons looking out toward men swarming forward between branches and tree trunks, red wine in their bellies, like tanked-up motors turned loose with no brakes to hold them."¹⁴ Naturally, not all stormtroopers wished or were able to express their transformation in these terms, but the similarities of sentiment in written testimony bear witness to the common affirmation of these ideals.

In ideological terms, the implications of the war experience and the "new man" were much hazier. A nationalist interpretation of the Mannesidealcontends that it represented a shift towards the individual as the source of the "nation", a new legitimacy of patriotism embodied in the soldiers.¹⁵ How the German people really felt about the ideals of the "new man" is unclear, though likely the war weary population did not put much stock in the violent nature of war-crazed veterans, at least in the short term. Regardless of public sympathy, outspoken stormtroops were sure that the truths they had won so dearly would catapult them to the top of a new utopian Europe. Yet this had less to do with a political ideology in the ascendant than with the belief that the suffering endured in war would be rewarded with a corresponding rise to greatness. Thus bleak November 1918 could not be the end of the war. They had not lost. They had defended the line until the armistice, marched home in formation, and looked ahead to the next challenge, the coming of the new world. "They had no particular ideological convictions and no special political outlook. All they knew was fighting and the tradition of the 'front line soldier.'"¹⁶

Out of the trenches and into the Freikorps

Perhaps the most critically under-emphasized point in the history of stormtroopers-come-Freikorpskämpferis the speed at which events progressed in the months around the armistice. A wild hope that German arms would win the war had held until the early fall of 1918. Yet, only weeks later, Ludendorff was suing for peace. Before the full implications of this radical downturn could filter out to the front lines, a revolution was underway at home. The reserve troops melted into the countryside, and rebellious soldier's councils sprang up from a de facto demobilization. By January, the official report of the War Ministry admitted that the Western Army was "essentially only...a large horse-and-wagon-depot."¹⁷ The High Command's plan to reduce the army to prewar levels in order to retain sufficient force to validate the November pact between Groener and Ebert proved illusory. Not only did the troops disappear, but along with them tens of thousands of weapons.¹⁸ Those Reichswehr units which did remain (notably the Horse Guards) proved embarrassingly unreliable in action against mutinous sailors in Berlin.¹⁹ Anxious to find alternative armed support against the revolt, newly instated Minister of Defense Gustav Noske found the answer waiting for discovery.

The rapid conclusion to the war was not welcome to all soldiers, despite the army's disintegration. The last troops to retire from the Western Front had among them a large proportion of stormtroop battalions, used to fill the gaps in the weakened line in the last days of the war. Returning indignantly to their garrison towns, they found orders for demobilization. Yet these men were in no mood to admit defeat, nor relinquish their arms, nor consent to a cessation of hostilities. Consequently, they began to form into volunteer corps, organized and led by charismatic stormtroop officers.

The first was created by General Georg von Maercker in mid-December of 1918. His self-contained mini-division was modeled on a stormtroop battalion, complete with squads of specialists for machine guns, mortars, light artillery, flame-throwers, armored cars, tanks, and even aircraft.²⁰ Recruitment proceeded by word of mouth, as officers selected NCO's from their old units, and they in turn found willing soldiers. Most of the volunteers were veterans, often stormtroops, commonly young, middle class, and unmarried. Many were part of the Imperial officer corps, 250,000 strong at war's end. Unsatisfied with the prospect of losing the social and personal prestige earned through battlefield commission, some 25% of junior officers joined the Freikorps. Others joined for the promise of pay, food, lodging, and security in times of civil unrest; others sought adventure and a renewed possibility of experiencing the thrill of combat.²¹ A significant number of volunteers were students or cadets, too young to have fought in the war, but hungry for a chance. Common to all was a will to continue or experience the Fronterlebnisand reify the "new man", and to vindicate the defeat they felt was forced upon them by back-stabbing civilians. Maercker's Corps was to serve as a model for the dozens upon dozens of similar units to follow.²²

The independent formation of volunteer corps coincided fortuitously with the desperate void of armed power suffered by the tottering government. In the first week of January, six weeks after armistice, Noske and Ebert saw the Maercker Corp in review. Major Kurt von Schleicher presented the High Command with a plan to recruit, arm, and fund more of these volunteer corps to rebuild the military without alarming Allied sensitivity to overt martial organization in Germany.²³ Volunteers were to be used in the defense of the eastern frontier, under threat from Polish irregulars, and in protection of the Republican government struggling to gain a hold on power.

Simultaneous recruitment and spontaneous formation amongst zealous veterans flooded the country with armed men. Though January saw relatively organized units materialize, the following months produced a varied assortment of Freikorps, from basically intact veteran battalions to hodgepodge collections of mercenaries, adventurers, and criminals.²⁴ Loyalty lay partially to the government treasury, but primarily to the charisma of the unit's leader, a Führerprinzip which characterized the Freikorpsas it had the stormtroops before them. Once again, units bore the name of their commander. By the summer of 1919, between 200,000 and 400,000 men were under arms in volunteer corps.²⁵

Parallels between stormtroops and volunteers went beyond the physical fact that these were the same men under the same leaders. The soldiers carried with them their expertise and love of machines, cohesive informalities, absolute loyalties, a common understanding about the war and a resentment over its conclusion. However, perhaps primary is the carry-over of the legend of the stormtroopers and the identity of the "new man." The spirit of the "new man" with his primitive, savage will encased in the metallic perfection of a war machine had not dissipated with the armistice. It had been only a few weeks between final demobilization and Freikorpsformation. If hot blood had cooled without a battle, it was put to boil again by revolutionary Germany, the insult of the "stab-in-the-back" defeat, and the prospect of a renewal of the trench spirit in combat against insurrectionists or eastern invaders. Back among comrades, led by worshipped officers, and still obsessed with a primal confidence, they could recognize no end to the war. The attractive alternative was to consider it still in progress. Fighter and historian of the Freikorps, Ernst von Salomon, reflected that "they had not yet got over the war. War had moulded them; it had given a meaning to their lives and a reason for their existence. They were unruly and untamed, beings apart, who gathered themselves into little companies animated by a desire to fight."²⁶

Here it would seem appropriate to point out that the "stab-in-the-back" (Dolchstoss) felt by the Freikorps, and the denial of defeat, were patently non-political. It was not yet a political slogan of distorted significance. It was a matter of soldierly identity. Defeat would betray their war, their sacrifice, as meaningless. Further, it threatened to expose the legend of the steel man and his glorious future as a fantasy. The prospect of a painful disparity between imagined identity and real destiny produced a tremendous need to act, deny, and continue to experience even in perpetual fabrication the life which had sustained the myth. No ideology yet existed, nor was it needed. Only action would suffice. One soldier explained, "We adopted activism as a moral principle."²⁷ By aligning themselves with the government, they were not so much declaring a political goal, as following the path of least resistance towards the nearest fight in defense of a mythical nationalism, and in celebration of a glorified war experience. As would be the case throughout their short history, the Freikorps shared aims, but not reasons, with the political powers that controlled them. One commander remembered: "The pure Landsknechte didn't much care why or for whom they fought. The main thing for them was that they were fighting...War had become their career. They had no desire to look for another...War made them happy-what more can you ask?"²⁸

Though of course these men were atypical of the majority of veterans (400,000 out of a possible 11 million), the disproportionate influence they held in revolutionary Germany alone merits a disproportionate attention to their unique state of mind. Still further, they were not alone in their action-based postwar militancy. The paramilitary Arditi which arose from the Italian army, and the brutal Black and Tans who terrorized Ireland after leaving the British forces were manifestations of a similar postwar mentality. Plus, as Richard Hamilton insightfully notes, a similar strata of a-political, combat enthusiasts is likely to be found in every mass army of the 20th century, particularly among young, middle class men, and especially in militaristic cultures.²⁹

Continuing the War

"People told us that the War was over. That made us laugh. We ourselves are the War. Its flame burns strongly in us. It envelops our whole being and fascinates us with the enticing urge to destroy. We obeyed...and marched onto the battlefields of the postwar world just as we had gone into battle on the Western Front: singing, reckless and filled with the joy of adventure as we marched to the attack; silent, deadly, remorseless in battle."³⁰

The Freikorpssuppression of the Spartacist revolt in Berlin on January 10-15, 1919, the first military action taken by the newly formed units, has come to represent the volunteers activities in the historical imagination. Indeed, it would be correct to state that the most important historicalfunction of the volunteers was the suppression not only of the November Revolution in Berlin, but their repression of the Left throughout the major cities of Germany from January to May.³¹ Without the efficient military actions of the Freikorpsand the brutal reprisals they inflicted on occupied cities, the Weimar Republic might never have existed. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that the fighters shared the same priorities as the Ebert government. The battle at home, though attractive as revenge against back-stabbing civilians, did not hold the allure of the continued war on the Eastern Front.³²

Most Freikorpssoldiers were recruited on the promise that they would be sent to the eastern frontier to defend Prussia against Polish irregulars and the encroaching Red Army in the Baltics. "Few, if any, of the government's appeals for volunteers openly mentioned that the units were to be used for the suppression of internal unrest."³³ Soldiers were promised Latvian citizenship (a rumor which quickly expanded to free land) as well as the chance to fight Russians, wartime adversary as well as the ideological enemy of the moment. Some men, including Ernst von Salomon, were stymied by government orders to fight revolutionaries at home. He and his comrades deserted from the Weimar garrison to join the real war.³⁴ To these self-styled Baltikumers, the fight in the East was an extension of the German front of the Great War, the last chance to live and relive the war experience cut short by the revolution. Armed to the teeth, organized and led by ex-stormtroopers, and engaged in a mobile mode of combat that mirrored the actions last seen on the fields of France in the March offensive of 1918, the primitive savage of the "new man" was loosed on the Baltics. Salomon recalled:

"The blood surging through our veins was full of a wild demand for revenge and adventure and danger...We were a band of fighters drunk with all the passions of the world; full of lust, exultant in action. What we wanted, we did not know. And what we knew, we did not want! War and adventure, excitement and destruction. An indefinable, surging force welled up from every part of our being and flayed us onward."³⁵

By virtue of Allied anxiety over a potential Bolshevik threat, the German forces were permitted to advance into the Baltics to engage the Russian Army in February of 1919.³⁶ The High Command, hoping to quickly occupy and use the Baltics as a bargaining chip in the peace process, committed full resources to the task. The Iron Division, an amalgam of Freikorpsunder Major Josef Bischoff formed around the remnants of the German 8th Army (last in action a few months earlier on the same ground) led the assault. The capture of Riga, on May 22, 1919, proved the "high-water mark" of the Freikorps' military successes.³⁷ Not surprisingly, the assault on the strongly defended city used the infiltration tactics of a stormtroop offensive. The leading elements of the roving companies reached the citadel at the city center in the height of the fighting.³⁸ The volunteers were too successful, as it turned out. The farther the Russians fell back, the more concerned the Allies became of a German martial threat. Despite two Allied orders to the Ebert government to call back its troops, dissolve its volunteer corps, and renounce any claim on the region, the war continued through the twice mutinous tenacity of Freikorps fighters, unwilling to be stabbed in the back again.

Summer of Discontent

Though the last of the Freikorpsfighters would not leave the Baltics until November of 1919, it was clear in mid-summer that the game was up. The triumphant taking of Riga which was to redress the defeat of 1918 had lost its luster when the British forced its evacuation. The eager, activist recreation of the war experience deteriorated into a wanton bloodletting born of a helpless frustration. On the homefront, the repression of revolt had lost even the facade of national service and descended into a series of increasingly brutal reprisals on enemy and innocent alike (particularly Munich, in May). "A large number of free-corps fighters no longer knew, or cared what they were fighting for, and as they grew more powerful they became more independent. They would go wherever and whenever they were ordered, but what they did when they got there was no longer controlled by the government."³⁹

Politically unformed and uninformed, soldiers had little outlet into which this restless discontent could be channeled other than violence. Ernst von Salomon explains that "what was of real importance was not so much that what we did should be the right thing, but that we should take some action to save us from the lethargy of the times...each man charged with a suppressed aimless energy, knowing that he must fight, fight at all costs, whatever his political aims."⁴⁰ Drawing upon the ruthless primitive spirit of the stormtroop legend, heavily armed to reproduce the steely fantasy, Freikorps desperately grasped at a utopian Fronterlebnis, contemptuous of politicians and the weakness of ideology. "The precisely constructed military machine [of the Free Corps] rolled blindly and without any concern whatsoever for ideological purpose."⁴¹

By late summer, for all but the mutinous Baltikumers, there were no more fights to occupy the men. To add insult to injury, in late June, the government had signed the Versailles Treaty, agreeing to slash its half million soldiers down to 100,000 by April of 1920.⁴² The mollifying potential future of a military career was denied to all but a few. Yet another stab-in-the-back rankled the volunteers nearly as much as inactivity. With no one left to kill, the Freikorps retreated to armed labor camps, to grease their weapons and brood.⁴³ Yet after the whirlwind of battles that had occupied the previous nine months, and despite their growing frustration, the volunteers stayed relatively quiet. "Although the discontent of the Free Corps had a definite political potential, it was not in itself political."⁴⁴ Reactionaries saw the opportunity and seized it, much as Ebert and the SPD had done before, presenting a new fight to the volunteers; a shared temporary aim, but not yet a common ideology.

Kapp Putsch, Ruhr, and Politicization

Inactive in the winter of 1919-1920, the remaining Freikorpswere facing a spring deadline for dissolution by demand of the Versailles Treaty. Meanwhile, several of the volunteer commanders had allied themselves with conservative generals and bureaucrats led by General Baron Walther von Lüttwitz and Wolfgang Kapp in an attempt to stay the execution and topple the hated signers of the "Diktat." On the morning of March 13, the Ehrhardt Brigade marched unopposed into Berlin to escort Kapp into an empty Chancellery. The coup was as bloodless as it would be brief.

The Socialist government had taken the trouble to alert the Left of the putsch on their way out of town, fomenting a call for a General Strike, paralyzing Berlin and most of the country, not to mention sparking a reactionary uprising in the Ruhr. Although many of the Freikorpssided with the putschists, they did little to force the will of the new government on the people. This was largely because Kapp failed to provide the volunteers with what they wanted, violence. Faced with the unified resistance of the working class, the new leader shied away from a brutal show of force. Leaning always toward caution, and losing support by the hour, the putschists hopes quickly faded. Though individual Freikorpsstirred up trouble in a variety of locales, nothing substantial occurred to advance ideological ends. "The Free Corps' involvement in the Kapp Putsch remained more an expression of resentment and anger, more an act of political activism, than the expression of a conscious, or strictly counterrevolutionary, political program."⁴⁵ Their motives for supporting the putsch were purely negative. Indeed, many of the soldiers had never heard of Kapp before they marched under his banner.⁴⁶ Ernst von Salomon wrote about the time: "It was no inspired, controversial political idea that spurred us to protest. The actual cause lay simply in despair, which is never articulate."⁴⁷

Perhaps the greatest indicator of Freikorpsindifference was their immediate change of sides a week later in the Ruhr. Days after assisting the overthrow of the Socialist regime, they were back in its service, in what proved to be the volunteers' last and bloodiest "full-scale military offensive."⁴⁸ Amidst the chaos of the Kapp Putsch, a Red Army of perhaps 80,000 men formed in the Ruhr, set to launch a counterrevolution from the left. Before they got the chance, the Republic was restored and sent the Freikorps to repress the uprising. Amongst the troops in the field was the Ehrhardt Brigade, the vanguard of the Kapp Putsch.⁴⁹ The Freikorps, battle-hungry after nine months idle time, streamed in and smashed the rebels. The savagery of the assaults and reprisals reflected the frustration of the soldiers. A young student volunteer reported: "No pardon is given. We shoot even the wounded. The enthusiasm is tremendous-unbelievable...Anyone who falls into our hands first gets the rifle butt and then is finished off with a bullet."⁵⁰ Five days later, the region was secured. Save a scant few which were swallowed into the restricted Reichswehr, the remaining Freikorps were officially disbanded shortly thereafter.

The volunteers ducked out of sight into underground organizations (dubbed the "Black Reichswehr"). Many were harnessed over time to the politics of the reactionary right which provided ample violent occupation for jaded ex-volunteers. The Kapp Putsch had taught the soldiers to question the suitability of activism before ideology. The barricades-before-manifestos style of the Freikorps, inherited from the legend of the "new man", had yielded them only frustration.⁵¹ The fantasy of the super-soldier had begun to break apart under the pressure of final defeat, dashed hopes, and the failure of a false utopia to materialize. Over time, and lacking the military campaigns which had kept them attached to the pure legacy of the stormtroops, they drifted into the pursuit of another false utopia, Hitler's. But, it was only after they ceased to be the Freikorpsthat the shift occurred. During the actual existence and service of the volunteer forces, political goals seldom, if ever, entered the picture. The violence of the volunteers did not co-opt fascist ideology, but rather was co-opted by it.⁵² The relationship between the volunteers and the SA was not necessarily causal, but circumstantially (and retrospectively) realized. The perverse, utopian idealism of the "new man", as the stormtroopers knew it, disintegrated with the last of the Freikorps, well before Hitler sought to use it, leaving the Nazis to rearrange, distort and exploit the pieces of a burned-out legend.

FOOTNOTES

1. Three conspicuous examples are Ernst von Salomon, Das Buch vom Deutschen Freikorps-Kämpfer (1938); Edgar von Schmidt-Pauli, Geschichte der Freikorps (1936); and Friedrich von Oertzen, Die Deutschen Freikorps (1939). Other texts include memoirs written by former Freikorpscommanders in the 1920s and 1930s which are equally grandiose and selective in style and content. For full bibliographical citation, see R. G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, (Cambridge,1952).
2. The quoted comment is taken from Jessica Benjamin and Aaron Robinbach's foreword to volume two of Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, (Cambridge, 1987). Regardless of one's opinion concerning the degree of insight or appropriateness of a psychoanalytic history of Freikorpstexts which posits the origin of the fascist mentality of violence in the fear of ego dissolution and a hatred of the feminine in the minds of the volunteers, it seems conclusive that his fundamental aim is to elucidate the Nazi period and aid in the explanation of the Holocaust, not to do justice to the Freikorpskämpfer themselves.
3. The following short history of the stormtroops, variously referred to as shock troops (Stosstrupps), storm battalions (Sturmbatalionne), or storm divisions (Sturmabteilung), comes largely from Waite, 23-30; and H. Herwig. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918. (London, 1997).
4. H. Herwig, The First World War..., p.333.
5. Ibid., p.333.
6. Ibid., p.400.
7. Quoted in Theweleit, Male Fantasies., v. 2, p.159.
8. Omer Bartov. Murder in our Midst, (Oxford, 1996), p.16.
9. Ibid., p.30.
10. Ibid., p.32.
11. Ernst Jünger, from Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis (1922), quoted in Thomas Nevin, Ernst Jünger and Germany: Into the Abyss, 1914-1945. (London, 1996), p.65.
12. Nevin, pp.68-9.
13. Ibid., pp.53-54.
14. Franz Schauwecker, Aufbruch der Nation, quoted in Theweleit, Male Fantasies, v.2., p.169.
15. George Mosse. Fallen Soldiers, (Oxford, 1990), p.20, pp.27-8.
16. Richard M. Watt. The Kings Depart, (Suffolk, 1968), pp.278-79.
17. Richard Bessel. Germany After the First World War, (Oxford, 1993), pp.77-79.
18. Ibid., p.81.
19. F. L. Carsten. The Reichswehr and Politics, 1918 to 1933, (Oxford, 1966), p.21.
20. R. G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, p.36.
21. Ibid., pp.42-8.
22. Nigel Jones. Hitler's Heralds, (London, 1987), p.55.
23. Ibid., p.32.
24. Richard M. Watt. The Kings Depart, pp.329-330.
25. R. G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, p.40. Any generalization I make about volunteer forces will refer only to those Freikorpsunder at least the nominal control of the government and the High Command. However, there were numerous other paramilitary groups, including the Emergency Volunteers (Zeitfreiwilligen), Civil Guards (Einwohnerwehr), Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei), and various armed student groups. Though some were quite numerous (the Civil Guards were to number over a million), none were of the same roving, military nature as the Freikorps. For details on these groups see James Diehl, Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany, (Bloomington, 1977).
26. Salomon, Ernst von, The Outlaws, trans. of Die Geächteten, Ian Morrow. (London, 1931), p.57.
27. Gabriel Krüger, from Die Brigade Ehrhardt (1971), quoted in Mosse, p.169.
28. Manfred von Killinger, from Das Waren Kerle! (1944), quoted in R. G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, p.42.
29. Richard Hamilton. Who Voted for Hitler?, (Princeton, 1982), pp.586-88. Hamilton's conclusions are based on a comparison with studies of American soldiers from WWII whose profiles indicated that 15% of veterans would have been at least a hypothetical match to Freikorps sensibilities.
30. F. W. Heinz, soldier in the Ehrhardt Brigade, from his memoir, Sprengstoff (1930), quoted in Waite, p.42.
31. For a full chronology of Freikorps activities, refer to Appendix A.
32. R. G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, p.107.
33. Diehl, 43.
34. Salomon, 58.
35. Ernst von Salomon, from Die Geächteten (1930), translated as The Outlaws, quoted in Waite, 108.
36. Allied leaders, concerned to stem a Russian advance into Eastern Europe, fearing public reproach if they committed Allied soldiers, and feeling they had an adequate hold on the German military while the Versailles negotiations were in process, actually sanctioned the use of the Freikorps to aid a weak Latvian government.
37. See Watt, 423-434, for a graphic account of the Baltic Campaign.
38. See Salomon, 71, for an account of the battle.
39. Watt, 344.
40. Salomon, 96-7.
41. Ernst von Salomon, from his Nahe Geschichte (1936), quoted in Waite, 68.
42. Carsten, 51.
43. Diehl, 47.
44. Diehl, 54.
45. Diehl, 55.
46. Waite, 165.
47. Salomon, 141.
48. Jones, 183.
49. Waite, 174.
50. Jones, 182.
51. Ernst von Salomon, in The Outlaws, includes a scene in the aftermath of Kapp in which he delivers an epiphany-like monologue to his comrades. He concludes that he must go in search of an ideology to match his understanding of the truths of the war experience and the "new man". See The Outlaws, 172-4.
52. Bessel, 262.
53. Facts for chronology taken from R. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952.

Of the year 1848 the British historian Trevelyan remarked that it was the great turning point at which history failed to turn. Given the accumulation of tensions and conflicts since the Congress of Vienna, nationalistic passions, the miserable condition of the peasantry, entrepreneurs chafing under restrictions placed on them, intellectuals stifled by censorship and other restrictions on freedom of expression, it was nearly a miracle that a dynasty that was known for its mediocrity more than for anything else was able to survive the upheavals of 1848-49 and reestablish itself with its powers undiminished. The lack of creative leadership among revolutionary forces, except in Hungary, was no doubt a factor in the failure but there was also the almost mystical staying power of the Habsburgs in face of all adversity, it gave them reason to trust divine providence to which, more than to their subjects, they felt responsible.

The first reaction to the news from Paris erupted in Hungary, where Lajos Kossuth early in March demanded a democratic constitution providing for popular representation. Vienna liberals quickly took their cue; ad hoc assemblies composed mainly of staid bourgeois began drafting petitions to the throne almost identical to the one issued by Kossuth. On March 13, demonstrations, heretofore peaceful, erupted into armed clashes in the Austrian capital when a crowd of students surrounded the parliament building in the Herrengasse and police fired on them; a number of demonstrators died. Soon violence spread to other parts of the city. The two ranking archdukes on the state conference decided to offer up to the crowd the aged Metternich, the most resented figure in the empire. That evening Metternich, after a feeble attempt to display his steadfastness, resigned and took the long road into exile. As had happened in France, the disorders were largely confined to the capital; apart from some minor outbreaks in Graz, the countryside remained quiet. But outside the German lands, in Hungary, Italy, Bohemia, Galicia, even in Croatia, the ferment was unmistakable. The Vienna court hesitated between making concessions and applying force. The latter was the customary course of action but tempers were too explosive to employ it without grave risk. Mere personnel changes in the government after the flight of Metternich were not likely to satisfy the demonstrators. The mention of a constitution, on the other hand, even if insincerely meant, still carried magic. Accordingly, on April 25 the new interior minister, Baron Pillersdorf, proclaimed one, though only for the hereditary lands. It provided for a bicameral legislature, the lower house elected by adult male taxpayers, the upper named by the emperor from among landed magnates and trusted aristocrats. The emperor, according to this forlorn document, had an absolute veto over measures passed by either house.

The draft did not calm revolutionary passions; crowds invaded the royal palace, demanding the withdrawal of Pillersdorf's proposed constitution. Ferdinand and his court, insofar as they had any policy at all, geared their reaction to the disorders to the degree of danger they represented. By May passions seemed to have cooled and the emperor attempted to dissolve the national guard, which had made itself responsible for maintaining order in the capital. This occasioned another uprising and, reluctantly, the royal court decided that Vienna was no longer a safe city in which to reside. Ferdinand fled to the town of Innsbruck in the loyal Tyrol, where he was received with thunderous enthusiasm. However, Vienna was still the functional nerve center of a sprawling empire, and the streets there were ruled by a bourgeois national guard, well-to-do men of progressive views, whose aspirations did not go further than royal assurances for the protection of, first and foremost, private property. They were joined by "academic legions," composed largely of university youth. In June the government at last convoked the parliament provided for in Pillersdorf's draft, the Reichstag as it was called, but that body, made up of a majority of Slavs, rejected the very constitution on which its authority rested. Discussions of proposed reforms continued but the only one of import that emerged, on September 5, was one calling for the emancipation of the serfs.

In August the emperor and his entourage, satisfied that responsible elements were once again in charge in Vienna, returned to the capital from Innsbruck. By now, however, events in Hungary rather than developments in Austria determined the course of events. Kossuth asked the help of first the court and then the newly elected Reichstag in curbing Croatian ambitions, but he met with refusal. There was no single political will left in Vienna. The court, stubbornly conservative, granted only such concessions as it could not avoid if it wanted to maintain itself, always in the hope that once order was reestablished it could withdraw them. The popular mood in Vienna, however, was still revolutionary and favored any action that defied the Habsburgs; in the matter of Jelačić's defiance, it sided with the brave Hungarians. When an Austrian artillery company under orders to march against Hungary crossed the city, crowds prevented its passage and bloody street battles erupted. Vienna once again became unsafe for the royal house, and Ferdinand and his court moved, this time to the Moravian city of Olmütz. A few days later the Reichstag too left Vienna and reconvened in another Moravian town, Kremsier. Obviously though, these were temporary expedients. The displaced court made preparations to reconquer Vienna by military means. On October 31 Marshal Windischgrätz, having reduced to rubble the Bohemian capital of Prague, where a disorderly pan-Slavic conference was meeting, took his artillery to the walls of Vienna and inflicted a similar fate on the capital. Royal authority was finally reestablished, and even though the price was high, the court was willing to pay it. The time for concessions had passed. They had led to nothing but demands for further reforms, and terror became the order of the day. Active and suspected revolutionaries in the Austrian capital, among them lawmakers and respectable citizens, including a number of journalists, were rounded up, summarily tried, and often shot. Military force and military justice accomplished what months of political maneuvering could not; Vienna was secure as the Habsburg capital and reform was off the agenda.

Stung by his ungraceful departure from Kharkov three weeks earlier, Hausser was determined not to allow the army to share in the glory of recapturing his prize. In direct disobedience of orders to keep his tanks out of the city, Hausser planned to send the Das Reich Division into Kharkov from the west, while the Leibstandarte Division pushed in from the north. The Totenkopf Division was to continue its original mission to encircle the city.

For five days the Waffen-SS men battled through fanatical resistance in the concrete high-rise housing blocks that dominated the approaches to the city centre. The remnants of the Soviet Third Tank Army, reinforced by armed citizens, fought for every street and building.

By 10 March the Totenkopf and Leibstandarte had cleared the town of Dergachi, 16km (1 0 miles) to the north of Kharkov, of Soviet defenders, opening the way for the Leibstandarte to swing southwards down two main roads into the heart of the city. Two large kampfgruppen were formed, based around each of the division's panzergrenadier regiments, for the assault operation and they were reinforced with strong assault gun, 88mm flak gun and Nebelwefer rocket launcher support. A third kampfgruppe made up of the reconnaissance battalion and a panzer battalion, led by Meyer, was to push farther eastwards and then enter Kharkov to close the escape route of the defenders. This took him through a heavily wooded and swampy region, which required plenty of guile and cunning to safely navigate. The column got hopelessly disorganized in the woods, as the tanks were pressed into service to drag bogged-down reconnaissance jeeps out of the mud caused by an early thaw. Meyer, of course, was at the head of the column and, as he emerged from the forest, a large Soviet infantry regiment blocked his path. Fortunately, a roving Stuka patrol intervened and devastated the Russian column.

The Soviets rushed reinforcements, including a tank brigade and an elite brigade of NKVD security troops, into the city to try to set up an improvised defence line. Hausser was determined not to let the Russians build up their strength, so the Leibstandarte and Das Reich Divisions were ordered to press on with a night assault during the early hours of 11 March. The two main Leibstandarte assaults immediately ran into heavy resistance, backed by tank counterattacks all along the northern edge of the city. Assault guns were brought up to deal with the enemy tanks, but a vicious duel developed during the day with many Waffen-SS vehicles being put out of action. Progress could only be made with the support of the Nebelwerfer rocket launchers, but even then no breakthrough was achieved.

The key attack, as always, was led by Meyer. With his small column of motorcycles, jeeps, halftracks, two Marder self-propelled antitank guns and nine tanks, he set off in darkness to raid the city. His kampfgruppe weaved its way past a number of Soviet positions, until a pair of T-34s spotted it and opened fire, destroying a panzer. In the confusion, a Soviet antitank crew opened fire and destroyed their own tanks, inadvertently clearing the way for Meyer. He then pressed his column on into the city and it had reached the cemetery by midday, but then had to halt when its tanks ran out of fuel. It then formed an all-round defensive position and waited for relief. Meyer's force was besieged in the cemetery overnight by thousands of Russian troops and armed civilians. The Germans furiously dug in to escape the effects of mortar and artillery fire that was raking their positions.

Hausser now received orders instructing him to call off the attack by Das Reich's Der Fuhrer Regiment, but the Waffen-SS commander ignored them. The battle continued to rage in the city throughout the night. To the west, the Leibstandarte's two panzergrenadier regiments began their advance again, this time supported by panzers and 88mm flak guns in the front-assault echelons. Snipers in high-rise flats were blasted with quad 20mm flak cannon mounted on halftracks, while the panzers and flak guns defeated Soviet counterattacks by roving groups of T34s. The Leibstandarte's Tigers spearheaded the attacks, acting as mobile "pillboxes". The armoured monsters could park on street corners and dominate whole city blocks, while being impervious to enemy fire of all types. Later in the day, Joachim Peiper's armoured personnel carrier battalion was at last able to break through the Red defence to established a tenuous link with the impetuous Meyer trapped in the cemetery. It brought in much-needed ammunition and fuel, before evacuating the wounded. Meyer's depleted kampfgruppe had to remain in position to block any moves by the Russians to reinforce their defences in the centre of the city.

During the night and into the next day, several Waffen-SS kampfgruppen swept through central Kharkov. Every block had to be cleared of snipers, dug-in antitank guns and lone T-34 tanks. The Leibstandarte commanders drove their men forward into attack after attack to prevent the Soviets reorganIzIng their defence. The Der Fuhrer Regiment continued to press in from the west to add to the pressure on the Russians in the tractor factory area in eastern Kharkov. The bulk of the Das Reich Division was pushing south of the city to cut through large Soviet defensive positions and complete the German ring around the city. Das Reich's tanks cleared a key hill to the southeast of Kharkov on 14 March, destroying 29 antitank guns and scores of bunkers, to break the back of Soviet resistance.

Within the city, the Soviet defenders were still putting up a tenacious resistance. They quickly withdrew from threatened areas, and then used the sewers and ruins to move in behind the Waffen-SS troops. Peiper's armoured halftrack battalion proved invaluable because of its relative invulnerability to rifle fire from the scores of Soviet snipers who were still at large in areas "cleared" by the Leibstandarte. Resistance from the population was intense, and thousands of Kharkov's citizens joined in the battle to prevent their city becoming part of the Third Reich again.

The brutal nature of the fighting in Kharkov was emphasized by the fact that more than 1000 Waffen-SS men were killed or wounded. On 14 March the operation to seize the city was complete, and German radio began issuing gloating bulletins about the Soviet defeat. At the Fuhrer's headquarters in East Prussia, plans were being made for a bumper issue of medals to the "heroes" of I SS Panzer Corps.

The main group of Soviet forces in the city was now pulling back southwards into the face of the advancing XXXXVIII Panzer Corps. There was now the possibility of the Germans catching elements of more than 10 enemy divisions and tank corps in a pocket.

On 13 March the Totenkopf Division completed its wide sweep north of Kharkov, with SS-Obersturmbannfiihrer Otto Baum's panzergrenadier regiment, backed by a panzer battalion, capturing the Donets crossing at Chuguyev to seal the noose around Rybalko and his men. The Totenkopf attack punched south and eastwards to link up with the 6th Panzer Division advancing northeastwards. The Das Reich, Totenkopf, 6th Panzer and 11th Panzer Divisions then proceeded to chop-up the huge Soviet force hiding in the pocket south of Kharkov. Stalin gave Rybalko permission to give up the defence of the city and break out to the east. The trapped Russians made desperate efforts to escape, staging massive humanwave assaults to break past the Totenkopfs blocking positions along the Donets.

The German noose was not pulled tight enough, and five days later the remnants of the Third Tank Army completed their break-out past Chuguyev, which was then held by weak army panzer divisions. Unlike Hitler, Stalin realized the importance of getting skilled troops out of pockets rather than leaving them to their fate (Rybalko survived the ordeal and went on to command his army with distinction at Kursk during the summer). The exposed Totenkopf Division would have been in real trouble if the Soviets had tried to break through to the forces trapped near Kharkov with their reserve Guards tank corps, but it was held back to secure the north Donets line.

To complete the German victory, Hausser dashed panzer kampfgruppen north to link up with the Grossdeutschland Division, which had been taking on Soviet armoured units defending Belgorod. An unofficial "race" developed between the Leibstandarte and the elite army division for the honour of seizing the last major centre of Soviet resistance in the Ukraine.

The first line of Soviet resistance, some 16km (10 miles) north of Kharkov, was rolled over on 16 March by the Leibstandarte's 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment, supported by a huge barrage of Nebelwerfer and artillery fire, as well as wave after wave of Stuka dive-bombers. A line of Soviet antitank guns and infantry bunkers ceased to exist. Next day, Peiper's kampfgruppe was unleashed northwards with strong armoured support, including the Leibstandarte's Tiger detachment. This powerful force made easy meat of another enemy antitank gun position during the afternoon.

After a pause during the night to rearm and organize air support, Peiper was off again. On cue, more Stukas attacked a large road-block just after dawn on the morning of 18 March. With the road now clear, Peiper ordered his armoured force forward again. He did not stop until his tanks and armoured carriers were in the centre of Belgorod at 11.35 hours. Eight T-34s encountered on the drive north were destroyed by the Tigers - all other Soviet positions had been ignored. "Sepp" Dietrich flew north in his Storch aircraft to congratulate Peiper on his success. The German coup de main operation may have taken the Russians by surprise, but during the afternoon they pulled themselves together and launched a string of armoured counterattacks. The Leibstandarte's panzers repulsed all the attacks, destroying 14 tanks, 38 trucks and 16 antitank guns.

It was not until later in the afternoon, however, when the Das Reich's Deutschland Panzergrenadier Regiment linked up with Peiper's kampfgruppe, that the German position in the town was fully secure. The Russians continued to harry Peiper's men in the town, and he was forced to conduct a number of panzer sweeps of the countryside to expand the German grip on the region. During one such operation a pair of Tiger I tanks were attacked by Russian tanks, who destroyed an accompanying armoured halftrack before they were driven off for the loss of 10 tanks, two armoured cars and 10 trucks.

Peiper's dash to Belgorod had been possible thanks to a return of winter weather, but in the final days of March the temperature was rising and the snow disappeared. It was replaced by deep mud, which made all movement off roads, even by tracked vehicles, almost impossible. The Totenkopf and Das Reich Divisions fought a series of bitter infantry battles to establish a firm frontline along the Donets, east of Kharkov, for several days, but the spring campaign season was all but over.

Back in Kharkov, Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers combed the ruins of the city for the few remaining pockets of Soviet troops, and were also settling some old scores with its citizens. The desecration of the graves of Waffen-SS men killed during the January battles, and the mutilation of the bodies, made the Leibstandarte very loath to show any quarter to captured Russian soldiers.

Several hundred wounded Soviet soldiers were murdered when Dietrich's men occupied the city's military hospital. Any captured commissars or senior Russian officers were executed as a matter of routine, in line with Hitler's infamous "commissar order".

Special German Gestapo squads, SS Sonderkommando security units and Einsatzgruppen with mobile gas chambers followed close behind the victorious German troops, to ensure there was no repeat of February's uprising. An estimated 10,000 men, women and children perished during Hausser's short reign of terror in the city of Kharkov.

On 18 March, the German High Command claimed that 50,000 Russian soldiers had died during Manstein's counteroffensive, along with 19,594 taken prisoner and 1140 tanks and 3000 guns destroyed. An impressive total but, when compared to the 250,000 Germans lost at Stalingrad, it is clear that the Soviets benefited more from the Kharkov battles. The Russians, their military production in full swing, could also replace their losses more easily.

I SS Panzer Corps played a key part in this victory. It demonstrated that it was one of the world's foremost armoured formations, holding out against superior odds and then counterattacking with great skill and elan. Its success was not achieved cheaply, though. Some 11,500 Waffen-SS men were killed or wounded during the two-month campaign in the Ukraine. Some 4500 of these were borne by the Leibstandarte, emphasizing its key role at the centre of all the major battles of the campaign. Indeed, the majority of the casualties were in the combat units of the three Waffen-SS divisions. Not to be forgotten is the role of the Wiking Division serving with the First Panzer Army. It lost thousands of men in a series of small skirmishes, but was still able to take the offensive and defeat superior odds. The material strength of I SS Panzer Corps was badly affected by two months of battle. Its panzer regiments could only field less than half the number of tanks they had brought from France eight weeks before.

Manstein was justifiably dubbed "the saviour of the Eastern Front" for his efforts In turning back the Russian tide. Events later in the year would prove the Red Army's defeat was only a temporary setback. The antics of the Waffen-SS in Kharkov placed the final phase of the German counteroffensive under a cloud. Hausser's premature assault cost his corps thousands of casualties and allowed the Third Tank Army to escape through the weak German encirclement force. The butchery of the Waffen-SS after they broke into the city was not really remarkable - it was standard behaviour for a force that was in the vanguard of their F端hrer's murderous campaign to rid Europe of Jews and Bolsheviks.

This, of course, was irrelevant to Hider, who in the weeks after Kharkov expressed a faith in the elite Waffen-SS divisions that knew no bounds. He declared I SS Panzer Corps to be "worth 20 Italian divisions". Of more importance to those divisions, though, was the F端hrer's express order to General Zeitzler, his Army Chief of Staff, that "we must see that the SS gets the necessary personnel". And, in preparation for the summer campaign season, they were also to be given priority when it came to delivery of the latest Panzer V Panther tanks, much to the annoyance of the army.

A combination of mud and exhaustion brought military operations to a halt on the Eastern Front in mid-March 1943. Both sides needed to reorganize and re-equip for the forthcoming campaign season.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the last bastion of the Hapsburgs. It was a polyglot empire composed of multiple ethnic and social classes overseen by a cumbersome and conservative bureaucracy. The seemingly ancient Emperor, Franz Josef, had been on the throne since 1848. He had lost territory and prestige to Bismark's German empire, a newly unified Italy and to the ever troublesome Magyars of his own Hungarian domains. Nevertheless, he was well loved by most of his people and showed an amazing sense of tolerance for diversity. Franz Josef is one of the truly tragic figures of the 20th century. His brother, Maximilian was executed after failing in a French backed bid to build an empire in Mexico. His beloved wife Elizabeth was stabbed to death by an anarchist in 1898. His son and heir, Crown Prince Rudolf, died in a murder/suicide ending of a doomed romantic affair. His next heir, the detested Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist setting off a chain of events that would explode into World War One and the dismantling of the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern and Ottoman empires. Franz Josef himself died of natural causes in the midst of the conflict, his nation locked in a bitter life or death struggle.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire struggled against Russia, Serbia, Rumania, Albania, Montenegro and Italy. Luckily, only the Russians and Italians (with allied help) challenged the Austrians in the air. The Austrian air service had begun in 1893 as a balloon corps. Indeed, the balloon was the badge of the Austro-Hungarian Air Service though out the war. In 1912 this corps was re-organized and renamed: der kaiserliche und konigliche Luftfahrtruppen (the Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops), abbreviated as k.u.k. LFT. The Austrians started WWI with a dirigible, 10 observation balloons, 39 aircraft and 85 pilots. The output of the Empire was constrained by lack of industrial strength. This constraint can be demonstrated by production numbers: During the war Austria produced approximately 5000 airframes and 4000 engines. Italy alone produced more than 4 times this number in the three years it was involved in the conflict. Despite the difficulties of the multi-ethnic, multi-language, bureaucratic Empire, its pilots flew and fought with amazing tenacity.

The army air organization was surprisingly streamlined, if not terribly efficient. A front-line combat group was known as a Fliegerkompagnie (Flik) with seven or eight pilots (though on paper it should have as many as 20). By late 1918 there were 82 Fliks. The Fliks were supplied with men by the Fliegeretappenpark (Flep). Material was supplied by the Fliegerersatzkompagnie (Flek). Finally, in 1917 the Fliks were designated by their roles. This role can be determined by the letter appended to the Flik's identification number. These included the Jagdfliegerkampagnie (j, fighter squadron), Photoaufklarerkompagnie (p, photo reconnaissance squadron), Divisionsfliegerkompagnie (d, short-range reconnaissance squadron), Fernaufklarerkompagnie (f, long range reconnaissance squadron), Grossflugzeugkompagnie (g, bomber squadron), Schlachtfliegerkompagnie (s, ground attack squadron), Korpsfliegerkompagnies (k, another short range reconnaissance squadron), and finally, Reihenbildaufklarerkompagnie (Rb, a photo recon unit specializing in serial photography). So, in summary there were Fleks, Fleps and eight different types of Fliks.

The top guns of the k.u.k. army air service always seemed to find themselves in Flik41j. This squad was the first dedicated fighter squad organized in the service and was put under the command of Austria's leading ace, Godwin Brumowski. Brumowski was a friend of, indeed an admirer of, Germany's von Richtofen. He even imitated the Aces of Ace's all red paint scheme on his Alb.D.III. differing only in having a shrouded skull painted on the sides and top decking of the fuselage. Other aces who called 41j home included Linke-Crawford, Gräser, Kaszala, and Gruber. It would seem that visiting and even transferring between units was frequent. Occasionally the ace would take their favorite plane with them. Most of the aces were commissioned officers of the upper strata of society. As in civilian life in the Empire, social standing was strictly delimited and rarely breached even though there were a few NCO aces.

The economic stresses of war brought the Dual Monarchies' ethnic conflicts boiling to the surface in 1918. The young, practical Emperor Karl I clandestinely put out peace feelers to France. France made the communiqué public in an attempt to split the Austro-German alliance. An added result was that non-German ethnic groups in the Empire lost patience with the predominately German bureaucracy. Civil disruptions sundered the empire with ethnic groups declaring independence from the Hapsburgs and the Empire. In a last ditch attempt at reform, Karl renounced power (but not the throne) and supported formation of a republic in Austria. He was eventually driven from his former domains and passed away in Portugal in 1922, still refusing to give up his claims of Austro-Hungarian sovereignty.

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The Österreichische Flugzeug Historiker has started publishing a series of softcover books on the air-to-air victories of the Austro-Hungarians in World War 1. Volume 1 covered the Rumanian Front 1914-1916; Volume 2 covers the Russian Front 1914-1916. I have put Volume 1 away someplace, but I have Volume 2 at hand. It is 96 pages, A4 size, soft cover. After 23 pages of background material, including three A-H aviation orders of battle for the Russian front (2May1915, 4June1916 and 31October1916) comes the meat of the book. Each victory is described on a full page, sometimes two. Date, time, crew, location, aircraft flown with serial, type claimed; a textual description of the combat events; and a list of sources for the particular victory. Black and white drawings of the AH aircraft types involved. A small number of photos on decent but not great paper.

LINK

The invading German fleet took a beating as it neared Norway. But a naval stratagem fooled the defenders.

Manning coast defenses in various countries during World War II was a thankless task. For the most part the guns were manned day and night for the whole five and a half years-never to see the enemy. In other places their armament had the intended effect of keeping hostile warships away from the shore. But the enemy often arrived overland to take the port from the rear. Such a contingency was rarely the province of coast defense to guard against, though they invariably did their best and usually got the blame if the port was taken. In one or two cases, however, the enemy obligingly appeared on the water, in front of the guns, intent upon attack. And in spite of the long periods of inaction which might have been expected to dull the edge of the garrison's keenness and ability, in every such case the enemy suffered heavily for his pains. One of these affairs-and a little-known one-occurred when Germany attacked Norway in 1940.

One of the principal objectives was the Norwegian capital city, Oslo. A strong German force was destined for Oslo since, as well as the military aspects of the place there was also the hope that a sudden strike might succeed in capturing the King of Norway and the principal members of the Government. Another possibility was the capture of the stocks of gold bullion in the vaults of the Bank of Norway. Other objectives were the installation of German control in the various administrative departments of the Norwegian Government and Civil Service, and, not least, the landing in Oslo of a large staff of Gestapo officials whose prime task was to be the rounding up of various people known to be outspoken opponents of Nazism.

Oslo lies at the northern end of the Oslo Fjord, a 60-mile­long finger of water navigable by the largest vessels. About half-way along there is a scattering of islands which narrow the navigable channel yet more. At this point lay the Oskarsborg Fortress, built during the nineteenth century. Its armament had been periodically revised since then, and in April 1940 it consisted of three 11 in guns; four 11in howitzers; three 5.9in guns; two 4.7in guns; six 57mm 6pdr guns; and four 24in torpedo tubes. In addition there were numbers of searchlights to provide night illumination for the guns, and a floating boom obstacle blocking a side-channel and so ensuring that no approaching ship could avoid the arc of fire of the fortress guns. The war plans also called for the laying of a minefield across the navigable channel when mobilization was ordered.

On the face of it, 18 guns and four torpedo tubes sounds very little with which to defend a nation's capital city. It is less than most warships of the day could muster. But like every other coast defense work, Oskarsborg had one great advantage-it had solid rock underneath it. It did not float and it was not short of space.

Although guns had been placed on ramparts pointing out to sea for almost as long as guns have existed, it was not until the arrival of the ironclad warship in the 1850s that strong coast defense really became vital. Before then a few small cannon were considered adequate to beat off attacks by wooden ships or to deter landing parties in rowing boats. But such guns were no use against ironclads. They could sail in close to the defenses to bombard them with impunity. Coast defense guns had to become more powerful, leading to heavy rifled muzzle-loaders which could send their chilled iron shot through 2ft of iron plate armor at a range of a mile or more. But because fire control and sighting were still primitive, engagement ranges were short, and this meant that the coast guns had to be as well protected as the ships they were firing at. In this way rose the huge forts of the time, with granite walls 15ft to 20ft thick, pierced by casemate ports lined with 2ft-thick slabs of iron armor.

Since service of these guns was slow-one shot in two minutes was good going-large numbers of forts and guns had to be provided to swamp an attacking force with fire before it could get close enough to damage the forts or bombard the areas which the forts were intended to protect -naval dockyards and bases or commercial ports.

This era of fort-building started off an arms race which, in many ways, resembled today's race between missiles and anti-missile missiles. Navies were constantly designing and launching ships with thicker or tougher armor. This led to their potential opponents pressing for the design of even more formidable ships with more powerful guns. As the navies obtained their new guns, so the forts had to keep pace, re-arming with more effective weapons and making more powerful protection.

The late nineteenth century saw great strides in gun design and much re-thinking in coast defenses. The old granite and armor forts, which, though impenetrable were glaringly visible, were gradually abandoned in favor of low-profile works concealing guns of greater power and provided with the most up-to-date means for range- finding, observation, communication and ammunition handling. Since the extra power of the guns meant longer ranges, the shore gunners had to be able to locate an enemy ship with great precision in order to shell it accurately. In this respect they had an important advantage over their floating opponents-more room to operate. The theory of a range-finder is well-known; but the warship is restricted in the size of rangefinder it can use-a base of about 90ft being the maximum. The accuracy and maximum range of a rangefinder is largely dependent upon the length of its base. On land, however, instruments acting as the end of a massive rangefinder could be placed a mile or two apart-giving an enormous increase in accuracy and precision.

When it came to the actual shooting, once again the shore guns had all the advantages. They were firmly anchored to solid earth, they had ample space around them to lay out the most convenient and efficient methods of ammunition supply, and they could be dispersed, concealed and protected. Familiarity with their area allowed the gunners to prepare precise charts, set up position-finding equipment, and fire practice shots at frequent intervals. Moreover they were firing at targets of some size. The standard battleship target used for practice was 900ft long and 40ft high-a fair representation of a warship's bulk on the water.

The sailors, on the other hand, were riding up and down on the ocean; cramped for space, in a strange locality, and trying to shoot at a gun which presented them with a target about 15ft wide by 6ft high, armored, protected by several feet of reinforced concrete, practically indistinguishable against its background, and a very long way from the ship. It was no contest.

In addition to their guns, the defenders of the shore had a few more devices working for them, devices often thought to be the prerogative of the naval forces, notably the mine and the torpedo. Military mining is as old as its naval equivalent and much more formidable. Mining for coast defense was not simply a matter of dumping mines into a likely stretch of water and hoping the enemy would steam into them; they were controlled mines. Anchored in a carefully plotted pattern in an area over which the enemy fleet had to sail to reach the defended areas, each mine was linked electrically to a control room on shore, overlooking the minefield area. A position-finding instrument in the control room was linked to a plotting board upon which the location of every mine was marked. Should an enemy ship enter the minefield it was tracked by the position-finder and its course displayed on the board. When its position coincided with that of a mine, the appropriate switch was closed and the mine detonated beneath the vessel.

Coast defense torpedoes rank as the first guided missiles ever introduced into military service. The Brennan Torpedo was installed in British forts on the Thames as early as 1886. It was a submerged torpedo driven by wires, unreeled from spools inside the torpedo by a steam engine on shore. As the spools turned, they drove the torpedo propellors. By varying the rate of unwinding from the spools the torpedo could be steered. A flagstaff which projected above the surface of the water gave the controller an indication of where the torpedo was going, and it could be guided with considerable accuracy for about two miles. As naval torpedoes improved, so did the land-based models. The Brennan, and similar types, was superseded by the self-propelled torpedo in the early years of the twentieth century. These were launched either from dry land, in a similar manner to launching them from a ship's deck, or they could be mounted in special chambers in the fort, below sea level, and launched under water. In either case the advantages enjoyed by the guns-firm base, precise range-finding, space in which to operate-applied equally to the torpedo installations. Moreover they were usually sited where the range to a possible target would be short and there would be little chance of missing. Any ship within range of a shore-based torpedo installation was living on borrowed time.

Adding all these things together, one begins to see the sense behind the remark attributed to Admiral Sir John Fisher: 'No sailor but a fool would attack a fortress.' Whatever possessed the German Navy to think they could sail past Oskarsborg without paying a heavy penalty will never be known; they were no fools. Perhaps Hitler's unbroken run of success had turned them into foolhardy optimists.

The Oskarsborg defense, then, was well up to the job. The 11in guns could fire a 625Ib AP shell every 45 seconds. The howitzers, in positions concealed from the water, fired their 7501b shells high into the air to curve over and drop steeply down to pierce thin deck armor at ranges where the guns might have had trouble in puncturing the side plates of a warship. The smaller guns were provided with shell suited to wrecking superstructures. The massive torpedoes, each carrying several hundred pounds of explosive, could sink almost anything afloat. The only fault in the defenses was the absence of the minefield. Mobilization had not been ordered, and therefore the mines lay harmlessly in their depot instead of lurking in the fjord.

As well as this Oskarsborg complex there were three smaller forts at the mouth of the Outer Oslo Fjord where it met the open sea of the Skagerrak, and it was here that the war began for the Norwegian coast defenses on the night of 8/9 April 1940. The Royal Norwegian Navy had been mobilized, and a small patrol vessel was cruising in the mouth of the fjord. At 2315 this ship radioed a signal that a lumber of unidentified warships were approaching, and then sailed in to challenge them. Getting no reply to its recognition signals, the patrol boat opened fire and scored a lit. But the enemy fleet promptly unleashed a storm of gunfire. The patrol boat sank in minutes.

This exchange of fire alerted the three forts. Their garrisons manned the guns and warned Oskarsborg. At 0030 the approaching fleet was identified as German and the forts began shooting, but a rapidly-rising sea fog prevented the fortress observers from seeing the effect of their shots. It also diffused the searchlight beams so that they dazzled the gunlayers. Some hits were made, but not enough to deter the German force from entering the fjord or their final dash to Oslo.

Oskarsborg was now fully manned. Sentries were peering into the darkness. Luckily there was no fog in this area. A lookout spotted the shadowy bulk of an approaching ship on the water and gave the alarm. A searchlight was exposed, illuminating the leading ship and picking out the German ensign. This was the German cruiser Blucher. As soon as the target was illuminated the 11in gun battery opened fire at a range of only 1,900 yards. At such a range a miss was impossible, and the first AP shell smashed into Blucher's gunnery control center abaft the bridge, detonated, and effectively stopped any centralized control of the ship's armament. The 5.9in battery also opened fire, their first round striking the ship's bridge, collapsing most of the structure onto the fore gun-turret beneath.

... and the band kept playing

Though without central control the guns of the cruiser could still fire under the orders of their gun captains, but their return fire had no effect on the Norwegian guns which continued to pound the Blucher. Gradually, the ship slowed down and flames and smoke began to pour from holes in the deck and superstructure. As the crippled vessel passed the battery, the guns stopped firing and turned their attention to other targets. Blucher's crew may have thought that the worst was over and that they might yet make Oslo in one piece. They were mistaken. The guns had abandoned Blucher only because it was entering the zone of the torpedo battery at the northern end of the fortress, a long-stop position intended for exactly this situation; let the guns slow up the target so that it became a sitting duck for a broadside shot from the torpedomen. Now, two torpedoes were launched, one of which struck the engine room and the other the main torpedo magazine. Two enormous explosions shook the vessel. It lost way and began to heel over. As the ship's band played 'Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles', the crew and the super-cargo-administrators, military officials and Gestapo staff-began to jump overboard and swim for the shore. Soon the cruiser lay on its side, and shortly afterwards it sank in a pool of blazing fuel oil.

The next target for the guns was the Gunnery Training Ship Brummer. The first shells struck its superstructure and started fires. That was sufficient; the Brummer and the rest of the fleet, which included the battleship Lutzow and the cruiser Emden, turned about and sailed back down the fjord, to anchor out of range of the guns.

The gunners of Oskarsborg were understandably pleased with themselves. But they had only a few hours in which to enjoy their victory. They were about to be instructed into some new methods of warfare which had not been thought of when coast defense was born and which, in the long run, were to result in the abandonment of coast defense entirely. At 1000 the next morning a wave of Stuka dive-bombers appeared-the vanguard of a concentrated air attack which lasted, on and off, until the evening. It has been estimated that over 500 bombs of various sizes were dropped on the fortress during that day, but they had little effect. The guns were all well protected in concrete and armor, they were tiny targets hard to find, and in spite of the attack the end of the day found the fortress in full fighting trim. Indeed, it might be said to have shown a profit on the day, since the fortress AA guns claimed four attacking aircraft shot down and another 10 damaged.

Interspersed with this air attack, the Lutzow, from its anchorage, shelled the fortress sporadically. But this too had little effect since the range was 11,000 yards and accurate observation on the well-hidden guns was all but impossible. While all this had been going on, however, the remaining ships had landed their troops and vehicles about 12 miles south of the fortress and, from there, bypassing Oskarsborg, the column set out for Oslo.

The defence of Oslo by the Oskarsborg Fortress had been carried out exactly as it had always been planned, and with exactly the planned effect. No ship could run the gauntlet of the fortress and survive to remain a threat to Oslo. Unfortunately for Norway, however, the rules of war had been re-written. It was now being demonstrated that there were other ways of getting to Oslo without passing the fortress guns. As the land column rolled into Oslo, Junkers Ju52s began landing at Oslo airport with reinforcements.

Nevertheless, the delay imposed on the German plans by the action at Oskarsborg was sufficient to allow the King and the Government to escape the trap set for them, for the gold to be saved and for the army to be alerted. Moreover the sinking of the Blucher and the loss of the administrative and Gestapo staffs, together with their records and files, un­doubtedly hampered subsequent German administration in Norway and gave a lot of Norwegian patriots a head start which they put to good use in forming one of the most effective resistance organizations in Europe.

The action at Oskarsborg was echoed in other Norwegian coast fortresses during that eventful night. At Kristiansand, in the south of Norway, lay the Odderoya Fortress, with two 8in guns, four 9.45in howitzers, six 5.9in guns and search­lights. At 0500 on 9 April the Royal Norwegian Navy warned the fortress that warships were approaching. The alarm was sounded and the guns manned and loaded. As dawn broke, the fortress sentries saw the German cruiser Karlsruhe approaching, followed by seven destroyers, 11 E-Boats and a number of supply and transport ships. One gun of the fortress fired its statutory 'heave-to' shot across the Karlsruhe's bows. The result of this polite warning was that the cruiser sheered round and fired a broadside of shrapnel. This, to a coast fortress, was about as lethal as snowballs, but it served to remove any doubts about the visitor's intentions. The fortress promptly opened fire with all guns, scoring several hits on the cruiser. After a fierce exchange of shots the fleet turned back to sea-laying a smoke-screen to cover its retreat. It was discovered later that during this retreat the Karlsruhe was spotted by a British submarine, torpedoed and sunk.

'Protectors' of the Norwegian people

A few minutes after the departure of the fleet, German aircraft appeared over Kristiansand and dropped leaflets, announcing that the German Army were coming as friends and protectors of the Norwegian people. The Norwegians took leave to doubt this. Their doubts were amply con­firmed when a large force of Heinkel bombers arrived and showered the town with high-explosive and incendiary bombs.

There was a short lull and then came a radio message on the fortress command wave-length; 'British warships approaching-do not fire.' Shortly afterwards a fleet appeared over the horizon, approaching at high speed. As they closed in, observers agreed that they did not look like the British. This was soon explained when it was seen that the leading vessels were flying the French tricolor. This relieving fleet stormed into the harbor, and before the locals knew what was happening, German troops were swarming ashore. 'It was simply a stratagem of war', explained the German commander.

Much of the activity of the Norwegian Army was lost sight of when events in France and Belgium took pride of place on the world stage in the following month, and what part of the Norwegian campaign has been examined in print seems to have centered on the ineptly-handled British intervention. In relation to their size, however, the Nor­wegian coast defenses probably did as much damage to the German war machine as any other units in the whole of the campaign.

More than half a century on, there is no lessening of the revulsion felt against the obscenities committed in the Nazi death camps or against the men and women who actually committed the acts, and that is as it should be. But besides the ethical and moral aspects, there is also the purely practical to be considered, for the destruction of six million or more people could only proceed on an industrial scale. The mass murders had to carried out under factory conditions. Very soon it became obvious that the only acceptable method would be by mass poisoning, the toxin to be delivered in the form of a gas. In the event, this murder of millions of helpless people was to be the only widespread use of chemical warfare during World War II. This is apart from Italian forces using phosgene in Abyssinia in 1938, the Japanese use of it in China from the mid- 1930s to the end of 1941 in some 840 separate incidents, and reports that something described as 'toxic smoke' was used during the siege of Sebastopol.

German troops initiated the use of gas as a weapon of war in February 1915, when they fired shells filled with xylyl bromide (a lachrymogen, or tear gas) against Russian forces. The operation failed, for the gas was frozen solid in the shells, and dispersed only very slowly. Two months later, they used chlorine gas against British and Empire troops at Ypres with greater success, and from then on it became a recognised part of both sides' armouries. But it was not that effective; gas was responsible for only just over one per cent of battlefield deaths during the entire war. It was slightly more effective as a wounding agent - 5.69 per cent of all injuries were caused by gas - and from a military point of view, wounding is actually more desirable, since caring for wounded both on and off the battlefield eats into precious resources.

By 1919, there was a limited repertoire of gases available; chlorine, mustard gas, phosgene and a few others. By the time two decades had passed, there was a whole menu of more effective agents available, including some very exotic compounds which had been produced during research into insecticides and herbicides. These compounds were organo-phosphates, and were to become the basis for what we now call nerve gases. The original nerve gas, known as Tabun, was first synthesised in 1936 into a substance called ethyl-dimethyl-amido-phosphor-cyanidate. By 1942, a factory to produce it to the tune of 1016 tonnes (1000 tons) per month had been established at Dyhernfurth in Silesia (now Brzeg Dolny in Poland). In 1938, a second and even more effective organophosphate, isopropyl methyl-phosphoro-fluoridate, was synthesised. Known as Sarin, it proved to be very much harder to manufacture on an industrial scale than Tabun, and even by 1945, only a small pilot plant had been set up. By that time, a still more dangerous derivative, pinacolyl methyl-phosphoro-fluoridate had been produced, under the name Soman, though little progress had been made with this by 1945.

It appears that until the factory producing Tabun was overrun by the Red Army in early 1945, the Allies knew nothing of these 'weapons', making their existence one of the best-kept German secrets of World War II. The first the British and Americans knew came from examining shells and bombs recovered from ammunition dumps (about half a million shells and 100,000 bombs, in all), and as the reality of the situation sank in, the researchers were horrified to discover that they were confronted by a lethal agent, and that there was no known cure or antidote from exposure to it. That last factor, it is argued by many, was the real reason that Germany did not employ nerve gas, even in the final days. The Wehrmacht and the SS could not be sure that the enemy did not also possess these simple and cheap weapons of mass destruction, and that the destruction which would result from their use would not be mutually assured.

Tabun

GA was the first organophosphate compound to be identified as a potential chemical agent. It was first synthesized shortly before Christmas, 1936 as a part of research directed at identifying insecticides (specifically, for the control of woolly aphis, a form of aphid) under the direction of Dr. Gerhard Schrader at the Bayer facility at Elberfield.

That Tabun was quite toxic was quickly recognized. In initial experiments, a concentration of 5 ppm killed all the insects in the test chambers. But when, in the course of the tests on insects, Dr. Schrader and a laboratory assistant were exposed to the vapors and strongly affected, it quickly became apparent that the material might have military applications. This was duly reported this to the German government under a law requiring that the government be advised of any discovery with potential military applications. Research was continued, and a "secret" patent (DRP 767511) was issued for the material, now known as Tabun, on 22 July, 1937.

Research was carried out on production methods, and a process which produced Tabun in good yield (approximately 83%) was developed. In 1940, construction began on a plant (the Hochwerk) to manufacture Tabun, now also known by the code name T-83 (the number is said to be a reference to the yield; the material was also designated Trilon 83), at Dyhernfurth (now Bzerg Dolny, Poland). The plant was operated by Anorgana GmbH (a member of the IG-Farben conglomerate) under contract to the German government. After some initial teething problems, production began in 1942, with 675 tons being produced in that year. Production rose to 4,555 tons in 1943, with a high of 7,519 tons in 1944, and in the final months of the war, 120 tons in 1945, for a total of 12,869 tons. This was by far the largest quantity of any of the German nerve agents produced under the Gr端n 3 (Green 3) program. It was a dangerous process, however, with at least ten workers dying as a result of accidental exposures.

A number of types of munitions were filled with Tabun at the Dyhernfurth facility. Two fill mixtures were used - Tabun-A which consisted of a mixture of 95% GA with 5% chlorobenzene as a stabilizer, and Tabun-B, a mixture of 80% GA with 20% chlorobenzene.

Rumors of the new agents reached the Allies throughout the war, but were largely ignored as propaganda. In 1943, when British Intelligence interviewed a chemist who had worked on the project who provided a description of the agent and its production, the report (filed in July, 1943) was simply ignored.

The Soviets presumably became aware of the nerve agents and their properties when they overran Dyhernfurth. But the first certain knowledge that the Western Allies had of the existence of the nerve agents came when British troops investigated some 105 mm howitzer shells found at a captured ammunition dump in the spring of 1945. The shells had unusual markings - a green ring and the letters GA - and a liquid fill, and were quickly recognized as chemical munitions, but what sort was not immediately understood. The initial report described them as containing:

"...a new type of filling containing 20 per cent chlorobenzene and an arsenic derivative which is under investigation."

Of course, further investigation revealed that the agent was not an arsenic derivative, that it had rather startling toxic properties, and that it was only one of a family of agents.

Tabun was destined to recede from its initial prominence, however. The Western Allies, after investigating the range of German nerve agents, decided that they preferred Sarin (GB) because of its greater lethality, while the Russians, after moving a large part of the Dyhernfurth facility to the Soviet Union and reportedly resuming production, decided to go with both Sarin and Soman (which is even more lethal than Sarin). A large portion of the captured Tabun was disposed of by simply dumping it at sea.

Sarin

GB is a "first generation" nerve agent, identified in 1938 as a potential chemical agent by German researchers examining toxic organophosphates as a result of the discovery of GA (Tabun). During the research, GB was identified by the code number T-144. After its toxic properties made it a candidate for weaponization, it was given the name Sarin, which is derived from the names of the researchers involved in the project (Schrader, Ambros, Ritter, and Linde).

GB was the most expensive (in terms of raw materials) nerve agent selected for mass production by the Germans as part of their Gr端n 3 program, requiring 1058 tons of raw materials to produce 100 tons of agent. A more efficient production method was subsequently identified, requiring only 893 tons of raw materials to produce 100 tons of GB, but this is still large in comparison to the 356 tons of raw materials required to produce 100 tons of Tabun. GB produced by the second method is referred to in some documents of the period as Sarin-2.

Pilot production was undertaken at the Dyherrnfurth plant, with mass production slated for Falkenhagen. Anorgana and Monturon, both members of the IG-Farben conglomerate, were contracted to produce GB. Total wartime production was 61 tons, with 38 tons produced in 1944 and 23 in 1945.

After the war ended, the victors became aware of the German research into, and weaponization of, nerve agents. They immediately began their own investigations into these materials.

Soman

Soman was first synthesized in 1944 as a result of the investigations into organophosphate nerve agents triggered by the discovery of GA (Tabun), and it was the most toxic agent of its time. Known initially by its code number, T-300, it was the last of the Gr端n 3 (Green 3) nerve agents that the Germans attempted to move to production during World War II. Its synthesis is generally credited to Richard Kuhn (who headed a group investigating the nerve agents), occasionally with mention of his collaborator Konrad Henke, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research.

The production process settled on by the Germans for Soman was a four-step process in which highly corrosive intermediates were used. The corrosive compounds required the use of special silver apparatus, and production in 1944 was only about one ton, with perhaps two more tons being produced in 1945 before the end of the war.

The Soviets acquired the production facility and also recovered the documents related to Soman's synthesis from an underground storage facility near Berlin. Richard Kuhn, however, fell into the hands of the Americans.

Chemical weapons. Spandau was the centre of research into Tabun and Sarin. The manufacturing centre of chemical weapons was at Dyhernfurth in Silesia, some forty kilometre from Breslau. Norman Davies (Microcosm, p.26, n.40) suspects that supplies of Tabun from the chemical works at Dyhernfurth were used against Soviet troops during the siege of Breslau. A raid on the chemical works complex at Dyhernfurth led by Major General Max Sachsenheimer was mounted on 5 February to seize the premises and empty the tanks of Tabun into the Oder before the Red Army identified their purpose and took samples of the liquid away for analysis.

12th SS Attacks on 7th Brigade. Note that this map is oriented as the Canadian soldiers would have viewed the battle, with south at the top of the map. Each thick arrow represents a 12th SS attack and the number indicates the date and time of the attack lie. 08.0330 - 8 June, 3:30 a.m.).

"They looked like babies and fought like mad bastards. " Anonymous Canadian soldier commenting on the 12th SS, Hitler Youth Division. The unit was made up principally of 18 year-olds and fought with fanaticism and barbarity throughout the Normandy campaign. Between the Canadians and the 12th SS the fighting was always vicious. Taking prisoners was considered optional.

D Plus One; Wednesday, June 7th, 1944

Counter- Thrust

The 12th SS Panzer Division, which occupied a large area around Evreux, 80 km away, was the next nearest German armoured division to the Normandy coast. It had been alerted at 4 a.m. but it, together with the Panzer Lehr and 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Divisions, could not be moved without the express approval of Hitler. Despite the request from von Rundstedt at 4:45 a.m. for their release this was not granted. Hitler and his senior generals were still not sure if this was the major landing. It was not until mid-afternoon that these divisions were released for operations. With Allied aircraft dominating the skies, movement by tanks or vehicles by road invited ferocious attacks. The 12th SS Panzer Division did not make its presence felt until June 7th.

The first Allied assault division to run into German tank opposition was the British 3rd Division. When, on June 7th, it attempted to move closer to Caen, its advance on Lebisey was met and defeated by the 12th SS Panzer Division which had just come into the line. This German division was one of the elite formations available to Rommel. Its soldiers were young men, most of them in their late teens and all imbued with Nazi ideals. Most of the non-commissioned officers, as well as most of the officers' were experienced veterans, many of whom had been hardened and brutalized by fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front. .

On the British right, but still separated by a gap, was the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Its front had been fairly quiet during the night but it was to push on to its D-Day objective - the Caen-Bayeux railway line - early on the following morning. The Canadian battalions of the 7th Brigade made good progress. Enemy resistance was soon overcome and by midday the leading unit could claim it was the first in the Second British Army to reach its D-Day target.

The 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade led the advance on the Canadian left. This brigade had landed on the beaches behind schedule but it had moved well inland by darkness. Led by the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, the brigade was to strike south towards the Carpiquet airport on the outskirts of Caen. Accompanied by tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, the Highlanders advanced three Ian before running into stubborn resistance at Buron, half way to their objective. Enemy shell and mortar fire was made more aggravating since the unit was beyond the range of its own artillery. While one company of infantry and some tanks fought to clear Buron, the remainder of the unit by-passed the village and entered Authie about a mile further south. With each passing hour the enemy's fire increased. It was the prelude to the counter-attack of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Led by Colonel Kurt Meyer, who had three infantry and one tank battalions under his command, the Canadians were soon involved in a desperate swirling battle.

As the fighting progressed Meyer thrust more men and tanks into the battle. Authie was partially surrounded and its defenders either killed, wounded or taken prisoner. A few escaped north through the shellfire to Buron which was also being attacked by infantry and tanks from the south and west. By late afternoon the area between Authie, Buron and further north to Les Buissons was receiving the undivided attention of Colonel Meyer's tanks, artillery and infantry. The Canadian left flank was open as the British had not advanced far enough to protect it. From a tower in the medieval Abbey of Ardenne Meyer had an excellent view of the battlefield. His units fought hard and eventually occupied Buron but at a considerable cost. At times there was hand to hand fighting and German and Canadian tanks battled until nightfall until the fields were littered with them in various stages of destruction. When Meyer tried to push beyond Buron, Canadian field guns were within range and hammered the enemy to a halt. The 8th Brigade formed a strong defensive line which halted any further attempt on their part to reach the beaches. That night each side licked its wounds but on the following day, with additional forces coming into the line, the 12th SS would attack again. In the ferocious fighting at Authie the North Nova Scotia Highlanders lost 242 men, including 84 dead and 128 prisoners.

D Plus Two; Thursday, June 8th, 1944

"The ensuing battle was horrendous with the tanks circling our solid stone house and surrounding high stone walls. The night was lit by the burning barns at the farm and the tanks overran one platoon in the orchard behind the north wall crushing anti-tank guns, carriers and soldiers. " Gordon Brown, Major, The Regina Rifles.

On the morning of June 8th the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade holding the right flank of the divisional front came under increasing fire from the 12th SS Panzer Division. The Regina Rifle Regiment, digging in on their D-Day objective at Norrey-en-Bessin, managed to beat off their opponents but at Putot-en-Bessin the Royal Winnipeg Rifles were being battered as the enemy swarmed around the village. With ammunition running low and in danger of being cut off, the Winnipegs had to release their grip on Putot. The tanks of the 1st Hussars had suffered heavy losses and calls for help for armoured support could not be met at that time.

Should Putot be lost the Regina Rifles would be left in a very exposed position with both flanks open to the constant pressures from Meyer's 26th SS Panzer Regiment.The Canadian Scottish was about three km behind the two forward rifle units and early in the evening it was ordered to recapture Putot. Lieutenant-Colonel Fred Cabeldu had only two hours before he crossed the start-line. He had to gather his companies, arrange for a creeping artillery barrage, liaise with the 1st Hussars for some tank support, arrange a preliminary smoke screen and have everything coordinated for crossing the start-line at 8:30 p.m. For a unit which had been in action only two days it was a remarkable task. Nevertheless the Canadian Scottish with its supporting elements went into the attack on time. By nightfall, after savage fighting, Putot was again in Canadian hands. The unit suffered 125 casualties in this action, almost all killed or wounded.

Murder

It was some time later that the Canadians found out that several dozen of the prisoners captured by the 12th SS Panzer Division during the fighting for Buron and Putot were killed in cold blood. This was not an isolated criminal act. By the end of the Normandy campaign there is documented proof that 156 Canadian prisoners had been murdered by members of this division, a measure of the ruthlessness with which they waged war.

Despite their desperate attacks, both the 21st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions were unable to crack the British-Canadian lines. They had been committed piecemeal in order to defend Caen. This city was a hub of road, rail and canal transportation routes. Its capture, the Germans felt, would provide the hinge for the Allied forces in Normandy to swing northwards to connect with another Allied invasion force the Germans expected to land in the Pas de Calais area. Thus when the third German armoured division - the Panzer Lehr - arrived, it was sent into the line against the British 50th Division on the Canadian right. Owing to the pressure on their front in this area the Panzer Lehr, already hard hit by Allied air power route to the battlefront, was also committed piecemeal. As a result instead of having a mailed fist of three panzer divisions to smash through the Allied defences to the sea, Rommel had to use them in a defensive role. By June 8th, when the Panzer Lehr was coming into the area, the Allied position had greatly improved. The British 50th Division had captured Bayeux and had pushed slightly south of it. The capture of Port-en-Bessin connected the 50th Division with the American forces on "Omaha" Beach which, after their harsh struggle to gain a foothold, were reinforced and pushed well inland towards St. Lo. Further west, the two airborne divisions and the American 4th Division had difficulty fighting but had managed to seize an area some 11 km deep and 12 km wide. The two American beachheads, however, had not joined up. Carentan, a major town with a network of rivers and inundated areas around it, stood in the gap between the two American forces and was proving to be a hard nut to crack. It was not until June 10th that all the beaches were joined.

On D-Day and for most of the time after that through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, the First Canadian Army faced SS division after division.

It has been said that much of the SS cruelty towards captured Canadians was due to their anger at accumulating losses and casualties, for which they were not psychologically prepared by their brainwashing.

Purely in regards to how courageous, dedicated, and driven the Canadian troops in action were, they were flattered to learn from captured Germans that the Nazis referred to the First Canadian Army as the "British SS". Our soldiers understood what was meant.

After the Ottoman Turks destroyed the remains of the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinople in 1453, they had a strong hold on south-eastern Europe and wanted to expand their power and their religion farther into Europe. The Turks were turned away after an unsuccessful siege of Belgrade in 1456, but Serbia fell to them in 1459, a year after they captured Athens with no resistance. Bosnia accepted Turkish dominance and Islam in 1463, and Albania fell to them in 1479. Hungary, however, kept the Turks at bay into the sixteenth century. In 1514, Hungary declared a crusade against the Turks and called for troops. Massive numbers of peasants responded; once armed, however, they attacked the nobility instead. The suppression of the revolt forced an even more oppressive dominance over the peasantry and left the country open to possible invasion. The Ottoman leader who staged the invasion was Suleiman, called the Wise by his people, the Magnificent by the West. In 1521 he invaded Hungary and captured Szabacs and Belgrade, then turned against the Knights of St. John in Rhodes, whose position threatened Muslim control of the eastern Mediterranean; he secured the island on 1 January 1523. In 1525 Suleiman received a request from Francis I of France, inviting him to invade Hungary in order to weaken the power of Habsburg Emperor Charles V. Turkish forces marched in April 1526, and the pope called for the Christian faithful to resist the Muslim invaders. Martin Luther persuaded his followers not to respond to this call, and even Charles declined to fight. Suleiman's force of some 75,000 scored a difficult victory at Mohacs, and Christianity suffered a moral defeat as well. Suleiman made Hungary a tributary under the control of Transylvanian John Zapolya.

Zapolya consolidated his power in Hungary, but drew the attention of Ferdinand of Habsburg, who defeated him at Tokay. Zapolya appealed for aid, and Suleiman marched in 1529, bringing 80,000 soldiers; Zapolya provided 6,000. Buda fell after a five-day siege and, aided by a flotilla on the Danube, the Turks approached Vienna in late September. They surrounded the city, and for three weeks bombarded and attempted to mine the walls, but failed to breach them. Suleiman withdrew in mid-October to go into winter quarters, but he was pursued by the Austrians, who harassed him constantly and severely damaged his flotilla at Bratislava.

Suleiman returned in force in 1532, but after inconclusive fighting he retreated. Pressed by Persia to his rear, Suleiman decided to make peace in 1533 with Ferdinand of Habsburg, who had to pay tribute to the Turks, but who gained control of about a third of Hungary. Ferdinand was granted, in Suleiman's words, an eternal peace if he would but observe it. He did not. At the urging of Charles V, Ferdinand joined other European forces invading Turkish Hungary in 1537. They were defeated and virtually destroyed during their retreat. Suleiman led his army back into Hungary and annexed it to his empire. Ferdinand attacked at Pest in 1542 but was repulsed, and Suleiman entered Austria, armed with a veteran army and an alliance with France. He pillaged throughout the country until 1544, when France abrogated the treaty. Suleiman again made peace with Ferdinand under the terms of their first agreement.

Ferdinand could not leave well enough alone. He invaded Transylvania in 1551 and was repulsed, but he managed to defeat a Turkish counteroffensive. After desultory fighting, the two leaders renewed their treaty in 1562 at the Peace of Prague. The Austrian Habsburgs were at peace, but Suleiman was still engaged in a war with the Holy Roman Empire. When Emperor Maximilian ordered another attack on Hungary, the 72-year-old Suleiman returned to Austria at the head of a 100,000-man army. The Turks won a month-long siege of Szigeth, but Suleiman died just before the city fell, so the Turks returned home.

Upon Suleiman's death, the Ottoman Empire came under the rule of Selim, known as the Sot. After Selim's navy was defeated at the battle of Lepanto in 1571, Ottoman power began to decline. Fighting with Austrian and Holy Roman Empire forces in the 1590s weakened the Ottoman hold on Hungary and Turkish possessions in the Balkans. The Thirty Years' War diverted European attention away from the Balkans until the 1660s, when the Turks returned to advance on Vienna under the leadership of Fazil Ahmed Koprulu Pasha. They were checked at Neuhause in September 1663 and postponed their attack until the following spring, by which time the Austrians were stronger and better prepared. The battle of St. Gotthard Abbey was fought as peace talks were being held, and the Turks were forced to retreat to Belgrade. The Peace of Vasvar, signed in August 1664, called for a 20-year peace and ceded Transylvania to Turkey. After the 20-year truce, the Turks were back in 1683. Hungary was in the process of rebelling against Austria, so the Austrians were pressed by a number of enemies: the Hungarians, Transylvanians, and Turks. Muhammad IV arrived at Vienna in June with 150,000 men to besiege a city defended by a mere 15,000. The Turks had little siege artillery, but they managed to breach the walls in a few places. They could not break through in strength, however, and Vienna was spared by the fortuitous arrival of Pole Jan Sobiesky at the same time a German force marched to help. A mixed Austrian- German-Polish force of 70,000 engaged the Turks outside Vienna on 12 September. After a daylong battle, the Turks fled, and the city was saved. When Sobiesky later pursued the Turks, he captured Grau and much of Hungary, which came under Habsburg control over the next five years.

Suleiman II made the last serious threat toward Habsburg territories in 1690, but his defeat at Szalankemen in 1691 and at Zenta in 1697 ended that endeavor. In January 1699 the two powers signed the Treaty of Karlowitz, which ceded Hungary to Austria and left the Turks in control of Serbia.

The defeat of the Turkish invasions served to consolidate Habsburg control in central and southeast Europe, but also stopped Islam from expanding past the Balkans. The Catholics and Protestants had more than their share of struggles, but Christianity in one form or another would remain the religion of most of Europe. Hungary, under Habsburg rule, was later incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the ethnic struggles of the myriad populations of that region simmered under Habsburg control, and to a great extent, continue to this day.

Jøssingfjord

Overview

On 16 February 1940 a boarding party from the British Royal Navy seized the German supply ship Altmark in the territorial waters of then-neutral Norway and freed a number of British POWs. This incident contributed to Nazi Germany's plan to invade Denmark and Norway.

The Altmark was a 14,367-ton German tanker converted into an auxiliary warship with a cruising speed of 25 knots and armed with three six-inch guns. In the fall of 1939, she operated as a supply ship for the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. In addition, the Altmark functioned as a transport for the captured crews of British ships sunk by the Graf Spee. On 6 December 1939, the Altmark separated from the Graf Spee, which was scuttled on 17 December 1939 off the coast of Montevideo, Uruguay, in the wake of the battle of the river Plate. The Altmark's commander, Captain Heinrich Dau, ordered her to set course for home on 24 January 1940. For three weeks the Altmark, carrying almost 300 captured British soldiers, went undetected by the British until a reconnaissance plane caught sight of her on 14 February 1940, heading south in Norwegian territorial waters. On 16 February, a British force consisting of the light cruiser HMS Arethusa and five destroyers led by HMS Cossack, under the command of Captain Phillip Vian, sighted the Altmark off the coast of Norway, under escort by two Norwegian patrol boats. An attempt by the British to board the Altmark failed because she refused to stop and, instead, took refuge in the Jossing Fjord. The Cossack followed her and Vian demanded the release of the POWs, but the Norwegians responded that they had boarded the Altmark earlier and had not found any POWs. Vian returned into international waters and requested further instructions from his superiors in London. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, ordered Vian to offer to escort the Altmark and the Norwegian patrol boats back to the port of Bergen and to conduct a search of the German ship there. If this offer was refused, Vian should board the Altmark anyway. Vian reentered Jossing Fjord, determined to accomplish his mission even against Norwegian resistance. The Norwegians refused to cooperate but did not prevent the Cossack from putting alongside the Altmark. An assault party boarded the German vessel. In a short firefight, four Germans were killed and five wounded, and, most importantly for the British, 299 British sailors were freed. The next day, the Cossack returned to England.

The Norwegian government protested the violation of its territorial waters by British warships. The British countered the accusation, insisting that Norway had violated international law by allowing a German warship with POWs on board to pass through neutral waters. The Altmark incident also raised doubts in Nazi Germany about Norwegian neutrality. As a result, Adolf Hitler demanded an acceleration of preparations for the invasion of Norway.

Operational Narrative

Since the outbreak of war with Germany ships of the Royal Navy had been trying to find the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and her supply ship. The Altmark had slipped though the English Channel on 6th August 1939 and moved down into the South Atlantic where, for the next 3 months, she supplied Graf Spee with oil and provisions allowing the battleship to make continued forays against merchant shipping. She also became a prison ship, taking aboard survivors from the ships sunk by Graf Spee.

On 13th December 1939, Graf Spee was found and attacked by the cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles but entered Montivideo harbour to avoid destruction. Four days later she was required to leave the harbour and was scuttled in the River Plate rather than face the force which was waiting for her outside.

Altmark remained in the South Atlantic, hove to for some while with engine trouble, and then, having completed repairs, started the journey back to Hamburg. Keeping clear of all shipping, and with not a little luck, she eventually crept round Iceland and reached Norwegian waters on 12th February 1940.

On 13th February men from the cruiser Aurora, being fitted with degaussing equipment in Port Edgar in the Forth, were detailed off in groups of 21 each to report to ships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla. These ships had been decimated by a minor epidemic of influenza. One group joined Cossack and arrived just before 10.00 pm carrying rifles, bayonets, steel helmets and webbing. In addition to Cossack, the cruiser Arethusa and the destroyers Sikh, Nubian, Ivanhoe and Intrepid were under sailing orders.

Although the official information was that the ships were going out to do an ice reconnaissance in the Skagerrak, the buzz was that they were going to look for the Nazi prison ship. The fact that the group from Aurora was given instruction on boarding procedures once they were aboard only reinforced the rumours.

At midnight the ships, led by Arethusa sailed out into the North Sea and set course due East. The ships then split up to sweep a wide area in a pre-determined pattern.

On the morning of February 14th, Altmark was stopped by the Norwegian patrol torpedo boat Trygg. A Norwegian officer boarded and requested to search the ship. He was conducted to the bridge and shown the navigating cabin but, when the German captain insisted that the ship was an unarmed tanker, the Norwegian officer surprisingly seemed satisfied and left the ship. This action has to be taken in the context of the times. Norway was a neutral country and, although made aware of Britain's view that the Altmark was carrying British prisoners and therefore breaching her neutrality, was also in fear of being invaded by Germany and therefore did not want to create an incident which could be used to precipitate such action.

Altmark had requested a pilot but as none was available, Trygg lent them a seaman who knew the waters well until they reached Alesund. There two pilots boarded together with another Norwegian officer who asked for the ship's details, looked around but again did not search the ship. The pilots asked Altmark to anchor over-night because of the hundreds of fishing boats along the coastline, the alternative being to leave Norwegian waters. The Captain pretended to attempt to anchor but said that he was unable to do so because of a frozen anchor winch. The tanker turned seawards and the Trygg, which had been following, dropped back. However, another torpedo boat, the Snoegg, loomed up out of the darkness and the commander boarded. Again only questions were asked, no search was made and the officer left.

Altmark once again got underway and again the Trygg followed. At that time the Altmark was still well north of Bergen when she was again stopped, this time by the Norwegian destroyer Garm, and the Captain went aboard to search the ship. The Captain of the Altmark refused to allow this and was therefore told to leave the Bergen fortified area. The pilots refused to stay aboard and left with the Captain of the Garm.

Word got to the British Embassy at Oslo and the Naval Attaché signalled the Admiralty that Altmark was steaming two miles off the Norwegian coast north of Bergen. The fortuitous "ice reconnaissance" being undertaken by Captain Vian's flotilla put them south of Altmark. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, gave clear instructions to the First Sea Lord for transmission to Captain Vian. "Find her, edge her into the open sea, board her and liberate her prisoners". The signal Captain Vian received also gave the rough position of the Altmark.

The first problem, however, was to find Altmark and Captain Vian's force was split up to search the Leads and offshore islands. Nobody had a very clear idea what Altmark looked like, so every supply ship was investigated - a procedure which took some time if the vessel was close inshore against a background of snow and rock.

Cossack was some way south of some of the ships of her flotilla when at 10 a.m. a lookout reported a ship resembling the Altmark. Cossack approached her but found her to be Swedish and so continued her search. An hour later she bore down on another ship, this time wearing the Norwegian flag, a few miles from the coast. Captain Vian instructed Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant Craven, RNVR, his assistant secretary who spoke several Scandinavian languages, to question her. Again, without luck. This happened several more times that morning. The area was alive with shipping but there was no sign of the Altmark.

Two Hudson aircraft had taken off at 0825 from Thornaby on Tees Bay and one inspected all shipping along the Danish coast and the Skaggerak as far as Skagen and then turned out to sea again. The other, further north, sent a wireless message at 1250 that it had sighted a tanker steaming southwards. Captain Vian, too far south from the reported position, signalled a warning to Arethusa. Arethusa herself had just come across another tanker and while her lookouts were trying to decipher the name, they saw the crew taking to the boats. Before the Arethusa could reach her the ship had begun to sink, scuttled by he crew. She was in fact the Baldur, an iron-ore carrier.

Coastal Command at Leuchars sent another aircraft to keep an eye on the Altmark and Captain Vian ordered Intrepid and Ivanhoe to intercept at full speed, covered by the cruiser Arethusa. The whole flotilla sped to assemble. At 1445 Altmark saw the three ships, Arethusa steaming on a parallel course and Intrepid and Ivanhoe approaching. Arethusa ordered her to steer west but Altmark held her course.

In London a Cabinet meeting was called to discuss the position of the Altmark, particularly with regard to Norwegian neutrality and the effect that any attack on the ship would have on Germany's attitude to Norway. Altmark was in Norwegian territorial waters but her voyage was quite legal if she was a genuine merchant ship. Against that were the reports that she was carrying 300 British merchant seamen, taken by the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee from the prizes she had sunk or captured. If the reports were correct and Altmark tried to carry these internees through Norwegian territorial waters it would be an infringement of Norway's rights. In this case Altmark must therefore release the internees, or she herself must be interned, or she must sail outside Norwegian waters - where she could be intercepted by the Royal Navy. Of course, if she were a genuine merchant ship then the RN had no right to enter Norwegian territorial waters to stop her. It was perhaps legally doubtful whether the RN could enter Norwegian territorial waters even if the Altmark were a regular warship, packed with prisoners, and was there illegally herself.

At 1515 Intrepid and Ivanhoe were quite close to the Altmark, which was near to the entrance of Jøssingfjord. Intrepid prepared for action. She signalled Altmark to heave to. Altmark ignored the order and steamed slowly on. The Intrepid's captain ordered a shot to be put across her bows. Due to high speed maneuvering the shot went wide and landed on Norwegian soil! A second shot was fired but Norwegian warships hampered the Navy's efforts to force Altmark out of territorial waters and the German tanker slipped into Jøssingfjord - a narrow inlet almost covered in places with quite thick ice. By this time there were three Norwegian warships in the area, the torpedo boats Skarv (which had taken over from Trygg) and Kjell and the patrol boat Firern.

Captain Vian in Cossack arrived at dusk to confer with the Norwegians. A Norwegian officer explained that the Altmark had been searched at Bergen and nothing amiss had been found. Captain Vian reported to the Admiralty and awaited their reply. Presently orders arrived direct from the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill. Captain Vian was to offer to help the Norwegians escort the Altmark back to Bergen to be searched again. If they refused then Altmark must be boarded. If the Norwegians interfered they must be warned off. If they opened fire, it must not be returned unless necessary, and then only as much as necessary.

At 2200 Captain Vian took Cossack into the fiord; his next few decisions and actions might have started a war. He communicated the sense of Mr Churchill's message to Kjell who replied that he could not cooperate because his little ships were unable to force their way through the ice.

At 2312 Cossack, with a boarding party of three officers and thirty ratings ready, approached Altmark. The big tanker switched on her searchlights to dazzle Cossack's bridge personnel and tried to crash her heavy stern into the destroyer's thin plates. Expert ship handling saved Cossack from damage. As the two ships brushed together, some of the boarding party leapt across. One of those was Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant Craven who had leapt from the torpedo davit just moments before it was demolished by contact with Altmark. Cossack closed again, the rest followed and Cossack backed clear.

Four Germans were killed and five wounded in a brisk action before Altmark was seized. Only one of the boarding party was injured. Two British officers dived into the icy water to rescue a German who had fallen overboard, but he was dead when they picked him up. Other Germans escaped across the ice-floes and reached the shore.

Meanwhile the boarding party had secured Altmark's bridge and stopped her engines, but the tanker's momentum carried her on and she ran aground. Then the search for prisoners began. A hold was opened up.

"Are there any Englishmen down there?" A clamorous rejoinder! "Then come up. The Navy's here."

299 captives were released and transferred to the destroyer. All the Germans were left behind and at 2355 Captain Vian and Cossack sailed out of Jossingford into the world's headlines.

The force returned to the U.K. covered by the Home Fleet, and the released prisoners were landed at Leith. Cossack had to be docked for her propeller and A-brackets to be checked in case they had been damaged by the thick ice in the fiord. They were unharmed, but her stem plating had to be repaired where it had been bumping against Altmark.

The Altmark Incident was definitely an infringement of Norway's neutrality by both Britain and Germany. Neutral countries could no longer be certain of their inviolability in this war. The British were heartened by decisive action during the Phoney War, while Hitler was furious and ordered his plans for Operation Weserübung (the invasion of Scandinavia) to be pushed ahead. After they had conquered Norway, the Germans erected a commemorative board in Jøssingford reading (in German) "Here on 16th Feb. 1940 the Altmark was set upon by British sea-pirates". A photograph of this sign is shown below. The sign, which was double-sided, was 'liberated' by British airborne forces in 1944 and one side given to Admiral Vian. The other side was kept by the airborne force and is now in the Airborne Museum at Aldershot.

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During World War I, prisoners of the Central Powers built a railway under notoriously hard conditions through northern Russia's polar zone. The Tsarist government considered this line to be essential to its war effort, which in 1915 suffered a serious setback. After the blockade of Russia's Baltic and Black Sea harbors, only two ports remained for the shipment of war material and industrial equipment from Britain and the United States. The far eastern harbor of Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean came into heavy use, as did Russia's oldest port, Arkhangelsk in the north. The latter, however, was blocked by pack ice for half the year during the long winter. The construction of a railway to the ice-free Murman coast, which had been discussed before the war, was given a hasty go-ahead in the summer of 1915. The line was to be completed by the end of 1916, using Finnish inhabitants, Russian draftees, and prisoners of war as a labor force. It would extend over 1,400 kilometers from Lake Ladoga in the south, along the western coast of the White Sea, and eventually through the Kola Peninsula. The area it crossed was scarcely populated and lacked almost all infrastructure, changing from barren tundra to rocky highlands, and from woodlands to huge marshes.

Due to poor organization and avitaminosis, most of the war captives working there in 1915 were stricken by scurvy and were replaced by new prisoners from Siberia in spring 1916. During the successful Russian summer offensive of 1916, tens of thousands more POWs were shipped to the Murman area. The majority of them were ethnic Germans and Hungarians; an order of the Russian headquarters of June 1916 had decreed that only Germans and Hungarians (mostly out of Austria-Hungary's multinational army) be used for the hard and unhealthy labor. At the climax of the construction work in the autumn of 1916, they composed some 80 percent of all captive laborers on the line. Their extreme hardship, which contravened all prewar agreements regarding the use of POWs as a labor force, became known to the Central Powers by the summer of 1916. Immediate plans for reprisals to force an end to the suffering of these captives were postponed by the German government until October 1916, when 500 captive Russian officers were interned in a marshland camp in northern Germany, to be treated as enlisted men. Russia retaliated against its captive German officers from mid-November, but after negotiations involving the Tsar and his cousin, the German emperor, mutual reprisals were suspended in mid-December, on two conditions: that the POWs be evacuated immediately from the now-completed railway, and that the Russia occupied by the Central Powers be inspected by neutral welfare delegations. As many as 40,000 prisoners were evacuated from the Murman area in 1917, leaving some 6,000 engaged in various labors, including the running of the line.

Because Russia left the war after the October Revolution of 1917, the railway was not brought into regular service for the war effort. Since many of the scurvy-stricken prisoners did not perish at the construction sites, but died later in their new internment places, it is difficult to say how many of the 70,000 prisoners sent to the Murman area died. Estimates run as high as 25,000, making the Murman Railway one of the worst horrors of captivity in Russia during World War I.

References

Alfred W. F. Knox, With the Russian Army 1914-1917, 2 vols. (New York: Arno Press, 1971 [1922]).

Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (London: Scribner, 1975).